Iceland becomes a little more active

So I just glanced at the Iceland Earthquake map again tonight, and it has become a little more active than in recent times.

Recent quakes in Iceland (Iceland Met Office)

As a reminder:The colors of the circles show the time since the earthquakes occured (the numbers below the color palette represent hours). The latest earthquakes are shown in red and the dark blue ones occurred over 24 hours ago. The earthquakes stay blue until 48 hours have elapsed since their occurrence, then they disappear. Earthquakes bigger than M3 (on the Richter scale) are represented with green stars that turn yellow after 24 hours.

No more - as yet!

Tech Talk - of Wheat and Coal

The release of the latest assessment of the IPCC on the future of the planet, failing their push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, has brought forth headlines and supportive editorials in papers around the world. Yet I could not help but note a couple of things that form the basis for this tech talk. The first was that the report discussed the impacts of climate change (for which I suspect in this case they mean global warming) on agricultural production. They stress the negative impacts on crops such as wheat, and so, being curious, I went to the Wikipedia page that provides a table of wheat production over the past eighteen years, and plotted the data.

Figure 1. Global wheat production in millions of metric tons (after the Food and Agricultural Organization via Wikipedia)

Clearly wheat production is growing rather than, as the IPCC report implies, declining with the increase in carbon dioxide levels and longer growing seasons in parts of the world. More to the point – which is providing more food – (h/t Joules Burn) the two staple crops wheat and corn, have both seen growing production, but it is the slower pace of growth of wheat (at about 0.9%) over corn (at about 1.6%) that is of current concern, and which is to be addressed with new investments in the International Wheat Yield Partnership that plan to more than double yields in the next 20 years. This is needed in large part to match the continued growth in world population, which is likely to continue to rely on wheat to provide roughly 20% of the calories that this population will consume. Gains come both from increased land acreage being used, but also from the yields of that land. In the UK, for example, yields now average 7.8 tonnes per hectare up from 2.5 tonnes in 1940, the current target is to reach 20 tonnes per hectare in the next 20 years. Given that the global average is still down around 3 tonnes per hectare, the ability to bring this productivity to the broader community will give significant help to feeding the world.

I mention this because of the clear disparity between this information and the way that material is presented by the IPCC. Further the real needs of the world and its nations are now increasingly being addressed with less attention to the strident demand of the more alarmist of those who push the climate change agenda, in part perhaps because of the overhyping of the message. The latest illustration of this comes from Japan.

Following the devastation of the tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 the Japanese public has been very nervous about the use of nuclear power, banning the restart of 48 nuclear power stations until after a new series of safety checks. This has had two short-term consequences, the financial melt-down of the power companies, which is now being addressed through government bailout and the need to switch to alternate fossil fuels to replace the power that the country obtained from the reactors. The switch was largely to natural gas, and to oil but this has proved to be an expensive undertaking with companies feeling that they could only raise power prices to a limited degree, hence their need now for government funding.

Figure 2. The changing face of electricity supply in Japan following the Earthquake, (MIT technology review )

But the sustained high cost of the gas and oil is estimated to be costing the companies over $30 billion a year and even with the government bailouts this is not an acceptable long term solution, given that it is likely to be years before the safety changes are made in the reactors, and also given the continued public opposition to restarting the reactors. As a result the companies have sought permission to switch back to coal-fired power plants. Concurrently the Japanese Coal Energy Center has been looking for coal resources around the world ranging from Mongolia to Mozambique.

in 2012 Japan was the second largest of the coal-importing nations at 189 million tons (behind China at 289 million) and current plans are to increase the amount of power that the fuel will provide by roughly 20% through construction of new power stations. (Some of these will be needed since, while some nuclear power stations may come back on line others are proving to be too expensive to restart under the new codes, and thus will be permanently closed).

It is this clear benefit of cost that is driving the change, and that benefit is unlikely to disappear over the next couple of decades. The renewable energy industry has not been able to overcome the advantages of coal’s ubiquitous presence and low cost of production. In the case of Japan supplies are anticipated to come from Canada and the United States easing their dependence on Australia and perhaps helping reduce their costs as they develop more international suppliers. Glencore, for example, their Australian supplier, has now reduced costs to $88 a ton, from the $95 being paid last year. It is estimated that there is currently a glut of about 5% of the coal market, and the reduced demands for thermal coal in the United States and Europe is unlikely to change that picture in the short term.

The longer term remains more cloudy, since the potential for the United States to enter, in a significant way, the LNG market and potentially to change those supply costs is not yet clear. It seems, however, unlikely that the volumes that will become available will not have much impact on price, and if that remains the case then coal will continue to grow as the price differential continues to add pressure for the its use in generating cheaper electricity.

Whether this will change the recently better-defined coal resources off the British Isles into a reserve remains, in the short term, unlikely, but even in the UK power costs can only rise so far before the public complaints begin to have an effect.

Waterjetting 19c - Of soil removal by water

The tragedy in Washington state, where a hillside slid down, across a river and destroyed and covered the small community of Oso on the other side is a reminder of the ways in which natural ground saturation can help dislodge large volumes of material. While it is unlikely that the exact trigger for the slide will be identified the underlying cause is well known. As water from the heavy persistent rains permeated down through the hillside it penetrated deeply into the sand, silt and clays that made up the cliff, filling the voids in the material and reducing the friction that held the slope together.

Once the water is between the grains there is a second stage, where the overlying water adds hydrostatic pressure to the water below it. This pressure starts to push the grains apart, further reducing the friction holding the grains together and, since water has no shear resistance, lowering the overall resistance to the gravity that is pulling the overlying material down a potential failure plane. Once the resistance falls below that pull the slope starts to fail. It happens very quickly and large volumes can move almost as fast as though it were just water. In this case the water moved roughly 15 million cubic yards of material off the mountain. and across the valley.

The power of water to move material once dislodged was an early part of the mining process, and an earlier post referred to “hushing” where water was first trapped, and then released to erode away overlying soil, and then ore, before carrying it down to a flume where the valuable mineral could be trapped and recovered. But it does not take much pressure to dislodge weak material. Russian studies* have shown that light soil can be moved with a pressure of only about 10 psi (which would be generated in the water at the bottom of a slope only 20-ft high), while medium soil would require perhaps 30 psi, and firm clay would need a pressure of about 100 psi before the jet would mine and erode it.

That ability to move soil using a monitor was further developed in Russia, where tests showed that it would take water flows of between 3 and 10 times the amount of soil being removed depending on the strength of the material. In the gold mining regions around Lake Bykal it lowered mining costs to 40% of that for conventional mining, and gradually the tool found wider application in general soil removal, being used in the construction of several dams, and also for soil removal during construction of the Moscow Canal.

An interesting example of the speed and effectiveness with which waterjets can remove relatively soft soil formations arose during the Yom Kippur War (10th of Ramadan War, October 1973) between Egypt and Israel. The Israeli Army had built defensive positions along the edge of the Suez Canal and these were mounted behind an earthen and sand barrier known as the Bar-Lev line.

Egyptian intelligence had determined** that the Israeli Army had assumed it would take 24 hours for this barrier to be breached, and a total of 48 hours for the Egyptian tank forces to successfully penetrate the line. The response time of the military units was planned accordingly. This time estimate was based upon the time that it was expected to take to make a hole 22-ft wide through the barrier, since this had, for each breech, to move 60 cu yards of material, and a total of 60 such holes were needed to get enough troops through to be effective. Conventional methods involving explosives, artillery, and bulldozers would taken over ten to twelve hours, and required nearly ideal working conditions. For example, sixty men, 600 pounds of explosives, and one bulldozer would have needed five to six hours, uninterrupted by Israeli fire, to clear 2,000 cubic yards of largely sand from the wall. Employing a bulldozer on the east bank while protecting the congested landing site from Israeli artillery would be nearly impossible during the initial hours of the assault phase. Construction of much-needed bridges for the main army would consequently begin much too late.

Figure 1. Using waterjets to breech the Bar-Lev line during the 1973 war (Mashpedia)

To deal with these 70-ft high sand and earth barriers, the Egyptians instead used water cannons fashioned from hoses attached to dredging pumps that were floated on platforms in the canal. A study was made of the speed with which different pumps could move the sand:soil mix and the initial tests with British pumps showed that it would take around 3 hours. But by combining them with larger German pumps into six pumps per breech the army was able to get the time down to about two hours, although it took a little time after that to deal with the residual mud on the floor of the breech and give an adequate road for the tanks and other vehicles. A total of 81 holes were made, moving over 3 million cubic yards of material.

Figure 2. Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal, showing the size of the breech created (Wikipedia)

The bridges were then put in place, and the Egyptian Army moved on into the Sinai, well ahead of the time that they had been anticipated to be there.

The combination of high-pressure water to dislodge and separate the particles of a soil/sand layer can be combined with the active suction from a modern vacuum truck, in what is now being called hydro-excavation. By removing the soil and water as the excavation is made this stops water from entering the walls of the excavation and leaves them relatively dry – thus resolving one of the problems that the Egyptian army encountered after their holes had been made. At the same time, by using smaller jets at higher pressures and moving them much faster the excavation rates can also be increased, with lower water volumes, so that narrow trenches can be excavated without the need for support, where rapid access is needed. But I will talk about those applications in a separate post.

*Okrimenko, V.A., "Hydro-Monitor Operator in Coal Mines and Pits", State Scientific Technical Press of Literature on Mining, Moscow, 1962, pp. 264 (Translation U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, Document AD 820634, 1967).
**London Sunday Times, December 16, 1973, p. 33

Watching Iceland

Those of you who have visited this site for a while will know that I have this rather odd curiosity about Icelandic volcanoes, and more specifically the Myrdalsjokull site that sits next to Eyjafjallajokul in southern Iceland. The Icelandic site that monitors earthquakes is one I glance at fairly regularly. It has been an interesting site to visit this winter, since – more than in most years – the island has been relatively quiescent. Except that there has been this fairly consistent activity along the southern part of the rift, running roughly from Reykjavik east to Myrdalsjokull. I bring it up again today just because the sequence of earthquakes has again moved along that fault line and ended at the glacier.

Figure 1. Recent earthquake activity in Iceland (Icelandic Met Office )

Nothing big is happening immediately, just that the whole movement along this southern wing, suggests that, in time, there will be a switch to the north-south element, and at that time the stress on the corner, where we know there has been some magma movement, might prove – as they say – earth shattering!! But this is geological, where time is on a different scale than most of us.

Tech Talk - Natural Gas, China and Russia in the post-Crimea time.

The recent takeover of Crimea by Russia has given China a strengthened hand as it continues to negotiate with Gazprom over the supplies of natural gas for the next few years.

It was not that long ago that Gazprom was riding high around the world, as it supplied large quantities of its own and Turkmen gas to Europe, and was negotiating to sell more into China and Asia in general. Then Turkmenistan and China arranged their own deal, and with the construction of a direct pipeline between the two countries, suddenly the market was no longer running entirely Gazprom’s way. They could no longer mandate that Turkmenistan take the price that they offered at the time that Russia controlled all the pipelines that carried the gas to market. And with that change, and the changing natural gas market, so Gazprom’s fortunes have started to teeter.

At the same time the anticipated Russian market in the United States, which would have been supplied from newly developed Russian Artic reserves such as those in the Shtokman field are no longer needed, as the American shale gases have come onto the market in increasing quantities. The world has, in short, become a somewhat less favorable place for Gazprom and the Chinese have hesitated to commit to a further order of natural gas, in part because they anticipate getting a better deal for the fuel than Gazprom would like them to pay.

Russia would like, and is anticipating, that the deal for some 38 billion cubic meters/year of natural gas, starting in 2018 will be signed when President Putin visits China in May. (In context Russia, which supplies about 26% of European natural gas, sends them around 162 bcm per year). Negotiations over the sale of the gas have dragged on for years, having first started in 2004 but the major disagreement continues to be over price. At a time when Norway is seeing a peak in production and Qatar is moving more of its sales to Asia, Russia had seen an increase in European sales, and has been able to move that gas at a price of $387 per 1,000 cubic meters (or $10.54 per kcf/MMBtu. The price of such gas in the US is quite a bit cheaper.

Figure 1. Natural gas prices in the United States. (EIA )

Russia would like to get a price of around $400 per kcm ($10.89 per kcf) with the slight extra going to pay for the pipeline and delivery costs. Whether the two countries can come to an agreement on the price may well now depend on how vulnerable Russia really is to any pressure on its markets from other sources of natural gas. Japan, for example, is now considering re-opening its nuclear power stations, as the costs for imported fuel are having significant consequences on their attempts at economic growth.

Similarly there is talk that the United States may become a significant player on the world stage by exporting LNG as it moves into greater surplus at home, thereby providing another threat to Russian sales. Part of the problem with that idea comes from the costs of producing the gas, relative to the existing price being obtained for it, and part on the amount of natural gas viably available. Consider that, at present, some of the earlier shale gas fields, such as the Barnett, Fayetteville and Haynesville are showing signs of having peaked.

Figure 2. Monthly natural gas production from shale fields (EIA)

While production from the Marcellus continues to rise, there is some question as to whether the Eagle Ford is reaching peak production although that discussion, at the moment relates more to oil production. However given that it is the liquid portion of the production that is the more profitable this still drives the question.

And in this regard, the rising costs of wells, against the more difficult to assure profits is beginning to have an impact on the willingness of companies in the United States to invest the large quantities of capital into new wells that is needed to sustain and grow production. A recent article in Rigzone took note that the major oil companies are rethinking their strategies of investment, with some reorganization of their plans in particular for investment in shale fields. This raises a question for the author:

Another question for the industry is who will supply the risk capital for exploratory drilling, both on and offshore, if the majors pull back their spending? Onshore, for the past few years, a chunk of that capital has been supplied by private equity investors who have supported exploration and production teams in start-up ventures. They have also provided additional capital to existing companies allowing them to purchase acreage or companies to improve their prospect inventory. Unfortunately, the results of the shale revolution have been disappointing, leading to significant asset impairment charges and negative cash flows as the spending to drill new wells in order to gain and hold leases has exceeded production revenues, given the drop in domestic natural gas prices. Will that capital continue to be available, or will it, too, begin demanding profits rather than reserve additions and production growth?

Before investors put up the money for new LNG plants they need to be assured that there will be a financial return for that investment. Given that it takes time for such a market to evolve, and given the need that Russia has to sustain its market and potentially to increase it, the volumes that the US might put into play are likely to be small, with little other than political impact likely.

If Russia recognizes this, and feels relatively confident that Europe must continue to buy natural gas from Gazprom, particularly with the current move by Europe away from other sources of fuel such as coal, then they are likely to be more resistant to bringing the price down for their Chinese customers. On the other hand if China thinks that it might be able to get a better deal from Iran, were sanctions to ease, or from other MENA countries, then – thinking perhaps that Russia needs the sale more – they might toughen their position and the price debate may continue.

It will be interesting to see if it resolves within the next few weeks, and if so, at what a price.

Waterjettting 19b - California gold mining

While mankind has directed the flow of water against earth and rock faces for millennia, as a way of eroding and removing material, it was not until the days of the Gold Rush in California around 1850 that the idea of confining the water into a hose, and through a nozzle crystallized.

Gold was originally found in the gravel in 1848, when James Marshall was helping John Sutter build a sawmill on the banks of the South Fork of the American River, in what is now Coloma, CA.

Figure 1. Sutter’s Mill on the American River (Replica by California Parks ).

The news that gold had been found in the tailrace led into what has been referred to as the greatest mass movement of people in the Western Hemisphere, as people flocked to California over the next few years, during the period of the California Gold Rush.

Figure 2. Location of Coloma, CA (red circle) relative to Sacramento and San Francisco – Lake Tahoe is by the 395 sign in the upper right. (Google Earth)

As the prospectors panned the gold from the stream beds, so they moved north east along the valleys and rivers, seeking the sources of the gold particles that millennia had washed down from the Sierra Nevada. One such source was found at American Hill, just north east of Grass Valley. Here the gold was found in beds of a weak sandstone, lying relatively close to the surface.

Figure 3. The American Hill Diggings, with plaque. The original height of the hill can be seen in the background.

The gold settled to the bottom of the sandstone, and so the miners would tunnel into the side of the hill, seeking to find the richest layer. Unfortunately as you dig out the bottom of a hillside, the overlying rock has a habit of falling down, with mildly fatal results to those caught in its path. This made mining somewhat dangerous, given the soft nature of the rock as Edward E. Matthison found when he was nearly buried when he was working the property. So with partners, he decided that a more remote method of digging out the gold was needed. So, with the help of a local blacksmith named Miller, he fashioned a nozzle on the end of a canvas hose he ran from a water reservoir at the top of the cliff (initially a nail keg) and used the resulting stream to wash the ore (and overlying rock) into a channel that was later turned into a flume, with a series of strips to catch the gold.

Figure 4. Early hydraulic mining

The method had many advantages since, in the process of washing the rock from the solid it was broken down into individual particles. This separated the gold, sand and clay particles, so that while the gold particles would be trapped in the flume, the lighter sand and clay particles would be carried further downstream with the water. By 1853 they were paying a water bill of $153 a week (with water at $0.75 per miners inch this meant they were using 2,000 gal/min) but making the four partners a profit of $50 a day. Larger and larger monitors (the name given to the nozzle and pivoting assembly) were built, throwing water at greater distances, and mining at much faster rates.

Figure 5. Monitors at work at the North Bloomfield mine.

This, in turn, required increasing amounts of water, and this was carried in flumes down through the Sierra Nevada, with agreements being made between companies for distribution, collection and the passing on of water. The nozzle diameters of some of the larger monitors grew to more than 8 inches, and they were capable of mining tens of feet from the operator.

Figure 6. Later design of monitor. The wooden beam usually had a box holding rock on the other end in order to balance the weight of the nozzle section.

The nozzles were made longer, as they were made larger, in order to get the jet to throw to greater distances, but this made steering and control of the jets more difficult. The gooseneck swivel was invented in 1855 to help swivel the nozzle, and a monitor operator noted that when he stuck his shovel into the stream of water it deflected the nozzle. This was Dave Stokes at the Malakoff mine and led to the invention by his Supervisor, Henry Perkins, of the rotating system for sprinklers that is still used to this day.

Figure 7. Modern rotating sprinkler showing the deflection plate. (Aliexpress )

The largest mine in the region was the Malakoff, and in the region around it there were some 425 companies operating and, between 1871 and 1880 they produced $121 worth of gold (at the price of the day).

But there was costs to this operation outside of just the mining ones. For while the gold was captured in the flumes, the sand, and more particularly the clay, was carried in the water until it became less turbulent. And that was when it reached the Yuma, American and Beam rivers flowing out of the Sierra Nevada and down towards Sacramento. As the water slowed, so the clay precipitated out, and the river beds filled with sediment. Thus, when the rains came, the water overflowed its banks, flooding the neighboring fields.

Foregoing the fact that it was the mining that had brought the farmers and many others to the region, the floods were not acceptable, and following the floods of 1880 there was an increasing effort to contain the mining sediments. This led to the court ruling by Judge Sawyer in 1886 restricting the practice of hydraulic mining, and the technology fell into abeyance. It was restarted at the time of both World Wars, but in recent times there was only one small mine that had been “grandfathered” still in production. Its role in developing California is not greatly recognized at present, and the remaining legacy is more seen in the vertical bluffs and large flat areas of mined sand that are left north of Grass Valley, together with the old wooden water flumes that still thread their way around the edges of the valleys.

Figure 8. View of the Malakoff Diggings

I’ll talk more about the spread of the technology next time.

Tech Talk - Of wood, coal, the UK and Bangladesh

Ice and snow have returned to the central part of Missouri, so the warm heat from the tile stove is again keeping us comfortable. For many folk, however, this is not an option and they rely on a centralized power station to supply the electricity that is a fundamental part of current Western life. Yet there are moves to use more wood, even there. In an earlier post I had written that Missouri S&T was switching from a coal:wood mix to a geothermal network which, with the use of natural gas, is expected to provide a net saving of about $1 million a year on the fuel bill. Price, while important to a university, is not, however, always the controlling factor when governments get involved.

The rising prices and obscurity of future government policy has stopped progress toward a wood-fired power station in Northumberland. A plan to replace coal with wood at Blyth has reached an impass, with RES ceasing work on the biofuel plant. The $500 million, 100 MW plant had been scheduled to come on line in about two-and-a-half years but has been stopped due to “ongoing uncertainty in UK energy policy.”

On the other hand the largest UK coal-fired power plant, at Drax in Yorkshire, is in process of changing from being a coal-based plant to one that burns wood. But not just any wood, for as David Rose notes the new fuel will be wood pellets, grown and processed in North Carolina and then shipped at an ultimate rate of 7 million tons a year to the UK. The current wholesale market price for power is around $83 per MW/hr relying heavily on coal, but the agreed price for the wood-powered electricity will rise to $174 per MW/hr, higher than that of either onshore wind or the new nuclear power coming on line. (Using $1.66 per English pound). Retail prices are somewhat higher.

Price may not be that critical in the UK, but it remains critical in poorer parts of the world, such as Bangladesh, where the nation needs to infuse power into a country that has, at the moment, only a single power plant. Yet this is not a move without criticism. A recent Op-Ed in the NYT, protested the intent of the government of Bangladesh to begin a program that will develop their coal reserves. The article comes after the government appointed a new minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resource who has pledged a new coal policy “within the shortest possible time” and it is this (and the existing 2010 policy) which has irritated Joseph Allchin who wrote the opinion.

The major concern at present deals with the Rampal coal plant which will consume some 4.5 million tons of coal a year and generate 1,320 MW of electrical energy. The coal is presently anticipated to come from either Australia, South Africa or Indonesia and is intended to address the acute shortage of power in Bangladesh, with the government aiming to raise power generation from 5,000 MW in 2011, through 7,000 MW in 2013 to 22,000 MW by 2016, that being on its way to a capacity of 39,000 MW by 2030. By 2021 it is anticipated that 14 GW will be generated from coal-fired power, with domestic coal producing 6 GW, and imports powering 8 GW of capacity. The concern comes from the nearness of the coal-fired plant to the Sunderbans mangrove forest, and the threat which this poses. But given that millions of folk live within ten miles of coal-fired power plants around the world (the closest the plant will be) the dangers seem overhyped and unrealistic.

Figure 1. Relative location of the proposed power plant at Rampal and the Sunderbans (Yale)

A second power plant of similar size (1,200 MW) will be built at Matarbari although that will also rely on imported coal, at least initially (sourced from Indonesia, Mozambique, Australia or Canada) and

The government has also a plan to implement three mega coal-fired power plants at Moheshkhali each having capacity to generate 1200MW electricity under private sector or joint venture deals.

. Domestic coal production will require considerable growth in production, given that it was only at around 800,000 tons per year in 2011. The coal coming from the thick seams of the Barapukuria coal deposit has some 200 M tons of reserves, and is being won using longwall top caving, which simplistically involves undercutting the coal thickness with a shearer, and then allowing the overlying coal to fall into the mining opening.

Figure 2. Schematic showing the idea of Longwall top caving, there is a second conveyor at the back of the roof support to carry away the broken coal as it feeds down over the back of the support (University of Wollongong )

Bangladesh has struggled for years with less than half the country having access to electricity and with the rest of the population relying on biomass and waste to provide fuel for heating and cooking. But just to keep up with current demand it must increase natural gas supplies by 35% to overcome current shortages, and thus, to meet the demand for those without power they have chosen to go with the coal-fired option.

It will be interesting to see how the politics of this unfold, given the obvious benefits that will arise as more folk in Bangladesh are provided with electricity, with all the benefits that this entails, and which is being held up by those that one might have thought would have wished to see such progress.

In passing it might be noted that China approved an additional 15 coal mines with a total output of more than 100 million tons last year.