Latest advances in energy storage may pave way for renewable-only energy grid

While some countries like Germany have take giant steps in the development of cost-efficient solar and other renewable energy sources, that virtually scrap the need for the so-called "conventional" sources like oil, gas or nukes, a problem remains: how to store energy in a reliable and efficient way to be released in a controlled way when the renewable sources are temporarily not available (night for solar, windless days for eolic, etc.)

Research is in progress but I will mention here a few examples on how this is advancing. 

A year ago, a team of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, led by Sri Narayan, developed an advanced battery based on iron rusting. This method has the advantage of being relatively well known (has been around from the 1970s) but previously faced the challenge of about half its capacity being robbed by hydrolysis. This research managed to reduce such loss to just 4%, what is a great advance, thanks to the use of a small amount of bismuth sulfide. 

More recently research has been focused on membraneless batteries. In April team of U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University researchers announced a lithium polysulfide battery, that overcomes material limitations of previous similar designs (lithium and sulfur are relatively inexpensive) and is easily scalable for large scale energy management needs.

This week MIT researchers offered another new membraneless alternative that beats lithium capacities by "an order of magnitude". The model, based on bromine and hydrogen reactions overcomes the limitations of these materials, whose composite hydrobromic acid tends to eat the battery membranes, by totally suppressing them. The development is being presented as "a quantum leap" in energy storage systems, although other researchers are more cautious.

Spain: IMF wants to slash salaries another 10%

Cristina Lagarta, oops, I mean Christine Lagarde, IMF top boss and former right hand of fascist French President Sarkozy, wants Spain to slash salaries another 10% (a 7% was already cut last year to all public officers, excepted MPs).

Not just that Lagarde also wants a reduction of 1.7% in social security fees, along a substantial increase in the time needed to be entitled to a pension (from 25 to 35 years) and an undetermined further increase in the VAT tax (already dramatically increased). 

She also wants impossibles such as to to reach "a credible social pact".

On the other hand her forecasts are gloomy, even in the event of acceptance of her stupid demands: private consume would fall initially on these changes (of course) and unemployment would remain extreme even in 2017 (26% forecast).

In spite of rising the VAT and demolishing the social fabric, Lagarde imagines that prices would drop. 

Source: Gara[es].

Lagarde is a retard, reality instead

This woman is plain stupid (or rather a criminal and compulsive liar): salaries simply cannot fall under the living costs and she is not proposing any such measures other than hallucinating with a hypothetical price drop based on nothing. 

Real effective measures would be to force the housing market to adjust prices downwards dramatically and brutally increase the availability of cheap public housing (and/or allowing squatting of speculators' idle property). The extremely high (and anti-market) costs of housing are surely the main barrier to salary drop. You just can't work for less that it costs you to live. 

Another key barrier are the totally unjustified high prices of electricity bills, which have grown more than 50% in the last few years and more than 100% in the last decade. Spain now has the most expensive electricity bills in all the Eurozone, excepted Cyprus and Ireland.

If Spanish salaries have to fall, living costs have to fall first and foremost. And that means hurting the banks and the energy monopolies.

Neither Lagarde nor Barroso nor Rajoy will do that. But is the only logical thing to do other than outright communism.

USA: natural gas and oil disaster in Gulf of Mexico

A gas platform property of ERT declared "loss of well control" and is leaking natural gas and oil to the sea.

According to ERT’s site assessment, natural gas is flowing from the well and there is a rainbow sheen visible on the surface estimated to be more than four miles wide by three quarters of a mile long.

The rainbow sheen is caused by oil, not gas. 

The loss of control happened as workers tried to temporarily plug the well.

The platform has a history of many irregularities: 

According to federal data, the platform where the blow-out took place has been cited for 12 incidents of non-compliance since 2008.

Source: EneNews.


Update: photos and some more details at On Wings of Care.

Quebec oil train catastrophe: five confirmed dead, "many" missing, town destroyed

Yesterday's oil train catastrophe in Lac-Megantin, Quebec, has left a whole town destroyed and burning, with an unknown but extremely high death toll.

Some news excerpts collected by Energy News:

NBC News, July 8, 2013: Fires were still burning more than 24 hours after a driverless train carrying petroleum products derailed and exploded in a Quebec town, setting off a massive blaze [...] Quebec provincial police Lt. Michel Brunet refused to say how high the death toll could eventually go, but said authorities have been told “many” people have been reported missing. [...] Burning crude spilled into the storm sewers and rose up through street manholes, setting buildings on fire, the head of the rail company that ran the train told Reuters. [...] Police officials said they believe at least 50 tanks caught fire [...] 

NPR, July 8, 2013: [...] According to the Montreal Gazette, “the city’s downtown core was almost completely destroyed by the blast. It housed a mix of commercial and residential units in historic buildings.”

Water powered car... since 1969

This may be one of the main Filipino contributions to Humankind ever. Daniel Dingel, a Filipino engineer, has been developing and improving water-powered cars since 1969. It is just unbelievable that the revolutionary vehicle, that right now consumes only one liter of salty water per hour, has not replaced fuel-powered cars altogether.

In fact it has found all kind of troubles and obstacles, although the prototypes are actually running through the streets and highways of Manila with just a few liters of water. What are we waiting for?

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Website: Watercar (Yahoo! groups).

Spain: Garoña nuclear plant will be closed before July 6th

This is very good news indeed. The nuclear power plant of Garoña, located near Miranda de Ebro, at the border with the Basque Country, will in the end be definitely closed within two weeks. The closure has been a persistent popular demand in the Basque Country and Castile since decades ago. 

Basic danger radius of Garoña NPP
Cities in 100 Km radius: Vitoria-Gasteiz, Bilbao, Burgos, Logroño, Santander
Cities in 150 Km radius: Iruñea-Pamplona, Donostia-San Sebastian, Soria, Palencia

Garoña NPP is the oldest nuclear facility of Spain, beginning its operation in 1971, having a license for until July 2009 and producing some 1.4% of the electric energy of the state. Contrary to rumors of its imminent closure, the license was extended to 2013, although the owner, Nuclenor, asked for 10 years of extended authorization. 

When renegotiating the lease last year, Nuclenor maneuvered in order to avoid new increased taxes to nuclear residues, letting the term for the demand of the extension to expire with the pretext of legal uncertainty. Weeks ago, their new off-term request for extension was backed by the regulator body CSN, raising many eyebrows and renewed protests. However finally there has been no agreement and the station will be closed "before July 6th", in the words of Industry Minister José Manuel Soria.

He insisted however in the closure being only for "economic reasons" and not security ones. The station has been inactive since December 2012. 

Greenpeace action against Garoña NPP

In its lifetime, the utility has got 136 incidents, six of them of category 1 or higher. In 1989, it released some 100,000 liters of radioactive water to the River Ebro; in 1990 there was a fire in the electric connections that was classified as level 3 ("major incident"); in 2001 it had another loss of some 6000 liters of radioactive water; in 2004, the vase of the reactor suffered major cracks; in 2012 a Greenpeace cell flied over the facility, dropping smoke canisters to evidence its vulnerability to hypothetical terrorist attacks. 

Most people I know born and raised in the district has important health problems, often serious cancers in their youth, which can only tentatively attributed to the radioactive contamination by the utility. 

Garoña has many similitudes with the ill-fated Fukushima Daichi NPP, including the same type of reactor, made by GE, or the dubious contention system Mark I, which has caused serious problems since the 1970s around the World.

Therefore its closure can only be cause of celebration.

Source: Naiz Info[es].

USA: major crack forces the shutdown of nuclear reactor in North Carolina

The Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, located near Raleigh (North Carolina), has been shut down today because of a serious emergency as a major crack in the reactor was discovered. 

The crack measuring a quarter inch wide (~65mm) was not all the way through the reactor (meaning that it was almost all the way through the reactor?) and apparently no radioactive material has escaped yet. 

Robots will need to be used for the repairs, as the crack is in a highly radioactive area. 

The crack showed up in a secondary revision of tests performed last year. 

While the owner, Duke Energy, minimizes the importance of this problem, it is a fact that cracks may force the total closure of a nuclear reactor because of the massive costs of repairing them. DE already lost another nuclear power plant in Florida in 2009 after the cost of reparations became overwhelming.

Sources: WITN, News Observer, WRAL (via EneNews).

Guatemala: military attacks against the People resisting Canadian mine

The state of exception (= military rule) in four municipalities opposing the silver mining project at San Rafael district, Jalapa, Guatemala, by the Canadian corporation Tahoe Resources.

A month ago the same measure was taken against Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetanango, whose citizens are fighting against a hydroelectric project by Spanish multinational ENDESA.

In all cases the authorities have used the pretext of alleged criminal and narco business as excuse to declare the state of exception. Armored and assault vehicles were displayed at the towns affected, causing fear.

The government of Guatemala is in the hands of General Otto Pérez Molina, accused in the process for Crimes Against Humankind against General Efraín Ríos Montt, who led the fascist repression in the 1980s.

Source: LINyM[es].