Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire - Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry. Nuclear Activities
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Of Life and Lithium - TomDispatch.com
Of Life and Lithium - TomDispatch.com
Joshua Frank, As the Rich Speed Off in Their Teslas
March 28, 2024
Let's face it: we're now on a different planet in a different era and it matters not at all that a committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences wasn't yet willing to officially call it the Anthropocene or (all too) human age. I mean, why sweat about that when, in a distinctly overheating world, we have so much else to sweat about? Call it what you will, but thanks to humanity, we're already sweating big time -- and not just in South Sudan, where schools were recently closed for two weeks in expectation of a heat wave that could hit 113 degrees! After all, last year set a dazzling record for heat and the U.N.'s weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, expects 2024 to repeat the pattern in some equally grim fashion. It's already sounding a "red alert," warning that, as the organization's secretary-general recently put it, “never have we been so close -- albeit on a temporary basis at the moment -- to the 1.5C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.”
In that context, it's no small thing that, just the other day, the Biden administration issued an important new climate regulation designed, as the New York Times reported, "to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032." And on a planet where startling heat records were set monthly in 2023 and the same thing may indeed be happening again this year, that is no small thing.
Those words "no small thing," however, do trigger something else in my mind. It's a subject that TomDispatch regular Joshua Frank, author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, takes up vividly today. It's no small thing that some of the same creatures responsible for heating this planet to the figurative boiling point now have the urge to try to "save" the planet. And while that's a distinct positive, don't think those creatures, who have already created so many problems, won't create more as they try to -- so to speak -- change gears.
Ah, gears! Yes, if we humans remain in the same gear as we try to solve the problem of climate change that we've been in while creating it, count on this: there will be a steep price for all too many of us. Think, for instance, of the parts of the Global South that had so little to do with creating the conditions for climate change in the first place or, in the case of the lithium that Frank focuses on today, both Native Americans and the land itself. We are, after all, the very same creatures who created the problem, so hold your hat as the "solution" comes down the line. The question remains: Who will pay what price in the perilous future to come? And how large might it be? Tom
"The Tyranny Of Oil" Revisited - Robert Bryce
"The Tyranny Of Oil" Revisited
Reprinting a chapter from my 2014 book, Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper, on EVs, energy density, and why “oil is a miracle substance”
Mar 28, 2024
During the 2007 announcement of his presidential bid, Barack Obama said “Let's be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil.” Photo credit: Chicago Sun-Times.
The International Energy Agency recently reported that global oil demand grew by 2.3 million barrels per day in 2023. The agency expects oil use to increase by 1.2 million Bbl/d this year. Meanwhile, OPEC expects oil use to jump by 2.2 million Bbl/d and by 1.8 million Bbl/d in 2025. Regardless of which estimate is correct, it is clear that oil demand continues to grow along with the global economy. Analyst Art Berman says “oil is the economy.” Indeed, like electricity, oil drives economic growth, and economic growth drives oil use.
Love it or hate it, if oil didn’t exist we’d have to invent it. No other fuel can match oil when it comes to energy density, cost, scale, flexibility, or ease of handling and transportation.
Nearly everything we touch, eat, or wear has been delivered to us by machines that burn gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel. A long time ago, Don Cheatham, a businessman who owned a railroad in Texas, told me, “Without transportation, there is no commerce.” But without oil, there’s no transportation. Therefore, if there’s no oil, there’s no commerce. Despite these apparent points, politicians – Republicans and Democrats alike – have routinely derided the importance of oil to the economy and our daily lives. In his 2006 State of the Union, George W. Bush, a Republican from Texas who tried his hand in the oil industry, declared, “America is addicted to oil.”
Last week, the EPA finalized a rule that mandates U.S. automakers to dramatically increase their production of electric vehicles. By 2032, more than half of the cars they sell will have to be fully electric. Although the agency doesn’t mention oil or gasoline in its press release, it did include “oil conservation” in the final rule. That document, by the way, is 1,181 pages long. The word “gasoline” appears on 117 of those 1,181 pages.
The EV mandate, along with the never-ending campaigns by various NGOs that claim we should go “beyond oil,” as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential run, prompted me to revisit my fifth book, Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving The Catastrophists Wrong, which was published in 2014.
One of the chapters in that book is called “The Tyranny of Density.” It’s as relevant today as it was in 2014, and it even mentions EVs and Kennedy. I created two charts to go with this piece to show the ongoing growth in oil use here in the U.S. and globally. Here’s the chapter:
Among the Mount Everest of inanities ever uttered on the subject of energy, the blue-ribbon winner must be this one: “the tyranny of oil.”
Both Barack Obama and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have used the line. Obama claimed it for his own in 2007 during a speech in which he declared his run for the White House. While standing on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, Obama said, “Let's be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil.”
In March 2013, during a speech at Sandhills Community College in North Carolina, Kennedy, a high-profile opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline (he was arrested at the White House during an anti-Keystone protest), said “Now we need to free ourselves from the tyranny of oil.”
That Obama and Kennedy — both of whom went to Harvard — are claiming that a super-high-energy density substance that can be deployed for innumerable purposes, from pumping well water in Kenya to emergency generation of electricity in Lower Manhattan, is somehow bad or even yet, tyrannical, is nonsense on stilts. Rather than talk about the tyranny of oil, the two Harvard grads might as well be complaining about the tyranny of physics. Or better yet, the tyranny of density.
Few substances this side of uranium come close to touching oil when it comes to the essential measure of energy density: the amount of energy (which is measured in joules or BTUs) that can be contained in a given volume or mass. In addition to petroleum’s high energy density, it is stable at standard temperature and pressure, relatively cheap, easily transported, and can be used for everything from making shoelaces to fueling jumbo jets.
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Oil’s tyranny of density can be demonstrated by looking at the aviation sector and by doing a tiny bit of math. To make the math easy, let’s use metric units. And let’s focus on weight, as that factor is critical in aerospace. The gravimetric energy density of jet fuel is high: about 43 megajoules (million joules) per kilogram. (Low-enriched uranium, by the way, is 3.9 terajoules — trillion joules — per kilogram.)
Keep those numbers in mind as we look at the best-selling jet airliner in aviation history: the Boeing 737. A fully fueled 737-700 holds about 26,000 liters of jet fuel, weighing about 20,500 kilograms. That amount of fuel contains about 880 gigajoules (billion joules) of energy. The maximum take-off weight for the 737-700 is about 78,000 kilograms, therefore jet fuel may account for as much as 26 percent of the plane’s weight as it leaves the runway.
Obama and Kennedy are big fans of electric cars. Lithium-ion batteries have higher energy density than most other batteries, holding about 150 watt-hours — 540,000 joules — of energy per kilogram. Recall that jet fuel contains about 43 million joules per kilogram, or nearly 80 times as much energy. Therefore, if Boeing were trying to replace jet fuel with batteries in the 737-700, it would need about 1.6 million kilograms of lithium-ion batteries. Put another way, to fuel a jetliner like the 737-700 with batteries would require a battery pack that weighs about 21 times as much as the airplane itself.
Prefer to use a “green” fuel like firewood? With an energy density of about 16 megajoules per kilogram, that same 737-700 would require about 55,000 kilograms of wood. With that much kindling onboard, rest assured there won’t be room in the overhead bin for your carry-on bag.
Even at 35,000 feet, the simple truth is obvious: the only tyranny at work in our energy and power systems is that of simple math and elementary-school physics. Obama and Kennedy may not like oil, and their allies on the Left may hate Shell/BP/Marathon/Exxon/Saudi Aramco/Chevron/Keystone XL, but here’s the reality: oil is a miracle substance. Without it, modern society simply would not be possible.
Rather than condemning the fuel that makes modern life possible, our political leaders should be figuring out how we can make oil more available to more people at lower cost.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Spending Unlimited - TomDispatch.com
Spending Unlimited - TomDispatch.com
Julia Gledhill and William Hartung, Failure as the Pentagon's Ultimate Success Story
March 26, 2024
It's true that no nuclear weapon has been used (except in tests) since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end World War II. And yes, we now know that, were there to be a nuclear confrontation on this planet (think: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 without the diplomacy of President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev), it could quite literally send us all to hell and back. It might leave much of humanity dead and the planet in a version of rubble. (Think: nuclear winter!) So, consider it a cheery thing that, all too recently, two world leaders, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, threatened to use just such weaponry in our world right now.
And if that makes you nervous, then let me reassure you this way: the United States, while making no nuclear threats, is putting staggering numbers of your tax dollars into expanding and further enhancing its nuclear arsenal. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we're talking about spending a nifty $756 billion between 2023 and 2032. And, hey, to cheer you up a little further, here's how the CBO breaks that figure down: "$247 billion for modernization of strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems and the weapons they carry; $108 billion for modernization of facilities and equipment for the nuclear weapons laboratory complex and for modernization of command, control, communications, and early-warning systems; and $96 billion for potential cost growth in excess of projected budgeted amounts."
Yep, $96 billion of your tax dollars are carefully included to cover "cost growth in excess of budgeted amounts." And here's the even better news: that $756 billion figure is a mere $122 billion more than the last estimate for the period 2021-2030, which, in turn, means, assuming such weapons aren't ever used, it's going to take a while to hit the trillion-dollar mark. Still, have faith in our military and count on it! In fact, if you have any doubts on the subject, check out today's report from Pentagon experts and TomDispatch regulars Julia Gledhill and William Hartung on just how expensive everything involving future American weaponry and our military could get. I know you'll feel a deep sense of relief to be reassured that your tax dollars will be stretched so far into a world from which there may be no return. Tom
Monday, March 25, 2024
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