PG&E Pathetic Grotesque and Evil

I am extremely saddened by the explosion and fire that occurred two days ago here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Four lives were lost, scores of homes were damaged, and 37 homes were burned to the ground when a high pressure natural gas transmission line ruptured and ignited in the suburban town of San Bruno. I work all but two miles away from the site of this horrific tragedy and a couple of my co-workers lost their homes. The cause of the event (note I do not call it an accident) was the rupture of an old and probably severely corroded underground steel transmission line that conveys natural gas under high pressure to users in San Francisco.

The line was a 30 inch pipeline that was buried underground in 1956. The operating pressure of gas transmission lines exceeds 200 psig and this line may have been operating under even greater pressure. The gas distribution lines to you home operate at reduced pressure and the gas lines within you home operate at even lower pressure as the utility installs a pressure regulator with your meter. The following link from the American Gas Association explains how gas is conveyed from the gas well to your home.

http://www.aga.org/Kc/aboutnaturalgas/consumerinfo/NGDeliverySystem.htm

"http://www.aga.org/Kc/aboutnaturalgas/consumerinfo/NGDeliverySystem.htm"

PG&E our local electric and gas monopoly is embarking on a program to install smart electric and gas meters for its residential customers. These meters are expensive and pretty worthless to the consumer. PG&E is hyping the program on the basis that the consumer will be able to view and analyze their energy usage. Yeah we can view and analyze our energy usage but who is going to turn off their refrigerator simply because we now know the refrigerator is using electricity. The whole program that will be paid for by the consumers is a way of PG&E getting rid of meter readers and making more profit, it does not save one kilowatt hour of usage. PG&E now joins BP as having a second name given to it by the Green Machine. Its new name is Pathetic Grotesque and Evil. This utility should have been spending money to replace 54 year old transmission lines that run directly under heavily populated towns, not wasting our money on some hair brain schemes of smart meters and other junk science they are promoting. These idiots are buying several modified trucks from Raser the wealth eraser that made the claim of the 100 mpg Hummer. Raser has hoodwinked PG&E into claiming they will have service trucks that get 100 mpg. Come on PG&E forget the hype and stick to the basics of why you were granted monopoly rights for gas and electric service. Yes you are supposed to provide safe and efficient gas and electric service.

The fools in Washington DC who have spent over ten trillion pennies on the junk science of fool cells, hyped batteries, and not so smart meters also should share the blame in this tragic event. Just as the guys who were overseeing BP’s operation in the gulf the morons who pretend to work for our government should be telling utilities to replace any buried gas transmission line that is over forty years old. President Obama if you want to have a stimulus package that actually provides jobs and has a legacy that does some good lets spend ten trillion pennies on rebuilding our dilapidated and very dangerous system of underground gas, water and sewer lines. When the ruptured line that was first installed in 1956 I have to believe the engineers of record assigned no greater than forty years of useful life to the system. They also specified steel pipes that were US made in mills owned by US Steel or Bethlehem Steel. The replacement pipe will likely be sourced from China as our steel industry has collapsed just like everything else about us. The moronic Jolly Green Giant Governator was on a trip to Asia so he was not at home to deal with the crisis. Hey Arnie bring some steel pipe home so we can repair the pipeline! Arnie the idiot made a joke while his plane was flying over Alaska en route to the Orient that he could not see Russia as a way of chiding Sarah Palin. Of course Sarah tweeted in response that Alaska has a surplus and does not have a failed economy. We all remember the high point of Sarah’s VP campaign two years ago that she was proposing a high pressure natural gas transmission line to deliver stranded gas in Alaska to the markets of the lower 48. I just hope that when that line gets built neither BP nor PG&E have anything to do with its design or operation and that someone remembers to rebuild the line in 2050. Of course the natural gas may have run out by then and the line could just be used for sewage that will still pour from politicians and CEOs mouths.

GM = Great Morons

For my readers who read my blogs several years back, you all know how I said (over and over) that General Motors was being run by morons. Well the truth of the stupidity of Rock Wagoner (CEO) and his executive team now comes out in a book by Steve Rattner the auto czar that was appointed by President Obama to get GM straight after our government gave them billions of our tax dollars to save the company. In 2002 I witnessed first hand how dumb Larry Burns the vice president of research and strategic planning at GM was. He presented a paper at a conference on hydrogen fuel cells. He presented data that violated the laws of thermodynamics and showed data that his production of hydrogen had more energy leaving the system than was entering the system as natural gas. I pointed out his error to him a fax I sent him. The idiot responded in an email to me that his brilliant understudy one Byron McCormick the head of the fuel cell program at GM had given him the calculation. I exchanged several emails with Byron to explain the mistake in his calculations and of course he never retracted the false claims as GM was receiving a slew of money from Sam The Sham Badman the then Energy Secretary for President Bush (GW). A first year chemical engineering student studying Thermodynamics would not have made the basic error that the head of fool cells at GM had made. I predicted back in 2002 that GM was doomed as it was being run by thermodynamic idiots.

Here is an article that appeared today on CNBC about Rattner and his disdain for the stupidity and sheer incompetence at the top of GM when he had to save the company from its own management.

Rattner's Book Shows Ghosn Could Have Had It All
Published: Friday, 3 Sep 2010 | 10:29 AM ET Text Size
By: Phil LeBeau
CNBC Correspondent

As advance copies of former Auto Czar Steve Rattner's book start to filter around, one of the more intriguing nuggets is the story surrounding the interest Rattner had in Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. In his book Rattner says he offered the GM CEO position to Ghosn, but the Renault-Nissan boss politely declined. That offer and rejection says a lot about both Rattner and Ghosn.

For Rattner its yet another example showing that he and the auto task force had little use for Rick Wagoner, Fritz Henderson, or many of the other GM executives. This is not the first time we've heard this. Rattner and his team concluded early on the only way to re-make and save GM would be booting out the old guard with old views of the auto business. It speaks to the reason they brought in Ed Whitacre Jr. as chairman. They wanted and got fresh blood that would eventually purge a lot of the old GM leadership.

As for Ghosn, the story shows his desire to add GM in a Nissan-Renault alliance was more important than the chance to run GM by itself. And in fact, Rattner's book says that when Ghosn turned down the GM CEO offer he indicated he wanted GM to join his alliance. Some might find this baffling. I don't. Ghosn has instilled a culture in Renault-Nissan that he wants and believes in. Why would he give that up to go through the long road of gutting and changing GM?

Ultimately Steve Rattner trying to lure Ghosn confirms what we suspected at the time and what we know to be true now. The White House was hell bent on re-making the GM leadership with aggressive executives who would take advantage of the lifeline that had been thrown to the auto maker.

Thank Thorium

I am providing you all another positive blog regarding a heavy element that may do some heavy lifting in providing electricity in the future. That element is Thorium. I suggest going to this web site and read a little about Thorium and how it has merit as a nuclear fuel for electric power generation.

http://environauts.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/thorium-tipping/

My bet is that in twenty years we will be generating electricity using Thorium as a fuel. In fifty years we will generating a bunch of energy using Thorium. Thor is the Norse god of Thunder. Thor battled the Ettins. My job is to battle the oxymoron cretins



This from wiki on Thorium

Thorium (pronounced /ˈθɔəriəm/ THOHR-ee-əm) is a chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90.
Thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive metal. It is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust. It has been considered a waste product in mining rare earths, so its abundance is high and cost low.
Thorium was successfully used as a breeding (fertile) source for nuclear fuel – uranium (233) in the molten-salt reactor experiment (MSR) from 1964 to 1969 (producing thermal energy for heat exchange to air or liquids), as well as in several light water reactors using solid fuel composed of a mixture of 232Th and 233U, including the Shippingport Atomic Power Station (operation commenced 1957, decommissioned in 1982), but a thorium-uranium mix was only used at end of life to demonstrate Th-to-U breeding. Currently, the Japanese Fuji project and officials in India are advocating a thorium-based nuclear program, and a seed-and-blanket fuel utilizing thorium is undergoing irradiation testing at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow.[2][3]
Advocates of the use of thorium as the fuel source for nuclear reactors, such as Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, state that they can be built to operate significantly cleaner than uranium-based power plants as the waste products are much easier to handle.[4] According to Rubbia, a ton of thorium produces the same energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3.5 million tons of coal.[5] Edward Teller, co-founder and director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, promoted thorium energy until his death, and scientists in France, Japan, India, and Russia are now creating their own thorium-based power plants.[6] One leading commentator is calling for the creation of a new Manhattan Project, stating that the use of thorium fuel for energy would "reinvent the global energy landscape . . . and an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years."[5]
When used in molten-salt reactors, thorium bred to 233U removes weaponization dangers, because no uranium exists in solid form and the reactor runs continuously, with no shutdown for refuelling—all thorium and fissile uranium is consumed and any undesired gases and uranium/plutonium isotopes are flushed out as gases (e.g., as uranium hexafluoride) as the hot, liquid salt is pumped around the reactor/exchanger system.

Methanol The Best Biofuel

Ajay has been bugging me for months to be positive in at least one blog. He asked me to opine on the thermodynamic merit of producing methanol from wood. Ray a very smart dentist living in New Zealand also asked me to opine on this subject. I have told Ajay on several occasions that methanol holds the promise to wean us off of some fraction of our oil consumption. In fact back in 2005 I presented the merits of methanol as a vehicle fuel at the national meeting of the National Hydrogen Association. The honest academics in the audience applauded my conclusions while the dishonest ones who were selling the hype of hydrogen held their applause for my talk only to give a hearty ovation for one Sam Bodman the then Secretary of Energy. Sam handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to academia and industry that very same day at that very same event for research and development of hydrogen fool cells (fuel cells). Sam the Sham is a disgrace to the chemical engineering profession. He holds a PhD in my discipline and sold out the laws of thermodynamics for political gain.

Back to the point of this blog which is the value of methanol. Methanol can be dissociated very simply on board a vehicle with the heat from the exhaust of an engine and in this process of dissociation an extra 19% of useful fuel energy is gained from the otherwise wasted heat exhausted from the engine. Back in 2005 I theorized that a gasoline engine augmented with a small fraction of dissociated methanol will be very efficient and powerful. Nothing I have read or learned in the past five years has dissuaded me from my belief that this dual fuel engine is a far better solution from an efficiency and cost perspective than the plug in battery cars that billions of dollars are being spent on to bring plugins to market. My theoretical engine will use only 5% methanol to augment gasoline allowing the gasoline engine to approach the efficiency of a diesel engine. 5% of our gasoline means we need to produce 450,000 barrels a day of methanol. This is far less than the 750,000 barrels a day of ethanol we already produce by fermentation of corn.
The preferred method to produce methanol is via the steam reformation of natural gas. However it is quite plausible to use wood from fast growing poplar trees as the fuel source for synthesizing methanol. Wood reacted with steam and a little oxygen in a gasifier will yield a synthesis gas that in turn can be synthesized into methanol. By my calculation 2 acres of poplar forest will yield 500 gallons of methanol a year. Unlike corn ethanol, there is no requirement for supplementary natural gas to perform the synthesis or purification of the methanol. Also unlike corn ethanol, wood derived methanol requires no fertilizer and does not subtract from our food supply. To yield 450,000 barrels a day we need to harvest the yearly output of some 28 million acres of forest or some 44 thousand square miles. This is a forest that is approximately 200 miles by 220 miles that is certainly within the size of the natural forested areas of the US. By my calculation if gasoline cars are methanol assisted in their operation and my disassociation idea is deployed, we would concurrently save over 2 million barrels a day of gasoline due to the improved efficiency of the fleet. A barrel of gasoline emits approximately 800 pounds of carbon dioxide. Reducing gasoline consumption by 2 million barrels a day will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 292 million tons a year.

As an example of the economic value of the reduction of 292 million tons a year of carbon dioxide valued at $20 per ton this yields a yearly value of $6 billion from the saved carbon emissions alone. The savings to consumers of 2 million barrels of gasoline a day at $3 per gallon is worth $92 billion a year. Let’s round these savings to $100 billion a year spent on 450,000 barrels a day of methanol. This equals a value of $14.50 per gallon of methanol. Producing methanol from natural gas yields a cost of about $1 per gallon. There is no doubt we can produce methanol for less than $2 per gallon using wood as the feedstock. The economic value is $14.50 per gallon of methanol so let’s have the US government support this thermodynamically viable idea rather than the junk science $100 billion is now being spent on dead end green ideas. Readers please note I do not have any vested economic interest in methanol or the dual fuel engine idea. I have offered the idea for free to any university or company that is capable of transforming my thought experiment engine into a real engine. My thoughts do obey the laws of thermodynamics and there is not perpetual motion claims in this thought experiment. I am simply theorizing that a gasoline engine can operate at a compression ratio of 16 or 17 to 1 with the assistance of dissociated methanol and achieve a thermal efficiency of 25 or 26% instead of around 15% in the present 10 to 1 compression ratio engines.

Some talented mechanical engineers may be able to convert my thought experiment into a reality. I am about as handy and capable as Woody Allen when it comes to mechanics. Remember Albert Einstein had the thought experiment of E = MC2, he did not have the skills to build an atomic bomb or a nuclear power plant he was just able to conceive the conversion of mass to energy in his mind. I am no Albert Einstein and my thought experiment is no Nobel Prize winning idea, but I promise it does hold water when the laws of thermodynamics are applied and I do believe now as I did in 2005 that methanol should play a role in our energy mix. Talking of Nobel Prizes, a couple of months after my talk at the 2005 National Hydrogen Association meeting a book titled Beyond Oil and Gas The Methanol Economy was published by Prof George Olah of the University of Southern California. Prof Olah is a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. His book that I had no idea he was writing vindicated my thought experiment and although billions of dollars were being wasted on fool cells and hydrogen by then Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman, I felt reassured that I had presented the best idea at that meeting. Prof Olah has provided me an autographed copy of his book that I cherish. Someday I know some bright mechanical engineers will pick up on the methanol augmented engine and some future day motorist will enjoy the efficiency of the practical adaption of my thought experiment.

Sam the Sham will be remembered together with Hank the Yank as being cabinet members in perhaps the most incompetent administration since James Buchanan. Our Union was fortunate that Lincoln followed Buchanan, unfortunately Obama and his Secretary of Energy Steven Chu have the same thermodynamic sincerity as the incompetent incumbents they replaced. Secretary Chu won a Nobel Prize in low temperature physics yet he too is funding junk science projects based on the pork that permeates politics especially in a reelection year. I have no doubt that Secretary Chu is one very smart person with the knowledge and competence to tell the President that most of the projects being funded will not yield “energy independence”. It is time for him to do this!

Oxy Morons Get More Moronic

Now that I blogged on the dumbness of the project to fire coal with oxygen the truth is leaking out about this porky pig. The DOE did not include the cost of the 175 mile pipeline from Meredosia to Mattoon that is needed to transport the 1.3 million tons a year of carbon dioxide from the power plant to the site that is suited for the geological sequestration of the greenhouse gas. The county (Coles County) that sits atop the sequestration site in Mattoon is miffed with the DOE for not funding the full Futuregen 1 project and has now told the DOE they can park their gas somewhere else. I find it quite funny that Coles County is all about Clean Coal and now they want to be Clean Coles. There is more pork in Illinois than most other states in the union. Yeah Illinois has lots of hog farms and lots of politicians like Blogo the convicted felon Hogo.

I have copied a couple of news articles on Futuregen 2.0


Mattoon rejects FutureGen 2.0
Updated: Wednesday, 11 Aug 2010, 6:27 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 11 Aug 2010, 3:11 PM EDT

COLES COUNTY, Ill. (WTHI) - News 10 has learned that Coles County, Illinois has rejected the FutureGen 2.0 project.

In a statement released by Angela Griffin, the President of Coles Together, she announced that Coles County will reject the FutureGen 2.0 project. Here is the statement that was released:

It is with great disappointment that I must inform you that the citizens, neighbors near the site, business leaders, and community leaders in Coles County are nearly unanimous in the belief that the pursuit of FutureGen 2.0, as proposed, is not in our best interest.

We take this position with deep regret, but after thoughtful consideration.

Unfortunately, the revised $1.2 billion project does not provide for the highest and best use of a Mattoon site that top scientists, researchers and engineers have determined to be the best location in the nation for a clean coal facility and on-site carbon capture and sequestration research.

While I have nothing but the highest level of regard for the time and effort that you and the FutureGen Alliance expended to make this project viable, our challenges with FutureGen 2.0, as proposed by the Department of Energy, are too big to overcome.

I want to emphasize that the concept of carbon capture and sequestration has nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons we have chosen not to pursue what is known as FutureGen 2.0.

As a citizenry, we embraced that technology and believe it to be a safe and practical approach to removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

The simple fact remains that we agreed to host what was presented as the world’s first near-zero emissions research and demonstration facility – the latest in power generation technology paired with underground storage for the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Hosting the original FutureGen was something this community embraced with great pride. Ours would be a distinct and honorable mission in an emerging scientific field.
Mattoon was to be a focal point for smart, forward-looking solutions in a carbon constrained world.

Unfortunately, our role in FutureGen 2.0 does not support that effort. If FutureGen 2.0 moves ahead with the revised structure described today, it must be without Coles County.

Meanwhile, we will explore opportunities that better serve our citizens and make a bigger contribution to the global effort to develop new technologies and sciences.

News 10 will keep you up to date on the latest as this story develops."




Here is the DOE announcement on the Futuregen 2.0 project

August 5, 2010
Secretary Chu Announces FutureGen 2.0
Awards $1 Billion in Recovery Act Funding for Carbon Capture and Storage Network in Illinois
Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin announced the awarding of $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to the FutureGen Alliance, Ameren Energy Resources, Babcock & Wilcox, and Air Liquide Process & Costruction, Inc. to build FutureGen 2.0, a clean coal repowering program and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage network. The project partners estimate the program will bring 900 jobs to downstate Illinois and another 1,000 to suppliers across the state.
"Today's announcement will help ensure the US remains competitive in a carbon constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution," said Secretary Chu. "This investment in the world's first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy."
"As with the original FutureGen, Mattoon and the state of Illinois are positioned as leaders in innovative technology that can serve as a model for the nation," said U.S. Senator Dick Durbin. "The new project stays true to the original goal of dramatically reducing pollution and providing thousands of good paying jobs in our state."
With the funds announced today, the partner recipients will repower Ameren's 200 megawatt Unit 4 in Meredosia, Illinois with advanced oxy-combustion technology. The plant's new boiler, air separation unit, CO2 purification and compression unit will deliver 90 percent CO2 capture and eliminate most SOx, NOx, mercury, and particulate emissions. Ameren Energy Resources estimates that the retrofitting of the plant is expected to create approximately 500 construction jobs and allow Ameren to recall 50 permanent workers who were laid off last year.
This project will also provide performance and emissions data for future commercial guarantees, and establish operating and maintenance experience for future large-scale commercial projects. The FutureGen Alliance will help design the test program for the new facility to incorporate a broad range of coals and operating conditions to expand the market for this repowering approach.
In addition, the project partners, working with the State of Illinois, will establish a regional CO2 storage site in Mattoon, Illinois and a CO2 pipeline network from Meredosia to Mattoon that will transport and store more than 1 million tons of captured CO2 per year. The project partners estimate the new pipeline network is expected to create 275 contruction jobs and 75 permanent jobs. The pipeline network, along with the repository in Mattoon, helps to lay the foundation for a regional CO2 network. The Mattoon site will be used to conduct research on site characterization, injection and storage, and monitoring and measurement.
Oxy-combustion burns coal with a mixture of oxygen and CO2 instead of air to produce a concentrated CO2 stream for safe, permanent, storage. In addition, oxy-combustion technology creates a near-zero emissions plant by eliminating almost all of the mercury, SOx, NOx, and particulate pollutants from plant emissions. The Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory studies have identified oxy-combustion as potentially the least cost approach to clean-up existing coal-fired facilities and capture CO2 for geologic storage.
FutureGen 2.0 stays true to the original spirit of the FutureGen project by advancing technology that can make the United States a world leader in carbon capture and storage. Secretary Chu and Senator Durbin intend to visit the Illinois sites for this project in the coming weeks.
Media contact(s):
(202) 586-4940

Oxy Morons and Oxy Combustion

Another boondoggle is coming our way courtesy of our government and the clean coal business coalition. These clean coal proponents have finally abandoned the four billion dollar boondoggle in Mattoon Illinois to gasify coal and then burn the gas in a combined cycle turbine to generate electricity. Their original idea that is finally kaput was called “Futuregen”. Yes our department of entropy finally killed that dog of a project. But like a worm with its head cut off the clean coal crowd has made a comeback for a one billion dollar even dumber project. This scaled back Futergen 2 clean coal project will build a 200 megawatt power generation station to burn coal with oxygen instead of air.

The sponsors of the project that the DOE will fund are the following companies: Ameren Energy Resources Company LLC; Babcock Wilcox Company; and Air Liquide. I am very familiar with the latter two companies. Babcock and Wilcox designed and built the famous Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg Pennsylvania that came as close to making Philadelphia into a fried chicken center as did Chernobyl ruin Kiev. I was the VP of Strategic Planning for Air Liquide in Paris France back in 1987 and my knick name for them is Leaky Air. I do not know anything about Ameren Resources so I will not opine on the company except to say that they are the third musketeer who dreamed up the scheme called “oxy fired coal power with permanent carbon capture and storage”. The proposed "clean coal" project is an oxymoron with us being the morons that are paying for it.

I copied the following from Babcock Wilcox’s web site:

CHARLOTTE, August 5, 2010
Ameren Energy Resources Company, LLC (AER) - the holding company for merchant generation for Ameren Corporation (NYSE: AEE); The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) (NYSE:BWC); and Air Liquide Process & Construction, Inc. (Air Liquide), have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) clean coal power program to negotiate the installation of the world's first full-scale oxy-coal-fired power plant that includes permanent carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS).
Proposed funding for the project - known as FutureGen 2.0 - would supplement the construction and operating costs of a 200-megawatt, near-zero emissions generating facility to be located at Ameren's Meredosia Plant near Jacksonville, Ill.
The project is designed to produce clean energy from coal by capturing and storing approximately 1.3 million tons of CO2 each year, or 90 percent of the plant's carbon dioxide emissions.
If the project is accepted and regulatory approvals are received, the next steps would be the negotiation of a cooperative agreement with DOE, followed by a six-month initial design process and analysis of costs. Construction is expected to begin in 2012 with a targeted completion date in the third quarter 2015. Construction of this new facility and its related components is expected to bring 900 temporary and permanent jobs to the Central Illinois area.
The AER plant would use an innovative oxy-coal carbon capture technology developed by B&W in collaboration with Air Liquide. The oxy-coal combustion process uses oxygen instead of air during combustion, producing flue gas composed of nearly pure CO2, which is suitable for compression and storage. B&W and Air Liquide have successfully pilot-tested oxy-coal combustion at B&W's research facility in Alliance, Ohio, supported by Air Liquide's technology developments at its R&D facility in Newark, Delaware.
"We've teamed up with B&W and Air Liquide on this important project for a number of reasons," said Charles Naslund, president and chief executive officer of AER. "B&W's oxy-coal combustion system, when coupled with Air Liquide's ASU and CO2purification and compression technologies, can reduce a plant's carbon dioxide and other air emissions to near-zero levels."
"This project is a major step forward for America's clean energy future, and AER is an ideal project partner," said B&W Chief Executive Officer Brandon Bethards. "Their commitment to the implementation of clean energy technologies and the production of low-cost power for their customers utilizing coal generation makes this an excellent opportunity for us."
"Air Liquide is at the forefront of oxy-combustion technology, helping to make clean energy a reality," said Chris Lloyd-Jones, chairman and CEO of Air Liquide Process and Construction, Inc. "We are proud to be working with the DOE, Ameren and B&W on this critical step toward viable clean energy solutions for the United States"
B&W, AER and Air Liquide agree that support from the DOE program is critical to the success of the proposed repowering project."

Ok so we have 90% reduction in the carbon dioxide from the 200 megawatt station. The station will cost one billion dollars. Now let’s calculate how much power the station will generate net of the power consumed by the air separation facility to produce the oxygen. I estimate the station will consume 4,000 tons a day of oxygen. To produce a ton of oxygen gas requires approximately 300 kilowatt hours so each day the oxygen production system will siphon off 1.2 million kilowatt hours. Converting the 200 megawatts of gross generation to kilowatt hours per day we arrive at 4.8 million kilowatt hours generated per day. Therefore one quarter of the power of the generation station is lost to the oxygen production. I estimate the compression energy to store the carbon dioxide at another 5% of the power generated by the station. This results in a total loss of 30% of the energy dropping the capacity of the station from 200 megawatts to 140 megawatts to store 90% of the carbon dioxide with an investment of a billion dollars.

The utility can build a 140 megawatt natural gas fired generation station for about $110 million. This station will emit 717 pounds of carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour generated. In a year operating 350 days at 24 hours a day the 140 megawatt hour natural gas fired station will emit 422 thousand tons of carbon dioxide. The oxymoronic coal fired plant will emit 144 thousand tons a year of carbon dioxide for a net savings of 278,000 tons per year. This cost us the US tax payer an extra 890 million dollars. Let’s pretend the US government is a business and demands a 5 year payout to fund projects. This implies the added investment is amortized at 178 million dollars a year or a rate of 640 dollars per ton of carbon dioxide saved. The proposed market value under Alaric the Second King of the Visigores in his cap and trade (actual crap and tirade) is about $20 a ton of carbon dioxide. Sounds right our government will spend $640 for something that is worth $20 and borrow the extra $620 from the Chinese to fund the shortfall. This idiotic project will prove nothing other than oxygen can combust coal. I knew that in first grade. There will be no learning from the project we already know how to separate air, how to combust coal, and how to compress and store carbon dioxide. For this project to equal the cost of $20 a ton of carbon dioxide, we the tax payers will have to wait 160 years for our payout. That will be forty presidential elections from now. I am old and I am tired of the nonsense out of DC so I will simply vote out the Oxy Morons in our government in the next election.

The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics

Some of my readers may feel that I knock the left more than I knock the right when it comes to the promotion of gangrene junk science. Well the right wing is also making hay out of the “soiled greening” of America. Do you all remember a certain Henry Paulson who was GW’s Secretary of the Treasury? Old Henry The Second was the king who presided over the economic bust in 2008 that came about because of his misguided economic policies under George the Second. The question from the green point of view is what is Henry the Second doing in “greentech” that makes him an equal plunderer to Alaric the Second? Old Hank is on the board of advisors of another want to be electric car company. Hank is advising CODA the pretend made in the USA electric car company. The components are essentially Chinese (batteries, drive-train, body etc.) but Hank the Yank has helped CODA secure Obama’s recovery funds by performing the final assembly steps in the Ignited States. Yeah hundred of million of dollars of recovery act money will go to CODA. CODA has a 34 kilowatt hour battery pack that will propel the Yugo like vehicle 100 miles. CODA at least has cost accountants who can keep track of debits and credits and will charge over forty thousand dollars for their Balkan Beauty. Unlike the lefties who are helping Fisker get their hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars, CODA will only loose $10,000 a vehicle while Fisker will loose four times as much per vehicle.

The folks at Tesla who are also royalty living the life of luxury on your tax dollars and are now named Charlatan the Second have to eat some major crow and change their claims of range on their website. The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported today that the EPA will require Tesla to recalculate their range for the Roadster and reduce the claim by at least 30%. I quote from the SV Business Journal

“Tesla said in its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday that there is no guarantee that the Model S will not be delayed due to production or engineering issues. Some who have placed pre-orders may cancel, as well, it warned.
Further complicating matters is an expected reduction on what it advertises as the expected mileage of the Roadster. Tesla said that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to cut the Roadster's estimated 220-mile driving range by about 30 percent after new testing.”

The two seater Roadster gets a paltry 154 miles per full charge and it costs Tesla $300,000 to produce but they will soon offer us the S sedan that seats seven, has a larger mass, has a range of 300 miles and they will be able to sell this car for about $50,000 and make a profit to pay the good old US tax payer the half billion dollars they will borrow from us as part of our economic recovery. The word Charlatan is a French word for a snake-oil salesman. If only Tesla had some fossil fuel based snake oil it may have had a roadster with a range of 220 miles. In the seventeenth century the Charlatans of Paris had a stage and music to promote their quackery. Tesla has the internet, television, and an ex Vice President to promote the “convenient untruth” of a technological breakthrough of plug in vehicles. The suckers assembled in Place Dauphin in Paris 500 years ago that were taken in by the pseudoscience of their day did not have the knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics. Carnot published his paper on “the reflections of the motive power of fire” in 1824. We should now know that the laws of thermodynamics are inviolable. The third law of thermodynamics states that “as temperature approaches absolute zero entropy approaches a constant minimum.” I propose a fourth law of thermodynamics that states “there is Gibbs Free Energy but there is no Gore Free Energy and any claims of the existence of an Automotive Free Energy will result in your investment in a company making such a claim approach absolute zero”. One reader told me the British car that runs on human waste should be called the “Mini Pooper”. The CODA has the order of their letters mixed up. It should be the CDOA that stands for Certainly Dead On Arrival.