NNadir
NNadir's JournalGerman Carbon Intensity is 518 g CO2/kwh this morning (4:14 A Berlin time 3/3/22)
Electricity Map, GermanyThe capacity utilization of all the wind turbines in Germany is 4.84%, producing 2.97 GW of instantaneous power.
Germany's last three reactors, due to be shut in favor of coal and well, um, Russian gas, are producting 4.18 GW power, running at 101.18% capacity utilization.
The largest source of electricity in Germany this morning is coal, 24.8 GW of instantaneous power.
Germany's neighbor, France has a carbon dioxide intensity of 78 g CO2/kWh.
In "percent talk" the German carbon dioxide intensity is 535% higher than that of France.
The German Engeriewende was never about climate change or about dangerous fossil fuels which cause deaths even when they operate normally. It was, rather, to attack the world's most reliable form of scalable extremely low carbon form of energy, nuclear energy.
Suddenly, they're no longer fond of that company for which the ex-Chancellor of Germany, Gerhardt Schroeder, is an executive, Gazprom.
Apparently in Germany nuclear energy is "too dangerous," Putin's wars, funded by fossil fuel money, billions upon billions of Euros from Germany, are not "too dangerous." It appears climate change isn't "too dangerous," either in the German calculus.
Now here's an interesting molecule, CsZrF4(IO3)
It's described here: CsZrF4(IO3): The First Polar Zirconium Iodate with cis-[ZrO2F6] Polyhedra Inducing Optimized Balance of Large Band Gap and Second Harmonic Generation (Lin Lin, Xingxing Jiang, Chao Wu, Zheshuai Lin, Zhipeng Huang, Mark G. Humphrey, and Chi Zhang Chemistry of Materials 2021 33 (14), 5555-5562)
From the introductory text:
...n contrast to other d0 TM cations, the Zr4+ cation has long been neglected as an NLO-functional constituent in the development of NLO materials because it displays the weakest SOJT distortion of the d0 TM family; zirconium-based NLO materials therefore remain underexploited. Nevertheless, the Zr4+ cation is a popular choice as a metallic constituent in the synthesis of novel MOF materials because the oxophilic cation Zr4+ forms strong coordination bonds with oxygen-based organic donors, resulting in a high chemical and thermal stability of the structural framework. (22,23) Although the SOJT distortions of Zr4+-centered polyhedral are weak, they do result in asymmetric coordination, and this may enhance the prospects of constructing the NCS structures needed for an SHG response, so the Zr4+ cation may be a promising NLO-active component in the design of NLO iodate materials with high structural stability. The Zr4+ cation also manifests diverse coordination modes, affording multifarious [ZrOxFy] (x + y = 6–8) polyhedra with ordered O/F atoms...
SOJT = Second Order Jahn Teller distortion. The Jahn-Teller effect refers to a quantum mechanical effect whereby "degenerate orbitals" reorganize in such a way as to remove symmetry.
This molecule is "noncentrosymmetric" - which improves its non-linear optical properties.
This is not my field of interest, and so I have no real comment, but I would like to remark on some of the molecules properties.
First its synthesis:
A mixture of Zr(NO3)4·5H2O (0.429 g, 1.0 mmol), I2O5 (0.501 g, 1.5 mmol), CsF (0.334 g, 2.2 mmol), 0.15 mL of hydrofluoric acid, and 2.0 mL of deionized water were loaded into a 23 mL Teflon-liner autoclave, which was kept at 210 °C for 72 h and then cooled to 30 °C at a rate of 4 °C per hour. After washing with deionized water to remove the excess acid, colorless CsZrF4(IO3) crystals were obtained in a yield of 71% (based on Zr). The pH values were 2.0 for the initial mixture and 2.3 for the final product. The purity of the crystalline sample was confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD; Figure S1).
The molecule crystalizes from water; it is thus insoluble in water, and in fact, nitric acid, since nitric acid is a product of the reaction.
Then its thermal properties:
I oppose the dumping of so called "nuclear waste," but what is interesting is that this molecule contains three elements each of which has a very long lived fission product among the isotopes formed for the element.
Significant amounts of nonradioactive zirconium isotopes Zr-90, Zr-91, Zr-92 are formed during fission, the first being the decay product of Sr-90, with a half-life of around 28 years. (Thus pure non-radioactive Zr-90 can be obtained from fission products. Zr-93 is also formed along with the stable Zr isotopes, and it is radioactive with a very long half-life, 1.53 million years.
Three cesium isotopes are formed in fission: Cs-133 (the natural non-radioactive isotope), Cs-135 and Cs-137. Cs-137 is highly radioactive (and therefore very useful) with a half-life of 33.08 years, a reasonable rate of decay, but Cs-135 is radioactive and long lived, with a half-life of around 3 million years. (It's formation is suppressed in fission because it's precursor isotope, Xe-135, has the highest known neutron capture section of any readily available nuclide.)
Finally, besides the stable iodine-127 most radioactive iodine isotopes decay rather rapidly, the most famous of these being I-131 with a half-life of 8 days; arguably it is the most problematic isotope in a nuclear accident; it is also used in certain medical treatments such as hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancers and a few other cancers. Less problematic but far longer lived is iodine-129, with a half life of around 15 million years. (Much of the Xenon in the Earth's atmosphere is thought to have originated from this isotope decaying in the primordial earth.
Because these three isotopes are long lived, they are not highly radioactive and thus have a fairly low associated heat load, in cesium's case when much of the Cs-137 has decayed to stable barium. Thus this molecule, with its high thermal stability and insolubility might represent a "waste form," if one was - I don't recommend this - to declare fission products "waste."
As it happens, I can think of excellent uses for zirconium - particularly the tetrafluoride which has some remarkable properties, and cesium isotope mixtures, and iodine can easily be transmuted into valuable xenon.
Nevertheless this molecule might prove a useful way to store these elements for the short term, until their recovery is required for use.
Esoteric, I know, but cool.
Informal question asked of the incoming nuclear engineering Ph.D. students.
My son has signed on to a nuclear engineering Ph.D program, and all of the accepted students were flown in to meet with the faculty.
The first question asked of the students was, "How many of you are here because of climate change?"
About 3/4 of the students raised their hands, my son included.
These kids are serious.
Rampant wrongful prosecutions terrorize innocent people--everywhere. The scientific community is...
...not immune.
An editorial in the current issue of Science: We are all Gang Chen.
It's probably open sourced, but here's excerpts:
I grew up in China and found my American dream at MIT, where I became a department head and led a vibrant research group. In January 2020, the dream turned into a nightmare. I was detained and interrogated at Boston’s Logan Airport, and my electronic devices were confiscated. A year later, federal agents raided my home, arrested me, and interrogated my wife without an attorney present. My family lived in fear for 2 years, and members of my research group relocated. The accusations against me were absurd. They criminalized routine professional activities: reviewing research proposals, writing recommendations, and hosting visiting scientists. In January 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped all charges.
I was investigated under the DOJ’s China Initiative, an effort launched in 2018 by the Trump administration to counter Chinese government’s espionage and threats to national security. Andrew Lelling, a chief architect of the Initiative and the US Attorney for Massachusetts at the time, rushed my indictment through...
...What gave me hope and ultimately saved me is a lesson for all universities. MIT leadership, under President L. Rafael Reif, supported me morally and financially after I was detained at the airport, and the university made its support public soon after I was arrested. MIT professor Yoel Fink organized faculty support, which led to an open letter, signed by over 200 MIT faculty. The letter used facts to tear apart the criminal complaint and ended with a rallying statement: “We are all Gang Chen...”
Here's a great idea: Operate our lithium mines only four or five hours a day & only on days the...
sun is shining brightly.
Right now, the whole world is betting the planetary atmosphere on solar cells, wind turbines, and batteries, the latter being devices that waste energy.
Here in the Western world, we all like to watch ads featuring electric cars with wind turbines and solar cells displayed prominently in the back ground in order to convince ourselves that we - at least people rich enough to afford cars, a planetary minority - can declare ourselves "green."
The most popular batteries for electric cars are "lithium" batteries, which besides lithium contain both nickel and cobalt. The largest source of nickel in the world is the Norlisk mines in Siberia, about which I wrote previously in this space, a region of a prominent Eurasian country called "Russia." Russia is in the news lately.
The cobalt, however, is largely mined in the Congo river region by people who don't need electricity like "we" do. They don't drive electric cars, and the fact that they can't afford electric cars is only a small part of the reason. The major reason is that many of these people belong to the class of people, about 700 million of them, who don't have access to any electricity. (We couldn't care less.)
All this said, "lithium" batteries also contain lithium, and the lithium, like cobalt and nickel, needs to be mined.
I came across this fun paper in the literature today about how lithium mining, could be "green," the conditional word "could" being a popular word to describe being "green" someday that I've been hearing my whole adult life. (I'm certainly not young either.) The paper is this one: CO2 Emission Reduction by Integrating Concentrating Solar Power into Lithium Mining, Pablo Dellicompagni, Judith Franco, and Victoria Flexer, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (19), 15879-15893.
Oh good, I'm sure we all want lithium mining to be "green."
From the opening text of the paper.
It's 2022. I recall driving past solar thermal plants in San Diego, pilot plants, in early 1990's that were markers along the path to a grand solar energy future on which we bet the future of the planetary atmosphere. I used to be very smiley while driving past those "solar thermal" plants, thinking all about the grand renewable future that did not come, and is not here, but I was young then, and now I'm old.
Here's how the bet's going, by the way:
Week beginning on February 20, 2022: 419.62 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 416.30 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 394.30 ppm
Last updated: February 27, 2022
Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa (Accessed 02/27/22).
The increase in the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide over what it was ten years ago, never mind 30 years ago, is 25.32 ppm. The Mauna Loa observatory has been reporting 10 year increases in its data since the 1980's. In 1993, the year I left San Diego, the place where I admired the "future of energy" solar plants down by the airport, ten year increases averaged 14.02 ppm/10 years.
I have the data.
Four of the 20 highest increases ever recorded over a ten year period have occurred in 2022, and the year is only 7 weeks old for data provided from Mauna Loa this year.
Don't worry, be happy.
We can make lithium mining "green" by hoping to build even more solar thermal facilities than the "small and medium" scale plants described in the paper referenced, which has been published 29 years after I left San Diego.
By the way, the authors state that solar thermal plants are "greener" than PV plants:
I added the bold. How dare they criticize PV solar energy plants! How dare they! Everybody knows that solar PV plants will save the world, someday, somehow, somewhere, although not apparently in 2022.
Don't worry, be happy, we can "green" lithium mining, because it takes place in deserts where the sun shines a lot, at least for several hours a day. From the paper:
There's no word in the paper whence the water for these aqueous streams comes, but don't worry, be happy. I'm sure we'll find a way to make water transport "green" too.
Don't worry, be happy.
It's a good bet, right?
The only time in my life I heard of casinos going bankrupt, they were describing casinos owned by Donald Trump.
One of the things gamblers do, is to throw good money after bad. The same can be said for throwing a good future after a bad future, and let's be clear, we are living in a far worse future than the one I contemplated in San Diego in the early 1990s.
Far worse.
Lithium, nickel and cobalt. Is there really so much available from mines of these elements to make us go "green" with batteries for all our cars and for all of our electricity whenever the wind doesn't blow for weeks and whenever the sun isn't shining brightly?
Well, is there?
One should not answer this question while displaying the common property of being willing to lie to oneself.
I trust you're having doing as well as you can during this tragic week of an aggressive colonial war which has left many of us weeping.
This is the highest carbon intensity for Germany in comparison to France in "percent talk" I've...
...personally seen over the last few months of monitoring the Electricity Map
As of this writing, (1:21P US EST, 7:22 PM Munich time 02/26/22) Germany's carbon intensity is 491 g CO2/kwh as compared to France's 57 g CO2/kwh. In the "percent talk" utilized by proponents of so called "renewable energy" to disguise it's inability to address climate change, the German carbon intensity is 861% higher than France's.
It is not so much, by the way, because Germany is all that much higher than usual; I have yet to see them over 600 g CO2/kwh, but because France - during the shut down of the 4 Civaux type reactors after inspectors found a fault in their emergency shut down borated water pipes France is typically running close to 100 g CO2/kwh - is lower than usual.
Why is France running lower than usual? It's because France, which during the Holland administration drank the "wind is green" Koolaid, is producing significant wind power right this minute. France is producing 10.3 GW of wind power, at this minute.
Germany is producing, with far larger wind capacity, 2.03 GW of wind energy, a capacity utilization of 3.17%. (French wind capacity utilization for its wind plants is correspondingly 55.52%.
Does the lower carbon intensity of France because the wind is blowing suggest to me that I should stop criticizing the wind industry?
Sorry, it doesn't.
When the wind isn't blowing in France, the French, like the Germans, burn gas. There seems to be a gas problem in Europe, including a problem in that country that's been funding Putin for years, Germany. The 4 Civaux type reactors should return to service this spring, bringing 6 GW of reliable continuous power into the French grid, thus producing more power in four buildings than all of the wind turbines in Germany are producing in the entire country.
Now the Germans can't get gas, except from the Scandinavian gas producers in Denmark and Norway and as a result they're burning coal, dumping the waste directly into the planetary atmosphere and driving climate change.
German coal mined internally is largely lignite.
It's time to refer to the Lancet paper by which I estimate coal based mortality:
Anil Markandya, Paul Wilkinson, Electricity generation and health, The Lancet, Volume 370, Issue 9591, 2007, Pages 979-990.
Here's table 2: 
While I've been writing this post, the German carbon intensity has risen to 498 g CO2/kwh, with 25.3 GW of power coming from coal.
Over a 24 hour period this amount of coal would amount to 607 GWh of energy. German domestic "coal" is largely lignite, but they may be importing bituminous or anthracite coal from other countries.
The 24 hour death toll would thus be for lignite, about 19 deaths per day, which would annualize to roughly 7200 deaths per year among Europeans.
For bituminous or anthracite coal, the toll would be about 15 deaths per day, which would annualize to roughly 5400 deaths per year among Europeans.
Were the power now being produced by coal in Germany produced using the nuclear plants Germany shut because of the widely held German opinion that "nuclear energy is 'too dangerous,'" the Lancet table suggests that the death toll would have been far less than 1 for 607 GWh of nuclear power (0.032 deaths) annualizing to 11 deaths, less people than will die today in Europe from German coal waste dumping into the planetary atmosphere.
There is, of course, another matter. It would appear that Germany relying on Russia for gas, and sending them lots of Euros, when the wind isn't blowing, has also ended up killing people; we don't know how many yet.
If I sound angry, it's because I am.
Finland questions Hanhikivi nuclear plant prospects amid Ukraine conflict.
Finland questions Hanhikivi's prospects amid Ukraine conflictFinland’s Minister for Economic Affairs Mika Lintila told the country’s parliament that he would not be granting a building permit for the Hanhikivi nuclear plant as things stand.
"It's quite clear that as a consequence of this conflict this project will at least be significantly delayed," Lintilä told the STT newswire on Thursday.
Fennovoima, the company behind the planned nuclear power plant which will have a Russian reactor and is one third owned by a Finnish subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, said it "acknowledges that the ongoing conflict situation may have impacts on the Hanhikivi 1 project".
It said the "Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the counter measures by EU and western countries as a consequence, pose a major risk for the Hanhikivi 1 project.
"We are very sad about the developments and the situation in Ukraine. There are a lot of people close to our employees in the area and our thoughts are with them."
According to Finland’s STT news agency, Fennovoima is now waiting to hear what sanctions the EU will impose on Russia before speculating on the project's future...
Regrettably, a considerable fraction of the nuclear construction infrastructure is located in Russia. Many countries to address climate change (...and frankly the only way that will work...) using nuclear energy are looking to acquire VVER reactors.
This is another way in which Putin's criminality is affecting the future.
The Finnish nuclear program - and let's be clear that Russian Imperialism has played a huge pernicious role in Finland's history - has had a poor experience with the construction of the French EPR reactor which will finally go on line soon - and hence the decision to build a VVER in this space.
It is important to note that not every Russian is a Putinite, just as not every American was a Trump humper, although the reputation of all Americans was effected by the fact that we had a criminal leader.
The ripple effects of this unjust war - I'm not sure that there really are ever just wars - will have a profound effect on the Environment, simply by limiting access to an important element of infrastructure.
A Sign in a Chemical Journal that the World Is Waking Up to Energy Reality.
I have pretty much scanned every issue of Chemical Reviews for decades, and while I have seen one or two papers about reprocessing of nuclear fuels, I've seen few about the properties in use of nuclear fuels.
Today I came across this one: Thermal Energy Transport in Oxide Nuclear Fuel, David H. Hurley, Anter El-Azab, Matthew S. Bryan, Michael W. D. Cooper, Cody A. Dennett, Krzysztof Gofryk, Lingfeng He, Marat Khafizov, Gerard H. Lander, Michael E. Manley, J. Matthew Mann, Chris A. Marianetti, Karl Rickert, Farida A. Selim, Michael R. Tonks, and Janelle P. Wharry Chemical Reviews 2022 122 (3), 3711-3762
(For the record, I'm not an oxide fuel kind of guy, but certainly the subjects discussed are relevant to other nuclear fuels.)
This is a very long paper, with 654 references, and it would be useless to try to discuss it fully here, but here from excerpts of the table of contents are some of the subjects discussed in this document which will prove important if we are to save what can be saved and restore what can be restored in the world:
1. Introduction 3712
1.1. Origins of Phonon Thermal Conductivity 3713
2. Thermal Transport in Perfect Single Crystals 3714
2.1. Inelastic Neutron and X-ray Scattering 3714
2.1.1. Phonon Dispersion and Thermal Conductivity 3714
2.1.2. Techniques for Measuring Phonons 3715
2.1.3. Triple-Axis Neutron Measurements of the Phonon Lifetimes in UO2 3715
2.1.4. Inelastic X-ray Measurements of Phonons in Irradiated Epitaxial Thin Films of UO2 3716
2.1.5. Time-of-Flight Neutron Measurements
Reveal Nonlinear Modes in ThO2 and UO2 3716
2.2. First-Principles Thermal Transport in Perfect Crystals 3716
2.2.1. General Considerations 3716
2.2.2. First-Principles Approaches for Crystals beyond DFT...
... 3.2. Irradiation-Induced Defects 3727
3.2.1. Characterization Techniques 3727
3.2.2. Irradiation-Induced Point Defects 3728
3.2.3. Dislocation Loops 3729
3.2.4. Cavities and Precipitates 3730
3.3. Modeling of Defect Clustering 3731
3.3.1. Simple Rate Theory Model of Defect Evolution 3731
3.3.2. Cluster Dynamics Approach to Defect Evolution 3732
3.4. Grain Boundaries 3733
3.4.1. Intrinsic Grain Boundaries 3733
3.4.2. Restructured Grain Boundaries 3733...
... 4. Thermal Conductivity under Irradiation 3735
4.1. Fuel Performance Codes and Thermal Conductivity 3735
4.2. Experimental Measurement of Thermal Conductivity 3736
4.3. Boltzmann Transport Framework 3737
4.3.1. Phonon Scattering 3737
4.3.2. Klemens?Callaway?Debye Approximation3738
4.3.3. Single-Mode Relaxation Time Approximation3739
4.4. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of ThermalConductivity 3740
4.4.1. Bulk Thermal Conductivity 3740...
Here, from the paper is a "science porn" picture of a crystal of thorium oxide:
The caption:
I shared this paper with my son, the materials science engineer, to read during his gap semester before beginning his Ph.D. research.
One of the authors of this paper is Gerry Landers. I referred to a review Dr. Landers wrote of a book about neutron transport in this space, and received a, um, "profound" comment from a dumb guy with a penchant for expressing his intellectual depth with emojis to the the effect that "Nuclear power sucks. Yup." I advised him to share the comment with Dr. Lander, who, I'm sure, on hearing this trenchant "wit" from a poorly educated idiot would be inclined to withdraw all his papers.
Despite the continued existence of anti-nukes, some in prominent positions in places like Germany, where this morning and for years previous they are still burning the fuel of primitives, coal, the world is waking up to the reality that in the age of a crumbling atmosphere, nuclear energy is our last, best hope. Perhaps we are waking up too slowly, but we are waking up.
As of this morning, (2/26/22, 7:48 AM US EST/13:31 Munich time) the carbon intensity of German electricity is 408 g CO2/kwh, that of neighboring France, 83 g CO2/kwh. I note that there are few nations in Europe that have been better customers for Russian gas than Germany.
An interesting chemical reaction with applications beyond the context in which it's being studied.
Many of the modern breed and burn fast nuclear reactors now under rapid development to address climate change utilize old fashioned sodium coolants. I'm personally not a big fan of sodium coolants, but any kind of nuclear reactor is superior to any dangerous fossil fuel plant.
As I informed my son, people are building sodium cooled reactors so it's best to understand them to be a competent nuclear engineer.
I came across this paper this evening in one of the journals I regularly read: Thermally Stimulated Liquid Na–CaCO3 Reaction: A Physicogeometrical Kinetic Approach toward the Safety Assessment of Na-Cooled Fast Reactors Nobuyoshi Koga and Shin Kikuchi Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2022 61 (7), 2759-2770.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reaction kinetics, in particular the Arrhenius constant, for the reduction of concrete by liquid or gaseous sodium metal.
The reaction is described in one of the figures from the paper, this one:
The caption:
I look at this reaction beyond its safety implications in sodium cooled reactors, to see that this reaction represents a thermal reduction of carbonate, obtained from CO2 (in the case of concrete captured from air), to elemental carbon.
It suggests (although sodium itself will not work as well as its higher congeners) a thermochemical cycle for the production of elemental carbon from CO2 gas.
This terrible war of aggression that disgusts the whole world, the Russian attack on Ukraine, will pass; but climate change will be with us long afterward, particularly because the reliance on dangerous natural gas to back up so called "renewable energy," is now obviated by political danger as well as the physical danger of dumping dangerous fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere.
It is time to free energy in order to free people. In our disgust, we should not be distracted from a greater threat.
SLO county board supports life extension for Diablo Canyon.
Over the years, many people asked me, assuming that I bought into their frankly uninformed opinions, on whether I would want a nuclear plant "in my backyard."
Of course I would, and not just for the tax benefits, but because I would be proud to live in a community involved in saving human lives.
In San Luis Obispo there is a nuclear power plant, more or less, in their backyard, and the Government has an opinion about whether they want it there or not:
SLO county board supports life extension for Diablo Canyon.
At a virtual meeting on February 15, the five-member board voted in favor of a motion—offered by board member Debbie Arnold—to send a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, urging him “to work with PG&E to ensure that they have access to all the permits necessary to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant operational.” The vote was 3–1, with board member Dawn Ortiz-Legg, a former PG&E employee, recusing herself.
A compelling case: Prior to the vote, the board heard from Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the authors of the recent MIT/Stanford University study, An Assessment of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant for Zero-Carbon Electricity, Desalination, and Hydrogen Production. Buongiorno focused his remarks on the study’s main conclusions: Delaying the retirement of Diablo Canyon to 2035 would lower California’s power-sector carbon emissions by more than 10 percent from 2017 levels and lessen reliance on gas, would save $2.6 billion in power-system costs, and would boost system reliability to mitigate brownouts. And if operated to 2045 and beyond, Buongiorno said, the plant could save up to $21 billion in power-system costs and keep 90,000 acres of land from having to be used for energy production...
Irrespective of local opinion, PSEG remains committed to closing the plant, claiming that the regulatory climate in California will not allow a life extension, irrespective of another climate, that of the planet.
Oh well then...
Profile Information
Gender: MaleCurrent location: New Jersey
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 33,516
