Resembling a palates ball with robotic spider legs, partially encased in concrete at the center of this huge facility, the reaction chamber is a rather intimidating looking blue sphere surrounded by portholes, and large long rectangular boxes all converging into a single point somewhere deep within the bowels of this megalithic construction. It’s hard to believe that all of this is needed to convert a 2 millimeter sphere of beryllium and deuterium into helium and a butt-load of energy.

Sleeping in the giant belly of the Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility, is the world’s first over unity nuclear fusion laser reactor (ignition scheduled for 2010). It’s expected that the overall energy output from this reactor will be anywhere between 100 to 1000 times the energy that was needed to start the initial fusion reaction. That would be equivalent to the entire electrical output of the United States power grid combined, for a billionth of a second.

A brief history of laser fusion:

This monumental effort represents the 4th attempt to achieve a fusion reaction at the facility over the past 35 years. The first was codenamed “Janus” in 1974. With an output of only 10 joules and built to study inertial confinement fusion it was considered to be a very high power laser. Utilizing almost 100 pounds of Neodymium² glass laser material, and filling a medium sized room, the dual infrared laser didn’t have enough power to create a fusion reaction.

Although fusion was not achieved in the Janus experiment, some serious number crunching led to the second attempt at laser fusion in 1977 codenamed “Shiva”. Named after the multi-armed Hindu goddess of destruction, this laser system, at the time, certainly lived up to it’s name. Utilizing 20 infrared lasers, this system was capable of generating 10.2 KiloJoules of energy (over 1000 times the energy of it’s predecessor). Fusion was not expected in this facility, it was built primarily as a proof of concept for a larger facility that was to follow.

In 1984 “Nova” came online with the expressed purpose of becoming the first fusion ignition system. With 20 beamlines and an output of 30 KiloJoules this system should have had the power to spark a fusion reaction. Ultimately it failed due to unforeseen magnetohydrodynamic instability, and minute inconsistencies in the laser outputs causing the fuel pellet to heat and implode unevenly. Although fusion was not achieved, the data collected during it’s operation between 1984 and 1999, proved to be both valuable and vital in the fields of high-density matter physics and nuclear weapons research.

After some major plans to upgrade the Nova systems, they were eventually rented to France and replaced by the “National Ignition Facility”. Now taking up the full space of both the Janus and Nova facilities, and incorporating 192 ultraviolet lasers and over 3,000 plates of Neodymium doped laser glass, this latest incarnation puts out an incredible 1.8 Million joules of energy making it almost 200, 000 times more powerful than the Janus experiment.

Now that’s one a-spicy meat-a-ball!

Footnotes:

¹In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a method of separating chemically bonded elements and compounds by passing an electric current through them. One important use of electrolysis of water is to produce hydrogen.

²Neodymium is also known as a “rare earth metal”, and has a wide array of uses from high power laser glass doping to super strong permanent magnets.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/05/gallery_nif

Sandia’ Z machine lab melts diamonds at 10 million atmospheres

Heavy super-dense deuterium atoms are the nuclear fuel of the future

The Cansolair Model RA 240 Solar Max.

Slammed with the sudden increase in oil during the winter of 2007, my spouse and I started looking at alternative energy sources for heating our home.

I noticed in a Canadian Tire flyer that they were selling solar panels for residential use. At almost $2000 they were pretty pricey and the wattage they put out might power a 60 watt light bulb and a small radio.

Geothermal sounded great to us as it was a way of “getting off the oil tit” entirely. Unfortunately we live in an eighty-year-old house and the retrofit would have doubled the already hefty price (around $20,000) for the unit. And because it runs on electricity, your light bill goes up drastically.

Then we thought “Hey wind power! Of course!” but with local zoning laws and a low buy-back rate from the regional electric company for surplus electricity, we had to nix that idea too.

Supplementing oil heat with wood heat is very popular in our area and we considered this option as well. But with both of us working full time we couldn’t see us chopping wood and starting fires for hours a day. There’s also the storage and mess when dealing with wood that really killed our interest in pursuing it as an option.

Enter James Meaney of Dildo, Newfoundland and his company Cansolair, that manufactures solar panels for heating your home. Unlike conventional solar panels that convert solar energy into electricity used to heat up water using an electric water heater, the Model RA 240 Solar Max is a forced convection solar heating unit.

Cold air is pumped by a small fan from the bottom of a room through a small duct into the solar panel where it is heated up and then pumped back into the room. According to Mr. Meaney, all you need is fifteen minutes of sun an hour for the unit to start saving you money on your heating bill. The price was a draw as well — only $2500 per unit.

Most forms of alternative energy available to the average homeowner cost a lot of money to set up and don’t “pay for themselves” for around 20 years. It can be a major investment and is usually best done when the house is built. With some testimonials stating a savings of a tank of oil per Cansolair panel, the unit would pay for itself in three to six years.

Cansolair is currently building its distribution but has already been sold in Australia, Europe and North America. They are currently working on adapting their solar panel design for other uses like water heating. Good luck to this Canadian inventor. He’ll be hearing from us soon!

Geothermal power is extracted from the heat stored in the earth from it’s original formation. It can also be seen on the surface in the form of hot springs. This very old technology is now more than ever being looked at as a means to usher in the inevitable end of oil. The number of new geothermal projects in the United States alone has risen 25 percent since last August.

That number sounds very impressive, but geothermal still only counts for a very small percentage of the world’s energy output. 35% of it is from the United States but it only counts for less than 1% of their total energy.

So why the sudden interest? Well as I mentioned the worlds oil supply continues to deplete. We have reached peak oil (according to some) and deposits for this traditional power source will be more and more difficult to find. Another reason is the advancement in the technology. It used to be that in order for geothermal power to be of any major use, you’d have to live near one of Earth’s major fault lines to acquire the heat in a natural convective method. Enhanced Geothermal Systems do this through hydraulic stimulation. When natural cracks and pores will not allow for flow rates, the permeability can be enhanced by pumping high pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock. The injection increases the fluid pressure in the naturally fractured granite which mobilizes shear events, enhancing the permeability of the fracture system. Water travels through fractures in the rock, capturing the heat of the rock until it is forced out of a second borehole as very hot water, which is converted into electricity using either a steam turbine or a binary power plant system. All of the water, now cooled, is injected back into the ground to heat up again in a closed loop. These technologies are impressive enough to garner the attention of internet giant Google. In 2008 they invested 10 million dollars to further research this potential source.

That being said there are still plenty of untapped traditional geothermal sources and may be the safer bet in such a shaky economy. So far, it’s one of the only commercially proven renewable power source that can deliver baseload power ( minimum demands based on customer requirements )

To give you one example of how geothermal power can help. A company called Ormat, located in Reno, Nevada produces enough geothermal power to run that city. When you think of the electricity used to charge the entertainment landscape of Reno, it makes you wonder why we aren’t investing more heavily into this natural and renewable power source.

The automobile is without a doubt one of the single biggest advances in human history. It’s changed the way we socialize, work, travel. It has allowed us to build a world unimaginable 200 years ago. This way of life has all been due to the once abundant supply of oil.

So it is without a doubt a scary scenario when the expansive ( albeit short ) period of modern civilization hits not only a road bump in energy consumption but also a wake-up call to the continuous pollutants being released into our air by that same energy.

To fix this, auto manufacturers and really most of the world are trying to come up with the next great energy that will at least equal that of oil. Arguments to hydrogen, solar and battery technologies have been made. In this article I’ll look at the overall state of the current battery technology powering our cars and what it may hold for the future.

Battery technology seems to be a major push by automakers. A number of makers are investing big money in coming out with replacements. GM’s battery only Volt series is expected to be released in 2010 to much fanfare.

The main car on the road today however are hybrids. In general these cars run on the principal of using both gasoline and electricity to power the car. It’s a car with the best of both worlds. Should you need short city driving, the rows of batteries in your car will kick in. Should you need to go faster (freeways) or long distances, the cars gas supply will kick in.  The other benefit the car has is battery recharging while driving in the city. While braking, the wheels, turned by the car’s momentum, power the electric motor and generate electricity, which helps to recharge the batteries. This is known as regenerative braking and is essential for long use before recharging.

So what’s the state of battery technology? Can or will it be able to take us longer distance than just the corner store. Unfortunately not yet. The following is a couple of the battery examples and the benefits :

Lead Acid – These are the grand daddies of batteries and still exist in most cars. Unfortunately this technology is way too big and is mostly used for starting gas-guzzlers and powering your radio and
lights.  Not the answer.

Nickel Metal Hydride ( NiMH) – These are what’s in most of the Hybrid cars out there today. Memory effect ( the ability for a battery to retain charge ) is decent  although can be finicky in the recharging and discharging cycle. Still it’s a good solution for most hybrids.

Lithium ion – Great memory effect, jump in energy efficiency and density from nickel based batteries. Some probability for explosion ( only a few per million…nothing serious ).

Lithium iron phosphate – This is a spin on Li-ion of course. The advantages to this technology  is it’s less likely to explode (always a good thing) and can discharge and recharge quickly. The drawback to it is it’s very expensive to make.

So if these solutions take up so much room and weigh so much, why are they worth it? And if we’re still dependent on gasoline have we really solved the solution? To be honest, we’ve never faced a crisis like
this before. The world is coming to the end of Mr. Hubbert’s peak oil observations.  So perhaps the answer is yes, it is worth it. Were we to wait until the last second we would truly be in a pickle.

Although I mentioned that there are constant emerging technologies for powering our vehicles, we are already looking at ways to accommodate the current alternative energy. Infrastructure will be the key to
keeping these systems alive.  As it stands now there are 14,000 gas stations in Canada. These stations came to be because of a need for gasoline transportation. We need to look at alternative stations to meet the various needs of tomorrow. In the case of recharging car batteries there are some challenges that need to be met. Gasoline vehicles can be refueled and on their way in the matter of minutes while in stark contrast to that most electric vehicles need in the vicinity of 8-10 hours.

Progress is being made on charging cars faster. A Dutch startup company by the name of Epyon uses circuitry design, smart software and an energy storage medium and supercapacitors to produce a 10 minute charge. It has been described as an intelligent system that analyzes each battery cell (instead of the entire battery) and determines how much charge each cell needs.

Another solution that has been mentioned is the exchange station. In this situation a car would pull into a station and have the custom removable battery exchanged with a fresh pack within minutes. It has
been suggested it could run on the same rental system as a cell phone in that you would rent the battery and be charged depending on the amount you drive.

These are 2 of the many possibilities to come. For all we know cars could be run on much more efficient forms of solar power and all this technology could be moot. But the point is we are trying to change.
Let’s hope we do before it’s too late.