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Friday, 17 June 2011

Pocket Particle Accelerators Could Bring Safer Nuclear Power to

Neighborhoods

Published June 17, 2011
    EMMA Installation.JPG
    Science and Technology Facilities Council-UK
    Pocket-sized particle accelerators like EMMA -- the Electron Model of Many Applications -- could bring safer nuclear power to neighborhoods.
    A wee particle accelerator in the English countryside could be a harbinger of a safer, cleaner future of energy. 
    Nuclear energy has wrought havoc in Japan and controversy throughout Europe and the U.S. The new particle accelerator concept would instead be based on thorium, a radioactive element that is much more abundant, and much safer, than traditional sources of nuclear power.
    Some advocates believe small nuclear reactors powered by thorium could wean the world off coal and natural gas, and do it more safely than traditional nuclear. Thorium is not only abundant, but more efficient than uranium or coal -- one ton of the silver metal can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3.5 million tons of coal, as the Mail on Sunday calculates it.
    The newspaper took a tour of a small particle accelerator that could be used to power future thorium reactors. Nicknamed EMMA -- the Electron Model of Many Applications -- the accelerator would be used to jump-start fissile nuclear reactions inside a small-scale thorium power plant.
    Thorium reactors would not melt down, in part because they require an external input to produce fission. Thorium atoms would release energy when bombarded by high-energy neutrons, such as the type supplied in a particle accelerator.
    Providing that stimulus is one obstacle to building small thorium reactors -- but a new generation of accelerators like EMMA, and someday potentially even smaller, luggage-sized ones -- could do the job.
    EMMA is the first non-scaling, fixed-field, alternating-gradient (NS-FFAG) accelerator, qualities that make it easier to operate and maintain, more reliable and compact, more flexible and more efficient, according to British researchers. Other particle accelerators use alternating electric fields, which require special safety measures to guard against microwave exposure, for instance. EMMA's alternating magnetic field gradients are a more efficient and cheaper way to accelerate particles to higher energies. (Brookhaven National Laboratory explains in more detail here.)
    EMMA operates at operates around 20 MeV, or 20 million electronvolts, a paltry amount for an atom accelerator. The Tevatron, for instance, accelerates particles to 1 tera-electron volts. The Large Hadron Collider is designed to speed them to 7 TeV. But thorium reactors would not need such high energies to initiate fusion.
    British scientists are already working on a successor called PAMELA, the Particle Accelerator for Medical Applications, which will be used to treat cancer.
    Click through to the Mail for a full tour of EMMA, its sister apparatus ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments), and a description of British efforts to produce thorium power.


    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/16/pocket-particle-accelerators-like-this-one-could-bring-safer-nuclear-power-to/#ixzz1PXkdKGs5
    Posted by Editorial at 15:25 0 comments

    Chinese Banks Back $10 Billion Bid to Build Solar Energy Plants in Europe


    Two Chinese banks are providing as much as $10 billion in funding to a group of three Chinese makers of solar equipment to build sun-powered energy projects in Europe.
    China Merchants Bank Co. and the state-owned China Development Bank Corp. are backing the efforts of Goldpoly New Energy Holdings Ltd., TBEA SunOasis Co. and China Technology Development Group Corp. (CTDC) to expand in Europe, CTDC said in a statement.
    The solar companies say their goals align with the Chinese government’s policies on promoting renewable energy, and that the German government’s plans to abandon nuclear power by 2022 will drive up demand for solar energy in the region.
    “We feel confident that we will be leading the next golden decade of solar energy development,” Tim Yiu, executive director and general manager of the solar energy business of Goldpoly, a solar cell maker based in Jinjiang in China’s Fujian Province, said in the statement.
    The three companies plan to use modules produced with their own components, including polysilicon, wafers, cells and inverters, according to the statement. They expect to initially develop small projects and then move on to larger ones.
    “Our PV investment consortium has strong financial support from China Development Bank and China Merchants Bank,” said Jianxin Zhang, chief executive officer of TBEA SunOasis, based in Urumqi. “Given their backing of $10 billion credit facilities, we will be able to grow steadily and advance our investment and construction of solar plants in Europe.”

    State Support

    An exact timeline and breakdown of the financing wasn’t disclosed. Lending by China Development Bank for clean energy projects exceeded $35.5 billion last year, according to a February report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
    China Development Bank has loaned to other Chinese solar power equipment makers, including more than $26 billion to LDK Solar Co., Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL), Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Suntech Power Holdings Co. and JA Solar Holdings Co., according to data compiled by the London-based researcher.
    The three solar makers said this is the first time three listed Chinese companies have formed such a group, and the funding will provide a new avenue to sell their own products.
    Other solar companies have purchased development companies to ensure demand for their products. SunPower Corp. (SPWRA), a U.S. maker of solar panels, bought Malta-based SunRay Renewable Energy in February 2010 to increase its sales in Europe. LDK Solar bought in January a 70 percent stake in Solar Power Inc.
    Posted by Editorial at 14:36 0 comments

    Global Marine Power Industry May Be Worth $760 Billion by 2050, U.K. Says


    By Alex Morales - May 3, 2011 1:00 PM GMT+0100

    The global marine power industry could be worth as much as 460 billion pounds ($760 billion) by 2050, with the U.K. comprising a sixth of the market, Carbon Trust said today.
    Power generated from the waves and tides could bring 76 billion pounds to the British economy, including 68,000 jobs created over four decades, the government-funded trust said. Those jobs would be due to growing export markets in countries such as Chile, the U.S. and European nations on the Atlantic, it said in an e-mail.
    “Marine energy could be a major ‘made in Britain’ success,” Benj Sykes, director of innovations at Carbon Trust, said in a statement. “By cementing our early mover advantage, the U.K. could develop a significant export market, generate thousands of jobs and meet our own demand for clean, homegrown electricity.”
    Marine power costs will need to come down for the industry to grow and there is a high risk of “much smaller, or zero deployment” of the technologies, the Carbon Trust said.
    It costs about $396.10 to generate a megawatt-hour of power from the waves and $315.98 for tidal power, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That compares with $83.20 for onshore wind, $70.07 for coal and $59.76 for natural gas.
    U.K. marine energy capacity could reach 27.5 gigawatts by 2050, enough to meet more than a fifth of current demand, the trust said. Globally, 240 gigawatts may be developed over the next four decades, three-quarters of that from wave power, it said.
    The U.K. is home to 35 of the world’s 120 to 130 companies developing wave and tidal power, according to the Carbon Trust. They include Marine Current Turbines Ltd., a Bristol-based company whose shareholders include Siemens AG (SIE), and Pelamis Wave Power Ltd. in Edinburgh.
    To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

    Posted by Editorial at 14:33 0 comments

    Tuesday, 7 June 2011

    LNG to add $36 billion a year to Australian economy


    LNG to add $36 billion a year to Australian economy



    LNG demand to increase
    Australia exported $7.2bn worth of natural gas in 2009, the latest figure available / File
    AUSTRALIA is poised to become the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas by 2020, earning $36 billion annually by then, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
    In a special report released in London yesterday, the IEA also says Australia will remain among the leading global suppliers for 15 years through to 2035, reported The Australian.
    "We think Australia will play a crucial role in the golden age of gas. It could be a golden age for Australia's LNG industry," said IEA chief economist Fatih Birol, the lead author of the report. "By around 2020 -- only 10 years from now -- Australian production may increase threefold."
    Speaking exclusively to The Australian, Dr Birol said the new report examined factors that could result in a more prominent role for gas in the global energy mix.

    Related Coverage

    These included the widespread development of unconventional resources, gas targets in China's 12th Five-Year Plan, a slowdown in nuclear energy and increased deployment of natural gas vehicles.
    Based on IEA's price assumptions, Australian exports, totalling 85 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2020, would generate export revenues of $36bn a year.
    Australia exported $7.2bn worth of natural gas in 2009, the latest figure available.
    In 2010, it was the fourth-largest exporter behind Qatar, Indonesia and Malaysia.
    But whether Australia becomes a world leader in gas exports depended on the policy framework of the Australian government and the industry making timely and sufficient investment.
    However, there would be challenges, including the risk of construction delays and cost escalation due to workforce shortages, as large resources projects compete for limited manpower in Australia and also in neighbouring Asia-Pacific countries where other LNG liquefaction projects were under construction.
    Asked whether the proposed carbon tax would be a negative, Dr Birol, named by Forbes Magazine as the world's fourth most powerful person in the energy scene, said it would not be a deal-breaker.
    The IEA said large projects such as Gorgon, based on Barrow Island in Western Australia and producing about 20bcm per year with a capital investment of some $40bn, would be the backbone of Australian supply. Australia's key customers would be Asian countries, with growth led by China, followed by India.
    Read more about


    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/golden-age-of-gas-to-pipe-in-36bn-a-year-to-australian-economy/story-e6frfm1i-1226070658026#ixzz1OZju47hU
    Posted by Editorial at 09:06 0 comments
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