Search Energy Stories
By: Dr. Michael T. Gamble
So much sound and fury over the Higgs Boson, signifying what? A complete understanding of the fundamental constituents of the world in which we live? Of the universe of which we are an integral part? No … and yes.
High-energy physicists at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, announced this week they are closer than ever to detecting the apparently hallowed boson — or possibly it is called God Particle merely for mass consumption. Its quantification would at once provide breathtaking insights into the infinitesimal domain affecting Earthly life and to the composition of the entire universe, a broad range, indeed.
Rewards of Basic Science
This is basic science at its best, the unraveling of the underpinnings of the thing, matter, in this case. The payoff is understanding the whys and wherefores of how particles come to be endowed with mass. And when mass teams up with gravity, watch out, literally. An apple falls to Earth because gravity, a force centrally directed toward the Earth’s core, acts on mass, and on mass alone. We all owe a great debt to mass. In hydroelectric power plants, gravity acts on the mass of water spilling over the dam and pulls it downward, turning the turbines.
Humans don’t float away into space, as in Frank in Kubric’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, because the Earth’s gravity acts on our body mass. Yes, mass is directly proportional to weight, the product of mass multiplied times the Earth’s gravitational acceleration. Cheer up, on Mars you would weigh about 60 percent less!
Standard Model Confirmation and Extensions
The best description of the nature of matter and how it interacts with itself that scientists have devised is codified in the so-called standard model (SM) of particle physics. The Higgs Boson is encompassed by the SM and would fit perfectly, once detected, as it is the sole remaining undetected/unquantified particle prophesized by SM devotees.
Of greater import than completing the equivalent of a prestigious stamp collection for high-energy physicists, quantifying the Higgs Field, the modality via which mass is apportioned, would enable more of the principal forces observed in nature to be unified, mutually describable in a set of complete equations.
Electricity and magnetism have long been codified in the Maxwell equations. Quantification of the Higgs Field would enable a separate phenomenon, nuclear beta decay, also called the nuclear weak force, to be unified with the forces of electricity and magnetism and elaborated in electro-weak equations.
While the Higgs Boson remains unquantified, narrowing the range of its mass to between 114.4 GeV and 131 GeV, according to CERN scientists, is meaningful news. Some years ago the Higgs was thought to be as massive as 500+ GeV, an energy regime unreachable by the LHC, whose peak energy is closer to 450 GeV.
It appears that it is only a matter of time to determining the mass of the God Particle. And although Einstein’s grand unification vision, a single set of equations describing all of the fundamental forces including gravity, will still be unrealized, I, for one, will celebrate by eating ice cream. When talking mass, every kilogram counts.
About Dr. Michael T. Gamble: Dr. Gamble is a former staff member of the physics division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he researched directed-energy devices such as terawatt laser systems. He was also a senior manager within the Gammas, Electrons, and Muons detector collaboration at the Superconducting Super Collider. Gamble is the author of “Zeroscape,” a high-tech thriller. He holds degrees in nuclear and mechanical engineering, and was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
New analysis indicates countries are turning to other energy sources as a result of high costs, low demand, and recent disasters
Washington, D.C.—-Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute (www.Worldwatch.org). Despite reaching record levels the previous year, global installed nuclear capacity—-the potential power generation from all existing plants—-declined to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, from 375.5 GW at the end of 2010.
Not surprisingly, this drop in installed capacity corresponds with a decline in global consumption of nuclear energy. Nuclear’s share of world commercial primary energy usage fell to around 5 percent in 2010, having peaked at about 6 percent in 2001 and 2002. Only four countries—-the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom—-increased their share of nuclear power by over 1 percentage point between 2009 and 2010.
Much of the decline in installed capacity is the result of halted reactor construction around the world. Although construction on 16 new reactors began in 2010—-the highest number in over two decades—-that number fell to just two in 2011, with India and Pakistan each starting construction on a plant. In addition to this dramatically slowed rate of construction, the first 10 months of 2011 saw the closing of 13 nuclear reactors, reducing the total number of reactors in operation around the world from 441 at the beginning of the year to 433.
“It’s too early to conclude that nuclear energy is beginning a long-term decline, but these numbers can hardly encourage the industry,” said Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. “The high cost of nuclear electricity generation and the widespread public perceptions that it poses unacceptable safety risks make it unlikely this form of power will help slow human-caused climate change or offer an attractive alternative to rising fossil-fuel prices any time soon.”
China is an exception to the global slump in nuclear electricity generation, in terms of both the number of plants being built and installment capacity levels. The country accounted for 10 of the 16 reactor construction starts in 2010, and that year it initiated the installment of nearly 10 GW of capacity, representing 62 percent of capacity construction worldwide. China currently is home to 27 reactors and has some 27 GW of capacity under construction. “Overall, the likelihood of China significantly reducing its aggressive growth in nuclear generation remains low as the country seeks to meet its rapidly growing energy demand and ambitious carbon dioxide reduction targets,”says Worldwatch MAP Fellow Matt Lucky, the author of the VSO report.
The United States, too, does not appear to be abandoning nuclear power just yet. In 2010, the Obama administration approved $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for construction of nuclear reactors; in February of 2011, the administration’s budget proposal upped that amount by an additional $36 billion.
The current global decline in installed nuclear power capacity stands in stark contrast to nuclear’s surge in popularity throughout the 2000s. Although many factors are behind the decline, it is largely the result of high costs, slowed electricity demand, and lower natural gas prices in recent months. The reactor meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant seven months ago also likely added to the severity of the decline. Only 10 of Japan’s 54 reactors are currently connected to the grid, China froze construction on 25 reactors immediately after the Fukushima explosions, and both Germany and Switzerland announced plans to phase out nuclear power following the disaster.
“Whereas renewable energy sources are growing at rates of up to 70 percent and more on an annual basis, nuclear energy is the only major energy technology experiencing negative growth,” says Alexander Ochs, Director of Worldwatch’s Climate and Energy program. “Not only is nuclear too risky from a health and security point of view, it’s also just too expensive.”
Although nuclear power remains an important energy source for many countries, including Russia and France, it is likely that its prominence will continue to decrease. To maintain current generation levels, the world would need to install an additional 18 GW by 2015 and another 175 GW by 2025. In the aftermath of Fukushima and in the context of a fragile global economy, an increase that sharp is improbable.
Further highlights from the report:
- Together, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Korea have contributed around 5 GW of new installed capacity since the beginning of 2010. During this same period, nearly 11.5 GW of installed capacity has been shut down in France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
- Germany alone has taken around 8 GW of installed nuclear capacity offline this year.
- Currently, 65 reactors are under construction around the world; however, 20 of these have been under construction for more than 20 years.
- Construction on the first nuclear power plant to be built in France in 15 years has been delayed until 2016, and its projected cost has grown from €3.3 billion (Approximately USD 4.4 billion) to €6 billion (Approximately USD 8 billion).
- The average age of decommissioned reactors worldwide has risen to 23 years.
- In 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission received 26 nuclear reactor permit applications, but only four of those sites have plans for construction.
About the Worldwatch Institute: Worldwatch is an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues. The Institute’s State of the World report is published annually in more than 20 languages. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org.
Both alternative energy companies declared bankruptcy this year after receiving millions in federal job stimulus dollars. It’s just what the United States does not need right now, says nuclear scientist Michael T. Gamble, an alternative energy researcher and investment-banking analyst.
The public backlash to ill-spent tax dollars could hurt a vital emerging industry – one that is very much key to future U.S. jobs.
“Cheap energy would enable little Silicon Valley businesses to develop phenomenal things because they’re not hampered by the increased cost of doing business,” says Gamble, a former scientist at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and author of Zeroscape (www.zeroscape-thebook.com), a high-tech thriller. “Work with certain technologies, like high-energy lasers, requires large amounts of energy. A little photonics company could be a future Apple.”
Apple Inc., he notes, had 46,600 full-time employees in September 2010, up a third from the previous year. That was job growth during the throes of economic recession.
Gamble says the public perception of the alternative energy industry as a worthy recipient of taxpayer dollars may be tainted by what were essentially business failures exacerbated by the falling cost of solar-grade silicon. Perhaps they were poor choices for Energy Department loan guarantees.
“Solyndra was never even close to manufacturing cost-effective, competitive solar panels,” he says. “Their cost was $3 to $6 per watt.”
However, there are companies, and even government research, worth investing in, Gamble says.
- A robust photovoltaic company that’s close to achieving competitive pricing is Nanosolar of San Jose, Calif. Its thin-film, printable solar collection panels use copper, indium, gallium, selenium and nanoparticle inks as opposed to the widely used silicon panels, a lower-cost strategy. When combined with the savings from minimal installation labor, Nanosolar’s panels are on course to produce energy for 60 cents per watt and achieve production efficiencies comparable to silicon panels within the next few years.
- Of the regional options for renewable energy – tidal on the coasts, geothermal in the West, and wind in myriad locations – the latter is ripe for harvest. In 2010, China replaced the United States as the world leader in wind energy production, adding 16.5 gigawatts – comparable to the maximum electricity generated by 16 large nuclear power plants. It now surpasses the United States by 2 gigawatts. The U.S. lag was due, in part, to the expiration of the Obama administration’s Recovery Act, a one-time tax incentive for deployment of renewable energy installations.
- Free as they are, sun and wind may be overpowered by success of the most high-tech energy source sought: nuclear fusion. Different from the nuclear fission employed by nuclear reactors, fusion is environmentally friendly, much less risky for humans, and uses fuel derived from water. It produces lots of energy; helium is the byproduct. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab near San Francisco has built a laser fusion device called the National Ignition Facility (NIF), capable of delivering 500 terawatts to a BB-size target while liberating clean energy. “Now that NIF is operational,” Gamble says, “its budget must be directed principally toward its mission as the groundbreaking American device closest to realizing a fantastic renewable energy source.”
About Dr. Michael T. Gamble Dr. Gamble is a former staff member of the physics division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he researched directed-energy devices such as terawatt laser systems. He is a former Vice President of Manufacturing Technology for Nanovation Technologies, Inc. and a founding partner of Fidelys, LLC, a California investment banking and corporate advisory firm. Gamble holds degrees in nuclear and mechanical engineering, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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