December 30, 2008 by admin.

A friend sent to us some information on compressed-air-powered cars.  Those are being produced and being put on the market in India.  A search for “compressed-air-powered cars” provides about 1,200 entries on the search-return list.  Here is the first of the entries on the list:

Air-Powered Car Coming to U.S. in 2009 to 2010 - Zero Pollution …
22 Feb 2008 … A New York-based startup wants to make the first air-powered car to hit US roads a $17800, 75-hp equivalent, 96-mph, four-door version of …

The price range of the Indian compressed-air-powered cars is from about $3,000 to $17,000, depending on size of a car and the number of passengers it is designed to carry.

At first glance, the idea to use compressed air to power cars is great, but I have a couple of concerns, one easily explained, the other requiring a lot more words.

1. If a tank containing that compressed air explodes, would that cause less damage than having a terrorist explode a car bomb?

It can take less than gallon of gasoline to blow up a house, but when a gasoline tank leaks, that is not necessarily a catastrophe, unless the conditions are right, not even if a gasoline tank splits wide open.  If the equivalent amount of energy in the form of compressed air is released all at once, that would instantaneously kill the occupants of the car that carried it, plus it would possibly kill everything for some distance around.  It would destroy much property in the vicinity of the car that exploded.

2. Ethanol is more than joke, it is a scam.  Ethanol consumes almost twice as much energy for its production than it contains.  Therefore it also causes far more pollution than it is said to save.  Furthermore, the production of Ethanol is taxpayer subsidized.  In addition, it caused food prices to rise enormously and thereby caused an increase of starving people in the world. Comparable issues come into play with cars powered by electrical energy that has been stored in batteries and with compressed-air-powered cars.  Neither of the latter alternative energy sources would have the devastating consequences for poor people that ethanol has.  After all, the corn required to tank up a family car with ethanol just once could feed a family for a whole year.

However, what is used for energy to power those compressors that put compressed air into cars?  I have no idea on the efficiency of the compressors and of the engines that use compressed air.

The reality of that is that to propel a car requires energy.  That is a considerable amount of energy.  The energy used to compress air to the required pressure must equal the energy used by the car plus the energy wasted by the car plus the energy wasted in compressing the air.

That would be about equivalent to the energy required to power a car with electrical energy from a battery (energy wasted by the battery charger when charging a battery, plus energy lost in the transition from electrical to chemical energy in the battery when it is being charged, plus energy lost when converting chemical energy in the battery to electrical energy in the car’s electrical motor, plus the energy lost in the electric motor that drives the car, plus energy lost in the transmission, plus the energy required to propel the car.)  All of those losses are somewhat compensated for by using kinetic energy from decelerating and braking to produce chemical energy stored in the car’s battery, but that process, too, suffers from conversion losses.  All of those losses are quite considerable.  Only about ten percent or a bit more of the electrical energy for use by battery-powered cars  that is injected at the generating source into the transmission and distribution network will actually result in putting and keeping the car in motion.

Where does the energy for compressing air come from?  What are the total energy requirements, plus all of the applicable energy losses, to put a car into motion and keeping it moving?  Will each service station have a fossil-fuel-powered compressor, or will that compressor be using electrical energy from the network (with transmission and distribution losses that are very similar to those in the case of battery-powered cars)?

Furthermore, battery-powered cars recover some of the kinetic energy generated by decelerating or braking, to convert it to chemical energy that is stored in their batteries, thereby reducing the overall energy losses of those cars a bit.  However, I see nothing comparable along those lines in the descriptions of air-powered cars.

Without examining all of those issues it is not possible to determine whether compressed-air-powered cars are more efficient or cheaper as far as energy consumption goes than battery-powered cars are.  Anyone wishing to make a profit from the production or sale of compressed-air-powered cars is not likely to tell anyone about peripheral costs of the generation and distribution of energy required for converting and storing of that energy in the form of compressed air.

There is no question that as far as the engineering and production of air-powered cars is concerned, air-powered cars will not only be cheaper to produce and to dispose of, but their production and ultimate disposal will be far more environmentally-friendly.

I have great doubts that the overall energy requirements (including all of the losses of energy at the various stages of transporting energy and the applicable conversion processes) of either air-powered or battery-powered cars will be able to compete with or come close to the relatively low cost of the transportation, distribution and consumption of energy used by fossil-fuel-powered cars.

So far there is no cheaper or more effective way to store, distribute and use energy for cars than in the form of the chemical energy contained in fossil fuel.

Lastly, the bottom line: What will the cost be per km of driving for the three different solutions that need to be compared.  Cost subsidies such as those used for the production of ethanol come out of tax revenues and require taxpayers to pay higher taxes.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  Not only that, but the government will want to collect the taxes it presently derives from fossil-fuel consumption.   The production and use of compressed air will have to be taxed to an extent that produces at least the amount of tax revenues collected from the use of fossil fuels.

Battery-powered cars may cause the electricity rates to go up.  Existing distribution networks require massive upgrading if more than one household in every seven will use battery chargers to charge the batteries in their cars.  In addition, if the distribution networks need to be upgraded, then you can be sure that the transmission network needs to be upgraded as well.  One single transmission line from Fort MacMurray to the US border costs a few billion dollars, and I shudder to think of how much money we would need for many such construction projects if we wish to replace the distribution of energy in the form of fossil fuel with a system of distribution in the form of anything else.  Anything other than fossil fuel requires electric energy in massive quantities.  It even requires the construction of many new power plants at the cost of about $1.6 billion each.

I am certain that some comparable concerns apply to compressed-air-powered cars.  Somehow, the enormous amount of energy required by all of our cars needs to be transported to all those service stations we need to equip and provide for that.  It is all in place now.  I doubt is very much that we can afford to replace it.  Until we can, both, compressed-air- or battery-powered cars will be a curiosity that is impractical and too expensive to have for all.

By the way, we did not wish you a Merry Christmas.  To make up for that, I offer you a story of a modern Christmas that I am sure you will enjoy.  The story will drive home the point of how much things have changed over the last 2000 years and that, no matter how hard we all tried to have Paradise on Earth, the harder we tried, the farther away from it we got, even though we now live on average a lot longer than people did then.

Our best wishes for the new year to you and yours,

Walter (and Ruth)

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources | Print | No Comments »

December 20, 2008 by admin.

news-press.com
Fort Myers, Florida, USA

2008 12 19

BREAKING: Chinese drywall in Lee County homes may be causing health problems

By Mary Wozniak and Dick Hogan

….We have been provided with evidence of complaints of issues of sulfur odors in homes. We have been told about the associated failure of (air conditioning) coils,” he said.

The drywall appears to be emitting sulfur compounds that are corroding coils and other copper-bearing materials, causing them to be replaced repeatedly.

Eldredge cautioned that the health department cannot confirm exactly what the source of the problem is, but the department is working with a consultant representing a homebuilder who believes sulfur gases from drywall are the problem.

“We have not reviewed that data nor can we confirm or support that contention,” he said. “Our primary concern at the heath department is whether or not this is a health risk,” he said.

“It certainly does raise concerns,” said Dr. David Krause, toxicologist for the state Health Department. “There may be a direct health threat,” he said.

The drywall could be emitting one of several sulfur compounds, including sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide, he said….(Full Story)

More on the Chinese drywall problems:

The Defective Chinese Drywall Debacle
Date Published: Monday, January 26th, 2009

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Comment by folc.ca: Whether emissions of sulfur dioxide or of hydrogen sulfide in homes constructed with Chinese-made drywall are the problem has not yet been proven and remains to be seen.

All drywall contains sulphur, as all drywall consists in the majority of gypsum.  Gypsum can be mined but it is also a waste by-product of the fertilizer industry and of fossil-fuel-fired power generation — whenever sulphuric acid is used to leach metals or minerals from ore, or whenever sulphur dioxide needs to be removed from the exhaust gases of fossil-fuel-burning thermal power plants.

For example, industrial processes produce gypsum when sulphur dioxide is being neutralized by passing it through a slurry of water and lime.  Sulphur dioxide reacts with the calcium in the slurry that it is being percolated through to form gypsum (hydrated calcium sulphate, CaSO₄·2H₂O).

The slurry is being stored in settling ponds in which the gypsum settles from its suspension in the water.  The water is then returned to the scrubbing process.  That process produces mountains of gypsum with often massive proportions.

A characteristic of the gypsum that is a waste by-product of the phosphate fertilizer industry is that it is radioactive, about 60 times more radioactive than the phosphate fertilizer produced.  That is due to the circumstance that the phosphate rock that is a feedstock for phosphate fertilizer production contains isotopes such as of uranium and thorium that become concentrated in the waste gypsum (a.k.a. phosphogypsum) during the production processes.

Interestingly, in connection with gypsum production through large-scale industrial processes, the highest geographical feature in all of Florida is a man-made mountain of gypsum.

The huge, unsightly mounds can stretch across hundreds of acres. Some covered, some uncovered–these mountainous stacks can be an eyesore on the flat, sandy Florida skyline. Whitish gray in color, with a crusty surface look like massive heaps of table salt that tower up to 200 feet high.

This is Florida’s stockpile of phosphogypsum. More than 600 million tons of it are already on the ground and an additional 30 million tons accumulate yearly….(Full Story)

_________________

Florida has a large quantity of phosphate deposits, particularly in Bone Valley region. However, the marine-deposited phosphate ore from central Florida is highly radioactive, and as such, the phosphogypsum by-product is too radioactive to be used for most applications. As a result, there are about 1 billion tons of phosphogypsum stacked in 25 stacks in Florida (22 are in central Florida) and about 30 million new tons are generated each year.^[2]

(Wikipedia: Phosphogypsum)

The presence of sulphur in industrial environments causes problems with computer equipment and cell phones, as the sulpur compounds in the atmosphere will affect the soldered connections of microchips, often causing them to fail.  Such problems manifest themselves in surprising circumstances that often have no direct connection at all to either fertilizer production or comparable industrial processes.  For instance,

Ford investigative team solves automotive ‘mysteries’

Reliable Plant Magazine - Tulsa, OK, USA,

Nov/Dec 2006

Central Lab chemist Tom Munie discovered that the solder on the motherboards and other circuitry within these computers had been attacked by sulfur, ….

“We were seeing a lot of new computers in one particular area of the design center that were malfunctioning – sometimes within the first 30 days,” says Ford commodity analyst Cyndi Morrell….(Full Story)

It could be a bit of a red herring to focus the examination of sulphur problems in Florida just on Chinese-made drywall.  After all, drywall is drywall (unless China used its drywall to dispose of other forms of its waste sulphur — of which its growing economy has many).  On the other hand, Florida has a lot of sources of sulphur that can contaminate its environment and cause failures of copper-containing equipment components or may even cause a variety of health problems.

Perhaps one of the first issues to be examined should be whether any of Florida’s phosphogypsum was exported to China and whether then it was used there to produce drywall that was exported to the whole world and to Florida.  It would not hurt to prove that that route of environmental pollution in Florida can and should be ruled out.

Then it may be worth the effort to see how much of Florida’s phosphogypsum made its way into road and parking lot construction in Lee County and in other areas affected by sulphur-pollution problems.  After all, Florida ran a lot of experiments in the early 1990s to find practical ways by which to get rid of its masses of waste-phosphogypsum.

Posted in Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | 2 Comments »

December 15, 2008 by admin.

The Inhofe EPW Press Blog

2008 12 10

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Posted by Marc Morano – 9:36 AM ET - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.GOV

Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in ‘Dustbin of History’ 

Link to Intro and full report

Link to Full Printable PDF Report

POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.  Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers….(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

December 11, 2008 by admin.

CO2 Science

Volume 11 Number 50: 10 December 2008
New issue posted every Wednesday

….
Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 643 individual scientists from 377 separate research institutions in 40 different countries … and counting! This issue’s Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Elk Island National Park, East-Central Alberta, Canada. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project’s database, click here.

Elk Island National Park, East-Central Alberta, Canada

---

Reference
Campbell, I.D. and Campbell, C. 2000. Late Holocene vegetation and fire history at the southern boreal forest margin in Alberta, Canada. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 164: 279-296. Description
The authors analyzed pollen and charcoal records obtained from sediment cores retrieved from three small ponds — South Pond (AD 1655-1993), Birch Island Pond (AD 1499-1993) and Pen 5 Pond (400 BC-AD 1993) — located in Canada’s Elk Island National Park, which covers close to 200 km² of the Beaver Hills region of east-central Alberta (~25 km east of Edmonton). In doing so, they discovered that “declining groundwater levels during the Medieval Warm Period allowed the replacement of substantial areas of shrub birch with the less fire-prone aspen, causing a decline in fire frequency and/or severity, as indicated by their Pen 5 Pond data; and they concluded that this scenario “is likely playing out again today,” as all three of the sites they studied “show historic increases in Populus pollen and declines in charcoal.” Furthermore, since their Pen 5 Pond data indicate that sediment charcoal concentrations have not yet dropped to the level characteristic of the MWP — even with what they describe as the help of “active fire suppression in the park combined with what may be thought of as unintentional fire suppression due to agricultural activity around the park” — it would appear that their study sites and their surroundings have not yet attained the level of warmth and dryness they experienced during the MWP, which they describe as having occurred over the period AD 800-1200. (Source URL)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

December 10, 2008 by admin.

KNDO/KNDU - Yakima, WA, USA

2008 12 09

Sulfur Fire at Fertilizer Plant in Pasco

PASCO, Wash– A hazardous material fire breaks out in Pasco. Firefighters were forced to change their normal methods of attacking the flames, because a potentially dangerous chemical was burning.

Around 11 am Tuesday a fire broke out inside a sulfur bin at the Wilbur Ellis fertilizer plant on Burlington St. in Pasco.  Surrounding businesses were evacuated because sulfur is such a dangerous toxin.

Pasco firefighters didn’t know what to expect when they arrived on scene, but they prepared for the worst.

“It’s one of those rare examples where friction with a bucket and dust product ignited a fire,” said Jerry Voss, Wilbur-Ellis Regulatory.

The fire started when a front end loader bucket scrapped against a wall in a sulfur storage bin.

“It just scraped along one of the concrete walls and threw a spark. In a solid form it’s not flammable however when it gets stirred up and there’s dust in the air that does become flammable,” said Cpt. Pat Henrickson, Pasco Fire Department.

Once the fire was out firefighters sprayed water on their uniforms to get the sulfur residue off.

“When we first got here and found out what it was we knew it was a strong irritant and so everybody that got on scene as soon as they got out of the apparatus they were putting on masks,” said Henrickson.

Fortunately no one was injured or had to be medically treated. (Link to source)

Posted in Community & Industry, Explosions & Fires, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

December 9, 2008 by admin.

Prince George Citizen

Monday, 08 December 2008

Penalties imposed on Marsulex for 2006 sulphur-dioxide release

By PAUL STRICKLAND, Citizen staff

Marsulex Inc. was fined a total of $2,000 plus a 15-per-cent impact surcharge Monday after pleading guilty to two environmental counts in connection with the release of a concentrated plume of sulphur dioxide from its Prince George plant on Aug. 9, 2006….

On the morning of Aug. 9, 2006, Marsulex shut down its plant for routine maintenance….

During the start-up the winds changed, and the mixing of the gas in the lower atmosphere may have become poor. Its analyzer showed sulphur-dioxide concentration levels exceeded 1,653 parts per million for seven-and-a-half minutes…the plant discharged a dense bluish-white cloud of gas, a plume, from its stack. The plume travelled across the road and descended upon the Canadian Forest Products’ Rustad sawmill, court learned.

Marsulex had notified the Rustad mill by phone 10 minutes ahead of time that it was restarting its furnace. At least 18 Rustad workers were physically affected by the plume. Some received first-aid treatment on site. Nine workers were taken to Prince George Regional Hospital for further treatment and were discharged from hospital that day, according to the agreed statement of facts.

The affected workers described the plume as bluish-white or grey cloud with a strong smell. They described the adverse physical effects they experienced as watering eyes, burning lungs, difficulty breathing, blurred vision, skin burning and a strange taste in the mouth, court heard.

The physical effects described by the workers are generally consistent with those suffered by people exposed to sulphur-dioxide, court heard….(Full Story)
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Comment by folc.ca: The article does mentions that four workers who allege that they experienced permanent damages to their health from the sulphur dioxide release filed a claim with WorkSafe - B.C., but nothing is mentioned whether anyone other than the “environment” received any sort of compensation.

More than three years after the fact, and no money for real people’s pains….but about $150,000 is to be paid to a bureaucracy, the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, that safeguards the environment.  Is that not just absolutely wonderful?

Posted in Fines & Penalties, Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

December 9, 2008 by admin.

WHNT - Huntsville, AL, USA

December 7, 2008

Chemical Fumes at Huntsville Plant Send Three Employees To Hospital

By Jamie McGriff, WHNT NewsChannel 19 Reporter
Email: jamie.mcgriff@whnt.com

Sunday afternoon around 3:30 emergency responders were alerted to something that would make anyone nervous.

“We got a call out here a medical call that a man was down,” said Jim Kay, District Chief for Huntsville Fire and Rescue.

Kay said an employee of ATI-Alldyne in Huntsville passed out.  ATI-Alldyne is a metal manufacturing plant on Highway 20 in Huntsville, just before you get to Madison.

Two other employees with the man who passed out were also taken to the hospital as a precaution….(Full Story

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

December 9, 2008 by admin.

Sydney Morning Herald

December 9, 2008 - 8:55AM

Workers inhale sulphur dioxide at Sydney industrial site

Arjun Ramachandran

Six people have experienced breathing problems after inhaling sulphur dioxide at a work site this morning, the ambulance service says….

Three had to be taken to to Fairfield Hospital and were in a stable condition….(Full Story)

Posted in Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

December 6, 2008 by admin.

StatoilHydro

2008 12 04, 14:59 CET

StatoilHydro withdraws application for upgrader project

StatoilHydro has withdrawn its regulatory application for the development and construction of a bitumen upgrader in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland in Canada.

Prohibitive construction costs, the state of the global economy, uncertain oil price outlook and lack of legislative clarity are the main reasons for this decision.

“This decision does not impact the progress of StatoilHydro’s upstream oil sands activities. StatoilHydro’s long term view of the Canadian oil sands development remains unchanged. The construction of our Leismer SAGD project is progressing according to plan with startup late 2010,” confirms StatoilHydro Canada President, Geir Jøssang.

In May 2008, StatoilHydro decided to postpone the planned upgrader by two years to 2016. Since then, various alternatives for the project have been evaluated.

In line with several other players in the Canadian oil sands industry, StatoilHydro has decided to discontinue the upgrader project at this time, but will continue to monitor the cost and price environment and reassess downstream options going forward. The upgrader was intended to process the bitumen from oil sands into a synthetic crude oil.

This decision does not impact the upstream part of the company’s oil sands venture. The production from the project will be marketed as unprocessed bitumen.

The planning of the next phases following the Leismer 20 000 barrels per day demonstration plant continues. As the sole owner of the project, StatoilHydro retains both flexibility and optionality with regards to timing and investments in future phases.

(StatoilHydro, source URL)

Posted in Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

December 5, 2008 by admin.

Telegraph.co.uk, 2008 11 29

President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US

By Christopher Booker

If the holder of the most powerful office in the world proposed a policy guaranteed to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies, we might well be concerned.  The relevance of this is not to President Bush, as some might imagine, but to a recent policy statement by President-elect Obama.

The 10,000 wind turbines in the US generate less power than a single coal-fired plant

Tomorrow, delegates from 190 countries will meet in Poznan, Poland, to pave the way for next year’s UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. They will see a video of Mr Obama, in only his second major policy commitment, pledging that America is now about to play the leading role in the fight to “save the planet” from global warming….(Full Story)

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Comments by folc.ca:

A few of the many comments that the article attracted are by nay-sayers such as this one:

The smart people, and the smart money, today acknowledge climate change, and are working out how to deal with it. Those who are pro-active will sell products to those who are not - a fact that the Germans, in particular, are aware of, and one which is already benefiting their exports.

Mr Booker, meanwhile demonstrates a proud ignorance of science and engineering of the kind that has helped cause irreparable damage to this country’s economic prospects.
Posted by Paul T on November 30, 2008 3:12 PM

and

“Have you ever studied Thermodynamics? (No - Is the answer).”

I studied physics. At a reputable university. And you? Or everyone’s hero, Chris Booker?

Don’t try to pretend this is a scientific argument. This is a political one.

And, by the way, I’m quite happy to see counter-evidence to global warning. This article obviously isn’t that.
Posted by Paul T on November 30, 2008 4:22 PM

Paul T. is eminently wrong.  It appears that the assertion that one has studied physics at a reputable, unnamed university is not evidence that one is qualified to correctly judge global climate trends and is not a remedy against superstition.  In fact, it does not even guard against failing to understand how journalism works.

Christopher Booker writes excellent articles on the man-made global-warming hype.  However, he writes articles that do not agree with the propaganda on man-made global warming spread by the International Panel on Climate Change.  Christopher Booker is well aware that Al Gore’s climate hysteria (e. g.: An Inconvenient Truth) has been thoroughly debunked, such as by the objective climate research compiled and reported by Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, former science advisor of Margaret Thatcher, in his report “35 Inconvenient Truths” (and in his letter to Senator McCain), a report in which he refers to a finding of the U.K. High Court in 2007 that clearly stated, not in so few words, that Al Gore is a liar.  Unfortunately, people like Paul T. and Barack Obama are far from being as well informed.

Barack Obama, at least, has a reason (although not a good one) for disregarding the truth on man-made global warming.  He wants to erect wind mills, kill-off coal-fired power generation to use the effort to impose massive taxation and perhaps have all Americans walk and bicycle to work. Of course, Barack Obama will support discredited Al Gore, even though Al Gore is not an uninterested party.  Al Gore depends on Barack Obama to promote the hype on man-made global warming, so as to fan the flames of the fears that create the global panic in which Al Gore’s international carbon-credit-brokering business thrives and grows.

Other than that, the only constant of climate is constant change, but that is not man-made.

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »