Water Power R&D

Archive for the ‘turning saltwater in fire’ Category

I attended the Corporate WaterVision 2010 Conference in Washington DC June 8-9.The sponsors appeared to be newbies to the water conference circuit–so I didn’t know what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised.

I came away with two ideas in terms of best practices: One for desalination from Australia and the other for water reuse from Canada.

I’ll only spend a  couple sentences on desal  best practices from Australia because its too big a subject–and wasn’t part of the main theme of the conference–which was water reuse.   On Wednesday morning  Hu Fleming, Global Director of  Hatch Water gave a presentation on Australian desalination.    What I heard was  just amazing. I’d seen the first graph Hu presented in February at the Multi State Salinity Coalition Conference in Las Vegas. That graph contrasts vividly the 15 year conception-to-completion-cycle for Poisden’s Carlsbad desalination plant in southern California …. — to the 3 year conception-to-completion-cycle –  for all the many Aussie desal plants. (page 38)What I didn’t hear the last time was that in several instances the desal plants– during construction– were found to be coming in under time and under budget — so they doubled their capacity on the fly. How did they do that? (and still stay on time and on budget?) The first big one was 3D & 4D modeling (pg 42). The second big one was no fault, no blame, and no dispute commercial framework between the owners and service providers at all stages. (pg 46) There were others.

But that’s a long story. I asked Hu Fleming  if he would be willing to give the presentation again elsewhere.–& so would he mind if I posted  the  pdf (here) for his presentation and his email online. He was agreeable. The pdf is all publicly available info. His shop has had considerable dealings with Australia — so he’s intimately familiar with the story. If you have a conference and  are interested in having a presenter detail  Australia’s big desalination building projects — Hu’s email address is: hfleming@hatch.ca

imho the Australia story needs to be told and retold at every American desalination conference for years to come so that people will get the idea that it might be a good idea to adopt some Australia’s practices.

It took a little more thought to stitch together the second big theme of the conference. I was clued to an interesting Canadian story by an off handed comment  by  the last panelist of the last panel on Tuesday. The panel was entitled Sustainability Leaders II: Assessing Water Reuse and Other Innovative Water Solutions. The guy who made the comment was  Rishi Shukla, Ph.D.,  from the James R. Randall Research Center of Archer Daniels Midland Company.

He said Canada actually does a better job of converting water reuse ideas into profit making companies than the USA does. The way they do it is through a program called Ontario Centre for Environmental Technology Advancement ( OCETA).  According to their website

OCETA was incorporated in 1993 as one of three Canadian Environmental Technology Advancement Centres to strengthen and grow the environmental industry in Canada. OCETA is a private company that operates at arm’s length from government.

The core mandate of OCETA is to provide technical support and business services to entrepreneurs, start-up companies and small to medium-sized enterprises to support the commercialization of new environmental technologies, and to accelerate market adoption of clean technology and environmentally sustainable solutions.

OCETA  provides funding at a rate of 4 to 1 for start ups. That is, for every dollar the start-up invests OCETA provides four dollars.

The USA does have similar programs on the state levelEspecially prominent is Massachusetts.  To augment these programs a  May 2010  Brookings Institute Study recommended more programs by the federal government to provide access to to capital for entrepreneurial start ups. A Wednesday morning panel entitled; Steps Toward a National Reclaimed Water Standard addressed this. Panelist Jon Freedman, Global Government Relations Leader  for  GE mentioned that more federal funds for water reuse start ups would spur development.  As well, he mentioned that a number of GE suggested policy initiatives .

The USA does have small federal agencies that fund start ups for defense and intelligence. Pound for pound probably the best agency in the Federal Government in terms of payback to the economy is DARPA.  Their seed money has been meant to fund technology for DOD related industries — but, curiously, Darpa seed money has been  at the root of many great US companies since its inception in the 1950’s. In recent years DARPA has even funded carbon nanotube membrane research.

The WateReuse Research Foundation might serve a similar purpose as DARPA for the express purpose of channeling federal dollars to start ups that treat waste water –like municipal sewage as a resource–with an eye out to one day turning the waste output of municipalities into profit centers –rather than cost centers.

My favorite storm water idea is to pipe Mississippi flood water west rather than spend billions through FEMA and the Core of Engineer to dike the river.

But practical sewage water solutions are closer than most people currently understand.   Here is a waste lagoon in Utah that’s being converted into an algae biofuel production facility.  A prototype waste treatment plant in Hawaii –being deployed by American Water– promises operating cost savings of up to 70%. This article lists companies that extract various  resources including phosphorous and ammonia from waste treatment plants. In Sept 2009,

At the Water Innovations Alliance in Chicago, Mark Shannon, Director of the NSF STC WaterCAMPWS at the University of Illinois, sketched out a vision for a new type of water purification system that will convert sewage into re-usable water, methane and a sludge of minerals that can be sold to manufacturers or brick makers.

Shannon is currently in the midst of raising funds to build a prototype that would work with 20 liters at a time. The Solara in New York’s Battery Park neighborhood has a 580 water recovery units that work aerobically.

The minerals recovered include magnesium, boron, fly ash and lithium. Simbol Mining, a startup spun out of Lawrence Livermore, has a technique for extracting lithium from water. Right now, cities pay to have the stuff stored. El Paso, for instance, re-injects the salts and minerals from its desalination system back into the ground when it could conceivably sell them.

According to this May 21, 2001 article in Water Online– Biodiesel From Sewage Sludge [Is] Within Pennies A Gallon Of Being Competitive

With the challenges addressed, “Biodiesel production from sludge could be very profitable in the long run,” the report states. “Currently the estimated cost of production is $3.11 per gallon of biodiesel. To be competitive, this cost should be reduced to levels that are at or below [recent] petro diesel costs of $3.00 per gallon.”

Where would WateReuse Research Foundation find promising start ups and how would they vet them? The last speaker of the conference was Paul O’Callaghan, CEO, O2 Environmental Inc. He mentioned that his shop has a list of over 600 start ups in all stages of development. Interestingly their top choice for a company with game changer tech is Emefcy. According to their site:

Emefcy eliminates the energy consumption for wastewater treatment, by applying the principle of microbial fuel cells (MFC) for the direct production of electricity or hydrogen from wastewater.

So in total there are companies looking to turn municipal sewage into gas, oil, electricity and hydrogen.

The WaterReUse Research Foundation already provides money for basic research–so the institute is positioned to find promising technology moving into the start up phase.

Odds are there will be several municipal bankruptcies in the next couple years. Many if not most municipalities are financially challenged these days. As was pointed out by the Water Infrastructure Funding panel on Tuesday–the need for water infrastructure projects is great. There are currently initiatives in various phases of realization inside and outside congress to make municipal bonds more attractive. If municipal waste became a profit center– rather than a cost center–municipal bonds would be an easy sell.

All in all, it was a good conference. Remember for any conference you do– book Hu Fleming for a review of Australia desalination best practices. As well, consider that Canada’s OCETA & the DOD’s Darpa might serve as models for a federally funded water reuse start up initiative.

Back in February the MSSC held a conference in Las Vegas. It would be helpful to recall that five major points were made. The first was made by Marcus G. Faust to the effect that the Republicans would likely take back control of some or all of Congress this November. The second point was made by Patricia Mulroy. She said that desalination was not enough to provide water for the west. There would have to be other sources –like from the East–see my last post. The last two points were made by Wade Miller. He mentioned that desalination required much more research and a champion — like Pete Domeneci of New Mexico–once was.

What should we make of Marcus Faust’s point that republicans would storm back into Congress come the fall?  imho it would be prudent for research administrators to assume that when/if the republicans return this fall — that they will be cutting everyone’s budgets. The easiest targets will be R&D. So any money’s for R&D not committed this year are easy targets for budget cutting next year. Consider Patricia Mulroy’s point about pulling fresh water from — say– my words–the Mississippi at spring flood or east Texas rivers during hurricane floods.  When/if the republicans come back to congress the likelihood of the feds sponsoring big water capital projects any time soon diminishes significantly.

Which brings us to the last two points made by Wade Miller: the importance of a water champion and the importance of research. There is no champion for water desalination on the horizon currently but curiously the National Geographic has outlined three areas for desalination R&D: Forward Osmosis, Carbon Nanotubes, Biomimetics.  They are all the major areas I have discussed on this blog. National Geographic also gives the time frame for when these research areas become ready for prime time. This sort of popularization of the big desalination R&D issues makes it easier for federal desalination R&D admins to pitch joint funding research programs with universities, private foundations and companies–and vice versa. My vote for the most important piece of federal funding for desalination R&D would be for redirecting toward desalination membrane research –the Princeton University Math solution which Makes Computer Modeling 100,000 Times Faster.

A new formula allows computers to simulate how new materials behave up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible, and could drastically speed up innovation relating to electronic devices and energy-efficient cars. Princeton engineers came up with the model based on an 80-year-old quantum physics puzzle.

It could also drastically speed up innovation related to desalination research.  Remember we are in the Golden Age of Math

Computer modeling programs played a significant part of the original work 4-5 years ago done on carbon nanotubes at LLNL that created the carbon nanotube tech mentioned in the National Geographic article above. Similarly, an appropriate role for federal labs might be to develop the membrane modeling programs, provide programmers and computing time at federal labs. Their role might be  to create models for membranes requested by government, university and corporate membrane materials researchers–who will in turn–based on the models–create new membranes in  their labs. That’s the way they did it with the carbon  nanotubes at LLNL. That’s the way they can do it with other materials. Only this time the whole process can be accelerated significantly.

My point is not new or original. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, also makes the point that better, faster, smarter computer modeling is the way to accelerate innovation

There’s lots of places to go for funding –but why not dream big? Currently the deepest pockets are at the DOE. The article above mentions energy as being a significant beneficiary of their computer modeling innovation.  DOE funding pools will come under the scrutiny of the long knives come November.  Desalination membrane separation issues are closely related to hydrogen membrane separation issues. Why not pitch to DOE funding a greatly expanded computer modeling program –using the Princeton University’s Math solution  mentioned above. There might be 20 teams. 10 for energy 10 for water desalination–modeling for 20 different energy and desalination projects around the country. Really, the USA could reinvent the whole civilized world  in five years.

If for whatever reason the DOE can’t do it then you might get some combination of the DOD, WateReUse Research Foundation and Bureau Of Rec funding to pay for 1-5 computer modeling teams. Or if the DOE could do it but just not in DOE labs then federal funds might be appropriated to Universities to fund the modeling programs for university and corporate research. Finally, if the feds are just too somnolent — an ingenious soul close to the players could get rights to the math formula, plug it into an algorithm, hand it to a couple of big iron–or massively distributed– programmers and get the software written for two million or less of programming time. Then open up shop or lease copies of the software out. Think there might be a market for a material research modeling program that’s up to 500,000 faster than brand X? That is, a materials research modeling program that would instantly obsolete every materials research modeling program in the world? Maybe both the feds and private investors could get into the act. Actually, this has been done before. In 1990, NIH launched the human genome project which they predicted would take 30 years to complete. In 1996 Craig Ventor jumped in and said he could get the job done in two years. He did. How did he do it. He developed faster software.

The important thing is that someone needs to be sure that Princeton University Math solution is re purposed–and funded– for desalination  modeling research. Now. What kinds of desal projects would be helped by better/faster/smarter modeling?  Well lets go back to the National Geographic Article. You may only be able to see two out of three areas for research: Forward Osmosis and Carbon Nanotubes but not BioMimetics. So click on the National Geographic Article to open the graphic in a new browser: Modeling for both Carbon Nanotube and BioMemetics would yield better material to create an electrical charge at the front of the membranes, better fillers for the membranes, perhaps better carbon nanotubes and protein channels–as well as numerous small details which researchers would be familiar with. As they say, the secret is in the sauce. For forward osmosis, computer modeling might create a better salt in the draw solution. That is, a salt that “draws” more water and evaporates at a lower temperature. Now understand, that carbon nanotubes and protein channels are just two of many kinds of semipermeable membranes. Researchers will want to bring others to the table. For example, I’ve mentioned from time to time that membranes of the future will need to be tunable–so as to resist different kinds of biofouling. That’s just what UCLA researchers have developed

.

Researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have unveiled a new class of reverse-osmosis membranes for desalination that resist the clogging which typically occurs when seawater, brackish water and waste water are purified. The highly permeable, surface-structured membrane can easily be incorporated into today’s commercial production system, the researchers say, and could help to significantly reduce desalination operating costs. Their findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Materials Chemistry.

The new development here is the “tethered brush layer” which is “brushed” on the membrane. This layer is in constant molecular motion. The constant motion of this layer “makes it difficult for bacteria and other colloidal matter to anchor to the surface of the membrane”.

“If you’ve ever snorkeled, you’ll know that sea kelp move back and forth with the current or water flow,” Cohen said. “So imagine that you have this varied structure with continuous movement. Protein or bacteria need to be able to anchor to multiple spots on the membrane to attach themselves to the surface — a task which is extremely difficult to attain due to the constant motion of the brush layer. The polymer chains protect and screen the membrane surface underneath.” Another factor in preventing adhesion is the surface charge of the membrane. Cohen’s team is able to choose the chemistry of the brush layer to impart the desired surface charge, enabling the membrane to repel molecules of an opposite charge.

This is a first generation success. Princeton’s computer modeling might well speed the researchers work at UCLA–so that the “tethered brush layer” of membranes would be tunable to any kinds of bacteria byo topography and chemistry and charge.

The team’s next step is to expand the membrane synthesis into a much larger, continuous process and to optimize the new membrane’s performance for different water sources.

Perhaps advanced modeling would be an appropriate way for the feds to help the the folk at UCLA. That said, it would be appropriate to check in with various research universities like UCLA before proceeding. It looks to me like their attitude is a winner.

“We work directly with industry and water agencies on everything that we’re doing here in water technology,” Cohen said. “The reason for this is simple: If we are to accelerate the transfer of knowledge technology from the university to the real world, where those solutions are needed, we have to make sure we address the real issues. This also provides our students with a tremendous opportunity to work with industry, government and local agencies.”

Finally one last question should be asked and answered.

What does accelerated membrane development have to do with, say, pumping rivers of water out of the Mississippi during spring flood. Likely nothing. But it may well be that 5-10 years from now public policy experts will start saying that the big rivers are hopelessly polluted with farm and human medicines and household cleaners. That will come because the deformities in fish and amphibians that one sees reported from time to time to time –will have moved up the food chain. We don’t currently have the tools to remedy this problem. Work in desalination separations will also provide answers to these other molecular separations–that in turn will make it possible to tap the big river at flood. Right now this is a fanciful solution to a fanciful problem but probably less so on both counts than current worries over carbon dioxide. When you have a material research modeling program that’s up to 100,000 times faster than current generation material research modeling program–you’re positioned to get solutions to even the most fanciful problems in real time.

Before I get started let me show you some serious eye candy I found this past month. The noise to signal ratio for the last couple of years on global warming is running about 100/1. Here’s a very good explanation of why. Take a look at this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) graphic of mean temperatures in the USA. Notice the sudden drop off at the end?

Here’s also a NASA graph of the sunspot cycle along with NASA’s prediction for when the sunspot cycle will turn up again.. It shows we’re at a solar minimum. Here’s something more interesting. Here’s a graphic that shows how NASA’s prediction of the next upturn in the solar cycle has changed since 2004. It keeps being pushed further out into the future. That might help to explain the increasing cacophony in the global warming debate.

It may well turn out to be that carbon dioxide will turn out to be a case of correlation without causation in the global warming debate. Here is the Best Discussion of Global Warming that I’ve ever seen.

I heard that some folks were pretty discouraged after MSSC conference in January. For that reason its kind of encouraging to see a bill introduced to congress that would accelerate the pace of desalination research along the terms discussed by the water energy conference in Janaury.
US bill seeks major desalination research expansion

US Senate hearings began on 10 March 2009 into a bill on the relationship between energy and water which could have wide implications for desalination research, both in the US and internationally.

I like the US part. I’m not sure what to make of the international part.  Right now major US desalination players like GE and IBM have already teamed up with overseas players. IBM has teamed up with Saudi Arabia and a Japanese company called Central Glassto do research. GE has teamed up with Singapore to set up a research facility there. I don’t think that GE or IBM could long play the international game as they have done — without maintaining some control over their IP. But I could be wrong. Right or wong the US is going to need to hold onto IP in order to get competitive advantage to change capital flows so we can pay our bills. The proper question framed appropriately for federal state & local officials up and down the chain of command is this: How do we grow our tax base. This is the way smart state governors think.

The hearings relate to a new bill introduced by the leaders of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Bingaman and Lisa Murkowski, titled Energy & Water Integration 2009. This seeks to order the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, to arrange with the National Academy of Sciences for an in-depth analysis of the impact of energy development and production on the water resources of the United States.

Sounds good. No? The National Committee of Sciences will have a chance to make up for the disinterested report they put out last year.

However, more importantly for desalination, the bill seeks to authorize funds to enable the Secretary of the Interior to operate and manage the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Otero County, New Mexico, as a state-of-the-art desalination research center. The center would develop new water and energy technologies with widespread applicability; and create new supplies of usable water for municipal, agricultural, industrial or environmental purposes.

Somebody got it right. Thank You. Now maybe in two years the US will have a dedicated desal and reuse laboratory on par with Saudi Arabia and Singapore. What’s most amazing about the bill is that the report they want produced is susposed to come out in 90 days:

If the bill is passed the Secretary of Energy would have 90 days to develop an ”Energy-Water Research and Development Roadmap to define the future research, development, demonstration and commercialization efforts that are required to address emerging water-related challenges to future, cost-effective, reliable and sustainable energy generation and production”.

I think this would be a good way to get all interested parties (including but not limited to the GOA, DOI, DOE, EPA)to release funds for various desalination and water reuse projects. The article continues:

As a priority, says the bill, renewable energy technologies should be developed for integration with desalination technologies:
# to reduce the capital and operational costs of desalination;
# to minimize the environmental impacts of desalination; and
# to increase public acceptance of desalination as a viable water supply process.

In addition, the bill wants:
# research regarding various desalination processes, including improvements in reverse and forward osmosis technologies;
# development of innovative methods and technologies to reduce the volume and cost of desalination concentrated wastes in an environmentally sound manner;
# an outreach program to create partnerships with US states, academic institutions, private entities and other appropriate organizations to conduct research, development and demonstration activities;
# an outreach program to educate the public on desalination and renewable energy technologies and the benefits of using water in an efficient manner.

I would add to this list that research be done on energy efficient cheaper to produce and maintain pipelines. The tool set for 3d prototyping is evolving faster than the materials & designs that can be used with it. As well, I would mention the OSTP report entitled “A Strategy for Federal Science and Technology to Support Water Availability and Quality in the United States September, 2007.” on the national challenges to ensure adequate fresh water supplies. The study then outlines a federal strategic plan for addressing these challenges and provides a guide for how federal agencies will be a part of this plan. I give more detail on that from a Jan 2008 MSSC blog.
I think that as part of that a helpful thing to do would be to include efficient reverse and forward osmosis membranes onto the list of strategic material research goals in the already architected NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. Heck I’d throw in easy to build and maintain energy efficient pipelines too. And don’t forget line item funding so these projects land inbox.
Anyhow, everyone would do well to do their part make this study go through.

I mentioned in a previous desalination post a bunch of ways that renewable energy projects could be integrated with desalination projects. As well, the Oasys forward osmosis project –that I mentioned in the last post — gives a body pause:

Oasys estimates that engineered osmosis will cost US$ 0.37-0.44/m³ once fully scaled up. The startup has so far established a pilot-scale plant to test the technology by producing 1 m³/d.

That’s $431@acre foot to $542.8@acre foot. When you consider that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is charging $800@acre ft… Oasys numbers take on a whole new meaning. In fact, those meanings cut six ways to Sunday. Oasys mentions California in their press release

The company’s patented EOTM process can produce drinking water at less than half the cost of current desalination methods. This is accomplished by eliminating the need for high-pressures used in modern Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems, thereby reducing the electricity and fuel demands by more than 90%. The result is a reduction in the economics of seawater desalination that will ultimately bring the cost of producing water from our vast oceans below the cost of conventional surface water, such as the aqueduct system used in the California State Water Project

To get those low numbers Oasys forward osmosis system has to use waste heat from sources like coal plants plants near the coast.

Now combine Oasys work with this: (Click) Here’s break through in production costs for algae oil.

A coal plant — that can also produce fresh water and carbon neutral oil…– is golden.

There will be a congressional hearing on algae oil soon — that, I think, will result in algae supplanting sequestration as the carbon capture method of choice.

But Oasys could also work well with a thermal solar power plant like the one in Nevada. So where ever you had plenty of sun above a brackish aquifer — and say –400 acres of relatively cheap land–as is available in New Mexico or West Texas — you could put up a solar thermal plant with a Oasys forward osmosis desalination plant because the internal processes are nearly identical–in fact the flash vaporization used by the thermal solar power plant to drive its electrical generators might also take the salt out of solution in the Oasys forward osmosis solution. Actually, Oasys has already talked about something just like this idea.

Here’s a couple more ideas. It may well be that some of the concentrated salts left over from desalination can be used in this hot salt battery or peak production of solar power/wind/coal could be stored as methane with a bacteria that produces it directly from water and carbon dioxide. Here’s the first paper I’ve seen which discusses how the properties of Na+ and Cl- ion in saltwater could be used to create hydrogen.

There are some cost savings there that might justify the costs of tapping deep brackish aquifers in New Mexico that are currently experiencing a big gold rush.

Finally before I take the long view, I believe that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite energy and desalting ideas. My favorite energy idea: Its my favorite because I thought of it myself. Ha! Here goes. Here is a high school teacher dropping a lump of pure sodium into a bucket of water. Notice the nice big bang? Here’s a bit calmer explanation. How much energy would it take to convert sodium in solution Na+ to pure sodium Na. Then could you harness profitably the exothermic reaction that results from adding pure sodium to water? Beats me. But sheesh it would be way cool to convert salt water economically into power as well as energy. I mention a wild strategy for converting Na+ to Na here. I’m sure there are many more.

Ok now for my favorite desalting research idea. I first mentioned it here. As I’ve said many times, the chief end of seawater desalination R&D should be a a pipe with a semipermiable membrane on the end. The membrane should be so efficient that the water pressure at 100-300 feet of ocean water is sufficient to drive fresh water through the membrane–while the coastal current carries off the concentrate. Ideally you would have slant drilled from the coast. “Slant well” — means you drill down 200-400 feet or so and then drill sidways and up out into the ocean- +-1000 feet–depending on how steep the drop off –so the up sloping drill hole meets the down sloping ocean bed — at the point where the drill emerges from the ocean bed at 100-300 feet of water. A ship floats over the drill and drops in a passive desalter that looks like an underwater mushroom. The mushroom desalter synches with the drill head just like it would if it were an oil well. Fresh water flows through the membraned mushroom downhill to shore. The oil drilling industry already has the ships, the underwater installation and drilling technology. City of Carpinteria near Santa Barbara in California is negotiating with Venoco over their proposed Paredon Project. Venoco wants to drill down a mile or so and then drill sideways a couple more miles out into the Santa Barbara Channel for oil. A helpful provision for their contract would be a slant well for water purposes. The membranes and mushroom to make this work are not available now. But they will be in two or three years. The job for now would be to drill the well and cap it, spend two years designing the mushroom and the membranes for installation in 2011-12. Funding for the experiment could come from several different players including Venoco, the DOI, EPA & DOE. The design for the underwater mushroom would go the the firms that supply underwater oil equipment for Venoco working in conjunction with some American membrane plant designer.

Ok now for the view from eight miles high.

As I mentioned at the MSSC conference in January — everyone knows about great works of the water guys in the early 20th century. Everyone has seen the discovery channel pictures of salt water on Mars–so its not too tough to figure what will be the work of water men in the 22nd century–(or earlier if the rate of change keeps accelerating.) What’s hard to figure is the big plan for the 21st century–on the scale that dam building was for the 20th century–or desalination on Mars. The reason for this is that on the one hand we have legacy ideology from the 1960’s that holds that there are too many people, growth is bad, but it won’t matter anyway because the oceans are rising and they will drown the coastal cities. On the other hand, because of fast tracking technolgical change–perhaps more powerful than that in the early 20th century –there is a rebirth of early 20th century thinking that holds there is plenty of room for more people, growth is good and the way you enable more room for more people is to bring water and power to waterless and powerless places. Take southern california. Whether you believe rising sea levels will drown the coastal cities or whether you believe that future growth is inland over the coastal mountains to the deserts–the answer to providing water and power for the future is the same–because people will either be pushed inland by rising sea levels or pulled inland by new water and power resources. That is, prudent water managers have to either plan for disaster by providing water and energy for the day the population has to move inland to escape rising sea levels OR prudent managers will have to believe there is a better brighter future ahead and plan for it as Hoover did. Actually Herbert Hoover’s thinking involved both propositions above. He wanted to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. The genesis for the colorado river project and the hoover dam was the terrible flooding of the Colorado that just wiped whole communities in the early 20th century. When Hoover wrote the initial enabling legislation in 1922 for the Hoover dam, a lot of the technology to build the dam and create the hydropower had not been invented. We are in the midst of just such a period of extraordinary scientific and technological development. A good thing too though the problem this time is not floods but drought.

Regular readers of this blog know that while I advocate all kinds of desalination techniques–I believe the big water solution for the 21 century comes from the ocean. Therefor the goal of water desalination R&D should be to collapse the cost of desalination and transport so that water delivered from the gulf of Mexico to New Mexico or water delivered from the pacific to arizona or utah –even desalted water delivered over the cascades to eastern Oregon and Washington–is cheap enough for agricultural uses that is < than 100@acre foot. Instead of 100 million dollar desalination plants there should be just a 4 million dollar pipe you stick in the ocean. Water flows downhill to shore by way of slant well drilling. Cheap to manufacture and maintain pipelines with minimum energy pipe the water inland. What energy is needed is drawn from the sun/wind/heat or the water itself. The goal is to turn the deserts green, and increase the potential habitable size of the USA by 1/3. The USA having then created the technology could export it to the rest of the world profitably and double the size of habitable planet. Anyone who follows — not just the research–but the development of new research tools — knows that this is what’s implied by the work in the labs.

In January, 2008 I mentioned that all the candidates both Republican and Democratic mentioned the need for energy independence. The republicans, especially, made the comparison between the the call for energy independence today and the race to moon in the 1960’s and the Manhattan project in the 1940’s.

According to this article dated 3/8/09 the Obama administration takes a similiar tack.

Now energy experts and officials in the Obama administration see a similar “Sputnik moment,” urgent and global in scope, over energy use and climate change. And they want to try some new ventures, similar to efforts in the Cold War, to stimulate technological advances in energy and shift the economy away from oil and coal.

Deep in the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law two weeks ago is $400 million to launch ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Authority for Energy. It’s modeled after the Pentagon’s DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which took on Soviet technology and gave us online shopping in the process.

Needless to say, typically, it takes water to make energy and you need energy to make clean water.

A little housekeeping before I get started…anyone interested in the Kanzius effect should thumb down to comment #74–and after looking at the comment– just for the hey of it — ask a buddy in the labs with an RF machine to fire some radio waves at salt water at RF 26.451. (If the experiment is a success — his lab will blow up…just kidding…but some caution is required.)

Another item. I’ve shifted to a new url. If you have found this blog to useful/helpful/interesting I would appreciate it if you would ask your webmaster to provide a link to this website.

Ok, on to biz.

On January 8 President-elect Barack Obama called for doubling the nation’s renewable energy production over the next three years.

According to the latest “Monthly Energy Review” issued by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for more than 10 percent of the domestically-produced energy used in the United States in the first half of 2008.

So Obama is talking about doubling renewables as a percentage of the national energy output from 10% to 20%.

The growth of renewables as a percentage of national energy production has been 1.5 annually averaged over the last two years. (In 2006 renewables accounted for 7% of the US energy output.) So Obama’s proposal is to double the rate of growth of renewables. This doesn’t seem to be too big a challenge considering the amount of money they will be throwing at the problem and the immense momentum for change already built up.

Still a leap in renewables as a % of the US energy picture from 10% to 20% is an enormous jump.

From where will the growth come?

Currently, biofuels and hydo are the largest component of renewables — with each taking roughly an equal share. Its not likely hydo will get much growth from here. Solar and wind are experiencing 40% growth annually but they’re coming off such a small base that even if their growth rates soar to 100-200% annually– they’ll still only account for 2-3% of the total US energy output portfolio in three years.

That leaves biofuels.

I don’t think the incoming administration will push for more ethanol from corn or soybeans.

That means they’ll be converting corn stalks wood chips, lawn clippings agricultural waste city sewage, garbage darn near anything carbon based– to biofuel.

The Pentagon has already signed some major contracts here. Biomas production plants are springing up on military bases all over the country.

imho cellulose biofuels is where most of the growth in renewables will come in the next two years.

However,–at current rates– by year three –or maybe four — imho something else will happen.

The trouble with cellulose is that the new administration is going to sign the Kyoto accords. Much of biomass production does not actually advance the goal of carbon footprint reduction. So even this will not be quite the answer that the new administration is looking for.

What does that leave?

Well in biomass there is one solution that will enable the US to reduce its carbon footprint in line with Kyoto restrictions –while producing energy. That is, algae production sited next to installed coal plants. I’ve mentioned that here and here.

Rather than pipe carbon dioxide into underground formations–the idea would be to pipe carbon dioxide into greenhouses or green ponds. About +-300 acres of algae will support one coal plant’s carbon dioxide output.

The smart money at DARPA has been investing in algae production since 2006 In Dec 2008 they signed more contracts with SAIC and General Atomics to collapse the cost of algae oil.

During the first 18 months of the project, teams from General Atomics and SAIC will try to get costs of algae-based oil down to $2 a gallon. In the following 18 months, they will push to drop it to $1 a gallon and build a 30-to 50-acre demonstration facility.

One team, headed by General Atomics, says they’ve already cut the cost of algae-based oil from $30 a gallon to about $6 or $7 a gallon (in three years from 2006-2008). But the price needs to get closer to a dollar to make it competitive, said David Hazlebeck, the chemical engineer and biofuels program manager who is heading General Atomics’ efforts.

The general impression I’ve been getting from reading various representatives of the industry is that algae to oil costs respond very well to economies of scale. For example, an El Paso algae to oil company called Valcent is currently running algae to oil trials. What would the costs be to scale up the trial?

A Vertigro plant of the size needed to supply a large biofuel refinery would require about 200 to 300 acres and “probably cost about
$800,000 per acre” to build and operate. That means a full-scale plant would cost about $160 million to $240 million.
The Vertigro system is expected to be able to produce algae oil for about $1.70 a gallon versus about $2.63 a gallon for soybean oil. Those numbers are without government subsidies or tax credits.

There are about 100 small algae to oil companies and the number is growing. None of them are well funded–except for Microsoft funded Sapphire Energy

imho a federal investment of 5 billion into the algae to oil business to fund acres of algae to oil greenhouses/ponds would push down algae to oil costs quickly and create jobs quickly. Likely the best way to do the funding would be to spread it across many small companies.

Is there method to this uh–you name it? Yeah. OPEC is draining oil production currently from the system so that in xxxx months when the world economy turns–oil prices will instantly shoot up. This will suck out America’s growing capital base/tax base–and throttle any nascent expansion. The proper response for the US is to grow our oil production capacity fast so that when demand picks up — supply will be there to meet it–without prices jumping sky high. If we can’t drill here drill now–then we have to grow here grow now.There won’t be any great push to get more ethanol from corn, soybeans or any other food source on crop land. So for growing energy–algae is the answer.

Maybe a five billion dollar investment in algae to oil is too little.

What does this have to do with water and water desalination in particular? According to the article:

Of course, algae grow in water. But scientists say that’s not necessarily a problem since the organisms can be grown in brackish – or salty – water and would not compete for dwindling supplies of fresh water.

Some companies like Algenolbiofuels use seawater.

Last year PetroSun claimed they had completed the first commercial scale algae to oil production center in Rio Hondo Texas in a series of saltwater ponds spanning 1,100 acres.

Green Star Products, Inc. uses brackish water.

Green Star Products, Inc. today announced that EcoAlgae USA, LLC, has received a signed resolution from Saline County Missouri commissioners to construct a commercial Algae Production Facility in conjunction with an Integrated Biorefinery Complex.

Valcent Grows Algae Oil in El Paso with fresh water–and not much fresh water. Their CEO Glen Kertz has figured out a solution to two problems with his closed-loop algae-growing system, preventing water evaporation and stopping infiltration of foreign species of algae. Mark Townsend Cox, CEO of the New Energy Fund, an $11 million New York-based fund which invests in companies developing renewable energy products, and Global Green consultant, said Global Green and Valcent appear to have one of the better algae-growing systems among 15 to 20 companies working on projects to use algae for biofuel production. “They have a really smart design that I believe is scalable and (has) the ability to do it pretty rapidly,” Cox said. Kathyrn Dodson, director of the city Economic Development Department, who toured the Vertigro research facility Wednesday, said at least three other companies are working on biofuel projects in the El Paso area.

Here is the CEO of Vertigrow on video discussing algae production system.

The reason I find the El Paso algae story to be interesting is that El Paso is the site of the recently opened — and world’s largest — inland water desalination plant. Are the two related? I think so. In any case the presence of both brackish and fresh water gives algae companies more choices as to algae species to choose from.

For further study see:

Scientific American: Energy versus Water: Solving Both Crises Together

A Guide to Water Investing: Desalination

One Word: Plastics Algae

Oil from algae? Scientists seek green gold
Valcent Products Inc.

Altela uses low grade waste heat for desalination

Stonybrook purification uses a better membrane.

Algae: ‘The ultimate in renewable energy’

Greenfuel has done the initial testing of algae production with CO2

‘The 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy’: 2008-09 Rankings Published by Biofuels Digest

In my last post, I mentioned a number of popular ideas to advance alternative energy development. But I didn’t attribute them because nothing had been written of incoming administration officials as yet. A couple of days later several major newspapers mentioned ideas of incoming administration officials which included ideas I talked about. So I inserted these in my last post. If you went to my last post early check back. (Just skim down and check  the writing in block quotes.) This week’s post includes a piece from the Wall St Journal which mentions another popular idea I mentioned in my last post.

How about renewable energy? Dr. Chu already had a taste of Washington power-brokering, in a briefing with current Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. He pitched them on the idea of an interstate electricity transmission system to be paid for by ratepayers. That would solve one of the biggest hurdles to wide-spread adoption of clean energy like wind and solar power.

This is interesting because Dr. Chu is the president elect’s choice to lead the DOE.

The president elect’s choice for the Dept of Energy is Dr. Chu. Dr. Chu’s marquee work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the Helios Project. That’s an effort to tackle what Dr. Chu sees as the biggest energy challenge facing the U.S. transportation. That’s because it’s a huge drain on U.S. coffers and an environmental albatross, Dr. Chu says. Helios has focused largely on biofuels—but not the bog-standard kind made from corn and sugar. The Energy Biosciences Institute, a joint effort funded by BP, is looking to make second-generation biofuels more viable. Among the approaches? Researching new ways to break down stubborn cellulosic feedstocks to improve the economics of next-generation biofuels, and finding new kinds of yeast to boost fermentation and make biofuels more plentiful while reducing their environmental impact.

Include algae to fuel in that mix. David Chu does not like coal.

Big Coal won’t be very happy if Dr. Chu gets confirmed as head of the DOE—he’s really, really not a big fan. “Coal is my worst nightmare,” he said repeatedly in a speech earlier this year outlining his lab’s alternative-energy approaches.

Ken Salazar is the president’s pick  to head up the Dept of the Interior. How will he affect water policy? Likely he will be very innovative.

He was raised on a ranch in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, and became an attorney with an expertise in water law. “In rural areas,” Salazar said in an interview this summer, “they understand water as their lifeblood.”

How will Salazar be on energy? He’ll be tough on oil  interests.

Earlier this year, Salazar criticized the department for decisions to open Colorado’s picturesque Roan Plateau for drilling. Salazar said the regulations to begin opening land for oil shale development would “sell Colorado short.”

He’s a fan of alternative energy.

The senator campaigned vigorously for Obama in Colorado, a swing state, barnstorming rural areas in a recreational vehicle while preaching alternative-energy development and its potential to revitalize rural economies. After the election, Salazar publicly urged Obama to build his planned economic stimulus package around investments in energy infrastructure.

It might be a good idea to invite Ken Salazar to the national salinity summit. So that he can see some slides that show the best places for solar and wind overlapped with the deepest briny aquifers. He’ll already know Senator Pete Domenici’s saying that you need water to make power and vice versa. He’ll also know that the hoover dam produces both power and water; that too, the hoover dam is the foundation for the economies of the southwest–and its profitable. He may see that the best way to get brackish water desalination plants is to site and budget them with solar and windmill power plants. Then it would be his job to sell the idea to DOE elect Dr. Chu.

“It’s time for a new kind of leadership in Washington that’s committed to using our lands in a responsible way to benefit all our families,” Obama said

Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to invite a bunch of solar wind and desal executives to the National Salinity Conference.

imho Senator Salazar will be interested in accelerated funding for all forms of desalination R&D from Proifera plus a dozen other cutting edge membrane companies to left handed ideas like low temperature cooking water out of gypsum. As well, I would think for experimental reasons both men would be interested in siting at least one solar/desal plant near a coal plant so as to pump the coal plant’s waste CO2 into algae geenhouses. I’ve mentioned this in posts here & here. Texas might be the best place for this because  they have CO2 emitting industrial plants there,sunlight and briny aquifers. There are others.

I think that both Senator Salazar and Dr Chu should be urged to fund research into cheap smart energy efficient water pipelines mentioned here, here and here. I mentioned an initial slant well experiment in the Santa Barbara channel with a Profiera membrane here. Further they should be appraised that the ultimate goal in +-7 years of nanotube and pipeline research are  pipes with one end in the salty pacific through which only fresh water flows inland to points all over the desert southwest. Toward this end, I could easily see several lines of solar power plants in the empty deserts there that point to Arizona. These might double as pumping stations in the future for water pipelines that push water eastward.

Finally it might be helpful to do a little more detailed ranking for best places to site desal/solarwind plants. Ranking might include:

1.)distance from electric AND water grids

2.) ease of getting federal state & local permissions.

3.) time to project ground breaking.

If the DOI was onboard, likely the quickest places to break ground would be BLM lands.
Herbert Hoover as Commerce Secretary signed the initial enabling legislation for the Hoover Dam on November 24, 1922. Ground was not broken on the Hoover Dam until 10 years later in 1932.

That’s a very leisurely pace to ground breaking. Things won’t be nearly so leisurely this time.

Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who will head Obama’s National Economic Council, has said a fiscal stimulus will have to be “speedy, substantial and sustained.” Congressional leaders have indicated that spending could even be as large as the $700 billion bailout, but details of how and where the money will be distributed are unknown.

So be forewarned. In the next year or two — guys  will come into your office blue in the face with tension. Help them along their way. Why? Because the very best investment  the government can make is in water and energy. Why? Because water and energy provide the basis for growth in the economy and the government’s future tax base.

said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google Inc. and an Obama economic adviser, in an interview. “You would want to invest in something that would not just physically build a bridge, but would help build businesses that would create more wealth.”

That would be water and energy. Why is this important politically? The reason is–this is not a settled issue. The talk is now for +-50 billion to allocate for green projects. But it could be more or less depending on the projects presented –and the vision thing.

Even so, the Obama team remains split over how much money to devote to green and high-tech projects, and how much to focus on traditional infrastructure.

In purely economic terms, a traditional infrastructure building spree might provide the biggest bang, Mr. Zandi said. But, he added, “there’s something to be said for an infrastructure program that captures the imagination, because confidence is just shot.”

The way to settle this in favor of green energy and water desalination projects is to present projects that can be implemented quickly. Oh and one more thing. The size of the investment will depend on the size of the vision.

A National Salinity Summit that can conclude with best sites for solar/wind/desal plants can give solar/wind/desal players legs. Even this is a step behind. Nor is it the big vision I’ve talked about for a couple years.

As it is the big cities already have their make work projects lined up.

I registered recently for the National Salinity Summit in Las Vegas in January. Its pretty convenient for me this time as I have an internet marketing conference to attend that week. All I have to do is hop from one hotel to another because the conferences come one right after the other.

I noticed that a theme of the desalination conference is water and energy projects combined. Before I get started on this post I think it should be mentioned that now is a very good time for financing public or private energy/water projects. On the private side– over a trillion dollars have come out of the stock market. People are really fried by their losses. Dull returns obtained by financing water projects can look pretty good to these folk now. All ya gotta do is create the investment vehicles, draw up the blueprints, get all the state federal and local permissions and show that the state or someone will buy the water. So investors can say this is a great way to preserve capital plus make a few points — plus do something green.

It also looks very much like the federal government is gearing up to spend several hundred billion dollars on public works and/or energy projects. Funding will not come slowly: According to the NY Times

Mr. Obama promised to set new rules to govern spending, such as a “use it or lose it” requirement that states act quickly

Democrats hope the new Congress that takes office in early January could pass such a measure in time for Mr. Obama to sign almost instantly after taking office Jan. 20.

These public works projects include solar and wind farms. According to the “>Washington Post.

President-elect Barack Obama is developing a plan to create or preserve 2.5 million jobs over the next two years by spending billions of dollars to rebuild roads and bridges, modernize public schools, and construct wind farms and other alternative sources of energy.

Obama said his plan would launch “a two-year nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels,” as well as producing fuel-efficient cars.

President-elect Obama’s alternative energy plan, called New Energy for America, could have a significant impact on the U.S. solar industry. The plan’s provisions include:

* A federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that requires 10 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. to come from renewable sources by 2012.
* A $150 billion investment over 10 years in research, technology demonstration, and commercial deployment of clean energy technology.
* Extension of production tax credits for five years to encourage renewable energy production.
* A cap-and-trade system of carbon credits to provide an incentive for businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A well designed package — that is not experimental–will attract public money. Someone, or some group with a really creative financing ability imho could just leverage public & private financing off each other across a variety of power projects. A model could be built that could be replicated. Really, this is one seriously opportune moment for this kind of thing. Is there an ambitious consulting agency in the house? Really. How do you do this? I don’t know. Invite some people from wall st to the conference. Fund a couple of different sharp consultants and or agencies. Pair them up with various federal and state officials. Really, this is one seriously opportune moment for this kind of thing. The kicker is to scale it. That is you know. Once you get a model you replicate it.

For example last year we were shown a very interesting slide –which I can’t find now. The slide shows the best places for solar and wind power projects. You can generally figure that the best places for solar are in the southwest and the best places for wind are in the midwest. Well, a great presentation would be to map over best places for energy and wind power plants onto deepest/widest brackish aquifers. Choose the 10-20 best places for both power and water generation. In terms of cost rank them by proximity to the grid and/or end users.

These places are usually far from the power grid. So you might get the federal government to pay for the utility lines to the grid–maybe even water pipelines–but not maintenance. (Certainly that would be cheaper than piping water down from Alaska or Canada.) Heck the government might be interested in funding the solar or wind farms outright. Certainly there are certain tax advantages that coal plants enjoy because the cost of their coal can be deducted whereas the wind and the sun cannot be deducted from taxes. Set these tax advantages aside. That is, don’t raise taxes on the coal plants but rather give solar power plants comparable tax advantages. Some of this is already in the works. According to the WSJ.

Green-technology advocates, for their part, want to include such elements as a multiyear extension of a tax credit for investment in wind power, plus another credit for solar-power makers. All told, they estimate the green component could be $50 billion, or 10% of the overall package.

Get the federal state & local governments to provide the permissions and right of ways. (And uh, someone will need to have a little heart to heart with the BLM.) A cheap energy source cuts into energy costs for desalination plants. Brackish water desalinizes relatively cheaply. Guarantee a buyer. Shouldn’t be too hard in the southwest. Might even be easy for the upper midwest. With that in place bring in the private investors fo fund the water desal plants (and whatever portion of the power plants the feds won’t do. (Maybe this could be funded/profited all publicly or all privately. I’m just throwing out one model.) Some of this is already in planning.

Some of the stimulus plan’s targets may be so complicated that the Obama team will need subsequent legislation to make it work, Mr. Schmidt said. The economic plan might set aside money for renewable-energy projects, and in subsequent legislation, mandate that utilities use electricity generated by sources such as wind and solar projects.

Now I’m ready to talk about the ocean. The deep ocean.

In my last post, I mentioned that membranes may be so efficient that maybe  five years from now you could drill a slant well out a couple hundred feet into the Santa Barbara Channel, attach an efficient membrane on the end and let fresh water flow downhill toward shore. Current membrane technology would require that you place the membranes at about 1700 feet–but in the future perhaps you would need only go down 100-200 feet.

Nice idea.

Interestingly, today there is a big business for deep desalinated water that comes from off the shore of the Big Island in Hawaii. Its expensive bottled water. The Japanese love the stuff.

The drop off from the big island is so steep that they don’t have to go far from shore to reach 1700 feet. However, the salt water is not desalinated at 1700 feet.

The state pumps the water using two pipes that go down 2,000 feet and then transports it to the companies, which do the desalination, filtering, bottling and packaging. The state will soon complete construction of a new 55-inch pipe that goes 3,000 feet deep.

That was written in 2004. There are now two pipelines that run up from the deep off the Big Island.

We’re talking bottled water here. The Japanese think the desalinated deep sea water is something special. That may well be the case. Why? A lot of sea creatures thrive on the mineral content provided by the deep water.There is a commercial experimental station on the Big Island with one very big idea. Deep water can be used for many commercial purposes. A great field trip for American water officials would be a visit to that Big Island Experimental facility. Why? Because discussions with businesses there will help water officials to think of brackish or seawater water salts and minerals not as waste but as a resource.

It looks like they’ll be adding energy production to that process.

Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle Tuesday announced a new energy partnership to develop a 10 megawatt ocean thermal energy conversion pilot plant in Hawaii. Electricity will be generated from the difference in temperature between the ocean’s warm surface and its colder depths.

Now before I go to the article, notice how they will be combining water and power production together. But notice something further. Power and water production are the basis for a food chain. An ecosystem. That’s what the business experimental station on the Big Island shows. That’s what the Hoover Dam provides. It provides the basis of an ecosystem food chain. The Cadillac Desert. How? By providing both power and water. Same would go for solar/wind desal projects. They would become the basis for new ecosystem food chains.

Remember this language that I’m using. Ecosystem. Food chain. This language is the language that people in the incoming administration use when describing their online systems. Consider this discussion of Google strategy.

I am very impressed lately by Google’s commitment to open source. Specifically, I love their strategy of what I call the ‘Catch and Release’ strategy for developing their ecosystem of developers and partners.

They are certainly doing a lot of land grabbing, but they are releasing their innovations and improvements as open source. This strategy for ecosystem development is much different than Microsoft’s old model (closed ecosystem embrace and extend). Google is earning credibility in a new way by enabling key technology and then by releasing code for open for open collaboration and development - Catch and Release.

Now listen to Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google Inc–an Obama economic adviser, discuss the incoming administrations spending strategy,

“America’s unique excellence is innovation, and it’s easy to understand businesses that innovate are the ones that have the longest and largest kinds of impact,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google Inc. and an Obama economic adviser, in an interview. “You would want to invest in something that would not just physically build a bridge, but would help build businesses that would create more wealth.”

Here Mr Schmidt is talking the language of real estate developers. You buy a piece of property on the outskirts of the city in the path of development, upgrade the land by putting in water and power (Sewage too, depending on how much time and money you have. And then rezone the land.)

While its clear that water and energy go together. They are basis of any food chain. Why is this important politically?

Even so, the Obama team remains split over how much money to devote to green and high-tech projects, and how much to focus on traditional infrastructure.

In purely economic terms, a traditional infrastructure building spree might provide the biggest bang, Mr. Zandi said. But, he added, “there’s something to be said for an infrastructure program that captures the imagination, because confidence is just shot.”

In terms of sales pitches — the Hoover Dam was emblematic of the New Deal. Solar/Wind/desal projects could be emblematic of the new Admin. There are others–like the Hawiian project below. The point is always the same. Water and energy projects go together, they create wealth and they capture the imagination.

Anyhow, here is the article. (Oh and notice how the DOE, the state of Hawaii, Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute, and Lockheed Martin work together. For future purposes substitute any American Laboratory for the TTRI.)

Hawaii Governor Signs Ocean Thermal Energy Deal
TAIPEI, Taiwan, November 20, 2008 (ENS) - Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle Tuesday announced a new energy partnership to develop a 10 megawatt ocean thermal energy conversion pilot plant in Hawaii. Electricity will be generated from the difference in temperature between the ocean’s warm surface and its colder depths.

Governor Lingle made the announcement from Taiwan, where she is meeting with officials to promote tourism and business partnerships as part of her ongoing 11 day trip to Asia.

During the Governor’s official state visit to Taiwan, she came to an agreement with the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Lockheed Martin Corporation to build the initial pilot plant in Hawaii.

OTEC systems work by converting solar radiation to electric power. As long as the temperature between the warm surface water and the cold deep water differs by about 36°F, an OTEC system can produce a significant amount of power, turning the oceans a vast renewable resource, with the potential to produce billions of watts of electric power.

“As island economies in the Pacific, Taiwan and the State of Hawaii share very similar challenges of overdependence on imported petroleum for their energy needs,” Governor Lingle said. “Taiwan and Hawaii also share a common vision and plan to increase renewable and clean energy generation based on indigenous energy resources.”

The current economics of energy production have delayed the financing of a permanent, continuously operating ocean thermal energy conversion plant. But OTEC technology is viewed as promising for tropical island communities that rely heavily on imported fuel.

Hawaii currently relies on imported fossil fuel for about 94 percent of its primary energy - the balance is from renewable resources such as wind, solar and geothermal power.

Ocean thermal energy conversion plants could provide islanders with much-needed power, as well as desalinated water.

Taiwan is even more dependent on imported fuels than Hawaii, with less than one percent of its primary supply derived from indigenous renewable sources.

The Bureau of Energy of Taiwan is working to increase conservation and energy efficiency, and to develop renewable energy so that it accounts for 12 percent of Taiwan’s total installed capacity by 2020.

The ocean temperatures and the subsea terrain make the waters surrounding both Taiwan and Hawaii superior locations for this technology.

This latest agreement with Taiwan complements the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, a partnership between the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Department of Energy which will move the state away from its dependence on fossil fuels and toward a clean energy economy that is intended to be a model for other states and regions.

Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corporation has developed and studied ocean thermal energy conversion technology for over 30 years. Its plans for a 10 megawatt OTEC pilot plant in Hawaii are already underway.

Most OTEC research and development in recent decades has been performed at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority, or NELHA, located at Keahole Point, Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. It has become the world’s foremost laboratory and test facility for OTEC technologies.

Huge pipelines bringing cold, deep ocean water to the surface have enabled the demonstration of a variety of ocean thermal energy conversion components and pilot plants.

The first closed-cycle, at-sea OTEC plant to generate net electricity, was deployed in the waters off the NELHA lab in 1979. It was dubbed Mini-OTEC.

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company was a partner in that effort as well as subsequent research at NELHA.

In May 1993, an open-cycle OTEC plant at NELHA, produced 50,000 watts of electricity during a net power-producing experiment. This broke the record of 40,000 watts set by a Japanese system in 1982.

Today, scientists are developing new, cost-effective, state-of-the-art turbines for open-cycle OTEC systems, yet currently there is no facility in Hawaii producing electricity using OTEC technology.

In January 2008, Governor Lingle announced the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, an unprecedented partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy that aims to have at least 70 percent of Hawaii’s power come from clean energy within one generation – by 2030.

Lingle says that as Hawaii is the world’s most isolated archipelago and is also the most oil-dependent state in America, a clean energy future for Hawaii isn’t simply a desire – it’s a necessity. in

Rostum Roy’s Work With Kanzius Effect

Rostum Roy J Rao And J. Kanzuius have published a paper jointly entitled “Observations of polarised RF radiation catalysis of dissociation of H2O–NaCl
solutions” on the Kanzuius effect in Materials Research Innovations, Volume 12, Number 1, March 2008 , pp. 3-6(4). (You’ll have to do a search at the links provided to pull up the pdf) This work basically confirms the information posted last year here and here. Note how the size of the flame varies with the concentration of NaCl. From the article

Figure 1 shows a very simple view of the variation of the flame size with the concentration of the solution. At 3% (about sea water concentration) the results presented in the YouTube video are essentially confirmed. Larger flame sizes of about 4–5 inches are noted with higher concentrations of NaCl. Immediately after the RF power is turned ‘ON’, the flammable gas can be ignited.
The flame shuts ‘OFF’ instantly as soon as the RF power is shut off. In the experiments to determine the effect of concentration, the authors were able to show
that even 1 wt-%NaCl sustains a small flame continuously. Also used were concentrations close to saturation with NaCl that produce somewhat larger flames as can be seen in Fig. 1. A solid sustainable flame is obtained at all percentages of NaCl.1%.

Rudimentary attempts were made to measure the temperature of the flame – they agree with more detailed measurements
made by Dr Curley at M.D. Anderson, which place it at y1800uC.39

Conclusions It has been confirmed that polarised RF frequency radiation at 13.56 MHz causes NaCl solutions in water,
with concentrations from 1 to over 30%, to be measurably changed in structure, and to dissociate into hydrogen and oxygen near room temperature. The flame
is a burning reaction, probably of an intimate mixture of hydrogen oxygen and the ambient air. Most of the Na present in the solution, concentrates progressively – as
measured – as the water is dissociated and burned.

No claim has been made that the process nets energy. However, thing of interest here is that flame produced increases with the concentration of the NaCl. And further the higher the concentration of NaCl the higher the flame.

As mentioned in this blog on forward osmosis put out the WaterReuse Foundation–one special use for the Kanzius effect would be to flare off the water from concentrated brine after forward–or reverse–osmosis…while providing and additional source of power to net lower the energy cost.

You really have to see this to believe it. No that’s likely not good enough. You’ll have to get your own low energy radio wave machine and toast some salt water yourself. That’s what’s John Kanzius has done. The Sanibel Island Florida inventor was looking for a way to desalinate water but instead found a way to burn salt water. According to reports low energy radio waves split the H20 up into hydrogen & oxygen. It looks like The Na & Cl in solution acted as a heat sink or electrolyte . Or anyhow I assume so since the process wouldn’t work on fresh water. Maybe the RF acts as the catalyst as this discussion suggests. See below for the answer. One way or another -something bubbled out of solution. And with a flick of a bic the gases turned to fire.
Anyhow here’s a couple videos.

Salt Water into Fuel
Saltwater into fire 2
Saltwater into fire 3
Saltwater into fire 4

Understand. Electrolysis results in a net loss of energy. ie you put in more energy than you get out. Do not conflate electrolysis with radio waves. Radio waves represent a much smaller energy input.

Small enough to make for a net gain in energy?

For anyone with serious math skills, it should be possible to do a rough–back of the envelope– calculation based on the comments of this article:

Charles Rutkowski placed a test tube filled with ordinary salt water into John Kanzius’ external radio-wave generator.
He then blasted the salt water with 200 watts’ worth of directed radio waves, not quite enough electricity to light three 75-watt light bulbs.
Within seconds, a blue flame erupted from the top of the test tube. It then turned bright white like a blowtorch’s flame and burned for several minutes at about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
“I’ve done this countless times and it still amazes me,” said Rutkowski, general manager of Industrial Sales and Manufacturing, the Millcreek company that builds Kanzius’ generators.

So what’s going on?

For starters, here’s a simple experiment that shows that salt increases many fold the output of hydrogen from electrolysis. (The Kansius experiment does not involve electrolysis but rather Radio Waves).

Here is a second bit of fun with a microwave that shows that the microwave can turn a flame off and on at will and make the flame burn high & hot. You can see in Kansius’s salt water burning video how Kansius turns the high hot fire off and on at will. The suggestion here is that the radio waves are both splitting the water and then further exciting the flames. As well, I’m suggesting that the process is analogous to that in a microwave oven.

Update:I talked on the phone to one of the scientists Ed Apsega at APV Engineering in Akron Oh. They tested John Kanzius process. I was told the flame burned at more than 1700 degrees Celcius or 3000 degrees Farenheit. (Its not clear to me currently as to whether the energy yield is more or less than 1:1. Why? Well the APV engineering scientist Ed Apsega said the energy yield was much more than 2:1 and later I talked to John Kanzius–he said the energy yield was less than 1:1.) The yellow flame was the glass burning. (The flame started out clear.) The temperature inches away from the flame was room temperature. Tests afterwards showed that the water was reduced and the mineral content by percent increased in the water. The Na in the water decreased but not significantly. John Kanzius would like government money for his salt water project so that he can work on his cure for cancer. I’ve been promised a follow up email/phone call from Kanzius so that he can provide a contact number/email that I can post. So check back.Update: Ok I talked with John Kanzius. He’s ok with being reached at johnkanzius (at) aol.com. There are three machines available. It would be helpful if someone qualified checked this thing out.

According to this site:

June 01, 2007

“Regarding moving this forward, I want to see what are the best results we can achieve with joules in vs joules out. A chemist in Houston whom I know is going to be doing a couple of things for me this weekend.” — John Kanzius (June 01, 2007)

“What burns at a temperature of over 1700 C? [Knowing the answer to that question] might take some of the guess work out of the equation.” (May 29, 2007)

June 06, 2007

John Kanzius writes:

“Since it appears we now have now achieved more than unity, I am going to do an embargo on releasing all further information.

“Actually there are smart individuals who have posted on different web sited and actually have a pretty good idea of what is happening.”

……………….

So why is the flame so high? Why doesn’t the wick burn? Why does the temperature so near to the flame revert back to room temperature? (See below.) The answer to all three questions seems to be that the flame shown in the video is an electrical fire. Some are calling it a plasma fire.

Slide Three of this slide show has a still of the Therm Med LLC External RF System. The machine is proprietary radio frequency machine. You’ll have to check with John Kanzius about that. See above.It appears that the secret sauce in the process is in the RF frequency. The frequency itself is the catalyst.
Consider this patent on the process: (It looks like somehow the radio waves immitate platinum.)

Catalytic simulation using radio frequency waves

Document Type and Number:

United States Patent 6217712

Link to this page:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6217712.html

Abstract:

The invention relates to a method of using radio frequency waves to artificially create catalytic action in a catalyst-free chemical reaction within a substance. To mimic or imitate the catalyst, radio frequency waves are transmitted through the substance at a signal strength sufficient to electronically reproduce the effect of the physical presence of a selected catalyst. The radio frequency waves have a selected transmission frequency substantially equal to a catalyst signal frequency of the selected catalyst, defined as the signal frequency determined by nuclear magnetic resonance of the selected catalyst. It is commonplace to use nuclear magnetic resonance to identify elements within a substance and the signal frequencies of various elements (including catalysts) are listed in widely published tables. To date, the mechanism by which catalysts bring about chemical reactions has been unknown. The inventor has recognised that the physical presence of a catalyst brings about a chemical reaction due to the emission of low intensity radio frequency waves from the catalyst with the signal frequency that is emitted being the signal frequency of the catalyst that is commonly determined by nuclear magnetic resonance. Therefore, the invention can be used to eliminate the need for expensive metallic catalysts, such as platinum. The invention electronically reproduces the effect of the physical presence of a catalyst by transmission of a radio frequency wave with a signal frequency equal to that signal frequency emitted by the catalyst and as determined by nuclear magnetic resonance of the catalyst.

Here is a list of his patents related to the process.

more on patents:

download PDF (Systems and methods for combined RF-induced hyperthermia and radioimmunotherapy, 2005)

download PDF (Enhanced systems and methods for RF-induced hyperthermia II, 2006)

European Patent Office (Kanzius patents)

WIPO.int (Kanzius patents)

European Patent Office RASBACH KLAUS (DE) This is an expired patent. I believe this gives the key.

In resonance-based generation of H2 and O2 from water, using a hypersonic generator of suitable frequency, the resonance frequency (fO) can be that corresp. to the distance (d) between the nucleus of the O atoms and its outer electron shell or the proton. fO can be calculated approx. from the formula: fO = c/(pi.d), where c= the speed of sound in water and pi= the Ludolf’s no). USE/ADVANTAGE - The H2 can be used as fuel in power stations or in hydrogenation (hardening fat), synthesis of petrol, MeOH and NH3, redn in metallurgy, in welding etc. The O2 can also be used for technical and other purposes. The overall efficiency of the process is much higher than usual and the process is more friendly to the environment.

According to this poster:

“Perhaps if we could find a substance with a NMR frequency of 13.56 mhz then that is our catalyst…”. Now if you can just turn that around a bit–you might get that the frequency that the machine is imitating is that produced by platinum or 13.56 mhz.

According to this poster:

From what I understand of this, (1) day reading, is that every metal has a moleculer frequency. The patent says that these numbers are readily available.

Next, you take your RF signal generator and set it to that frequency and put it into the solution according to the patent.

The solution “feels” the catalyst. If it had a brain it would be tricked into thinking it is seeing that particular metal.

My first thought is KOH in water and Aluminum. Replace the Aluminum with the molecular resonant frequency of the Aluminum metal and you have the KOH water mixture thinking you just put in AL. And here comes Hydrogen!! Can you say,”unbelievable!” Where has this tech been?!

Here are additional links:

Water into fuel?

Fla. Man Invents Machine To Turn Water Into Fire

How John Kanzius’ push to cure cancer may have discovered alternate fuel

Here’s a google search for Kanzius+burn+water.

“On our way to try to do desalinization, we came up with something that burns, and it looks in this case that salt water perhaps could be used as a fuel to replace the carbon footsteps that we’ve been using all these years, i.e., fossil fuels,” Kanzius said.

If it’s for real, the possible ramifications of the discovery are almost mind-boggling, as cars could be fueled by salt water instead of gasoline, hydroelectric plants could be built along the shore, and homes could be heated without worrying about supplies of oil.

“It doesn’t have to be ocean salt water,” Kanzius said. “It burns just as well when we add salt to tap water.”

Thus far, Kanzius’ work has not received extensive national publicity, but has been featured on several local television news programs, including WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach, Fla., WSEE-TV in Erie, Pa., and WKYC-TV in Cleveland. “We discovered that if you use a piece of paper towel as a wick, it lights every single time and you can start it and stop it at will by turning the radio waves on and off,” Kanzius told the Times-News as he watched a test tube of salt water burn.

“And look, the paper itself doesn’t burn,” he added. “Well, it burns but the paper is not consumed.”

Kanzius said he hasn’t decided whether to share his fuel discovery with government or private business, though he’d prefer a federal grant to develop it.

uh…. can someone fit this man’s work into their budget? I’m sure this could be worked around for water desalination/transport purposes.

Another but dissimilar process was announced recently where an aluminum-gallium alloy acted as the catalyst: (ie no RF was needed to make the reaction. But you might be able to tune radio wave to immitate the RF of aluminum-gallium)

I have blogged about working on desalination catalysts before but not really from the angle approached here. You can do a quick search on google for RF +deposition OR RF “water splitting” OR RF semiconductor. It looks like the semiconductor industry uses RF energy to split gas molecules, then recombines them to deposit chemical films onto wafers. According to this poster

I’ve seen another piece of equipment which uses magnetic
fields to direct ionized gases. I imagine this might be one method to
harvest the hydrogen before it has a chance to recombine with oxygen.

You might also tune RF to settle Na & Cl ions out of solution. Just a thought.