"The boat is sinking, and we have to use everything that we possibly can."
Lord Oxburgh, Chairman of Shell
(which was forced to write down its reserves by 23% in 2004),
on humanity's dangerous continuing dependence on oil and gas and the urgent need to develop alternatives
Hay Festival, England, 2005

"Crude oil in New York surged above $58 a barrel for the first time since reaching a record in April on signs that producers will struggle to meet growing fuel demand during the second half of the year..... Crude-oil prices are likely to reach $70 barrel once they breach the [ $60] record, said John Murphy, chief technical analyst at StockCharts.com. Oil futures in New York have exceeded the 200- day moving average since a dip in May. That suggests a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of oil's reaching $70, said Murphy. 'I don't think there's any doubt we're headed higher,' Murphy said in an interview today. 'We had a correction and came back to the 200-day moving average,' he said. 'If we get through $58, $70 will be the next big number.''
Oil Jumps Above $58 as Demand May Outpace Production Growth
Bloomberg, 17 June 2005

"US data this week showed that demand for oil in the US has not slowed despite the price rise. Demand for petrol in the world's largest consumer of oil is up by 3% on the same time last year."
Oil prices hit a new record high
Guardian, 18 June 2005

"Research by Saudi Arabian geologists indicate oil production in the kingdom is at or near its peak and likely near-term declines could lead prices to $100 a barrel in the next three years, a U.S. author claims. Matthew Simmons, an investment banker specializing in energy for 30 years, tapped more than 230 technical papers published by international research group the Society of Petroleum Engineers, many of them written by current Saudi Arabian nationals, for his book, 'Twilight in the Desert,' to be published in June. He concludes that production by state-owned Saudi Aramco, which as a company produces more than any other country, is at or near a peak. When the problem is joined by falling production in North America and the North Sea, oil could spike to $100 a barrel in the next three years, he said. Simmons said in an interview that the last 50 years of U.S. energy policy has focused on the wrong thing. 'We essentially thought we could always rely on oil in Middle East as long as there was peace in the Middle East. In consequence, oil policy was about geopolitics instead of examining what the oilfields are really like.'... A few years ago, Simmons first suspected that Saudi Arabia's oil was being overproduced when a friend in Washington, D.C. told him about an April 1979 U.S. Senate staff report. The report detailed that water seepage into Saudi oilfields forced Aramco's original owners Exxon, now Exxon Mobil, and the now-merged Texaco and Chevron, to downgrade Saudi's production potential from 20 million barrels per day to 12 million bpd. Simmons visited a major oil center in Saudi Arabia in early 2003 where the amount of water being processed out of crude shocked him. With Western geologists who formerly worked for Aramco, he then combed through SPE papers from the late 1990s and early 2000."
Saudi geologists' papers spell lower output - book
Reuters, 28 May 2005

"A few years ago only a handful of geologists and academics were considering such a possibility. But now it appears even governments are taking a serious look at the subject. The question is occupying more and more minds around the world. It could happen soon. A French government report on the global oil industry forecasts a possible peak in world production as early as 2013."
'Peak oil' enters mainstream debate
BBC Online, 10 June 2005

"The Prudhoe Bay field sprawling over an area the size of Howard County still pumps more oil than any other site in the United States. But its shrinking production reflects a trend throughout the country: After years of pumping, fields in the U.S. are drawing less oil from the ground. The implications for U.S. energy policy are profound. At a time when President Bush and members of Congress are talking about the need to be less dependent on foreign oil, the country is becoming even more dependent. As U.S. production declines, demand has been increasing. While there are some bright spots in U.S. oil production, such as discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, the overall outlook points steadily downward and is expected to continue that way for the foreseeable future -- the result of a natural process of decline.... Oil companies like BP are trying to extend the life of U.S. fields by using a variety of new technologies to wring more oil from the ground. But the technology and increased Gulf production are not enough to reverse the declines.... The bulk of the remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East. Barring the advent of alternative energy sources or a significant decline in consumption, analysts said the United States will have little choice but become increasingly reliant on the very countries lawmakers say they are trying to gain independence from....'It does feel like we're pedaling hard and running out of options,' said Maureen Johnson, a BP senior vice president in charge of Prudhoe Bay and nearby fields."
Alaska Oil Field's Falling Production Reflects U.S. Trend
Washington Post, 7 June 2005

"The international oil industry is struggling to discover enough new oil reserves, despite surging global demand for crude oil, according to a study by Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultants. In the face of steady annual increases in demand for oil over the past decade, the West's big oil companies largely have failed to improve the yearly exploration yield of new reserves to their portfolios, the study shows..... Mr Kellas said: 'Deep- water Brazil has been a big disappointment. No commercial discoveries have yet been made by international oil companies, despite having spent nearly $1.5 billion.'"
Oil industry 'struggling to find new reserves'
London Times, 14 June 2005

'The Boat Is Sinking'
Even The Head Of Shell Knows This Can't Go On
(Shell Revised Its Own Declared Reserves Down By 23% In 2004)

"'Look, Shell is an energy company, not an oil company, and the fact is that neither Shell nor any other energy company is going to be doing business in the same way in 25 years' time..... [Already Shell] can't actually make enough solar panels at the moment to satisfy demand.... as countries grow and become more prosperous, they use more energy. It is a sad fact that if these countries experience the perfectly legitimate growth in GDP [gross domestic product] that they have a right to expect, and they do so in the same energy-inefficient way that we have seen our prosperity grow, then I think we are wasting our time' [says Lord Oxburgh, Chairman of Shell] .... Meanwhile, the price of oil is high at $55 a barrel, and the oil companies don't see it falling substantially in the near future. At the current rate of progress, says Oxburgh, 'we are going to be really quite dependent on fossil fuels for another 50 years. And nothing is going to slow the world economy more, and inhibit our control of the greenhouse gas problem, than a world recession. So, fundamentally, what we are trying to do worldwide is to make sure that we have enough of a supply of oil and gas.' Paradoxically, the high price of oil is also good for renewable energy, as it forces the speedier development of alternatives, and Oxburgh just views this as a further business opportunity: corn ethanol, to take the example of a biofuel currently in use, currently costs nearly as much as oil. Shell, therefore, is in no trouble. But the planet is, and Oxburgh sees no point in mincing words. 'The boat is sinking, and we have to use everything that we possibly can.'"
The Boat Is Sinking
Guardian, 15 June 2005

"To get some perspective on the troubles in Detroit, have a look at what German luxury-car icon BMW is up to these days.... Sometime between now and 2008, BMW plans to offer a select few American consumers the chance to lease a 7-Series sedan that can run on hydrogen."
BMW Tackles Energy Challenge
Wall St Journal, 9 May 2005

"Over the next five years, crude prices will almost double, averaging close to $77/bbl and reaching as much as $100/bbl by 2010... Tomorrow’s price hikes won’t be triggered by sudden supply disruptions like the Arab oil boycott of 1973 or the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Instead, they will follow from the inevitable collision between surging global crude demand and accelerating depletion of conventional crude supply. By 2010, prices will have to take out nearly 9 million barrels a day from world oil consumption—no mean feat for a world that has never been more thirsty for oil..... On the demand front, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has just upped its forecast for global crude demand this year by almost half a percentage point to 2.2%. This marks the third time the energy watchdog has changed its views of late. And last month’s revision is by far the single largest so far (Chart 2). Chances are that the IEA will once again have to ratchet up its estimate before the year is done, with global demand likely to grow by at least 2.5%. While demand forecasts are ratcheting up, those of supply growth are moving in the other direction. Among those are last year’s stunning reserve downgrades by a number of major oil firms, and cloudy prospects for the world’s top producers of crude. Saudi Arabia, traditionally the backstop of global supply, is already experiencing rising water rates in its mother lode Ghawar field, an early indicator of depletion that has already resulted in falling production levels in neighbouring Oman. And Russian production, which has accounted for three-quarters of non-OPEC oil growth in the past five years, seems to have recently peaked out..... For 25 years global crude demand grew at a stable 1% average, in large measure because the bulk of that demand came from a handful of highly industrialized economies whose energy intensity had been falling since the OPEC shocks of the 1970s. Suddenly that all started to change about five years ago with the massive movement of industrial production from high wage countries to emerging industrial giants like China. Not only is China much less energy efficient than the economies most of that production was exiting from, but also the rapid rise in Chinese incomes has spearheaded a huge increase in their domestic energy consumption. As a result, world crude demand grew by 3.4% last year—the strongest pace in nearly 30 years and over three times the average pace of the past 25 years. China singlehandedly accounted for almost 40% of the global increase. Yet, per capita oil consumption in China, already the world’s second largest importer of crude these days, is still in its infancy, just an eighth of South Korea’s level (Chart 3). Even if China’s consumption grows at 15% a year for the next five years, fully matching 2004’s increase, it would still only be a quarter of Korea’s present energy consumption per capita. But China isn’t the sole reason oil demand is on the rise. Oil use is also rising explosively in other developing countries like India, which saw a 5% increase last year. Next to China, oil demand in the rest of developing Asia is growing at the fastest rate of any region in the world. And demand may not even moderate in the world’s largest oil consuming economy, the US. American crude consumption per capita has been rising steadily since 1990 and shows no signs of abatement (see Chart 4 and Occasional Report #51: Is the US Economy Really Less Vulnerable to Energy Prices?). While that economy is certainly more energy efficient than it was thirty years ago, the increase in efficiency has been more than surpassed by the increase in energy usage. For example, the improvements in fuel economy for autos have been eclipsed by the increase in miles driven, while energy efficiency improvements in air conditioning and heating have been dwarfed by increases in home size. Exploding crude demand from rapidly industrializing Asian economies has permanently ratcheted up global crude demand growth. Even if energy demand growth slows in the US and Europe, and actually declines in Japan, world crude demand is unlikely to grow by less than 2.5% per year (Chart 5) without significant increases in crude prices. The implications of current growth may soon become staggering relative to available supply growth. From a current base of just over 84 million barrels a day, global crude consumption would grow as briskly as it did before the OPEC shocks, with demand reaching almost 96 million barrels a day by 2010. Unfortunately, supply is unlikely to be able to keep pace. To the extent that it cannot, prices must ultimately ration demand. As noted in January Monthly Indicators, there is growing concern that future supply will not be able to respond to that pace of demand growth. The 5 to 6-year timeline for bringing a major new supply project on stream means that the trajectory for oil supplies through decade-end is largely defined by 50-60 major projects at various stages of the planning and development process. A survey of such projects suggests that beyond this year’s estimated 3 million barrels a day of production increase, the supply cushion is getting perilously small. As the oil market is finally beginning to recognize, OPEC spare capacity effectively sits at a record low of little more than one million barrels per day. The world is losing just over a million barrels a day of production from depletion every year. Net of depletion, global crude supply is unlikely to get above 85 million barrels a day this year, leaving a scant 1 million barrels a day of spare capacity in the system. And contrary to conventional wisdom, the oil market is poised to get much tighter, not slacker over the next four years. In fact, surveying the production schedules for new supply sources, 2005 is slated to be the biggest single year over the next four. Additions to gross supply fall off markedly in 2006, even more in subsequent years (Chart 6). Only about 300 thousand barrels of net new supply are likely to come on stream annually from 2006 through the end of the decade, as the new capacity added by major new projects does little more than offset declining production from mature fields. Global production is unlikely to get beyond 87 million barrels a day by the decade’s end. Limited planned additions to new net supply suggest, moreover, that 2.5% trend demand growth in oil will run up against a supply barrier as early as 2007. Obviously, prices will have to rise to keep demand within the available supply constraint. Keeping a million barrels a day of reserve capacity in the system, demand must be constrained by the supply barrier. Next year, prices will have to take out over one million barrels of crude demand per day. But this figure rises rapidly in 2007 and 2008 as net supply growth tapers off (Table 1) due to the fall-off in mega-projects coming on stream. In 2007, demand must be cut by almost 3 million barrels a day, while in 2008 some 5 million barrels a day must be cut from trend demand. The demand cuts continue to rise, reaching 9 million bbl/ day from trend by 2010. How much prices have to rise to achieve those demand cuts depends on the price elasticity of demand for crude. Unfortunately, in the short-run there is very low price elasticity, meaning that it takes relatively large price increases to dampen demand. As a rough guide to estimating the price needed to confine demand to available supply, we have used an elasticity of 0.15 for global oil use. (That figure is derived by weighting US Department of Energy estimates of demand in major oil consuming regions by each region’s share of global oil demand.) A 0.15 elasticity means that a 10% rise in crude prices lowers crude demand by only 1.5% taking today’s roughly $55/bbl price as the benchmark, crude prices must rise to an average $61/bbl next year and to an average of $70/bbl by 2007 to achieve the needed demand cuts from trend (Chart 7). As those cuts begin to mushroom after 2007, so too must the price hikes required to bring them about. Crude prices need to rise to an average $80/bbl in 2008 and continue to riseto $101/bbl by 2010 (Chart 8)."
Not Just A Spike
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, World Markets, 13 April 2005

"While Matt Simmons’ work is recently more widely publicized, Henry Groppe has been accurately forecasting oil price trends for the last 55 years. His latest views agree with those of Mr. Simmons, and paint a dire picture of a 'permanently changed situation'. Indeed, Groppe says, 'We think were headed for an energy crisis.' Henry Groppe founded Groppe, Long & Littell in 1955. He has 55 years of experience in the oil, natural gas and petrochemical industries, including positions with Arabian American Oil Company, Dow Chemical, Monsanto and Texaco. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and has served as a charter member of the Texas Governor’s Energy Council and a director of the United States Energy Association (the U.S. member committee to the World Energy Council). The company’s clients include some of the largest oil & gas, integrated, chemical, financial, oilfield services, and pipeline utilities in the world – not to mention several world governments.....Groppe says that we are at 'a major turning point for world oil and north American natural gas.' According to this veteran, 'We've been down a long road of exploration and exploitation and found everything easy. We've reached the point where all the major initial discoveries have reached their peaks and are declining. The newer ones are too small to offset it, and North American natural gas production has clearly peaked and is irreversibly declining. We think were at that turning point for world oil. From now on we’re in a new era where the key question is what prices will be required to cause consumption to decline to match an irreversible decline in supply?' A critical question, and here Groppe seems to feel a little bit better about the situation than Simmons. 'We think it requires a minimum of $50 for WTI to balance the system, and it will take time to determine how much above that is going to be required. And for the US natural gas market we think it will require prices in the range of $6.50 to $8.50 during the next 10 years to balance our supply demand system.' At the same time, he reiterates that 'for the first time in our history we are now at the point where the huge complex worldwide oil business is operating at total capacity, with every prospect of staying there from here on. Therefore any disruption in supply, or concern about disruption in supply, is going to create very very volatile surges in price on the upside.' Indeed, Groppe says, 'The difference this time, in our view, is that we are going to have sustained higher prices. In the previous energy crises the big run up in prices produced significant reductions in consumption and significant supply responses, particularly by non-OPEC producers. That is no longer possible, and we think the consumption response is going to be lesser this time because all of the easy things were done previously.' 'We think this is a real turning point because of so many years of exploiting what we’d already found, and the disappointing rate of new discoveries… in the last 35 years over $1.5 trillion was spent outside OPEC, and the three largest discoveries in that period were all under water. At peak each will only produce 1.5 million barrels per day, roughly equivalent to only one year’s depletion decline in base current world oil production.'...”
Oil Forecasting Legend Paints Dire Energy Picture
Resource Investor, 6 June 2005

"The sun sends as much energy to the earth in an hour as mankind consumes in a year. This energy can be used to produce electrical power in solar power plants, for example. The electricity can then be used to break down water by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen. During this breakdown process, the energy gained is transferred to the hydrogen."
Light and water - the dream team
BMW web site

"The [British] Government is facing a battle with leading car manufacturers over the car of the future after deciding that fossil fuels will not be phased out for at least another 50 years. Ministers have rejected a proposal to convert Britain’s cars to hydrogen by 2025, and called on manufacturers to develop more efficient models powered by petrol or diesel. However, several manufacturers, including BMW, have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in developing emission-free cars that run on hydrogen.... The Carbon Trust, a government-funded body that promotes low-carbon technology, has advised ministers that to meet this target they should ensure that hydrogen is widely used to power cars by 2025.... Prototypes of BMW’s hydrogen powered 7-series have driven 100,000 miles during development without problems. The engine can run on both hydrogen and petrol, meaning that cars could be driven before a network of hydrogen filling stations was established. "
Minister is set for collision on move to hydrogen cars
London Times, 22 April 2002

"Solar PV generated power could provide 10,000 times more energy than the world currently uses. If we covered a small fraction of the Sahara desert with PV, we could generate all the world's electricity requirements. If you install a solar PV tiled roof, you could prevent over 34 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during its lifetime....Today all TV and communication satellites are powered by PV. In the heavens there is no mains power, but the earth receives a continuous power input from the sun of 200 x 10¹⁵ Watts - that’s 200 followed by 15 zeros! An unimaginably huge amount of energy which completely dwarfs the capabilities of fossil fuels or nuclear fission….and its clean and free."
Solar PV facts
Solar Century web site

"The company developing a fuel cell that could provide every home with its own electricity will tell the stock market today that it has passed a series of industry tests with flying colours. .... The fuel cell, which will fit into a domestic central heating boiler instead of a pilot light, can transform boilers into mini-generators that produce both heat and electricity. The cell would provide homes with a clean and cheap form of energy that produces significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions than conventional fossil fuels..... Fuel cells generate electricity and heat when gas is passed over one surface and air over the other. They have the potential to deliver dramatic economic and environmental benefits by being highly fuel efficient, quiet and much lower in emissions than other technologies....It can be powered by natural gas as well as hydrogen and does not need platinum as a catalyst..... the first fuel cell boilers will be on sale in about three years, at prices similar to existing boilers. The system will create CO2 savings of 30 to 50 per cent, even allowing for some CO2 being produced by the fuel cell running on natural gas."
Ceres power cell sets world alight
London Times, 16 May 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-5-1614492,00.html

London Times, May 16, 2005

Ceres power cell sets world alight
By Angela Jameson, Industrial Correspondent

THE company developing a fuel cell that could provide every home with its own electricity will tell the stock market today that it has passed a series of industry tests with flying colours.

Ceres Power is expected to say that its fuel cell — which is the size of an After Eight mint — has exceeded global industry standards after thousands of hours of tests.

The fuel cell, which will fit into a domestic central heating boiler instead of a pilot light, can transform boilers into mini-generators that produce both heat and electricity. The cell would provide homes with a clean and cheap form of energy that produces significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions than conventional fossil fuels.

Nigel Brandon, technology officer of Ceres, said: “We have beaten critical industry benchmarks on four fronts at once: power output, integration, durability and manufacture. Our customers will recognise these dramatic results as key achievements on the road to unlocking global mass markets.”

Fuel cells generate electricity and heat when gas is passed over one surface and air over the other. They have the potential to deliver dramatic economic and environmental benefits by being highly fuel efficient, quiet and much lower in emissions than other technologies.

Ceres, which was spun out of Imperial College London and floated on AIM last year, has been working on the fuel cell for more than 15 years. It can be powered by natural gas as well as hydrogen and does not need platinum as a catalyst.

The company, which has a stock market value of about �53 million, believes the first fuel cell boilers will be on sale in about three years, at prices similar to existing boilers.

The system will create CO2 savings of 30 to 50 per cent, even allowing for some CO2 being produced by the fuel cell running on natural gas.

Experts from China, Canada and Brazil viewed the fuel cell at Ceres’s Sussex headquarters last week, as part of a series of climate change initiatives.

Ceres is developing cells to power other applications. These include devices for rural communities that rely on bottled gas; auxiliary power units for electrical devices used in lorries and planes; and unbreakable power supplies for hospitals and banks.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsessionid=aiEYiy7a9Pt9?id=20812
Renewable Energy Access

Solar Photovoltaic Breakthrough Taps Infrared Light

January 11, 2005

nanoinfrared.jpg (14217 bytes)

A nanometer-resolved microscope image of one of the nanoparticles, or quantum dots, used to make the infrared detectors. The particle is four nanometers - billionths of a meter - in diameter. Individual atoms of lead and sulfur can be resolved in the image

Photo: "Advanced Materials" via the University of Toronto

Toronto, Canada [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Polymer-based solar photovoltaic cells are one of the most highly anticipated fields in the solar industry these days. While current technologies on the market struggle to match their crystalline counterparts in terms of price-per-watt, researchers are on the hunt. Researchers like a team from the University of Toronto that recently announced a breakthrough in capturing light energy from beyond the visible spectrum.

In a paper published on the Nature Materials Web site on January 9, senior author and Professor Ted Sargent, Nortel Networks -- Canada Research Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Toronto's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his team report on their achievement in tailoring matter to harvest the sun's invisible, infrared rays.

"We made particles from semiconductor crystals which were exactly two, three or four nanometres in size," Sargent said. "The nanoparticles were so small they remained dispersed in everyday solvents just like the particles in paint," explains Sargent.

Sargent's team then tuned the tiny nanocrystals to catch light at very long wavelengths. The result is a sprayable infrared detector.

"Existing technology has given us solution-processible, light-sensitive materials that have made large, low-cost solar cells, displays, and sensors possible, but these materials have so far only worked in the visible light spectrum," Sargent said.

The discovery may help in the quest for cheaper, more efficient renewable energy resources. Specifically, it could help drive up the efficiencies of current polymer-based solar cells which hold the potential to be manufactured at a lower cost than current crystalline silicon cells but have so far been unable to match crystalline power conversion efficiencies.

"Companies have already been formed which have discovered how to make roll-to-roll, large area, plastic photovoltaics," Sargent said. "They face the challenge of low efficiencies in harvesting the sun's power. Our work has the potential to improve these efficiencies considerably.

Sargent expects their research breakthrough could see commercial implementation within 3 to 5 years.

Flexible, roller-processed solar cells have the potential to harness the sun's power, but efficiency, flexibility and cost are going to determine how that potential becomes practice, said Josh Wolfe, Managing Partner and nanotechnology venture capital investor at Lux Capital in Manhattan.

"These flexible photovoltaics could harness half of the sun's spectrum not previously accessed," he said.

Professor Peter Peumans of Stanford University, who has reviewed the U of T team's research, also acknowledges the groundbreaking nature of the work.

"Our calculations show that with further improvements in efficiency, combining infrared and visible photovoltaics, could allow up to 30 percent of the sun's radiant energy to be harnessed, compared to six percent in today's best plastic solar cells," Peumans said.

U of T electrical and computer engineering graduate student Steve MacDonald carried out many of the experiments that produced the world's first solution-processed photovoltaic in the infrared.

"The key was finding the right molecules to wrap around our nanoparticles," he explains. "Too long and the particles couldn't deliver their electrical energy to our circuit; too short, and they clumped up, losing their nanoscale properties. It turned out that one nanometer - eight carbon atoms strung together in a chain - was 'just right'."

Other members of the U of T research team are Gerasimos Konstantatos, Shiguo Zhang, Paul W. Cyr, Ethan J.D. Klem, and Larissa Lavina of electrical and computer engineering; Cyr is also with the Department of Chemistry. The research was supported in part by the Government of Ontario through Materials and Manufacturing Ontario, a division of the Ontario Centres of Excellence; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through its Collaborative Research and Development Program; Nortel Networks; the Canada Foundation for Innovation; the Ontario Innovation Trust; the Canada Research Chairs Programme; and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.

Information courtesy of Sonnet L'Abbe, University of Toronto

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BugPower.php
ISIS Press Release 03/06/05

Bug Power

Waste-gobbling bacteria may be our dream ticket to clean renewable energy. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

A fully referenced version of this paper is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here

Resources and energy from wastes

Bacteria that gobble wastes are a godsend. They prevent the build up of wastes in our environment and play an indispensable role in making wastewater safe for domestic animals, wild life, and human beings. In many Third World countries, these same bacteria are working miracles turning manure and other wastes into valuable resources to support highly productive farms that require no input and generate little or no waste ("Dream farm", this series). When these bacteria are confined in anaerobic digesters with limited or no access to oxygen, they ferment the wastes, release and conserve nutrients for livestock and crops, and produce ‘biogas’ as by-product, which typically consists of about 60% methane (CH₄) and a small amount of hydrogen (H₂), both of which can be burnt as smokeless fuel.

Within the past two years, these same bacteria are showing even more remarkable potential for producing clean and renewable energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Hydrogen economy on potato waste

The "hydrogen economy" is on everyone’s lips as the answer to the ultimate clean energy. Burning hydrogen produces pure water instead of green house gases, and it is by far the most energetic fuel on earth, weight for weight. But in order to really reduce green house gas emissions, hydrogen must be produced sustainably with renewable sources such as sun, wind and biomass. About half of all hydrogen produced currently is from natural gas, the rest is produced primarily using other fossil fuels. Only 4% is generated by splitting water using electricity derived from a variety of sources.

At BIOCAP Canada’s First National Conference in February 2005, a research team at the Wastewater Technology Centre and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, presented a poster describing a prototype process for producing substantial amounts of hydrogen as well as methane from potato waste [1].

The team used a two-stage anaerobic digestion to get first hydrogen and then methane. In this way, it was possible to optimize the first stage for producing hydrogen. The key appears to be an acidic pH of 5.5 in the hydrogen reactor, instead of pH 7 in the methane reactor. Both reactors were run at 35C.

They pulped the potatoes bought from a store and treated the slurry with peptone (an enzyme that breaks down protein), then seeded the two reactors – one for hydrogen the other for methane - with digested sludge from the local wastewater treatment plant to get the bacteria in place. For the hydrogen reactor, the seed sludge was pre-cultivated in a sucrose medium for a few days before switching to potato waste when high hydrogen production was confirmed. For the methane reaction, no precultivation of the sludge was required.

From the 4^th day, the potato pulp replaced sucrose and hydrogen biogas was produced continuously for a further 90 days. The maximum production rate from the one litre reactor was 270ml/h on the 17^th day, and the average rate over the entire 90-day period was 112.2ml/h. The hydrogen fraction fluctuated between 39 and 51 percent of the biogas (v/v). The average chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration (a measure of the amount of waste present) of the fluid coming out of the hydrogen reactor was 7 220mg/L, at an input concentration of 12 800mg/L. So more than 40 percent of the waste was removed.

Once hydrogen production became stable after the 20^th day, the outflow from the hydrogen reactor was transferred to the second, bigger (methane) reactor, 5 litres in volume. During the 70 days of operation, methane biogas was produced continuously; the maximum rate was 410ml/h, and the average rate, 213 ml/h. The concentration of methane in the biogas was between 69 and 79 percent. The average COD concentration in the methane bioreactor outflow was 4 130 mg/L. Again, the process removed more than 40% of the wastes. Together, the two reactors removed 68% of the waste.

Based on the hydrogen and methane production rates, the average energy yield from each kilogram dry weight of potato waste was 4.96 MJ (1.4kWh) and the maximum energy yield, 9.58 MJ (2.7kWh). For comparison, burning 1 kg wood yields about 20MJ [2]. But because the energy is generated from waste, it is essentially free, and does not require chopping down trees.

Potato is the third largest food crop in the world, and Canada is one of the leading producers (4.7million tonnes annually). Large amounts of potato waste come from food and potato processing plants. This is potentially a huge source of renewable, clean energy.

Dual purpose microbial fuel cell

A research team in Pennsylvania State University has also discovered how to coax the same bugs to make plenty of hydrogen while they are gobbling wastes [3].

When the bacteria ferment glucose, they generate a maximum of 4 molecules of hydrogen per molecule of glucose and end up at best with two molecules of acetic acid that they cannot convert further to hydrogen due to an electrochemical barrier. But, given a little electrical boost, the bacteria can jump over the barrier to generate more hydrogen.

The research team, led by Dr. Bruce Logan, already made news in 2004 [4], when they succeeded in getting the bacteria to produce electricity while removing wastes.

The bacteria were put into a microbial fuel cell that generated 26mW m² of electricity while removing up to 80% of the wastes that flowed through.

These waste treatment bacteria, numerous species belonging to many genera including Geobacter, Shewanella, and Pseudomonas, have the ability to transfer electrons obtained by fermenting wastes to external metals [5]. When the bacteria are attached to electrodes, the electrons are transferred to the electrodes (the anode), to flow through an external circuit to the cathode where they combine with oxygen from the air and protons (hydrogen ions) to form water.

The reactor then used was a single cylindrical plexiglass chamber the size of a soda water bottle in which the anode, consisting of eight graphite rods, was placed in a concentric arrangement surrounding a central cathode that was exposed to air. The air-porous cathode consisted of a carbon/platinum catalyst/proton exchange membrane layer fused to a plastic support tube.

The efficiency of the system, based on waste removal and current generation was less than 12%, indicating that a substantial fraction of the organic matter was lost without generating current; perhaps in producing more bacteria. But as the bacteria were doing their intended job, which was to remove waste, any electricity generated at the same time was an extra bonus.

Excluding air and boosting electric potential

Now, the team has discovered that by excluding air from the cathode, and by giving the bugs a boost of about 250mV, they can make the bugs produce hydrogen at high efficiency. They refer to this process as electrochemically assisted microbial production of hydrogen.

Normal fermentation converts glucose to dead end products such as acetic and butyric acid:

BugPower1.gif (3201 bytes)

In the first case, four molecules of hydrogen are generated, and in the second, only two molecules. The greatest theoretical yield possible is four molecules of hydrogen per molecule of glucose.

The microbial fuel cell, however, offers a new solution to the problem. By augmenting the electric potential in the microbial fuel cell circuit, it gave just the little help needed for the bacteria to make hydrogen out of acetic acid.

In a typical fuel cell, the open circuit potential of the anode is about –300mV. If hydrogen is produced at the cathode, the half reactions occurring at the anode and the cathode with acetic acid oxidized at the anode, are as follows:

BugPower2.gif (2935 bytes)

In order for the bugs to donate electrons to the anode from acetic acid, however, the anode potential has to be made less electronegative.

To improve the efficiency of the intended process, the researchers also created a two chamber microbial fuel cell instead of the one-chamber version they had previously constructed. One chamber contained the anode, the other the cathode, separated by a proton exchange membrane. A major advantage of housing anode and cathode in separate chambers is that the hydrogen produced at the cathode is separated from the carbon dioxide at the anode at source. Instead of being exposed to air, the cathode chamber was sealed. A voltage of 250mV or greater was applied to the circuit by connecting the positive pole of a power supply to the anode, and the negative pole to the cathode.

The external power supply increased the anode potential from –300mV to -291mV with a boost of 250mV and to –275mV with a boost of 850mV, producing hydrogen and degrading more than 95% of the acetate in the process. The recovery of electrons as hydrogen was over 90%. The Coulombic efficiency - defined as the recovery of total electrons in acetate as current - ranged from 60 to 78% depending on the applied voltage. Thus 2.9 of the theoretical maximum 4 molecules of hydrogen are obtained from the acetic acid reaction with water by an injection of 250mV of electricity (see equation 3). This compares favourably with the costly1800-2000 mV needed for getting hydrogen from splitting water [6].

A combined fermentation and bioelectrochemically assisted anaerobic microbial fuel cell has the potential to produce as much as 8 to 9 molecules of hydrogen starting from a molecule of glucose (The theoretical maximum is 12, see equations 1, 3 and 4.)

With this bioelectrochemically-assisted reactor, hydrogen can be produced from any type of biodegradable organic matter. Combined hydrogen production and wastewater treatment will offset the substantial costs of wastewater treatment as well as provide a contribution to the hydrogen economy. As the technology is rather simple, it can be adapted for use at different scales, in third world countries as well as industrialised countries.

At the BIOCAP Canada conference referred to earlier, another poster pointed out that 45 of 56 wastewater treatment plants in large urban areas of Ontario, Canada incorporate an anaerobic digestion process to reduce the volume of disposable sludge; but the methane produced is mostly wasted by being flared off to the atmosphere. A conservative estimate suggests that if all the wastewater sites were to use anaerobic digesters and simply recover the methane to generate electricity, this would produce 1.51 GWh/day [7]. It was a small percentage of the total of 317GWh consumed each day in Ontario. But on average, 0.3kg of CO₂ is emitted per kWh energy produced from Ontario Power Generation, so simply recovering the biogas energy from the current sites using anaerobic digesters represents a saving of 432 tonnes of CO₂ per day.

Imagine what can be achieved if waste treatment were optimised for hydrogen production.

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“Smaller discoveries and diminishing reserves per well are adding to pressure on oil companies in the West to gain access to large, unexploited oilfields in Russia and the Gulf states.... ....'The hunt for oil continues, but it is becoming increasingly difficult,' he said. 'There are few areas of the world that are unexplored and that is why the larger companies are so keen to get access to areas that are off-limits.' Shut out from the large known reserves of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the West’s oil companies have had significant successes, such as in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, Angola and Nigeria. There have also been failures, such as Brazil and Azerbaijan."
Oil industry 'struggling to find new reserves'
London Times, 14 June 2005

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Time For Some Lateral Thinking
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In A Futile Fight For Oil Doomed To Make Things Worse