Radiant Pastures

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“The AEC is my shepherd: I shall not live. (AEC- the Atomic Energy Commission)
It maketh me to lie down in radiant pastures; it leadeth
me beside deathly waters.
It destroyeth my bones; it leadeth me in the path of
frightfulness for its name’s sake.
Yet, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will hear no evil; for thou art with me; thy
bomb and thy SAC, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a fable before me in the presence of mine
enemies; thou anointest thy words with oil; my cup
runneth over.
Surely, strontium and fallout shall follow me all the days
of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the
AEC–but hardly forever.”

by Lester Del Rey

Can be found in “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age“, edited by Robert A. Baker

LNG Ships and Shipping

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An interesting bundle of factoids arrived in my daily newsletter from the American Petroleum Institute, API. The cost of shipping LNG is disclosed. I’ll just cut and paste it for convenience. The source is Freightwaves.

From API- “Liquefied natural gas charter rates were estimated to average $313,000 per day for the most efficient LNG carriers and $276,700 per day for tri-fuel, diesel engine carriers as of Monday, according to Clarkson’s Securities, some analysts predict rates could climb as high as $500,000 per day or even $1 million in the fourth quarter amid tight ship availability on the spot market. “According to brokers, owners can now achieve three-way economics, which means they are compensated not just for a regular round voyage but also for positioning voyages,” said Clarksons Securities analyst Frode Morkedal.”

Ok, I like big boats and I cannot lie. When you look into the shipping vessels themselves you can find a wondrous horde of information on LNG carrier details, such as tri-fuel, diesel engine (TFDE) powered ships. These are ship propulsion systems that drive the propellers with electric motors that in turn are energized by generators driven by engines that can burn diesel oil or LNG.

There are many advantages to the TDFE propulsion systems. Due to the low boiling point of LNG (-161.5 C), loss of LNG to evaporation is unavoidable. Fortunately, the boil-off vapor from the LNG tanks can be piped down to the engine room and used for propulsion. This LNG boil-off can be used to generate steam or can be used directly by powering two-stroke engines. The newer TFDE system, or the DFDE (Di-Fuel Diesel Electric) engines require less space than conventional diesel engines with all of their ancillary features. This leaves more room for payload.

The Bright Hub Engineering site says that a typical TFDE electric generator system produces 8 to 12 megawatts of power from each of its 4 generators at 6600 to 11000 volts at 60 Hz. The electric propulsion motors are coupled together with a reduction gear to turn the props.

As alluded to above there are duel fuel 2-stroke marine engines in use. The duel fuel engines combine Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), also called bunker fuel, or Marine Diesel Oil (MDO) with LNG in the Diesel cycle with a load range of 10 to 100 %. The mixture of HDO or MDO with LNG is injected directly as opposed to being premixed with air. Because the autoignition temperature of LNG is high, a small amount of pilot oil is injected as well to ensure ignition. The actual mixture used can be adjusted to best match the price and availability of the fuel oil.

The di- and tri-fuel systems have the advantage of producing considerably less pollution that conventional bunker fuels. This is especially important in port where emission controls can be very strict.

2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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Congratulations to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry” for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is the second prize for Sharpless.

The term ‘bioorthogonal’ seems a little odd at first but the definition of orthogonal is- Adjective, intersecting or lying at right angles. This could stem from the idea of an atomic or molecular orbital whose axis is perpendicular to another resulting in bonding and anti-bonding orbital overlap. That is, they are electronically unconnected with each other. The analogy is with the fact that click reactions don’t interfere with biochemical reactions in the system. It’s a good choice of terms.

Sharpless achieved the vaunted adjective status prior to his earlier 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on catalyzed chiral oxidations, i.e., the Sharpless Oxidation. To be an adjective in a named reaction in chemistry is the highest honor for a synthesis chemist.

And, so it was

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The President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol, was heard to utter into a hot mike that the US Congress were a bunch of idiots. To quote, he said “What an embarrassment for Biden, if these idiots refuse to grant it in Congress”. This occurred after a New York visit with President Biden after a discussion on US electric-vehicle subsidies. It is making headlines all over the internet. My schadenfreude detectors couldn’t resist this.

How defensive of the red, white and blue should you be if the guy is right? In theory the election process should select the best and brightest in the land. Instead, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Witness #45’s embrace of QAnon. If this was a story arc in a movie script, it would be rejected as too silly. Political parties and elections are supposed to exclude exemplars of bad judgement. I guess that nut jobs elect nut jobs.

And speaking of nut jobs, #45 was heard to say that presidents can declassify things “by thinking about it.” Even if this is true, it shouldn’t be as the present example illustrates. If this idiot learned to simply shut his damned mouth he’d have avoided half of his legal troubles automatically. He has his t*t in a wringer where it should be.

Possible Trouble for the BASF Ludwigshafen Verbund Site

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The colossal Baden Aniline and Soda Factory (BASF) verbund facility in Ludwigshafen, Germany, may have to make due with diminished energy supplies if the German state rations gas this fall. This facility is one of six BASF verbund sites and is the largest integrated chemical complex in the world. The site consists of 125 interconnected production plants on 10 square kilometers that share waste heat and generates it’s own electricity and steam. Forbes has described verbund as “… the intelligent interlinking of production plants, energy flows and infrastructure.”

There are many fascinating facts about BASF and the Ludwigshafen verbund site which can be found on the interwebs, so there in no point in duplicating it here. The point of this essay is that the global chemical industry is highly interconnected. Interruption of just one chemical complex like the BASF verbund in Ludwigshafen can lead to disruption in many supply chains in diverse markets. The chemical industry is a web of supply chains where the product of one plant is the raw material for another. Interruptions in energy or materials for one link in the chain will have knock-on effects in others all the way to the final consumer. Nothing unusual about this.

We’ve come to rely on a highly interconnected, interdependent world market that is susceptible to the consequences of political adventures from certain nations. Uncompromising nationalism, ethnic conflict, political turbulence and the current trend of fascist and violent ideology overrunning democratic freedom is threatening this house of cards we’ve built.

Technology can be quite delicate. The success of any given technology constantly depends on people practicing it, improving it and training for it. Whole technologies can be lost if interruptions in continuity from war or deep economic calamity last long enough.

Hossenfelder and Poliakoff

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One can learn interesting but off-topic things along the way to a particular subject of research. Below is a compilation of interesting things.

We are all aware of the games Russia is playing with the interruption of natural gas supplies to Europe. A noteworthy consequence of this applies to the refining of petroleum. Evidently, refineries use natural gas in the refining process, likely as a fuel for heating process equipment. A shortage of natural gas may/will have an adverse effect on the ability of European refineries to produce fuels from crude oil.

There is a German theoretical physicist named Sabine Hossenfelder who has been producing short videos for YouTube. I’ve seen a few and they are quite good. She doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator. Instead she speaks like a theoretical physicist talking to intelligent non-specialists and does a bang-up job of it. She gives a thoughtful and skeptical analysis of current topics in theoretical physics. She always gets back to basic concepts and what is possible for science to understand. She has moved on to subjects of popular interest as well.

And speaking of videos on YouTube, I’ve taken a shine to a channel called Periodic Videos. The presenter is professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff of the University of Nottingham. It may take a few moments to overcome the shock of his wild white hair. Poliakoff has produced a great many short videos over the years specializing in the chemical elements. A good one I viewed recently was about burning magnesium in a nitrogen atmosphere. Yes, it can happen and it will produce magnesium nitride. Contact it with water and you get ammonia. It is easy to think that nitrogen is an all around inert gas and for the most part it is. Lithium metal springs to mind when inert atmosphere questions arise. Better use argon.

RIP Mikhail Gorbachev

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Mikhail Gorbachev, 91, last leader of the Soviet Union, has died after a protracted illness. He will be buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow next to his wife Raisa who died in 1999. He has been described by many as “one of the greatest figures of the 20th century” and universally credited with ending the cold war. He is fondly remembered by liberal democracies in the west as a lead figure in the decommissioning of the USSR following a period of glasnost and perestroika. He was reviled by many Russians as having thrust the country into a prolonged reduction in the standard of living.

Gorbachev lamented the deconstruction of his legacy of detente and arms control with the west owing to the leadership of Vladimir Putin. He called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and urged peace negotiations.

There was a period in the 1990s after Gorbachev’s resignation where some think Russia could conceivably have taken on a more liberal democratic model of government, but Russia had no tradition of democratic culture or structures so there was nothing from which to build upon. Instead, privatization and wealth were scooped up by a small group of people including those later to be known as the oligarchs under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin completed the dissolution of the Soviet Union that Gorbachev began.

Gaussling’s (n+1)th Epistle to the Bohemians: Biden’s Student Loan Assistance

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Wow. There is a whole lot of pissin’ and moanin’ out there about Biden’s student loan payment program. A lot of it is bubbling to the surface like rotten egg gas in the mud pots of Facebook and Twitter. That wriggling libertarian tapeworm is deeply and firmly attached to the innards of a great many people.

I’m not going to waste precious heart beats trying to explain why a civilization should aid and encourage higher education. It should be obvious.

In an earlier chapter of American history, I graduated with a BA in chemistry owing $265 back in 1984. The whole time I had at least 2 jobs simultaneously and in two cities for part of that time. It is what I had to do to graduate without accumulating a lot of student loan debt. Later, in grad school, I received tuition remission and a stipend to study for a PhD. This is/was common for chemistry graduate students. The only cost for the ordeal was time, a divorce and my sanity.

Since that time tuition, student housing/rent, fees and other expenses have grown astronomically while wages and grants have not. State funding of colleges and universities has shifted from grants in favor of guaranteed student loans. The reprobates in congress have also passed laws that make escape from student loan payments through bankruptcy impossible.

As it has turned out, my generation of Baby Boomers has benefitted immensely from lower tuition in our time. Today, the picture for students is quite different. Student loan debts are drowning a great many people. We lived in a time that funded student aid with grants and scholarships that are either not available now or they didn’t grow with tuition increases. Today’s students are unable to save for house down payments or otherwise spend on other goods and services. It might even affect who you marry. Why marry into enormous long-term debt?

For many students, not signing the loan papers was equivalent to giving up on their dream of a better life. There are indeed plenty of jobs not requiring a college degree that can lead to a comfortable life. Starting your own business is not for everyone. We can’t all be a Bill Gates because ground fertile enough for a paradigm shift is fairly scarce.

Now, there is a chorus of indignant voices hissing that “I paid my debts- why shouldn’t you? Why should I pay for your debt?” I can’t argue with that except to say that canceling some fraction of student loan debt is reimbursement of what should have been tuition assistance in the first place. The situation shouldn’t have arisen to trigger people. The sum of $10,000 amounts to $2500 per year for 4 years. This is a reimbursement for a modest yearly tuition grant.

Oil & Gas Companies and Their Gaping Holes

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According to E&E News, the government is releasing $560 million of a total of $4.7 billion to fund the cleanup of orphan oil and gas wells in 24 states. It is part of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act.

From the E&E article-

“Historic oil and gas activity in regions like Appalachia and the West goes back more than a century, with many old wells lost. Additionally, oil and gas price busts have left more wells abandoned, their original drillers out of business or difficult to trace. When left unchecked, those wells can release greenhouse gases like methane and pose combustion risks.

All told, states have flagged more than 10,000 high priority wells for cleanup, the first in line of a nearly 130,000 backlog of unreclaimed known well sites, Interior reported today. That number is expected to rise as federal funds bolster state efforts to identify hidden or lost orphans.”

According to a June 16, 2020, article in Reuters, drillers are required to pay a bond up-front to pay for remediation in case they go bankrupt. In reality, the system is a patchwork of state and federal regulations that are underfunded. The article goes on to say-

“The U.S. figures are sobering: More than 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells together emitted 281 kilotons of methane in 2018, according to the data, which was included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent report on April 14 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That’s the climate-damage equivalent of consuming about 16 million barrels of crude oil, according to an EPA calculation, or about as much as the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer, uses in a typical day. (For a graphic on the rise in abandoned oil wells, click tmsnrt.rs/2MsWInw )“

The whole thing is a century-long train wreck- we could have easily followed along as it happened. The extractive industries have a long history of leaving a hazardous and unsightly mess in their wake so there is nothing new here. Industry has socialized the cleanup cost and kept the profits.

It is pathetic that someone would even have to remind them to at least seal the damned well when they were done with it. Walking away from a well that is or could be venting natural gas and hydrogen sulfide is obviously unethical. Transfer of ownership or bankruptcy should be no excuse by statute.

States like North Dakota, for example, have statutes relating to wells having “abandoned well” status.

“For various reasons, wells stop producing.  State law requires that the site be reclaimed and directs the Industrial Commission to oversee that process.“

The upstream exploration and production (E&P) side of the oil & gas industry should collectively pay for this. However, like most businesses, they will only respond to the threat of added costs. But, we’re not asking them to split the atom. This issue could be solved at a single board of directors meeting at any E&P company.

Naturally, the oil & gas lobby will howl like banshees at the very notion of holding the industry responsible. Refiners and distributors of distillates, I think rightfully, will say that they are not at fault. So it has to be upstream.

But what about the owner of the mineral rights? Should they be free from liability? Not being a legal scholar, I can only surmise that this is old turf.

A modest excise tax on every barrel of oil or every million cubic feet of gas would accumulate into a sizeable fund over time. But would E&P companies just leave every abandoned well uncapped thinking that they have already paid for it? Hard to say. There would be legions of corporate cost accountants and executives working on it though.

American voters have yet to elect a congress or legislature that will write law to hold E&P oil & gas or somebody responsible for the blight that oil & gas brings. The industry lobby knows that all they have to do is float out the twin dementors of lost jobs and economic despair to frighten the public into submission. Works every time.

When Colorado tried to pass a ballot initiative recently to ban oil & gas well operations within some expanded distance from residential neighborhoods, the industry had employees on the streets protesting even in my own small bedroom community. They seemed convinced that their livelihoods were in imminent danger. The initiative was voted down. Basically, it would have barred most drilling within cities. Would this have cost jobs? Well, I think that the frosting on the cake would have been ever so slightly thinner.

JWST Jupiter Image in False Color

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A spectacular image of Jupiter, its rings and several moons from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was recently released.

When looking at JWST images it is useful to remember that the camera is sensitive in the range of 0.6 (orange) to 5 (mid-infrared) microns. The human eye is sensitive to the range of 0.38 (violet) to 0.75 microns (red)- remember ROYGBIV? Image colors with a wavelength shorter than orange, 0.6 micron, green, blue and violet, are therefore a false color representation. In fact, all of the colors and intensities are chosen with both Hubble and JWST images. NASA is up front about this and an explanation can be found here.

A pet peeve of mine with the recent first radio image of a black hole (Sgr A*) has been that the colors represented are necessarily false, but left unexplained. This is well known to astronomers and other pointy-headed space weenies but not to the flat-headed public. The object may well be orangish from some nearer distance, but the reconstructed radio image we see is processed by software and intentionally given a visual color chosen by some person. This is fine, but a sentence or two about colored radio images is a lost opportunity for greater insight into instrumentation and the properties of light.

Alright, I’m sorry- I exaggerate. The public isn’t flat-headed. Okay? Is that better?