Open Intelligence / Energy

The U.S., after authorizing the release of 30 million barrels of oil from its emergency stockpile, is prepared to take additional action if needed to react to disruptions in world supplies, according to an Obama administration official. The decision to draw oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, part of an international move to release 60 million barrels, was made after months of consulting with allies and oil-producing nations, according to officials, who briefed reporters on condition they not be named.

The coordinated release of 60 million barrels by the U.S. and 27 other nations would provide about 2 million barrels a day within the first 30 days, according to the IEA.

Supply Concerns The release is being done in response to disruption caused by the Libya conflict and in anticipation of increasing demand during the U.S. summer driving season, the official said. It is intended more to ensure supply rather than affect prices, according to the official. The national average retail price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.612, according to a AAA survey.

TSURUGA, Japan — Three hundred miles southwest of Fukushima, at a nuclear reactor perched on the slopes of this rustic peninsula, engineers are engaged in another precarious struggle

The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor — a long-troubled national project — has been in a precarious state of shutdown since a 3.3-ton device crashed into the reactor’s inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core.

Engineers have tried repeatedly since the accident last August to recover the device, which appears to have gotten stuck. They will make another attempt as early as next week.

at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station near Blair, Nebraska, the river is already lapping at the Aqua Dams -- giant plastic tubes filled with water -- that form a stockade around the plant's buildings. The plant has become an island.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a "yellow finding PDF" (indicating a safety significance somewhere between moderate and high) for the plant last October, after determining that the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) "did not adequately prescribe steps to mitigate external flood conditions in the auxiliary building and intake structure" in the event of a worst-case Missouri River flood. The auxiliary building -- which surrounds the reactor building like a horseshoe flung around a stake -- is where the plant's spent-fuel pool and emergency generators are located.

OPPD has since taken corrective measures, including sealing potential floodwater-penetration points, installing emergency flood panels, and revising sandbagging procedures. It's extremely unlikely that this year's flood, no matter how historic, will turn into a worst-case scenario: That would happen only if an upstream dam were to instantaneously disintegrate. Nevertheless, in March of this year the NRC identified Fort Calhoun as one of three nuclear plants requiring the agency's highest level of oversight. In the meantime, the water continues to rise

TEPCO announced on June 18 that it stopped the water treatment system for the highly contaminated water at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant at 12:54AM on June 18.

ted water at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant at 12:54AM on Jun

The stoppage was not due to system malfunction, TEPCO explained. The company stopped the system when the radiation level of the cesium absorption subsystem [by Kurion] had reached the set limit earlier than expected. TEPCO had planned to start the cooling water circulation system whereby the treated water is injected back into the Reactor Pressure Vessels on June 18, but it is not clear whether it will start as scheduled.

Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.

TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.

"They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?"

In an article published in Nature Photonics, researchers Malte Gather and Seok Hyun Yun describe how a solution made from GFP was used in combination with a mirrored chamber to create a laser. From this preliminary test, Gather and Yun were able to determine how much GFP was required to create the laser light. Using this result, they then moved ahead to genetically engineer mammalian cells that could express the GFP at the required levels.

The researchers report that they were able to create bright laser pulses that lasted a few nanoseconds with a single cell. Amazingly the cells were not damaged during the production of the laser light but were able to withstand hundreds of pulses. Furthermore, the spherical shape of the cell itself acted as a lens “refocusing the light and inducing emission of laser light at lower energy levels than required for the solution-based device.”

Although there are no immediate plans to use this technology, the erosion of the barrier between optical technologies and biology could open many doors in therapy and research. Gather tells PhysOrg.com that they “hope to be able to implant a structure equivalent to the mirrored chamber right into a cell, which would [sic] the next milestone in this research."

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

The Committee on Climate Change, the UK government watchdog, has called for the number of electric cars on Britain's roads to increase from a few hundred now to 1.7 million by 2020.

Google and SolarCity have launched a $280 million fund to help bring solar power to residential customers. It’s Google’s largest investment to date in the clean-energy sector, as well as the largest residential solar fund ever created in the US. It’s also the 15th project fund for SolarCity, which has worked with seven different partners to finance $1.28 billion in solar projects. “Google is setting an example that other leading American companies can follow,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity. “The largest 200 corporations in the US have more than $1 trillion in cash on their balance sheets. Investments in solar energy generate returns for corporate investors, offer cost savings for homeowners, create new, local jobs for jobseekers, and protect the environment from polluting power sources. If more companies follow Google’s lead, we can dramatically reduce our nation’s dependence on polluting power.”