Converting Coal to Natural Gas

Mining Industry Converts Coal to Clean-Burning Natural Gas | Mining Exploration News

A Cambridge start-up that converts coal to clean-burning natural gas will take its cutting-edge process to the next step, building a $25 million demonstration plant near Fall River to ready their technology for full-scale commercial production.

“This is where we are going to demonstrate our technology to the world,” said Andrew Perlman, GreatPoint’s chief executive. “This is going to be the most leading-edge gasification center anywhere.”

Nuclear Energy is (can be) Renewable

• Nuclear energy is not renewable if we discard nuclear fuel after one use.  This uses, and wastes much of, the only fissile nuclear energy source, uranium-235.  The U-235 is just 0.7% of natural uranium.

• But nuclear energy is renewable if we recycle the fuel. The U-235 can then convert the billions of tons of uranium-238 (99.3% of natural uranium) into more fuel.  (There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium recoverable just from the oceans.)

• The world also has four times more thorium than uranium; which we can then also convert to U-233 as fuel.

• Therefore, our nuclear fuel supplies can be ever-increasing; to be renewed for billions of years.  This defines “renewable energy.”

The horrible realities of wind power in Maine

The horrible realities of wind power in Maine

Maine anti-wind claims address the limits of needing to put turbines along mountain ridges. This statement does not point out that even 1000 MWe of wind power would only produce about one-third of the power produced by the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant.  Maine Yankee should still be operating (at about 90% capacity factor) if it had been effectively managed and/or purchased, instead of the short-sighted “decision” to dismantle it.

Maine, and New England, do not have the wind, nor solar, sources to meet future energy needs, even while letting its industrial capacity continue to decline.  New England will eventually have to face the fact that they need to build the Generation III+, or even Generation IV, nuclear power plants.  But will this be too little, too late, for the New England economy?

Giving the nuke option a fair shake

Giving the nuke option a fair shake | CNET News.com
By Charles Cooper
Story last modified Fri Sep 28 13:43:31 PDT 2007

My late Uncle Harold never lacked for strong opinions. He served with Patton’s Third Army in Europe and life taught him not to waste time gladly suffering fools.

We Need to Build 5,000 – 6,000 Nuclear Power Plants by the 2050s to Meet World Energy Needs

We Need to Build 5,000 – 6,000 Nuclear Power Plants by the 2050s to Meet World Energy Needs 

If we can get one-third of world energy from nuclear power sources (which is 100% of 1990 world energy use), can we get renewables and fossil fuels to DOUBLE 1990 energy use to provide two-thirds of the world’s 2050s energy requirements?

Or do we need to produce more nuclear power?

U.S. Natural Gas Production and Cost Constraints?

Do arbitrary legislative and regulatory constraints in the name of the “environment” unnecessarily limit access to low-cost natural gas resources – at great cost for business and home heating bills, for fertilizers and industrial use, including hydrogen production?  Is there a possibility of greatly increasing the current 2 billion cubic feet per day of gas from shales: 730 bcf out of 23,000 bcf of US annual consumption?

EnergyBizInsider: Natural Gas Loses Stride
September 28, 2007

ScienceDaily: Deep Earth Model Challenged By New Experiment