Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Quick Fix for Adverse Climate Change

It seems that the New York Times is jumping outside the renewables box -especially on the eve of the release the 3rd Party Independent Report on the E-cat.
Conversion of fossil and nuclear-fueled power plants to LENR-type retro-fits is relatively cheap, non-polluting and quick-to-deploy.

A report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is on the agenda when world leader meet at the UN on September 23rd. The Commission warns that firms and nations relying heavily on coal and oil sand bitumen run big economic risks as the NewFire takes hold.

Dateline Sept 24. 2014
Britain's Telegraph Newspaper reports on developments of molten salt versions of "New Nuclear."
The British-designed model would feed off spent fuel, the shorter-life residue of which could be left in abandoned salt mines, rather than stored in geological deep depositories.
Thansatomic Power of Boston says it can also construct a "waste-burning" reactor using molten salt.
Toronto-based Terrestrial claims it can produce small molten salt reactors of up to 300MW.

Dateline Sept 24, 2014
Forbes' Working Knowledge site contains a piece by Professor Joe Lassiter of Harvard Business Schoool titled, We Need a Climate Miracle. Can 'New Nuclear' Provide It?
The reader is left to ponder whether the professor's New Nuclear isn't just a variation of Old Nuclear rather than the non-radioactive "NewFire", which has just undergone rigorous testing -and which China is keenly interested in co-deployment with the United States.
Here are excerpts from his last few paragraphs:

"…The only thing that will change China’s plans quickly is an energy miracle, a new energy source that can beat coal-fired power on price in China and can be installed in volume there in five to ten years.
I expect that miracle comes in the form of “New Nuclear” power plants—not the traditional nuclear plants...
The US, EU and Japan have the technology infrastructure and the dynamic, startup companies to bring New Nuclear to the table quickly. Three such startups are Martingale, Inc., of Tavernier, Florida; Transatomic Power, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and TerraPower, of Bellevue, Washington. Each is working on New Nuclear reactor designs that can be much safer even than today’s newest reactors…
… we need a miracle today… verified by rigorous and transparent testing."

Dateline Nov 21, 2014
The Register, an online publication for IT professionals, reports on two Stanford University PhDs who declare that renewables are not a solution to energy crisis, and that new nuclear is our saviour. They do not even hint that LENR is the new clean and non-radioactive fuel.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The E-cat Works & is Marketable

With release of the third-party review of Industrial Heat’s E-cat still pending, and with the expectation that the findings are clear and impressive, here is one pundit’s view of possible impacts:

Industrial Heat LLC is a group of companies owning, developing and deploying Andrea Rossi’s E-cat technology. The company will soon move forward with a demonstration of a pre-production reactor in an industrial setting, and will likely announce where components will be manufactured and where final assembly will be conducted.

The publication of the report boosts commercial prospects for many flavours of LENR/Cold Fusion. Its release will immediately impact stock prices of existing energy producers and energy distributors. And, while it will take over a decade to reduce air pollution in Asia’s large cities, fast introduction of the technology by major corporations will soon upset the world’s competitive landscape.

Germany will be an early customer for LENR, as back-up reactors for solar and wind farms are needed. England will scrap its plans for new nuclear reactors. Japan needs turn-key non-nuclear power plants. The United States will scramble to protect employment through adoption of lowest-cost energy. Oil and gas rich Russia will be slow to transition to the new and dominant energy source.

OPEC members will meet in Vienna for a critical strategy session.


Meanwhile, Canadian leaders appear to opt for economic uncompetiveness and sustained environmental pollution. The LENR train left the station without their engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists. A possible exception is Ontario. Like Germany, this province anticipated deployment of LENR by quenching coal-fired power plants and eliminating new nuclear plants from its Long-term Energy Plan.

In the absence of disease and strife, poorer nations unhindered by legacy energy and transportation infrastructures will likely be winners in the longer term.

For developed countries, the publication event heralds the end of the fossil fuel era, the timely retirement of risky nuclear reactors -and the potential transmutation of stock-piled radioactive wastes.

Update # 1

Here is an abstract (provided by UK's White Rose Research Online) of a German paper providing an assessment LENR's future potential.

Update # 2

According to Spectrum IEE, France, the world’s 2nd largest generator of nuclear energy plans a 50% reduction in nuclear power over the next 10 years. If renewables pick up the slack and overall power needs increase, the government would not have to close one atomic plant to meet its nuclear target. Just where coal and LENR fit in is not revealed.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/renewables-up-nuclear-down-in-french-energy-plan