Category Archives: CounterCurrent

Waterboarding in the Spanish Inquisition

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The Spanish Inquisition lasted from 1478 to 1834 and was started by the monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella.  The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon to Isabella of Castile united two kingdoms on the Iberian pennisula.  The Spanish Inquisition was set apart from the long running and contemporary papal inquisitions through a special papal bull issued from Pope Sixtus IV to the Spanish monarchy. The crown was able to gain political control over the appointment of inquisitors in Castile which, until then, had managed to avoid the implementation of inquisitions by the church.

The priviledged commission granted to the Spanish Inquisition afforded considerable magisterial control to the Spanish Monarchy and allowed it to focus on the eradication of Jewish and Muslim influence in Spain. Prior to the issuance of the bull, the church had a focus on the reconciliation of heretics back to the church.  Under the Spanish Crown, however, judiazing heretics were the subject of particularly enthusiastic prosecution. Under the guise of spiritual mandate, Jews were compelled to leave behind their wealth and exit Spain or convert to Christianity. But all would not bode well for the conversos.

Over time, the conversos and their decendants would be suspected of secret Judiazing and the practice of Mosaic law.  A kind of circuit court of inquisitors was instituted early in the Inquisition whereupon a select Grand Inquisitor would oversee the conduct of Inquisitions throughout the realm on behalf of the Crown.

A codified system of procedures and functionaries was put in place for the conduct of inquisitions.  Suspected heretics were always presumed guilty until they could prove their innocence.  An inquisition was conducted in a way so as to elicit a confession since this was regarded as the best form of evidence of guilt. Torture was instituted and performed when stubborn heretics failed to confess to the satisfaction of the inquisitors.

The variety of torture techniques included hanging the defendant by his wrists which were tied behind his back (the garrucha); stretching the defendant on the rack (the potro); or pouring water down the nose and throat of the defendant to simulate drowning (the toca).  These techniques were conducted in order to produce a satisfactory confession.

At the conclusion of the inquisition, the guilty defendant was “relaxed” to the constable for punishment or execution. In this system, there was no external authority such as the pope to contradict the will of the Crown in the roundup and prosecution of suspected heretics.

Of special interest is the toca. This seems to be a form of what we now call “waterboarding”.  It is generally agreed that when the Inquisitors performed it, it was regarded as a form of torture. The contemporary practice is defined as “enhanced interrogation”.

It was the Spain of this Inquisition period that set sail for the Americas in search of wealth and for natives to convert to Christianity. Unfortunately for the native people of the Americas, these visitors had a frothy zeal for heavy metals and Christ.

Reference:  Lu Ann Homza, The Spanish Inquisition, 1474-1614, 2006, Hackett Publishing Company, ISBN 0-87220-794-3.

Thorium power. Will the US get on board?

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Everybody knows by now that China is flush with rare earth elements (REE’s), or at least to the uppermost extent that any country can be. And, everybody knows the market hijinks that China has planned with REE’s, namely, buy all the REE’s you want from them, as long it is in a value-added manufactured good.

What most folks are probably not aware of is that the ore bodies that carry the REE’s (Sc, Y, and the Lanthanides) are usually enriched in thorium and/or uranium.  So much so that no little amount of skill and equipment is needed to separate Th & U from the REE’s. The US and USSR developed much of this separations technology post WWII and for decades thereafter. Much of this art is in the US patent literature. The rest of it is buried in dusty, obscure volumes on library shelves.

The art of REE separation is arcane and somewhat isolated from the rest of inorganic chemistry owing to its specialized nature. Most of the separations art relies on leaching and elaborate solvent exchange schemes.  Ion exchange technology is also highly represented in this domain.  Few chemistry students are exposed to this science and most of the cold war era practitioners are retired, ailing, or deceased.

Chemistry students rarely see this art for another reason. It is generally practiced by engineers and metallurgists who seem to be in a perpetual phase separation from the standard chemistry curriculum. I would argue that this distinction is mainly cultural.

Back to the Chinese. While Americans have been busy yammering about drill-baby-drill, or following the escapades of reality show imbeciles or a thousand other idiotic distractions, we have failed to focus pressure on our government to consider technologies like thorium power or molten salt reactor technology.

While a gullible and frankly, cognitively impaired, vocal minority in the US accept that we have a right to $<3.00/gal gasoline, we are being distracted into the warm feather bed of self-congratulation and delusion about our supposed exceptionalism. I sense that our culture is beginning to show a type of exceptionalism that is not very admirable.

While American voters are being spun up into a frenzy again about commodity oil prices, China has been promulgating its national industrial policies. American industrial policy seems to be about lining the citizens up for accelerating consumption. China’s industrial policy emphasis seems to be about putting infrastructure and capacity in place for exports as well as anticipated internal consumption.

China has a substantial presence in mineral rich Africa. China imports copper ore from Peru and Chile. Not finished copper- but copper ore. China keeps the value added steps for its own coffers. Most distressingly, China is busily working on copper mining in Afganistan while our kids fight and die there in an intractable cultural shooting war. Did you get that?

China is mining in Afganistan and Americans are paying to die there.

While the US pays to make the world safe for commerce, China is spreading out over the world looking for scarce resources like copper under the umbrella of stability.  While China mines copper in Afganistan, the USA consumes copper in Afganistan in the form of brass bullet casings ejected over the landscape. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.

Is this a diatribe against all things Chinese? Absolutely not. If anything, China has skillfully mastered it’s range of control and made purposeful, long term plans to reach its goals. Like its plans for Thorium-based molten salt reactors. Thorium power is undergoing a bit more examination now, as described in this Forbes article.

Here is a point I’d like to get across. The present boom in REE exploration and mining is in a good place for thorium extraction. If thorium were to be part of the extracted value rather than a costly sidestream in need of segregation and remediation, then the subsequently improved economics of REE extraction and greater availability might translate to lower REE costs for users of rare earth metal technology.

There is a crucial synergy here that the US would do well to exploit. But it requires vision, long term planning, and regulatory flexibility in the handling, accumulation, and processing of thorium.  These attributes the US now lacks. The current lead pipe doctrines of American politics represents a critical systems failure of our culture. We cannot continue to regard middle-ground compromise as total forfeiture.

The degree symbol- Do we really need to keep using it?

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I had an evil thought just now as I attempt to write 2 reports simultaneously. Why do we keep using that superscripted circle in front of C (i.e., ºC) that designates “degree”?

What the hell? We don’t use it for the Kelvin temperature scale. And, who knows if the engineers use it for Rankine? The thing is useless like an appendix or a titular chairman. Get rid of it!

What do you think?

Fear and Loathing with Frac Fluids

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There is considerable handwringing over hydraulic fracturing fluids and their potential effects on “the environment”. I use quotes in ironic fashion because I see very little parsing of the issue into relevant components. The chemical insult to the environment is highly dependent on both the substances and the extent of dispersion. But I state the obvious.

There are surface effects at the drill site and there are subsurface effects. A spill on the surface is going to be relatively small due to the limited size of the available tankage on site. I drive by these sites almost daily and can see with my own eyes the scale of the project. A surface spill of materials will be limited in scope.

The subsurface effects are complex, however, and the magnitude of consequences will depend on both the extent of the fluid penetration into aquifers and the nature of the materials in the fluid. Much criticism has been dealt, rightfully I think, over the secrecy claims on the composition of these fluids. The default reply from drillers has rested on trade secrecy. To be sure, the matter of government forcing a company to reveal its art is a serious matter. But the distribution of chemical substances into the environment requires some oversight. Especially when substances are injected into locations where they cannt be readily remediated. The remediation of an aquifer is a serious undertaking which may or may not be effective.

If you want to see what is potentially in frac fluids, go to Google Patents and search “hydraulic fracturing fluid”. A great many patents will be found. This will give the length and breadth of the compositions patented. Of this large list only a few are used in current practice. The potential carrier fluids vary from water to LPG (!). Water is a common component, but brine is said to be preferred. Additives include hydrochloric acid and surfactants. The MSDS documents may be a good source of info. Consider that a substantial threat to ground water may be that it is rendered non-potable rather than outright  toxic.

Plasma

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Today I found myself peering at the lovely lavender glow of opaque argon plasma through the viewing screen of a gleaming new instrument. The light-emitting 8000 K plasma sits apparently still alongside the conical metal skimmer. Somewhere a Dewar was quietly releasing a stream of argon into a steel tube that was bent in crisp military angles into and through walls and across the busy spaces above the suspended ceiling. Another cylinder quietly blows a faint draught of helium into the collision cell. A chiller courses cooled water through the zones heated by the quiet but savage plasma. Inside a turbo pump labors to rush the sparse gases out of the mass analyzer and into the inlet of the rough pump and up the exhaust stack.

Up on the roof, the heavy and invisible argon spills along the cobbles of roofing stones until it rolls off the roof onto the ground where the rabbits scamper and prairie dogs yap. The helium atoms begin their random walk into space. The argon shuffles anonymously into the breeze and becomes part of the weather.

All of the delicate arrangements; all of the contrivances and computer controls in place to tune and play this 21st century marvel. And a wonderment it is. The ICPMS obliterates solutes into a plasma state and then taps a miniscule stream of the heavy incandescent argon breath that trickles into the vacuous electronic salsa dance hall of the quadrapole.  All the heat and rhythm for the sake of screening and counting atomic ions. What a exotic artifact of anthropology it is. And it all began in a rift zone in Africa millions of years ago.

Fox Investigates Chem Labs

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Good God.  Fox News in Philly is now investigating university chemistry labs for “high risk” chemicals.  The shabby quality of this piece is beyond words. The entire thrust is this- Chemicals as bomb raw materials. An invitation to walk right in and grab all the corrosives and explosives you can.

Note the law enforcement images alluding to sinister threats and the fear mongering.  It’s what these people do. Manufacturing consent.

What a Key Supply-Sider Says Now

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Here is a link to an interesting interview of Bruce Bartlett, one of Jack Kemp’s architects of supply side economics. Certainly no liberal, Bartlett has many insider views on current republican intentions on taxation and the deconstruction of federal government.

If certain politicians and their backers aren’t more careful, their plan to deconstruct government by intentionally bankrupting it and reconstructing American society is going to precipitate civil unrest unlike anything seen before in this country. These people are playing a very dangerous game capable of outcomes well beyond their control.

Respecting liquid hydrocarbons as a natural wonder

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I just had a conversation with a colleague who is somewhat mainstream in his/her thinking. The question came up as to why can’t we be energy independent.  What is taking so long with the electric cars and natural gas powered … everything? When can we break away from middle eastern petroleum?

In the public sphere, all I hear are the questioners seeking reassurance that there are energy forms out there that will allow us to maintain our current level of consumption. They rarely put it exactly that way, but that is the heart of the issue.

I think multiple generations of people have failed to appreciate the natural wonder of liquid hydrocarbons. The C7-C10 fractions of petroleum, whether directly from the ground or from a cat cracker or reformer, are the motive basis for most of our ground transportation. These liquid hydrocarbons are of a reasonably low vapor pressure and high enough boiling point to allow their use in everything from go-carts and lawn mowers to automobiles and caterpillars.  Teenagers and grandmothers can pump hydrocarbons into an inexpensive and simple tank for use at ambient pressure and temperature. This liquid has a melting point low enough to make it flowable under nearly all earthly conditions.

The high energy density and the liquid state of gasoline is what makes it nearly perfect for propulsion. The energy density of gasoline is 34.8 mega-Joules per liter (MJ/L), as opposed to 21.2 MJ/L for ethanol.

Yeah, gasoline is cheaper per liter than the bottled water inside the convenience store. That perversion is just a temporary historical aberration. This will change.

Cosmically, hydrocarbons in the C7-C10 range suitable for automotive use are quite scarce in the local stellar neighborhood.  Some small hydrocarbon molecules like methane have been spotted in the gas giant planets and on Titan. But for the most part, the only supply of hydrocarbons we have are found in porous deposits below the surface of the only place we can get to- Earth.

We should appreciate our hydrocarbon resources for the true natural wonder that it is and be a bit more reluctant to squander it.  I doubt we’ll ever find a source of energy that is as cheap and convenient to use with such a high energy density.  Battery technology may get close, but innovation there is a highly specialized art that is beyond the scope of most shade tree mechanics. Common lead acid batteries require material and energy inputs, like everything else, and have somewhat low energy density and a high weight penalty.

Lithium batteries, with their higher energy density require a variety of manufactured and relatively exotic substances. And, they require lithium which is fairly scarce, both cosmically and on earth. We really should be recycling lithium scrap.  Seriously, we need to have great respect and appreciation for lithium as well. There really isn’t enough lithium to support everyone’s high energy density lifestyle.

Pinch Predicted in the Uranium Market

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According to an article in Mineweb, the remaining cold war era uranium will be consumed in the next few years, leaving the nuclear industry with inadequate supply streams from mining.  Thomas Drolet of Drolet & Associates Energy Services, said that in 2010 mining produced 118 million pounds of uranium against a demand of 190 million pounds. Obviously, the balance was made up from decomissioned nuclear weapons stockpiles. The article did not say whether the numbers represented lbs of U or of U3O8. The oxide is commonly cited in relation to uranium mine production.

Drolet suggests that Japan will have to restart ca 30 of its 50 or so reactors in order to meet power demand.

It is my sense that the Fukushima disaster will not be the stake in the heart of nuclear power. The location of the Fukushima plant and a list of easily identifiable design features allowed the initiation and propagation of the incident. While the future of reactor operation in Japan may be stunted, most reactors elsewhere in the world are not located in tsunami flood zones. Regrettably, some are located in fault zones. But the insatiable demand for kilowatt hours will override everything. Commercial fission will continue into the indefinite future.

Return to fundamentals

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As we labor away on our extractive metallurgy project, I continue to marvel at how even complex extraction schemes reduce to the application of fundamental chemistry and basic unit operations. It is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the composition of your ore and the fate of the components as they are exposed to unit operations. The extraction of desired metals from your ore requires extensive use of analytical resources in order to keep the process economics in line.

Extractive metallurgy also requires an extensive knowledge of descriptive inorganic chemistry- something that was glossed over when I was in college. When I took undergraduate inorganic chemistry the emphasis was on ligand field theory, group theory application to symmetry and vibrational modes, coordination complex chemistry, etc. Lots of content that took many lecture hours to cover. Basic reaction chemistry was neglected in favor of admittedly elegant theory.

The fun for me (an organikker) has been in learning lots of descriptive inorganic chemistry and inorganic synthesis.

Extractive metallurgy in practice comes down to a relatively short list of operations. Roasting or calcining, comminution & classification, extraction, dissolution, flocculation, frothing, dewatering and filtration, redox transformations, precipitation, and drying.  Since most of the solution work is water based, the main handles you have to pull are temperature, selective solubility, and pH.

My undergrad coursework in inorganic qualitative analysis, specifically the separation schemes, has been very valuable both in terms of benchwork as well as descriptive chemistry.