Previously on ChemWeb, we heard rumors of silicon neurons and the coming cyborg age, he discovers that a compound that leads to ovine Cyclops has now been synthesized for cancer drug research, and how chicken poop down on the shooting range could help solve the problem of lead in the soil. Also, in the news, a new type of fuel cell for truckers that reduces their emissions during rest periods and the increasing cost in water of producing bioethanol. Finally, a major award for a generic pharmacologist.

Alchemist Checks Oxy Cholesterol Levels is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

All hell broke loose as one after another a new sensationalist article about the research blamed Facebook for declining student grades and failed exams across the board. It seems that many outlets simply modified the original Sunday Times piece, which gave those stories a double spin. It caused outrage at OSU and in the media.

OSU’s assistant VP for Research Communications, Earle Holland, discussed the debacle in the summer issue of ScienceWriters, the NASW’s member magazine and slated the media for sensationalising and for mistaking correlation and causation in the runaway coverage that ensued.

Holland says in his article that the press release described only a small pilot study that looked at Facebook use among students and simply asked them about how much studying they did, and their grades. He adds that “it looked for any correlation between Facebook use and GPAs [grades], but suggested no causation.” Moreover, the study looked at a very small sample of students. It didn’t prove what the media headlines had suggested.

According to a report in the Columbia Journalism Review: “The entire episode offers a good lesson in the inherent risks of reporters’ cavalierly covering the social sciences, as well as the risks that young researchers can face in dealing with the news media.” The comments following that page are quite intriguing too.

I originally started this post with the intention of taking an opposing view. After all, surely any news is better than no news? But, before I sent the post to the blog queue, I emailed Earle to ask for his side of the story directly and he told me that, “our attention is focused on more than trying to sneak ways to get news coverage. We get tons of coverage and, as the largest research university in the US, don’t have to think up ways to finagle exposure.”

He added that, “We report on research emerging from most of the more than 100 academic departments on campus comprising more than 4,000 investigators and we’re highly selective about which projects we cover. First and foremost, they have to have undergone some peer review – in this case, publication in a reputable journal or selection for presentation at a major national meeting. Secondly, the research has to be both translateable and be interesting to a general reader/viewer/listener. Both criteria have to be met for us to do a story.”

That’s a fair and solid response and dispels the concerns I raised in my draft post written on a whim. It seems that the initial spin by the Sunday Times story which did not report the actual preliminary results in the original research poster got totally out of hand as these rather topical subjects – Facebook and student grades – collided.

And, before you ask, no, there were no threats to send around the Ohio heavies. However, given that OSU is the biggest research university in the States, I guess they could have done just that and the subsequent story and Youtube clip of my physical demise would have been even bigger than a small research project blown out of all proportion in the name of churnalism.

Spinning Facebook and Student Grades is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

There are many benefits to schemes intended to provide computer equipment to the poorer and less connected parts of the world. Primarily, these offer the donor the feelgood factor and on the face of it provide developing nations with much-needed devices.

However, according to Poonam Khanijo Ahluwalia and Arvind Nema of the Department of Civil Engineering, at IIT Delhi, in New Delhi, India, there is growing public concern over the hazards associated with computer and other e-waste. They suggest that a risk assessment that encompasses the whole lifecycle of computers and other equipment is needed before developing nations should accept charitable contributions of electronic equipment considered obsolete by the donors.

Using a case study of Chennai, India, the team has developed an assessment model that can help decision makers choose an optimal approach to e-waste management that looks at reuse time span of each waste category. The approach could help them avoid accepting contributions of electronic equipment that become obsolete and requires disposal or recycling within a short time.

Electronic waste includes the entire stream of electronic goods, including televisions, refrigerators, computers, and mobile phones, explain the researchers. Computer waste, however, represents one of the most significant of all these categories because of the rapid turnover of equipment. “With rapid growth and advancement in the IT sector, the average lifespan of computer has shrunk,” the team says, “And, with each new development, consumers often find it cheaper and more convenient to buy a new computer than to upgrade an old one.”

The rate of computer obsolescence in India is about 2% each week, which amounts to millions of computers requiring disposal each year. Added to this is the import of e-waste from other nations often provided through well-intentioned charities hoping to help bring the digital revolution to the developing world.

The absence of proper mechanisms and standards of disposal, mean these high-tech devices laden with toxic components, such as cadmium, mercury, lead, and brominated flame-retardants, often end up in landfills. Here, they can become a serious environmental hazard, particularly to ground water, the researchers say.

The team’s assessment model will allow managers to determine the optimum life cycle and lifespan of electronic devices designated elsewhere as e-waste. “This could guide the authorities to protect infiltration of computers coming in the name of donations and charity, by restricting their import after their optimum lifespan,” the team concludes.

Ahluwalia, P., & Nema, A. (2009). Evaluation of trade-offs between cost, perceived and environmental risk associated with the management of computer waste International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 3 (1/2) DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2009.024705

There are many worthy charities and organisations offering computers to the needy in many parts of the world. This blog post in no way intends to besmirch their efforts but merely to alert the community to a potential environmental problem associated with growing numbers of obsolete computers and other electronic devices finding their way into the developing world.

Charity Computers Australia
Computers for Charities US
Computers for Charities UK
Computer Aid International
IT Schools Africa
Digital Growth

Charity Computers and Environmental Waste is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

Keeping a weather eye on atmospheric pollution is a large-scale, costly and time-consuming activity. However, there just happens to be a vast network of self-contained, self-powered units around the globe that can respond to the presence of toxins, radioactive species, atmospheric particulates and other materials in the environment and could be used to build up a local, national or international picture of environmental conditions – the world’s plants, mosses, and lichens.

In a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Environment and Pollution (2008, Volume 32, Issue 4), researchers from various fields explain how living organisms can be used to track the dispersal of atmospheric pollutants, particulates, and trace elements. They also explain how plants and other so-called biomonitors have been validated across the globe.

Writing in an editorial for the IJEP special issue chemist Borut Smodiš, a senior research associate at the Jožef Stefan Institute, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, explains how biomonitoring can be used in environments where a technological approach to monitoring is not only difficult and costly but may be impossible. “Biomonitoring allows continuous observation of an area with the help of bioindicators, an organism (or part of it) that reveals the presence of a substance in its surroundings with observable and measurable changes (e.g. accumulation of pollutants), which can be distinguished from the effects of natural stress.”

Smodiš points to numerous other advantages of biomonitoring: “Simple and inexpensive sampling
procedures
allow a
very large number
of sites
to be included
in the same surveyinexpensive sampling procedures allow a very large number of sites to be included in the same survey, permitting detailed geographical patterns to be drawn. Biomonitoring can be an effective tool for pollutant mapping and trend monitoring in real time and retrospective analysis,” he says.

While any organism might be used as a biomonitoring agent, Smodiš points out that mosses and lichens, which lack root systems, are dependent on surface absorption of nutrients. This means that they accumulate particulates and dissolved chemical species from their surroundings rather than from the soil and so could be more appropriate biomonitors for atmospheric pollutants.

In 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency part of the United Nations, started a Coordinated Research Project on biomonitoring. Several papers in the special issue of IJEP detail methodologies, case studies and other aspects of various projects within this initiative and point to future avenues that might be explored.

In the paper “Atmospheric dispersion of pollutants in Sado estuary (Portugal) using biomonitors”, Maria do Carmo Freitas of the Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear Reactor, in Sacavém, Portugal, and colleagues used instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) to investigate pollutant levels in epiphytic lichens. They found that temperature and humidity had a more prominent effect on pollutant accumulation than wind direction or rainfall levels, which could affect the interpretation of other biomonitoring results.

Ni Bangfa of the China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, and colleagues in their paper “Study on air pollution in Beijing’s major industrial areas using multielements in biomonitors and NAA techniques” used NAA to analyze three types of plant leaves from Chinese white poplar, arborvitae, and pine needles. They found that northeast Beijing is a clean area while southwest is relatively polluted.

In “Biomonitoring in the forest zone of Ghana” B.J.B. Nyarko of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and colleagues studied the distribution of heavy metals in agricultural, industrial and mining areas in the first survey of its kind in Ghana using lichens as biomonitors. They found that the area around gold mining regions were most heavily polluted, with arsenic, antimony, and chromium while industrial sites had raised levels of aluminum, iron, and titanium. Farming regions were much less affected by heavy metal pollutants, as one might expect.

H.Th. Wolterbeek of the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands in ” Large-scale biomonitoring of trace element air pollution: local variance, data comparability and its relationships to human health” used biomonitoring data to determine air concentrations and metal deposition and discussed how such studies might be used in the future to correlate pollution with human health issues. Other researchers including Bernd Markert of International Graduate School Zittau, Zittau, Germany, Eiliv Steinnes of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in Trondheim, and their respective teams also further validated the potential of biomonitoring approaches to pollution.

While biomonitoring techniques are improving rapidly and researchers are quickly validating results at the local level, Smodiš points out that there is no single species that could be used on the global scale. Moreover, different weather conditions around the globe mean that techniques are not necessarily comparable. With that in mind, environmental sensor manufacturers may rest assured that there is still a market for their instrumentation despite the best efforts of the mosses and lichens.

Biomonitors is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

Polar bears are not quite the enormous white climate canary of frozen climes that we have been led to believe. In fact, they’re more likely to turn out to be the elephant in the room, when in fifty years time their numbers have grown despite Gory warnings.

Anyway, in the spirit of being contrary almost for the sake of it, but more seriously for the sake of science, I’d like your thoughts on the following article. It was published on ScienceandPublicPolicy.org, which is controversial enough, with the organisation’s Chief Science Advisor being Willie Soon, who along with Sally Baliunus, suggests that climate change is down to non-anthropogenic phenomena.

Anyway, the SPPI article highlights how some scientists have apparently now broken ranks to proclaim that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is not quite the forceful climate change driver those who advocate a global carbon tax would have us believe. After all, if George W Bush is suddenly on-message when it comes to the environment, then something is surely wrong with the world. Of course, I’d want the full insider details and to know if there are any conflicts of interest before taking any refusenik too seriously.

The post’s author Jerry Carlson suggests that a brave journalist who stands up against the carbon conspiracy might be in line for a Pulitzer by 2010. There are a few out there who are making waves including at least one NYT writer, he tells us. Carlson suggests that in order to take the Prize, that enterprising investigative journo will have to find answers to an intriguing pair of questions. I’m sure the folks at RealClimate.org will be readying their riposte right now, if they haven’t already, but here are Carlson’s queries for the record:

First, he asks, why don’t those who suggest we reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions and sequester carbon ever mention the enormous opportunities for feeding the world that might come from longer growing seasons and higher carbon availability for crops? Historically, civilisation has seemingly thrived when the climate has been warmer and wetter and agriculture more prolific. One might also tack on to the CO2 question the issue of water vapour being a much broader and potent greenhouse gas than CO2 as well as a dozen other apparently unaddressed issues within the climate change models.

The second Pulitzer-winning question Carlson offers is: Why is the IPCC’s projected future global warming almost linear or accelerating, when it is well-known that the greenhouse-gas impact of CO2 fades sharply with each incremental increase of CO2 in the atmosphere?

My own additional question to IPCC would ask about that 10% uncertainty in their initial report that suggested we are 90% certain that humans are responsible for rising temperature trends. 9 to 1 against is long odds, but not lottery impossible and mean that there is a chance (albeit just one in ten) that our carbon emissions are not to blame. If they’re not to blame, then rather than asking what is perhaps it’s
time
we checked
the climate change dataperhaps it’s time we checked the climate change data and took a more rigorous look at the historical and prehistorical trends, before it’s too late.

We live in an ice age, by definition; there is ice at the poles and that defines it as such. But, despite measurable volume changes in the Arctic ice sheet, NASA satellite images show without doubt that the ice cap is growing. Couldn’t that cause cooling because of increased reflectance? It has been said before, but what if we actually manage to reduce CO2 levels only to discover that the earth’s natural cycle is about to take us into a deeper ice age? We’ll regret meddling with atmospherics if it does. But, at least the growing polar bear population will be happy.

CO2 Refusenik to Win Pulitzer is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

The ongoing quest for bigger, better, smaller, faster gadgets and other consumer products is not environmentally sustainable and must be replaced by an approach to design that builds on the products of contemporary mass-produced culture by re-working them for current desires. That is the simple message offered by Stuart Walker of the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Canada, currently Co-Director of Imagination@Lancaster at Lancaster University, UK, writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Design.

Walker points out that it is critical that we address issues of sustainability more substantially than has been done to date. The throwaway culture of the mp3 generation is not only filling landfills with mass-produced and almost disposable products, but wasting vast quantities of potentially recoverable materials, including precious metals. Moreover, the continued greed for novelty means that countless perfectly useful gadgets and other products are being discarded in favour of the next version much sooner than they need be given the robustness of many well-designed products today.

He adds that if design is to contribute to human culture in a more meaningful way then it has to move beyond the often shallow, style-based notions of product design that have become so prevalent over the last 50 years.

If the creation of new products is part of the problem rather than the solution to sustainability in a world of climate change, overburdened landfills and dwindling supplies of inexpensive mineral resources, then does the designer have a role if consumerist society were to desist from its quest for novelty?

“On the face of it, and within the conventional parameters of product design, it would seem that the answer would be no,” says Walker, “or at most, relatively little.” However, he suggests that a broadening of definitions of what design involves could lead to a new generation in design that exists not simply to create novel products but to use the creative skills of individuals to re-work old products.

Walker takes as a case in point the “old-fashioned” stereo radio-cassette player, which had its heyday in the ghetto blasters of the 1980s. Countless ghetto blasters will have hit landfills in the decades since and yet, with a little imagination, a once prized possession could become a new outlet for a portable mp3 player with a simple rewiring of the input circuitry.

Such re-purposing may not be fashionable, there is not at present any cachet nor retro-chic associated with the ghetto blaster as generation after generation of sleek touch-sensitive portable media gadgets hit the market month in, month out. And yet it would take only a few cultural innovators seeing the potential of this and other examples for rebuilding and repurposing to lead to a consumer tipping point in which such a primal approach to recycling became the height of fashion. Being an
early
adopter need
not mean buying
the latest gadgetBeing an early adopter need not mean buying the latest gadget, it could simply mean repurposing an old one.

More information on Walker’s potentially revolutionary proposals can be found in “Extant objects: designing things as they are” Int. J. Sustainable Design, 2008, 1, pp 4-12

You can leave ideas for other potentially retro chic repurposed gadgets and products in the comment form below.

Giving the Ghetto Blaster Retro Chic is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

Wind turbines, photovoltaic power cells, wave energy, porous hydrogen storage composites for fuel cells, carbon sequestration, nuclear, even the idea of damming the Red Sea for a massive hydroelectric power plant are among the high-tech approaches being developed in the battle to reduce our collective size 9 carbon footprints to mere tiptoes.

Saving energy and reducing emissions does not have to be about high tech and macro engineering. The developed world is unlikely ever to give up its dependence on personal motor transport, frequent and pointless air travel, patio heaters, high-definition DVDs, hot and cold running water, and countless other energy-intensive luxuries unless someone actually physical pulls the power plug.

However, for millions of people in the developing world, who may not even be aware of the problems we face with iPhone tariffs, double booked business flights, and lost Facebook friends, life is hard at a much more fundamental level. Aside from poverty, unreliable water supply, malnutrition and disease, even very basic needs are not met, such as keeping warm and dry in freezing mountain villages with no access to heated spa pools and acrylic nail extensions, and wireless internet access to refresh the contents of your Kindle.

D. Buddhi of the Thermal Energy Storage Laboratory at Devi Ahilya University in Indore, India, Atul Sharma of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kun Shan University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC, and S.D. Sharma of UAE Innovations Center in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE have turned to a perennial problem of those without the comforts of central heating and doubly glazed windows – keeping one’s feet warm.

The researchers have designed and tested three foot warmers that can store up solar energy during sunshine hours and then be used during cold evenings as a sustainable alternative to electric heaters. The optimum temperature, the team found in their trials, was just above body temperature. With this in mind, commercial grade lauric acid (which has a melting point 42.2 Celsius and a latent heat of fusion of 181 kilojoules per kilogram was used as the latent heat storage material in their PCM (phase change material) designs. Basically, the material inside melts in the sun and then once the sun goes down the material begins to solidify giving off enough latent heat as it does so to raise the temperature of the container to about 40 Celsius.

They carried out experiments (details are reported in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues) during a winter season to study how well the PCM units performed in the sunny but cold winter climate of northern India. The devices could easily reduce reliance on costly 1 kilowatt electric heaters for keeping the legs and feet warm; and although PCM units do not have the benefit of creating circulating warm air in a room, much of that energy is wasted anyway.

So, could a
solar-powered
foot warmer
save the planetcould a solar-powered foot warmer save the planet? Perhaps not, at least not until those in the developed world abandon their predilection for vehicle climate control and optical mice. However, alongside other simplified technologies such as solar cookers, arsenic-removing water filters, and clockwork radios, they could at least make a significant difference to the cost of living of people in the poorer parts of the world without compromising their quality of life. Moreover, those in frozen climes will at least be able to keep their feet warm while pondering shag pile carpets and remote control storm shutters.

Could Warm Feet Save the World? is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

The award highlights the fact that climate change could have a significant impact on international relations and world peace. Indeed, former IPCC chairman Dr Bob Watson, said that, “What the Nobel Committee has done is to demonstrate to the world that climate change is not just simply an environmental issue but an issue of peace. Climate change can threaten security both at the national and regional level and has brought into sharp focus just how serious this issue is.”

Current chairman Rajendra Pachauri said that this is a prize for all scientists pushing for action against climate change. UN Secretary General said that the Prize, for them, shows that it is beyond doubt that climate change is affecting the world.

Nobel Prize for Peace 2007 is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

The first threat is at the source of the raw material for nuclear power itself, the uranium mine, processing plant, and transport route. Here, physical protection and security are at a much lower level than at a nuclear installation in the developed world, according to Austrian scientists writing today in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology.

The second threat
is
from saboteurs
with expertise in
the industrysecond threat is from saboteurs with expertise in the industry and the security of nuclear installations. Researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency suggest that such saboteurs on the inside could wreak havoc and cause a serious environmental and health threats with only small, shaped explosives or even no explosives at all.

Finally, at the waste end of the nuclear industry, a second US team point out that the significant quantities of spent radioactive fuel could also represent a security nightmare. The team from environmental health and safety consultants S. Cohen and Associates, in Montgomery Alabama, point out that there is no secure central repository for nuclear waste. Any one of the waste storage or processing plants could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

Friedrich Steinhäusler and Lyudmila Zaitseva of the Division of Physics and Biophysics, at the University of Salzburg, Austria, have investigated the potential security threats facing the industry at the initial mining and milling end of the nuclear process. They explain how there are several points at which someone intent on terrorism or other purposes might intercept highly radioactive material. For instance, terrorists or saboteurs might instigate illegal mining of an officially closed uranium mine or diversion uranium ore from a mine or mill, or more obviously demolition of facilities with the intention of causing environmental harm.

The Austrian team believes such threats are very realsuch threats are very real. Uranium mining has been carried out in almost twenty countries, although 90% of world production takes place in ten of these, with seven of these states having been associated with clandestine nuclear activities.

“The current control system is inadequate as it could allow rogue nations or terrorist groups to traffic uranium or enriched yellow cake in at least 24 countries on three continents,” say the researchers, “There is a critical need to counter the threats resulting from an uncontrolled acquisition of these radioactive materials in a coordinated manner.”

Anthony Honnellio of the Emergency Response Branch OSSR and Stan Rydell of the Pesticides Toxics and Radiation Unit, both divisions of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Boston, realised that have been many reports on nuclear security that focus on terrorist attack from outside. However, they explain that sabotage by individuals with a detailed knowledge of security procedures, plant layout and the functional nature of the critical components of a nuclear power plant, could exploit their knowledge to catastrophic effect.

They speculate on how small explosives might be brought into secure areas and reveal that despite post-9/11 security improvements, banned items nevertheless slip through the metal and explosive detection equipment at airports, so could just as readily be brought into a nuclear installation. But, their concern does not lie only with the impact an explosion at a carefully chosen site my cause. They suggest that damage to a critical component could disable a power station and lead to widespread power outages, with significant civil disruption to those dependent on the supply.

In their consideration of security at the waste end of the nuclear industry, Edwin Sensintaffar and Charles Phillips of S Cohen and Associates point out that a recent review of safety and security at commercial spent nuclear fuel plants suggested that such facilities are vulnerable to terrorist activitysuch facilities are vulnerable to terrorist activity. A deliberate fire at such a facility could cause widespread radioactive contamination, which could affect the local and wider population as well as cause serious environmental damage.

Sensintaffar and Phillips describe a scenario based on such an event to demonstrate the potential impact resulting from the release and dispersion of spent fuel products. “The radioactive contamination that could be released into the environment from such an event could contaminate thousands of square kilometres, result in billions of dollars in economic impact and large numbers of both early and latent cancer deaths,” the researchers say.

The three papers are in International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology

Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 286 – “Uranium mining and milling: material security and
risk assessment” by Friedrich Steinhäusler and Lyudmila Zaitseva

Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 312 – “Sabotage vulnerability of nuclear power plants” by Anthony L. Honnellio and Stan Rydell
Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 278 – “Environmental impact resulting from a fire at a spent nuclear fuel storage facility” by Edwin L. Sensintaffar and Charles R. Phillips

Nuclear Threats is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

Renewable does not mean green. That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University in New York. He explains that building enough wind farms, tidal power stations, hydroelectric dams, and electric generators running on biomass to meet global energy demands will wreck the environment rather than save it.

Ausubel has analysed the amount of energy that each so-called renewable source can produce in terms of watts of power output per square metre and compared this with what might be possible using nuclear power instead. “Nuclear energy
is greenNuclear energy is green,” he claims, “Considered in watts per square metre, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.”

While vast sums of money are being invested in alternative energy sources based on wind, water, and biomass, nuclear industry expertise is being squandered. “In order to grow, the nuclear industry must extend beyond its niche of electric power generation,” says Ausubel. He suggests that the nuclear industry could form an alliance with methane suppliers to produce green power in the form of hydrogen for powering electricity-generating fuel cells, not only in vehicles but in other areas inaccessible to the conventional electricity grid. Such technologies will succeed when economies of scale form part of their conditions of evolution, Ausubel explains. In contrast, there are, he suggests no economies of scale involved in simply erecting more and more wind turbines.

Underpinning Ausubel’s argument is the need for “decarbonisation”, by which he means our reliance on producing energy by converting carbon compounds, coal, oil, and gas, into carbon dioxide and water. Hydrogen, in contrast, is as innocent as an element can be, ending combustion as water, with no carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emission. The intrinsic problem in developing a hydrogen-based power economy as opposed to one that relies on carbon compounds, is that energy is required to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen production could
be the
future role of
the nuclear
power industryHydrogen production could be the future role of the nuclear power industry, Ausubel explains – the use of its entirely renewable and almost endless energy supply in the production of hydrogen.

Ausubel considers each so-called renewable in turn. He points out that hypothetically flooding the entire province of Ontario, Canada, about 900,000 square km, with its entire 680,000 billion litres of rainfall, and storing it behind a 60 metre dam would only generate 80% of the total power output of Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations. Put another way, each square kilometre of dammed land would provide the electricity for just 12 people.

Similarly, biomass, which produces less than a fifth of the USA’s renewable energy, is almost as energy inefficient. Most biomass comes from the liquor of paper pulp mills, which is burned to economise the heat and power of paper factories. But, in terms of decarbonisation, this biomass, which initially comes from farmed trees, represents a 10 to 1 ratio of carbon atoms per hydrogen atom, which is less than oil at 1 to 2.

Some people would argue that the use of biomass would be carbon neutral because trees absorb carbon dioxide to grow. However, in order to fulfil the energy requirements of a large proportion of a nation based on biomass, a large proportion of the land area would have to be planted to biomass forest. To obtain the same electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometres of land working at optimal efficiency. Growth, harvesting and collection are not 100% efficient, relying as they do on high yields and powered equipment and vehicles.

Turning to the issue of wind, Ausubel points out that while wind farms are between three to ten times more compact than a biomass farm, a 770 square kilometre area is needed to produce as much energy as one 1000 Megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear plant. Moreover, wind farms can only be operated at two of the four wind speed ranges. Calm air means no power, of course, but gales faster than 25 metres per second (about 90 kilometres per hour) also means shutting down the turbines to prevent serious damage. To meet 2005 US electricity demand and assuming round-the-clock wind at the right speed, an area the size of Texas, approximately 780,000 square kilometres, would be needed.

Economies of scale stop with wind. One hundred windy square metres, a good size for a Manhattan apartment, could power an electric lamp or two, but not the laundry equipment, microwave oven, plasma TV, and computer. New York City would require every square metre of Connecticut to become a wind farm to fully power all its electrical equipment and gadgets.

Ausubel gives short thrift to solar powerAusubel gives short thrift to solar power too, which he points out still operates at less than 10% efficiency despite three decades of research. A 1000 MWe photovoltaic solar cell plant would require about 150 square kilometres plus land for storage and retrieval.

The energy density of nuclear fuel is between 10,000 and 100,000 times as great as the most “efficient” carbon fuel, methane. While the full footprint of uranium mining might add a few hundred square kilometres and there are considerations of waste storage, safety and security, the dense heart of the atom has much more to offer than so-called renewables in terms of powering the world, Ausubel believes.

“My conviction is that our best energy doctrine is decarbonisation, and let us complete it within one hundred years or sooner,” he says, “this will happen only if we abandon wishful thoughts of a renewable Eden.

Ausubel, who is Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University in New York City, provides details of his analysis in Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, 2007, 1, 229-243

Renewable Myths and Nuclear Heresies is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog