Powdered Methane Could Help Harness Energy Source

Like This | Video: Discovery Tech

- Most people know methane as a component of natural gas. But chemists in the U.K. have developed a way to create a solid form of the gas that looks like granulated sugar and can be stored and poured.

Methane could power the world. Two methane hydrate deposits off the coast of South Carolina reportedly hold enough natural gas to power the United States for a hundred years. Other estimates say that worldwide methane deposits contain more energy than coal, oil and all other fossil fuels combined.

"There is a huge amount of energy in these resources," said Cooper. "The question is how much of that material can we recover."

Most of that methane is locked inside ice crystals in the Arctic or at the bottom of the ocean, where the pressure is high, the temperature is low, or both, which makes extracting those deposits difficult.

A chunk of white methane hydrate from the ocean depths is ice cold in your hand, but hold a lit match to it and yellow and blue flames rise from the methane released by the melting ice.

Once you get the hydrate to the surface, methane can be difficult and expensive to store and transport, which is where Cooper and his colleagues' work could prove useful.

To store and transport methane it usually has to be cooled down to about -113 degrees Celsius (-171 degrees Fahrenheit) or pressurized around 50 atmospheres, both of which require large amounts of energy and can be dangerous and flammable. Storing methane in a water and silica mix that looks and feels like a powder would make it easier and possibly cheaper to store.

Creating powdered methane is fairly simple. Cooper and his colleagues took dry water, or water mixed with very fine particles of silica, pumped methane into the container, and mixed the dry water and methane gas together with a blender bought at a local store.

The tiny silica particles increase the surface area of the water and make it easier and faster for the methane gas to become absorbed by the water. After about 30 minutes the white powder was fully saturated with methane; one liter of methane gas can be stored in about six grams of powdered methane, roughly the same as in most pressurized containers.

The powdered methane still needs to be held under light pressure and cooler temperatures of about -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees F).

Releasing the methane simply requires raising the temperature or decreasing the pressure, said Cooper.

Powdered methane could just be the beginning. Cooper says that the team can store other gases as powders, including hydrogen and carbon dioxide, although under different environmental conditions. Storing CO2 as a powder could make carbon sequestration easier or bring a hydrogen-powered economy closer to realization.

Easily trapping gases like CO2, methane and hydrogen could be useful, but first it has to be economical, said both Cooper and outside experts who are cautious about its expense.

Michael Max, who uses hydrates for desalination at Marine Desalination Systems, echoes Cooper.

"It's an interesting result," said Max. "But we don't see how this could be developed commercially."

Max points to Mitsui Group technology that mechanically presses methane hydrate into pea-sized pebbles, making them more stable for transportation and use. However it's stored and transported, finding a cheaper way to gather, store and transport methane and other gasses may eventually help use alternative natural resources.

"The economics of this are far from obvious," said Cooper. "This is a preliminary result and we have to think hard about the costs involved."

NASA Eyes Nuclear Reactor for Moon Base

The Nuclear Option | Video: Discovery Space

- NASA is tip-toeing once again into what was once called the N-word -- nuclear -- with a technology development program aimed at powering its planned base on the moon.

The goal of the Fission Surface Power Project, which is based at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is to produce a non-nuclear prototype unit within five years.

NASA's last foray into nuclear technologies was a project that began in 2003 known as Prometheus, which focused on both nuclear propulsion and nuclear-powered generators that ultimately could be used to support a manned mission to Mars and for deep-space probes, such as a mission to Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon Europa.

Prometheus was preceded in the 1950s and 60s by the NERVA, Project Orion and other initiatives.

Prometheus ended, but a small-scale effort to develop a compact, highly autonomous fission reactor as part of the agency's new exploration initiative, Project Constellation, survived. The program aims to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020 and establish a base before moving on to manned missions to Mars and other bodies in the solar system.

Supported at a cost of about $10 million a year, the Fission Surface Power Project this week awarded two contracts for power conversion units, used to turn the heat of nuclear reactions into electricity.

NASA envisions needing a system capable of providing about 40 kilowatts of electricity -- about what's used to power eight average homes in the United States.

It would be launched cold and without radioactive elements until operations were to begin on the lunar surface.

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NASA is thinking about burying the system so the lunar soil can serve as shielding.

The converter design by Sunpower Inc., of Athens, Ohio, uses two opposed piston engines coupled to alternators to produce a total of 12 kilowatts of power. Barber Nichols Inc. of Arvada, Colo., is developing a closed Brayton cycle engine that uses a high-speed turbine and compressor coupled to a rotary alternator. It also generates 12 kilowatts.

The ground system would not use any nuclear materials, said project manager Lee Mason.

"Our goal is to build a technology demonstration unit with all the major components of a fission surface power system and conduct non-nuclear, integrated system testing in a ground-based space simulation facility," he said.

A space-based reactor would have to be much more compact than fission reactors currently operating on Earth and would generate far less power. The agency also is looking at solar-powered technologies, fuel cells and other systems.

Among engineers' challenges are the harsh, radioactive environments and the extreme temperature ranges of space.

The moon's 29.5-day rotational period produces long, cold nights lasting 354 hours, which presents a formidable challenge for solar-powered systems. On Mars, the night-time is just 12 hours, but its distance from sun means only 20 percent of the energy that reaches the moon makes it to Mars.

"As you get further and further out, the missions get longer and longer, and you're going to have to have higher and higher power levels," said John Warren, who oversees the program at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. "You're probably going to have to have nuclear, and I think that will be recognized not only here in the U.S., but around the world."

World's Most Powerful Magnet Under Construction

Powerful Pull | Video: Discovery Tech

Using the strongest materials known to man, scientists are building the most powerful electromagnet in the world -- one that won't blow up a split second after it's turned on.

The entire magnet will be a combination of coil sets weighing nearly 18,000 pounds and powered by jolts from a massive 1,200-megajoules motor generator. Once activated, the new magnet should be about two million times more powerful than the average refrigerator magnet.

"The new magnet at the High Field Lab is a fantastic leap forwards in terms of our capability as a scientific community to explore materials under extreme conditions," said Ian Fisher, a scientist at Stanford University.

"In several cases one needs to go to these sorts of extremes to fundamentally understand materials" used in high-temperature superconductors and other applications, said Fisher.

The electromagnet consists of two parts. The outer section, or outsert, will be a cylinder, 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in diameter and 1.5 meters tall, and solid except for a small hole, less than 8 inches wide, bored through the middle.

Inside that hole rests the insert, nine coils made of copper and strengthened with silver wire as thin as 100 atoms across. Together, the copper and silver create the strongest material known to man, according to Greg Boebinger, Director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida. The magnet is being built at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The pressures generated inside the insert will be equivalent to 200 sticks of dynamite going off together, or about 30 times the pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

Very few things can survive those kinds of forces for long -- including the new magnet.

The scientists expect each $20,000 insert to survive about 100 pulses. The $8 million outsert should last about 10,000 pulses. Each time the magnet pulses it bends the copper and silver wires, creating tiny cracks in the metal. The cracks in the copper run into the silver wires, which stops the cracks from spreading.

"It's like reinforced concrete," said Boebinger.

The copper acts like like the concrete, strong and tough. The silver acts like the steel rebars running through the concrete, providing flexibility.

Iran Launches Rocket to Space

Iran Flexes its Muscles

- Iran said on Monday a home-built rocket sent into space in a move that triggered U.S. concern over its possible military applications will be able to take a satellite into low orbit around the Earth.

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar also vowed that Iran will soon put its own satellite into orbit, after a dummy was sent into space in Sunday's rocket launch.

The development was likely to add to international concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which Western nations fear could be a cover for ambitions to build the atomic bomb although Tehran insists its aims are peaceful.

State television said the Safir (Ambassador) rocket is capable of putting a "light satellite into low earth orbit" between 250 and 500 kilometers (150 and 300 miles) above the Earth.

It showed footage of the rocket launch, saying that the Safir is about 22 meters (72 feet) long, with a diameter of 1.25 meters (a little over four feet) and weighing more than 26 tons.

Iran's most powerful military missile, the Shahab-3, has a diameter of 1.30 meters and measures 17 meters in length.

Sunday's launch raised concerns in Washington that the rocket technology could be diverted to military applications.

"The Iranian development and testing of rockets is troubling and raises further questions about their intentions," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

"This action and dual use possibilities for their ballistic missile program have been a subject of IAEA discussions and are inconsistent with their UN Security Council obligations," he said, referring to the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency

But the head of the space agency in Israel, which considers the Islamic republic its greatest threat, played down the launch.

"Iran still has a long way to go as far as satellites are concerned and it deliberately exaggerates its air and space successes in order to dissuade Israel or the United States from attacking its nuclear sites," Yitzhak Ben Israel told public radio.

"It is clear that for years Iran has had Shihab-3 ballistic missiles which put Israel within its reach. But the threat posed by Iran comes from its nuclear program and not from its satellites or ballistic missiles."

Initial state media reports in Iran said that the rocket had carried the nation's first home-built satellite Omid (Hope) but this was later denied by officials who said only a test satellite had gone up.

However, the defense minister said on Monday: "Iranian experts can put the national satellite into orbit in the not too distant future."

In February, Iran triggered international concern when it said it had sent a probe into space on the back of a rocket to prepare for a satellite launch, and announced the opening of its space station in a remote western desert.

At that time, officials had said the Omid satellite would be sent into space in May or June.

Reza Taghipour, the head of Iran's space agency, also unveiled plans on Monday for more satellites, including one to be built with and for Islamic countries, state television reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made Iran's scientific development one of the main themes of his presidency, asserting that the country has reached a peak of progress despite international sanctions and no longer needs to depend on foreign states for help.

Iran's claims about its military and technological capabilities are often greeted with scepticism by Western experts.

Trace Arsenic in Water Linked to Diabetes

An Elemental Connection

A new analysis of government data is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes, researchers say. The study's limitations make more research necessary. And public water systems were on their way to meeting tougher U.S. arsenic standards as the data were collected.

Still, the analysis of 788 adults' medical tests found a nearly fourfold increase in the risk of diabetes in people with low arsenic concentrations in their urine compared to people with even lower levels.

Previous research outside the United States has linked high levels of arsenic in drinking water with diabetes. It's the link at low levels that's new. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The good news is, this is preventable," said lead author Dr. Ana Navas-Acien of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

New safe drinking water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies, Navas-Acien said. She said they've begun a new study of 4,000 people.

Arsenic can get into drinking water naturally when minerals dissolve. It is also an industrial pollutant from coal burning and copper smelting. Utilities use filtration systems to get it out of drinking water.

Seafood also contains nontoxic organic arsenic. The researchers adjusted their analysis for signs of seafood intake and found that people with Type 2 diabetes had 26 percent higher inorganic arsenic levels than people without Type 2 diabetes.

How arsenic could contribute to diabetes is unknown, but prior studies have found impaired insulin secretion in pancreas cells treated with an arsenic compound.

The policy implications of the new findings are unclear, said Molly Kile, an environmental health research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Kile wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

"Urinary arsenic reflects exposures from all routes -- air, water and food -- which makes it difficult to track the actual source of arsenic exposure let alone use the results from this study to establish drinking water standards," Kile said.

Also, the findings raise a chicken-and-egg problem, she said, since it's unknown whether diabetes changes the way people metabolize arsenic. It's possible that people with diabetes excrete more arsenic.

The United States lowered arsenic standards for public water systems to 10 parts per billion in 2001 because of known cancer risks. Compliance was required by 2006, years after the study data were collected in 2003 and 2004.

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Nanomaterial Cleans up Broken Fluorescent Bulbs

Messy Breakup

If you break a fluorescent light bulb, you've got a mess on your hands. The bulbs contain mercury, a potent neurotoxin that turns cleanup into a toxic waste management project.

Now, research led by Robert Hurt of Brown University has created a product that absorbs mercury 70 times better than the best available technology. The new sorbent -- made of nanoparticles of the element selenium -- could help clean up after breakages in the home, or during shipping or recycling.

Such a technology is likely to become more critical as people are encouraged to switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-saving fluorescent lighting.

To make the sorbent, the team layered the nano-selenium between a tissue and an impermeable backing layer.

By covering the breakage with the paper for several days, "you can stop almost all of the release," Hurt said. "We think it forms mercury selenide, which is a very stable compound.

Without the paper, the mercury slowly evaporates from the broken bulb over several days. Because the mercury vaporizes, Hurt says, "You are not supposed to vacuum it up. You can distribute the mercury around the house." (EPA's recommendations allow for vacuuming, with some precautions.)

The team proposes that the paper could be included with the packaging for the bulbs, so it could soak up spills that might occur during transit. They presented their results this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Biodegradable Plastics Are Good for Atmosphere, Too

Seeing Green

- Plastics made from renewable resources such as corn are attractive because they are biodegradable, but recent studies suggest they have the added benefit of generating lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional petroleum-based plastics.

Jian Yu and Lilian Chen of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, examined the greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing one type of bioplastic, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), made by bacteria growing on corn-based sugar.

The pair examined the potential for making PHA from waste material left over from the production of ethanol from the stalks and leaves of corn plants -- which is not yet done on a commercial scale.

"We count all of the chemicals, fertilizers and fuels. We also count the CO2 released from our process. That includes the direct CO2 from the fermentation part, and the energy part," Yu said. "We tried to bean count so we can understand which part is the major CO2 producer."

The researchers found that PHA production generated the equivalent of 0.49 pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of plastic, compared to two to three pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of conventional plastic. They published their results in Environmental Science and Technology.

Other bioplastics look even better. Polylactide (PLA), produced commercially by Minnesota-based NatureWorks, LLC, generates 0.27 pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of plastic produced, according to results published last year in Industrial Biotechnology.

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