Other Source of Energy

Grist has a look at one minor Wikileaks revelation about US efforts to promote GMO crops in Africa - Wikileaks: State Dept. wants intel on African acceptance of GMOs.

The Wikileaks release of U.S. State Department classified diplomatic cables may be problematic, but it has been quite a trove of information on the workings of our diplomatic corps. For the most part, the dump has confirmed things that we already knew about U.S. policy -- and that seems to be the case regarding the one mention of agricultural policy in these thousands of emails and documents (no doubt there are more) to which I was alerted.

Buried deep in a document that outlines priorities for intelligence gathering in the African "Great Lakes" countries of Burundi, the Republic of Congo, and Rwanda is a list (for the most part, very reasonable) of what the State Department would like to know about the regions agricultural policy. Things like government policies on food security and food safety top the list, for example, along with information on the impact of rising food prices in these countries. Agricultural yield statistics, infrastructure improvements, data on deforestation and desertification, water issues, and invasive species are included as priorities for "reporting" as well.

But also getting its own line item on the intel priority list is this:

Government acceptance of genetically modified food and propagation of genetically modified crops.

Sigh.

Tom Philpott has reported on the State Departments biotech-loving science adviser Nina Federoff and her industry ties -- and certainly USDA Chief Tom Vilsack believes that genetically modified foods are an answer to world hunger. So this revelation hardly counts as a surprise. But its still a shame to see that our spymasters are actively engaged in efforts to make the world safe for Monsanto. Arent there better things for them to do?

The SMH has an article on the ugly pustule on the face of modern day media - the conservative radio shock jock - Cane toads of the air thrive on stupidity.

Im always amazed by how readily we let our buttons be pushed. Its almost as though we want them to manipulate us. As though we like it. "Them", here, obviously includes politicians, advertisers and spin merchants, but the worst offenders, partly because theyre the least explicit, are "shock jocks".

They are the cane toads of contemporary culture: ugly, ubiquitous, toxic to most other life forms and adept at using their peculiar behaviour to force change in ours.

Its not so much that theyre rude, lowbrow or just plain wrong, although these, too, are often the case. The most destructive effect of the shock-jockariat is the poisoning of the logic-well itself; followed by the incremental death of the argument tree that is root and branch of intelligent civilisation. ...

Take Alan Jones. Though it pains me to say it, he is forcing me to change my mind. Not on climate change, or cycling, or the right to public protest, all of which he opposes, but on censorship.

Foucault argued that unreason died with the enlightenment. But the shock-jock phenomenon proves repeatedly that if you make an argument sufficiently idiotic, the sheer scale of stupidity makes it hard to defeat. It was highlighted for me this week by a letter that argued, as Jones does, that anything so small as 0.04 per cent - the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere - couldnt possibly matter. "Please let me know," concluded my correspondent, "how anyone could believe that CO2 is responsible for climate change?"

Its like arguing that a virus is too small to give you AIDS. Or that a lethal dose of heroin, at about 0.0007 per cent of your body weight, couldnt possibly kill.

Never mind that applying the same logic to asylum seekers would make you wonder what all the fuss was about (our total asylum applications - 8150 last year, including dependants - being a mere 0.04 per cent of the population.)

These climate-change rants deliberately ignore everything about eco-balance, homeostasis, the greenhouse effect and tipping points weve all been taught since primary school and instead raucously promote a red herring.

Why do politicians tolerate it? Why do we? My theory is this. Most shock jocks, and their audiences, are pretty long in the tooth. Perhaps theres just a certain kind of person who, as the hormones start to recede, needs this pseudo-emotion to feel alive.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser has a look at Leonardo Maugeris paper on peak oil - Maugeri on peak oil

Carpe Diem, Reuters, FTalphaville, and WhaleOil are among those calling attention to a new paper by Leonardo Maugeri, senior manager for the Italian oil company Eni, and Senior Fellow at Harvard University, which concluded:

Contrary to what most people believe, oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level that it might outpace consumption. This could lead to a glut of overproduction and a steep dip in oil prices.

Based on original, bottom-up, field-by-field analysis of most oil exploration and development projects in the world, this paper suggests that an unrestricted, additional production (the level of production targeted by each single project, according to its schedule, unadjusted for risk) of more than 49 million barrels per day of oil (crude oil and natural gas liquids, or NGLs) is targeted for 2020, the equivalent of more than half the current world production capacity of 93 mbd. [After factoring in risk factors and depletion rates of currently producing oilfields], the net additional production capacity by 2020 could be 17.6 mbd, yielding a world oil production capacity of 110.6 mbd by that date.

Here I take a look at some of the details of Maugeris analysis.

About half of Maugeris calculated 17.6 mb/d in net additional production capacity comes from two countries-- the United States and Iraq (see his Table 2). I have earlier discussed the situation for the United States. To briefly recap, more than half of the increase in total U.S. oil production since 2005 has come from biofuels and natural gas liquids, neither of which should be added to conventional crude production for purposes of calculating the available supply. Another important contribution to recent U.S. production gains has come from shale/tight oil. I agree with Maugeri that this will be an important factor in the future, but it is not cheap, and there are some big uncertainties in extrapolating recent gains, about which I will have more to say below.

But first lets take a look at Iraq, which by itself accounts for 5.1 mb/d, or 29% of the net combined global gains that Maugeri is anticipating. His starting point for these calculations (see his Table 1) is the "production target" associated with a dozen oil fields for which the Iraqi government has signed contracts with oil companies. These targets call for these fields to reach maximum levels of production which, when added together, come to 11.6 mb/d. To win a contract, oil companies had to specify two key parameters: a "target" level of production and a remuneration per barrel, with awards going to the companies that specified the highest target and lowest remuneration. Some have characterized the announced targets simply as propaganda. Once awarded, there seems to be a separate process in which the production targets get renegotiated. Maugeri acknowledges the logistic and security challenges in meeting the targets, and accordingly cuts the official estimates in half. Doing so would still be a stunning achievement, requiring an Iraq that would be substantially more stable and successful over the next decade than it has been over the last three.

A separate issue is that new production from places like the U.S. and Iraq are needed in part to replace declining production flows coming from mature fields. A key question in any study like this is the assumed magnitude of that decline. As Stephen Sorrell notes, Maugeri does not state his assumed rate, and confuses the issue by mixing discussions of the depletion of an existing reservoir (for which purposes Maugeri is correct to raise the offsetting factor of additions to reserves) with the declining production flow rate from a given field (the relevant number for purposes of calculating the net addition that new fields bring to annual production). Sorrell suggests we can infer the implicit assumed decline rate from Maugeris Table 2, which reports a difference between his adjusted gross additions and adjusted net additions of 11 mb/d. That seems to imply that Maugeri is assuming that the total decline in production from existing fields between now and 2020 will be 11 mb/d, which I calculate to correspond to a 1.4% annual decline rate (ln(82/93)/9 = -0.014). As Sorrell notes, this compares for example with the IEAs (2008) substantially less optimistic numbers:

Based on data for 580 of the worlds largest fields that have passed their production peak, the observed decline rate-- averaged across all fields and weighted by their production over their whole lives-- is 5.1%. Decline rates are lowest for the biggest fields: they average 3.4% for super-giant fields, 6.5% for giant fields and 10.4% for large fields. The average rate of observed post-plateau decline, based on our data sub-set of 479 fields, is 5.8%.

... I agree with Maugeri that new production from places like the United States and Iraq is going to be very helpful. But I think he substantially overstates the case for optimism. If we are counting on sources such as shale/tight oil, oil sands, and deepwater to replace production lost from mature conventional oil fields, the days of cheap oil are never going to return.

The Globe and Mail has an article on the slow progress towards exploiting tidal power in Canadas Bay of Fundy - Nova Scotia bets on economic lift from rising tidal technology.

Nova Scotia, with its record-setting tides, could be a world leader in tidal technology. But work is progressing at a snail’s pace in the province, while more investment is under way on the other side of the ocean, in Scotland and France.

The epicentre of Nova Scotia’s attempts to stay in the tidal game is a stretch of ocean floor near the town of Parrsboro. Here, in the Minas Basin – a huge inlet of the Bay of Fundy – the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE) hopes to become a key centre of tidal power research.

FORCE, which is funded by Ottawa, Nova Scotia, Encana Corp. and several tidal technology companies, was established as a place to test in-stream turbines in one of the most powerful tidal currents in the world. Three of the four offshore “berths” are rented, but none of the organizations that have reserved them – French power conglomerate Alstom SA, British-based Atlantis Resources Corp, and local outfit Minas Basin Pulp and Power Co. – have yet to put a turbine in place.

FORCE communications manager Matt Lumley says the strength of the tidal current at the site makes it attractive to companies designing turbine technology, but that is also slowing down their arrival, as they want to make sure their devices are strong enough to survive. “We are sitting on the top of Everest” when it comes to tidal power, he said. “Everyone wants to come here, but everyone is also a bit nervous.”

An early attempt to test a turbine in this spot did not turn out well. In 2009, Nova Scotia Power and a partner, Irish company OpenHydro, deployed a $10-million prototype turbine, but the tidal current ripped the blades off the device. Mr. Lumley insists the test was not a failure, as it successfully demonstrated the incredible power of the tides. It will likely be 2015 before anyone tries again, and by that time underwater power cables will be in place, allowing the test turbines to connect to the power grid.

This part of the Bay of Fundy could eventually support support hundreds of turbines and easily generate 2,500 MW of electricity, enough to power a million homes, says Richard Karsten, a mathematics professor at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S.

The Economist has an update on the rapidly evolving 3D printing market - Difference Engine: Making it .

In a monthly column he writes about his motoring passion for Popular Mechanics, Mr Leno recently described how his “Big Dog Garage Team” fabricated a feedwater heater for his 1907 White Steamer. The aluminium part had become so porous with age that steam could be seen seeping through. Being heavily impregnated with oil, patching it up by welding a plate in place was impossible. The answer was to fabricate the part anew.

First, they used a 3D scanner to create a detailed digital model of the part at 160,000 dots per inch. Next, they fed that model to a 3D printer, which used the file to print, layer by layer, an exact copy of the part in plastic. Finally, the replica part made of plastic was used to make a mould for casting the finished component in aluminium. The scanning was a breeze, but printing the part took 33 hours. Still, having the item sent out for drawings to be made and then the part machined from solid metal would have taken weeks.

As might be expected, Mr Leno’s tools are among the best available—a $3,000 scanner from NextEngine and a $15,000 printer from Dimension, not to mention a Fadel CNC machining centre, which must have cost upwards of $100,000. Apart from a hydraulic lift and a plentiful supply of compressed air, your correspondent’s humble workshop has nothing to compare. But his three old cars present similar problems.

The good news is that the kind of rapid-prototyping technology used in the motor, aerospace and medical industries (not to mention Mr Leno’s garage) has fallen in price dramatically over the past few years. While an industrial 3D printer (also known as a fabricator or a rapid prototyper) would once have cost over $100,000, a perfectly adequate machine for home use can now be had for less than $2,000. Those prepared to assemble their own can buy kits for $500 or so.

There are drawbacks, of course. The size of products that can be made using a desktop 3D printer is usually limited to something that can fit within a five-inch (12.7cm) cube. Industrial fabrication machines can make parts six times larger. Even so, a desktop 3D printer will suffice for a surprising number of components used in cars and around the home.

As a manufacturing process, 3D printing is what is known as an “additive” technology. Instead of removing material wastefully (by milling, boring, grinding and cutting), 3D printing uses what is effectively a modified ink-jet printer to deposit successive layers of material until the three-dimensional object is built up completely, with very little scrap. The material used is usually a thermoplastic such as ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), polylactic acid or polycarbonate, though metallic powders, clays and even living cells can be employed, depending on the application.

While some hobbyists download ready-made designs to fabricate, many users create their own engineering drawings by taking advantage of free software like Google’s SketchUp or Blender from the Blender Foundation in the Netherlands. For a price, professional packages can be had from Alibre Design, Autodesk and SolidWorks. Once the drawing is finished, the file is saved in a format the 3D printer recognises. On being loaded into the printer, the devices built in software analyses the digital design and works out the optimal way to trace the successive layers of the product being fabricated.

The grandaddy of all desktop 3D-printers is the open-source RepRap project conceived in 2005 by Adrian Bowyer and colleagues at the University of Bath, in Britain. The RepRap (short for Replicating Rapid Prototyper) concept’s main purpose is to make a machine that can replicate itself and evolve in the process. To date, three generations of reference designs have been released into the wild, each named after a famous biologist (Darwin, Mendel and Huxley). RepRaps are now reproducing around the world like rabbits.

The aim is to enable people—especially those in poorer parts of the planet—to make complex products for themselves without the need for industrial infrastructure and heavy capital investment. As an open-source project, anyone is free to use the design and improve it, so long as they make their additions freely available to others.

The personal-manufacturing movement—exemplified by Thingiverse for sharing user-created 3D files and Fab@Home to exchange ideas about hardware and software—resembles nothing so much as the era when the MITS Altair 8800 kit, with its eight-bit Intel processor and S-100 bus, prepared the ground for the PC revolution that was to follow.

Bre Pettis, one of the founders of MakerBot Industries, which runs Thingiverse on the side, believes personal manufacturing is currently going through much the same phase as personal computing did in the 1970s. In many ways, that makes MakerBot the MITS of today. It has sold over 5,000 of its Thing-O-Matic 3D printers, which retail for $2,500 fully assembled or $1,299 in kit-form. Meanwhile, a newcomer from the Netherlands called Ultimaker, which costs $1,700 as a kit, is winning fans for its raw speed and ability to handle larger jobs. Some wonder whether the Ultimaker could be personal manufacturings Apple II.

Over the past week, Brook Drumm, an internet entrepreneur and workshop tinkerer in Lincoln, California, raised more than $155,000 in “kickstarter" funding on the internet from people who pledged money in exchange for one of his clever little Printrbot machines. Mr Drumm offers everything needed to assemble his basic 3D-printer for $500. Could that be todays equivalent of the Sinclair ZX81, the worlds most popular PC in the early 1980s?

Two recent developments make your correspondent believe that personal manufacturing is about to go mainstream. One is the arrival of much cheaper printing goop. Thermoplastics like ABS and polylactic acid cost around $30 a pound. Metal powders can cost even more. Now a group at the University of Washington, in Seattle, has come up with a concoction based on artists’ ceramic powder blended with sugar and maltodextrin. The material costs less than $1 a pound.