MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--While I'm sure that many of the people in the room were familiar with prediction markets, I wonder how many of them had ever seen an active one up close and personal before.
Providing that sense of deep immersion, of course, was exactly the point of an exercise run Monday during a session of Singularity University's executive program by Melanie Swan, a Silicon Valley hedge fund manager. Swan, the principal of MS Futures Group, had tasked small groups of students with coming up with world-changing product ideas and then simultaneously had the students vote in an online prediction market looking at which product and team would be rewarded with the most faux-venture capital.
Despite the fact that some technical problems got in the way, the point was made: prediction markets, given enough active participation, are increasingly seen as an excellent way to arrive at the answers to any number of questions, whether it's sales figures, who will win presidential elections, or who will get the most VC funding. Indeed, the winning technology concept--a pill that could cure cancer--and team were accurately prognosticated by the market.
For the group of superstar achievers like the students in the executive program, this was but one piece of a meticulously constructed nine-day education that many hope will supplement and enhance already successful careers in a wide range of disciplines.
Other sessions included looks at the state-of-the-art in medical research from Daniel Kraft, an instructor in Stanford's cancer/stem cell biology institute, and Chris deCharms, the founder of Omneuron, a company working on new MRI technologies; future forecasting from Peter Bishop, the coordinator of the futures studies program at the University of Houston; a workshop in the future of medicine and biomedical technology from Stanford developmental biotechnology professor, Stuart Kim; and a talk by Harvard Law School professor and Internet law expert Johnathan Zittrain.
And that was all just on Monday.
Four start-ups emerged
Earlier this year, Singularity University (SU) ran its inaugural summer session, a nine-week program based at NASA's Ames Research Center here in the heart of Silicon Valley, aimed at giving the best 40 of more than 1,200 applicants a highly concentrated education in a series of exponentially growing technologies like biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; AI, robotics, and cognitive computing.
For those students, who were chosen based on having demonstrated top-level academic rigor, entrepreneurial and leadership skills, an interest in global issues and who were seen as already being at the top of their chosen fields, the nine weeks were a marathon of long days and nights of lectures from world-leading thinkers, workshops in the technologies that could shape the future and group projects centered on coming up with ways to positively impact a billion people. Already, four start-ups have emerged from the summer session.
But now the first of SU's nine-day executive program is in full swing, and according to co-founder, X Prize Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, the goal now is to distill the best parts of the nine-week SU version and present them to the new students in a way that will be of the most use to them.
"The executive program is really focused on providing the information in a much more organized and digestible fashion for executives, addressing the issue of what's in the lab today and where is this going in five years," said Diamandis (see video below). "What is the key terminology that (the students) should know about these fields, what are the top ten breakthrough milestones that you should be watching out for, and, ultimately, how are these breakthroughs going to affect you, your company and your industry."
That's obviously a very ambitious mission statement, but for many of the 20 people lucky enough to be taking part in the executive program, Diamandis and his fellow organizers have succeeded in pulling together something very worthwhile, even as it is one of the most intense experiences of their lives.
"It's like taking medical school and boiling down four years into about four days," said Michael Gillam, a physician who runs the health care innovation lab at Microsoft. "That will give you a sense of the sort of depth of the material" covered during the executive session.
From the beginning, SU's founders--futurist and "The Singuality is Near" author Ray Kurzweil; Diamandis; and ex-Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail--had planned on the institution offering both the longer summer sessions and shorter, three- and nine-day executive programs. In the process of actually putting them together, though, Ismail said, the three-day version got scrapped for simply being too short.
Instead, the executive program's first group of students--20 people of varying ages and professions, half of whom are American and half international--arrived at Ames on Friday having paid the $15,000 fee, each in search of something a little bit different.
Sole focus is on tomorrow
For Gillam, the rationale for taking nine days off from work--he said he'd come on vacation from Microsoft since it would have been impossible to take part in the summer session--was crystal clear: to get a deep dive in the technologies that are coming screaming down the line at us.
"You can go almost anywhere today and hear about historical trends (or a) deep analysis of today," Gillam said. "But there's virtually no place where the sole focus is on tomorrow, and where we are going. That was extremely intriguing and what captured my attention."
For Peter Platzer, a currencies and commodities trader from New York, attending SU was all about having meaningful interactions with the diverse and accomplished group of faculty and staff and to get a better understanding of the kinds of exponential technologies that are being discussed there.
And according to organizers, some of the students, whose numbers include venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and government representatives, even came solely for the chance to meet, and potentially invest with, members of the start-ups that came out of the summer session.
Alumni network
Those potential relationships are possible because one of the things that's already developing at SU is a strong alumni network. That's evident at the executive program in the group of summer session graduates who have returned as faculty assistants--who also happen to be able to sit in on all the deliberations and discussions--and in the number of faculty who themselves have come back for more.
Diamandis said that there's no doubt that SU is fostering an ongoing network that is sure to benefit all who join. For example, he suggested that if, in the future, a graduate wanted to find someone who was a European robotics expert, they would likely be able to find such a person in the SU program. Because the executive program will be repeated in February and again in April, and the nine-week program next summer, there will only be more members of the network as time passes.
And as proof that SU graduates take their membership in that network seriously, Ismail pointed out that though it's only been two months since the summer students graduated, they'd already had a reunion.
To faculty member Dan Barry, a former NASA astronaut--and cast member of CNET News parent company CBS' "Survivor"--the main difference between the summer session students and those in the executive program is that while the former tended to be very smart people at crossroads in their lives and careers, the latter are very established in their respective businesses and are seeing how they can become aware of, and perhaps utilize, the future technologies being discussed.
Still, Barry said he sees more similarities than differences between the two groups. Both, he said, are "interested in technology and the future and are concerned about the state of the planet and the people on it."
For Barry, taking part as part of the faculty has been a refreshing change of course that, thanks to the "potential and excitement (I see) reflected in their eyes," has re-energized him professionally.
"When I talk with other astronauts...about space, we tend to talk about technical things," Barry said. "When I talk (to the students) it helps me to remember...what's spectacular about going to space."
On Thursday, Popular Mechanics magazine will unveil its 2009 Breakthrough awards. Included on the list is a series of innovators, as well as a number of products, including this lawn mower, the Hustler Zeon, which is the world's first all-electric, zero-turning-radius mower. It can cover an acre of grass on a single charge.
(Credit: Popular Mechanics)Popular Mechanics magazine on Thursday will unveil its fifth-annual Breakthrough Award winners, an august collection of designers and products that could do much more than their share to change the world for the better.
From famous inventors like Dean Kamen to a flying car for the Third World to bacteria-powered batteries--and much in-between--the awards are meant to highlight technologies that will shape the way people around the world live and how they interact with everyday products.
Each year, the magazine's editors scour the country for a worthy group of winners, and this year, in the end, Popular Mechanics settled on one leadership award winner, one next-generation honoree, eight Breakthrough innovators and 10 Breakthrough products.
"In all cases, there's a really practical application that we see coming about," said Jerry Beilinson, the magazine's deputy editor, "so these aren't theoretical scientific applications. (They're going to) change the world and have a really positive aspect on people's lives."
Beilinson said that after five years of identifying technological breakthrough products and innovators, certain themes have emerged in the editors' preferences. Among the most important, he said, is alternative energy and products and designers that push that category forward.
"If I look back (at the last few years of doing the awards), we looked at aviation and we looked at medicine," he said. "But over the last few years, I think the things that have been clear themes that we've been looking at that have emerged (are) alternative energy and appropriate technologies for the developing world."
And while the themes can be forward-looking, the individual awards celebrate a "moment in time," he said.
"We're sort of picking the moment at which it's become real, and passed the threshold and seems like its worthy of an award," Beilinson said. "But most of these kinds of things do take some time to develop."
For this year's Breakthrough Leadership award, Popular Mechanics honored Dean Kamen, an inventor with more than 440 patents who may be best known for creating the incredible but commercially disappointing Segway personal transporter.
... Read more
For years, outgoing Demo managing director Chris Shipley has had an on-stage dance. On Wednesday, in celebration of her handing off the reins of the event to VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall, Shipley led Demo owner IDG founder and CEO Pat McGovern in a version of the jig.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)SAN DIEGO--The Demo community--an august group of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and technology reporters--gave a fond farewell Wednesday afternoon here to longtime Demo managing director Chris Shipley.
As is well known, Shipley is leaving the helm of Demo, having now officially handed off the reins to VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall.
But as just about the last official act of DemoFall 09, Pat McGovern, the founder and chairman of IDG, which owns the Demo conferences, led the audience in a standing ovation for Shipley.
The DemoFall 09 crowd gave Shipley a standing ovation for her 13 years of work.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Prior to that sentimental moment, meanwhile, seven Demo God winners were announced, as well as the two winners of IDG's media prize.
The seven Demo God winners were:
• Emo Labs, for its Edge Motion speaker technology
• Intelius, for its DateCheck service
• Zorap
• Hevva, for its Local Dirt service
• Twirl TV
• Pinyadda
• ShareGrove
The last two companies were selected from among the 14 "AlphaPitch" presenters, which had just 90 seconds to make their case, rather than the six minutes given to each of the nearly 60 regular Demo companies.
IDG also awarded its two media prizes, one to a consumer product, and the other to an enterprise play. Each winner will receive up to $500,000 worth of free advertising across IDG properties.
Incoming Demo managing director Matt Marshall (left) and Shipley congratulate the founders of Demo God and IDG media prize winner Emo Labs.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)The consumer winner was Emo Labs, whose Edge Motion technology may well change the way the public experiences speakers. The enterprise winner was Liaise, whose software is meant to help companies with "the capture and management of KeyPoints--tasks, issues, dates, and priorities--buried inside e-mails, IMs, and other communications."
As is generally the case, the acceptance speeches were a bit teary-eyed, especially by Demo God and media prize winner Emo Labs' CEO Jason Carlson, who noted that his company had only come to Demo after being convinced by Shipley that he and his team could put together a coherent six-minute presentation.
Earlier, Shipley gave out a series of Lifetime Achievement awards to tech luminaries like Palm co-founder Donna Dubinsky, Diane Greene, a co-founder of VMware, Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi, and (in absentia) Marc Benioff.
In his own defiant and emotional moment, Barry James Folsom, CEO of Demo God winner Twirl TV urged the entrepreneurs in the room to carry on, despite any roadblocks they might encounter along their path to success. "If you do not have an obstacle, or someone telling you it's not a good idea, or someone telling you it will never work, and you believe them, you're not an entrepreneur," Folsom said. "(The) Lifetime Achievement award winners...They did it in spite of everyone telling them they couldn't."
Among the highlights of Road Trip 2009 was getting to be on hand for new cadet in-processing at the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)After more than five weeks and 5,765 miles of driving through Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and very, very small parts of Arizona and Nevada, Road Trip 2009 is over.
This was the fourth year I've done this project, and I've now covered a fourth major region of the United States. In 2006, it was the Pacific Northwest; in 2007, the Southwest; in 2008, the deep South; and this year, it was the Rocky Mountain region. All told, my CNET Road Trips have taken me through 21 states and have covered 18,618 miles. And while there are 29 states I haven't visited yet (on Road Trip, at least), I feel like the projects have allowed me to see a great deal of our amazing country, including many of the back roads that most people don't get to see. And that is quite a privilege.
For me, there were many highlights this year. Any list of those (not exhaustive, of course, as that would be impossible in a story like this) would include being on hand for new cadet in-processing at the Air Force Academy; getting a chance to visit and explore the infrastructure of the underground fortress, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station; visiting a group of Utah canyons and national parks I've been wanting to see for years; trekking to the great Utah Earthworks, the late Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and his wife Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels; getting to be the first reporter to see the completed solid rocket booster designed for future missions to the moon--and maybe Mars; walking the volcanic wonderland that is Craters of the Moon; driving through Montana's incomparable Glacier National Park; seeing the incredible downsides of decades of hard-core mining in Butte, Mont.; visiting a former Wyoming coal mine that has been reclaimed and turned into a huge wind farm; and, of course, fulfilling a years-long mission to explore the hot springs of Idaho.
The trip began, and ended, in Denver. But by the end, that felt like pure coincidence, especially as I returned to the Mile High City from a totally different direction than I had left it. Ultimately, though, I have to seriously tip my hat to Colorado's Rocky Mountain region. Coming from California, I always felt that the Sierra Nevada mountains were as good as it gets--in North America, at least. Now, I'm thinking I may have to reevaluate.
The technology
As always, Road Trip is also a chance for me to try out some of the latest tech gear. Among the gadgets I was testing out that I ended up using the most were Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro; Nikon's D5000 digital SLR (complete with HD video); Inmarsat's BGAN satellite modem; Flip Video's UltraHD; Apple's iPod Touch; Amazon's Kindle 2; Verizon's MiFi 2200 mobile hot spot; Hewlett-Packard's OfficeJet H470; LiveScribe's Pulse pen; and of course, the Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV I drove for those 5,765 miles.
It may say 1,765 miles, but this is actually the final mileage for Road Trip 2009: 5,765.4 miles.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)When you're driving about 150 miles a day for more than five weeks, as well as doing three or four hours of daily reporting and an additional three or four hours of writing and photo processing, there's not a lot of time left for other things. And that includes trying out new technologies.
That means, of course, that some of the gadgets and technology I had brought with me never made it out of the bag. Among those are Sony's MDR-NC22 noise-canceling headphones and Adobe's Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.
I also didn't really get a chance to use Apple's iPhone 3GS much, at least beyond what my own personal iPhone 3G can do. I will say, however, that the 3GS is definitely much faster than the previous model, and if I wasn't locked into my 3G, I would likely upgrade now.
Getting online
As someone needing to do a fair bit of online research and, of course, file daily stories and photo galleries, the quality of Internet connectivity was constantly on my mind.
I stayed in 27 different motels during the course of the trip, and while almost all of them promised high-speed wireless Internet, my conclusion is that few were able to actually deliver on that commitment.
I don't know why I'm still surprised at that fact. After four years of doing these road trips, I guess I assume that by now, big hotel chains like Best Western, Holiday Inn Express, and so on will have figured out how to provide true high-speed Internet to their customers. Yet, again and again, my experience was of slow, barely usable connectivity. I guess my standards are too high.
The Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV that CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman road-tested on Road Trip 2009.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)That meant it was often a struggle to get my stories and photos out on time. Fortunately, cafes, restaurants, and libraries also offered Wi-Fi, and I always had access to Verizon's EV-DO network, though that, too, was often sub-standard in quality.
Wrapping up
So now Road Trip 2009 draws to a close, and I will get back to my usual reporting on all things geek culture, mainly from my office in San Francisco. But my thoughts are already turning to Road Trip 2010, which I believe will take me to the East Coast. So if you have thoughts on destinations that might make make sense for me to check out, please don't hesitate to let me know.
In the meantime, thank you so much to everyone who assisted me on this project, be it the many public affairs representatives who took time out of their busy schedules to accommodate me, or my editors, who often had to be cleaning up my words late at night.
BOULDER, Colo.--When President Obama said that he wanted to put 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015, it sounded good to many people worried about the effects of fossil fuels.
But when you consider that there are currently about 230 million vehicles on the road in the United States alone, you realize that Obama's goal amounts to less than one half of 1 percent--hardly what's going to move the U.S. into a post-gas future.
Project Get Ready, an initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is trying to help cities get ready for an electric-car future.
(Credit: Project Get Ready)Still, to the people at Project Get Ready, an initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, anything that can jump-start a culture trajectory away from fossil fuels is a good thing. And that's why Project Get Ready is starting to work with cities around the country to prepare them, their communities, utilities and merchants for a day when the electric car is not only a viable option but a significant piece of the transportation puzzle.
On Road Trip 2009, I stopped in Boulder to talk with Matt Mattila, one of the leaders of Project Get Ready. I wanted to hear whether he and his team really think that electric cars can become a dominant fixture on our roads and in our cities.
The answer? Not anytime soon, but if we all work together to prepare, it may well happen in the not too, too distant future. But it will take serious thought, cooperation among various constituencies, and a willingness to think long term.
Don't make Chevy Volt a disaster
One of the most important goals has to be, Mattila argued, that electric-car ventures currently under way not fail before they can even get off the ground. That means that by the time a car like the much-heralded Chevy Volt starts to roll off production lines in a year or two, that there be enough of an infrastructure in place to handle them.
To Mattila, one major consideration is the thinking that's going to go on in the board rooms of companies like General Motors and other car makers, which are going to look at the market and the cultural environment and say: We're getting these new cars ready, so make sure there's enough charging stations, easy-to-get permits, consumer education and fleet buy-in. The point? So that, "when Chevy hands its billion-dollar Volt off, it's not going to be a big disaster because there's nowhere to plug it in," Mattila said.
That's where Project Get Ready comes into play, he said. The idea is to work on spreading awareness of what it takes to have an infrastructure for electric cars so that enough cities around the country feel like it's worth the effort to prepare for that future.
As well, it's important to address the chicken-and-egg problem: If consumers don't feel they have places to plug in their new electric cars, they won't buy them. And if people won't buy them, car makers won't make them.
"These few years are critical," Mattila said, "so focus on making (the coming launches) great, so that early adopters evangelize" electric cars and the experience of driving and maintaining them.
But, of course, there's nowhere in the United States that is ready for this yet. So Project Get Ready considers its major task to try to identify the gap that exists in understanding what it takes, and bringing all the various players to the table: city planners, local coalitions, nonprofits and, last, but not least, big utilities.
"They have to be part of the (solution)," Mattila said of the utilities. "If thousands of cars are going to be plugged into their grid, they need to know who's going to be plugged in, and at what rate."
Most will plug in at home
One thing that the electric car has going for it, according to Mattila, is that 80 percent of the charging up that will be done will be done at home or at the office. Many people who own such cars will install a charging station at home, taking some of the burden off the public infrastructure.
"But what can we do to make people see that there are public charging stations" as well, said Mattila. "It's getting people comfortable with seeing them out there" in public.
That's not going to be possible, of course, unless cities, large merchants, and/or utility companies feel there is an economic incentive to make the substantial investment in widespread charging stations.
Today, however, there is a lot of public money available for such projects. Mattila said that as much as half of the costs of charging stations can be offset by government funding. As well, it's a young market without a lot of competition, so some companies making charging stations are installing them for free to try to establish a market.
Others are following a cell phone business model and are installing the charging stations for free, but charging access fees for using them. And still others feel they will only make money by charging for the installation. The folks at Project Get Ready clearly see that merchants may have the most to gain by investing in the infrastructure.
"Our approach is to make a real business case," Mattila said, "so that Gold's Gym and UA Theaters (and such companies) have a real incentive to put them in on their own."
The reason? So that cities don't have to pay for everything.
At the same time, Mattila said that utility companies are looking at a huge windfall when it comes to electric cars and the power they will require. "There could be a huge opportunity for utilities," he said, "to own the boxes and install them and say, 'We can determine when you get energy...how much you get and how much you pay."
The idea there, he added, is that the utilities can ensure that if people plug in during high-demand periods, they pay a premium.
Still, despite the potential economic advantages to utility companies, Mattila said that Project Get Ready's research suggests that the most common models for electric-car infrastructure will be cities and large merchants paying for it.
"The Wal-Marts of the world (can do it to) fulfill the promise of being more green," he said. To them, "it's a drop in the bucket, so they view it as a loss leader to get people coming into the store to buy things."
In that scenario, he added, you might someday see a charging station at every parking spot in a Wal-Mart lot.
More efficient and less expensive
When the Volt comes out, it is expected to be fairly expensive, along the lines of a standard-engine luxury vehicle. So to Mattila, the goal has to be to survive the early adopter stage and get to a point where not only are the second-generation Volts affordable for a larger consumer base, but where there are enough public charging stations available to handle future generations of less expensive electric cars with smaller batteries and shorter driving ranges.
Some people want the green car of tomorrow to be a hydrogen fuel vehicle, Mattila acknowledged, but added that there's no existing hydrogen infrastructure. "The entire country's wired," he said, touting electric cars, "and we can plug in just about anywhere."
Despite his full-time efforts on behalf of a world full of electric cars, Mattila is not entirely optimistic about what he sees.
He does say that he sees maturity in the market in 10 or 15 years and that by 2030 electric cars may well make up a significant percentage of cars on the road. But that's a long time from now.
"I'd say I'm more on the skeptical side...at least when I attend conferences and preach to our choir," he explained. "We try to rein in our people (and) look at the barriers and try to address them, rather than focus on what would be good if we had millions and millions of these things being sold."
Still, Project Get Ready has started ongoing conversations with cities like Houston, Raleigh, N.C., Indianapolis, Portland, and Denver and is in unofficial talks with half a dozen more, all in an effort to inform decision-makers about what they have to do to prepare.
Ultimately, Mattila said, Project Get Ready's five-year plan is to put the country on a trajectory to get off of fossil fuels.
"It's hard to be motivated by something that the next generation is going to benefit from," he explained, "but if we can demonstrate (the profit motivation) then maybe people will get on board. We don't want it to be a sacrifice."
The Glenrock Wind Farm, a 237-megawatt project that can produce power for 66,800 households, sits on the site of the former Dave Johnston Mine.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)GLENROCK, Wyo.--Walking across the former site of the Dave Johnston Mine here, about half an hour outside Casper, you'd never know that over the course of 42 years, 104 million tons of coal was taken out of the ground.
But now, instead of having a heavy carbon footprint--and coal certainly does--these rolling hills have a green footprint. Today, the site is home to a 158-turbine wind farm that produces 237 megawatts of power, enough electricity for 66,800 households for a year.
And what's particularly notable about the site is that while the wind farm is among the newest and most state-of-the-art in the country today, it is also likely the first full-scale wind power project to be installed on the site of a former coal mine.
From 1958 until 2000, the Dave Johnston Mine stretched for 9 miles through this otherwise barren landscape. But in the late 1990s, after the mine's operator, Rocky Mountain Power, determined that it was no longer economical to run it, a full-scale reclamation project began.
As part of Road Trip 2009, I visited the wind farm to get a first-hand look at how such a scar on the earth can be successfully converted to a graceful and clean power project.
According to Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp that provides power to Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho residents, "Full-scale final reclamation efforts to restore the nearly 9-mile long stretch of land affected by mining began in 1999 and were completed in 2005. Mountains of dirt were moved, miles of land reseeded with native vegetation and major contouring performed in order to return the landscape to its pre-mining appearance. More than 85 million yards of earth were moved to accomplish this feat."
A big part of the reclamation project was providing long-term grazing land and habitat for a variety of wildlife. To that end, Sagebrush and many other forms of vegetation were planted throughout the property as a source of habitat and food for animals such as pronghorned antelope and deer. Further, the team behind the reclamation concentrated on habitat for birds, including building five nesting platforms for eagles and cover for other, smaller bird species.
And more than 120 "rabbitats," rock shelters for rabbits and other small animals, were built around the property.
All told, the Glenrock Wind Farm is home to antelope, deer, mountain lions, foxes, bobcats, rabbits, and golden eagles.
There are about 1,400 antelope and 600 deer roaming the Glenrock Wind Farm.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)While it's easy to link the reclamation of the former coal mine and the new, giant wind farm, Rocky Mountain Power didn't originally set out to convert its property from greenhouse gas-intensive power to green power. Rather, the company realized after the decision was made to shut down the coal mine that the property was ideally suited to building a big wind farm.
And that's because the company already owned the property, had a significant system of transmission lines already installed nearby, and understood that these rolling hills had the wind strength to support a multi-hundred-million-dollar wind project.
But Rocky Mountain Power has by no means abandoned coal. In fact, it still has a coal-processing plant adjacent to the former Dave Johnston Mine, which is one reason the transmission lines are still there. Still, the company, and other power generators, have certainly begun to see the value--and the economics--of wind farms like these. Indeed, the day after I visited the Glenrock Wind Farm, the front page of the Casper, Wyo., newspaper had an above-the-fold front-page headline trumpeting another giant wind farm that will soon be developed in the same area.
Twenty-one species of vegetation
My hosts for the visit to the wind farm were Chet Skilbred, Rocky Mountain Power's vegetation scientist at the property, and Doug Mollet, the director of wind operations at Glenrock Wind Farm. Skilbred explained that as part of the reclamation project, he and his team were required to replace all the indigenous plants that had been there prior to the coal mine. So, a big part of the project was the planting of 21 different species of vegetation, including warm season grasses, cool season grasses, shrubs, and many more.
But, with 158 soaring wind turbines dominating the landscape today, Skilbred told me a joke about the process: "I had no idea my seed mixture included wind turbines."
This is a photograph of an aerial image showing the coal mine when it was fully operational.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)To get back the remaining $2.6 million of an original $56 million bond that was put up when the coal mine was opened, Rocky Mountain Power must monitor the land through 2017 for things like ground water and surface water hydrology, wildlife, and vegetation. But I have to hand it to them: If they hadn't told me there had been a coal mine here, I never would have known.
Instead, I would have been simply overwhelmed by the majesty and breadth of the wind farm. (See video below, but turn your volume down because of the wind noise.) Big enough to be visible from many miles away, the 158 turbines are breathtaking up close. That's in part because, when the tips of the 125-foot-long blades are pointing upward, the turbines are 340 feet tall.
That, of course, casts a large and long shadow. Many of the animals on the property--no matter where we went, we would see some of the 1,400 head of antelope or 600 head of deer bounding about--use those shadows to escape the intense Wyoming sun.
In a sense, because there is so much new habitat for animals, as well as the fact that there is no hunting allowed on the property, the wind farm area is tantamount to a nature preserve, Skilbred said.
Indeed, while there had been wildlife on the property before, life is better for them now, Skilbred said: They are no longer getting stuck in the mud inside the mine.
Company sees energy mixture in its future
When in operation, the coal mine was at least 180 feet deep, and 9 miles long. So to complete the reclamation project, Rocky Mountain Power had to dig up the mine, reconstitute the soil, and replant all the vegetation.
But to Skilbred, the project has been a big success. "You couldn't ask for a better ending for a coal mine," he said, "to go from a carbon footprint to a green footprint."
For Rocky Mountain Power, wind is just one power source, and the company sees a mixture in its future: wind, natural gas, coal, geothermal, hydro and, likely, nuclear.
But here, driving around amid these giant turbines, it's hard to think of anything but wind power. And what's amazing is that the turbines are so big, you feel like you're always right in front of one. In fact, however, they are a minimum of a half-mile apart, east to west, and 600 feet, north to south. Put them too close together, and the vortexes coming off the blades affect the wind flow of other turbines.
The actual placement of the 158 turbines, done in what is sort of like a staggered, Z-shaped configuration, was done by turbine specialists who examined the property and developed placement models based on the terrain, the topography and the prevailing wind conditions.
You might think that a company spending several hundred million dollars on such a project would expect full-time production. But that's not realistic. Mollet said that over the course of a year, the best the company can expect is 40 percent average production. But of course, that's an average. Between November and March, that number is much higher, and between late August and September, it's much lower.
The turbines, while a simple concept, are controlled by advanced electronics. And among the tasks those systems have is shutting down the turbines if the winds go above 60 miles an hour--otherwise, they can be destroyed--as well as figuring out where the wind is coming from and automatically rotating the head so that the blades are always working with the best wind. The heads can spin around three full times in search of the strongest wind, in fact, before the system runs out of wire and must reset itself.
Tracking the wind is a major innovation for modern turbines. In the past, the heads were stationary, and so wind farms had limited production when the wind shifted. But now, Rocky Mountain Power and other companies with such projects can maximize the power production.
$2 million a 'stick'
Mollet said that the cost of the turbines averaged about $2 million "a stick," and that they are intended to last for 20 to 30 years. However, Rocky Mountain Power thinks of them more as 100-year assets, given that they can replace aging systems within the turbines, or even the blades themselves.
Keeping them working properly means constantly monitoring how they're behaving in the wind. So the wind farm utilizes two types of equipment, anemometers and wind vanes to measure wind velocity and direction to ensure that the pitch of the blades is optimal and won't result in them rotating too fast.
This is all new technology, something previous generations of wind farms couldn't take advantage of. But today, wind power is a growing resource and companies like Rocky Mountain Power are demanding new technology. They're also demanding more people who know how to run and maintain these systems, despite there currently being a shortage.
That's why, for example, the company is working with local colleges in the Casper area to create new, two-year associate degree programs in wind turbine technology.
"We're going to build 1,000 turbines in the next 10 years," Mollet said. "We need to grow some people."
For decades, the city of Butte, Mont., was wealthier than anywhere on the planet. But the incredible mining operations that brought so much wealth eventually poisoned the town, putting it on the brink of being uninhabitable. Now, Butte is slowly recovering, but a big price was paid. CNET Road Trip 2009 visited to see where things stand.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)BUTTE, Mont.--When you visit a town whose current (though not historical) claim to fame is hosting one of America's biggest Superfund sites, it's hard to know what you're going to experience when you get there.
But when I was planning Road Trip 2009 and discovered that this Continental Divide city had once been known as the "richest hill on Earth" due to monumental mining wealth, but was now a city trying desperately to recover from the poisons the mining left behind, I knew I had to check it out.
Instantly, upon reaching the historic district on the hill, where most of the mining--largely copper, but also gold, silver, and other metals--was done, you can tell this is a town with a past. And only a past. Everywhere you look are wide, empty streets and run-down houses and buildings, many clearly the former prides and joys of the wealthy, that now speak to the end of copper's reign as a kingmaker.
Yet it's not the scruffy character of the town that is its real problem. The true elephant in the room is the contamination legacy of decade after decade of mining. This is a town that produced at least $48 billion worth of metals, and that for a time was the richest city on the planet. But dig thousands of miles of mines, abandon them in favor of gigantic open pits, and then combine that with allowing groundwater to seep up through the mine tunnels and the giant pit, and you have an environmental catastrophe.
The centerpiece of it all is the Berkeley Pit, the unbelievably large eyesore that dominates the hill on the north end of town. More than 7,000 feet long, 5,600 feet wide, and 1,800 feet deep, the Berkeley Pit opened for business in 1955, and eventually produced 320 million tons of ore and more than 700 million tons of waste rock.
Its water level is currently at 5,280 feet--exactly a mile high--and 2.9 million gallons of water with a pH of 2.5 to 3.0 is flowing in each day.
Mining ceased there in 1982, but over the years, the rising water in the pit has still been pumped out to extract copper from it. Today, 13.2 million gallons of its water is pumped out for copper extraction.
"It can be said that mining continues today in the Berkeley Pit," writes a local information publication called Pit Watch, "as Montana Resources' (the mine's former owner) copper recovery project is recovering the dissolved copper that exists in the water contained within the walls of the Pit."
Though underground mining in Butte ended decades ago, the huge headframes (or main above-ground structures) of many old mines still dominate the landscape throughout Uptown, as it's known.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)These days, one of the most pressing problems is that the water rising inside the pit is approaching a water level of 5,410 feet, or what is known as the "critical water level," the point at which the poisons in the water can seep through the walls of the pit and into Butte's aquifer. There seems to be general agreement among the mine's owners and city, state, and federal officials that this is years away from happening, but that doesn't mean some city residents don't already assume their water supply is contaminated.
Indeed, though, it was the imminent threat of the poisoning of the aquifer that led to Butte's biggest crisis. If the water supply was contaminated directly, it could have meant the end of the city. Having seemingly escaped that fate, today the city's water comes from a source on the other side of town. But again, not everyone is convinced what they're drinking is safe.
Defining the problem
Here's how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sums up the problems left behind by Butte's copper, silver, gold, and zinc mining operations:
"The long period of mining in Butte left the landscape littered with un-vegetated or sparsely vegetated mine wastes, often containing hazardous concentrations of metals and arsenic," the EPA writes on the Superfund page dedicated to Butte. "These wastes represent significant sources of environmental contamination to Silver Bow Creek and posed human health and risks to the environment.
"Ground water, surface water, and soils are contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals, including copper, zinc, cadmium, and lead. Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River contain metals from the cities of Butte to Milltown. The tailings, dispersed along the creek and river, severely limit aquatic life forms and have caused fish kills in the river. Potential health threats include direct contact with and ingestion of contaminated soil, surface water, ground water, or inhaling contaminated air."
No small problem, that, especially since the cleanup isn't finished, nor does it look to be any time soon. Even trying to sum up the various initiatives that are part of the Superfund operation isn't practical in an article of this size. Suffice it to say there is almost no end to the arms of the cleanup efforts.
The Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant, which is treating and recycling much of the water that would otherwise be filling up the Berkeley Pit.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Yet, even while Butte, or at least its historic district, staggers like a drunk trying to get home after a night out, mining is still going strong. The Berkeley Pit may now be essentially a museum piece, but in plain sight of the viewing stand where the public can come to see the visceral downsides to mining, the Continental Pit is very much up and running. There, another giant pit is turning out large amounts of copper.
Of course, in a town like Butte, where mining was pretty much the only game in town, it's not hard to find reminders that whatever its dangers, the world owes a lot to mining. It's something the mining companies would have wanted the world to think about back in copper's heyday here, and the same is surely true today of Montana Resources, the operator of the Continental Pit.
A sign in the World Museum of Mining, located on the edges of Butte, maybe best sums up the message.
"Most people pass their days with no thought of the role mining plays in their lives," reads the sign, titled, "What mining means to Americans" and authored by the American Mining Congress. "They know where to buy the things they want but seldom consider the origins. Food comes from a grocery, electricity from a wall socket, tools from a hardware store, cars from a dealer...and so on. If we do think of how these things are created, many of us probably begin with farms, factories, and power stations.
"In fact, they all begin with mining.
"Without minerals, we could not till our soil, build our machines, supply our energy, transport our goods, or maintain any society beyond the most primitive. Our horn of plenty starts with a hole in the ground.
"We are in trouble if we forget that!"
Reading that sign, one can't help but acknowledge the points it makes. A similar sentiment is expressed in an informational audio recording that plays on loop at the Berkeley Pit and describes how the opening of the pit meant the evisceration of several Butte neighborhoods. "If (the mine) did not produce, it would cost every miner's family their livelihood," the recording states.
Water treatment
One of the most welcome additions to the Berkeley Pit is the Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant, which was built alongside the pit and went online in 2003. The idea is that water is treated and recycled--much into Continental Pit mining operations--but that it does not simply just continue to fill up the pit. The various entities involved in the pit--the city, residents, mining companies, and other governmental agencies--seem pleased with the results of the plant.
Still, with more than 40 billion gallons of highly poisonous water sitting in the Berkeley Pit, and more coming up into it every day through the thousands of miles of mining tunnels underneath, one has to ask if the children of Butte, and their children, have gotten a very raw end of the deal.
For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
This is where the odometer on the Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV hit 4,000 miles. I was driving alongside Saint Mary Lake, in Montana's incredible Glacier National Park.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont.--I'm kind of awestruck. For four years I've been doing CNET Road Trip projects, and every time I've hit a new thousand-mile milestone, I've stopped, photographed the odometer and the surroundings, and then blogged about the spot.
In almost every case, that new set of zeroes on the odometer has come at some nondescript location. There have been a couple cases where it happened near something incredible, but I'll be honest: I've cheated a little bit and, say, driven back and forth across a parking lot to have the milestone happen when I was parked in front of a world-class view of the Grand Coulee Dam on Road Trip 2006.
The odometer rolls over to 0.0 miles, which in this case means the trip is now 4,000 miles old.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)But two times in a row now, at 3,000 miles on Road Trip 2009 and now, at 4,000 miles, I've hit the new thousand-mile mark legitimately in front of something outstanding.
A thousand miles ago it was Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. And now, the magic moment happened as I was tooling down the east side of Glacier National Park's famous Going-to-the-Sun Road alongside the incredible Saint Mary Lake. To be sure, I had to stop in the middle of the road--safely, of course--to take a couple of pictures. But it was truly the spot.
It's been a great six days since I hit 3,000 miles--and like at 2,000 miles, the odometer on the Q7 for some reason reset again to 0.0 miles instead of marking 2000.0.
What did I do in that time?
I went to Boise, Idaho, where I got a demonstration of some really cool digital projection technology from Micron that could some day be embedded in smartphones, and where I visited the World Center of Birds of Prey (a story on that will come later).
I also resolved five years of disappointment at not making it to a large grouping of hot springs in Idaho by going to some of them. I had a long, interesting visit to the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula, Mont.-based Smokejumpers center and the associated FireLab research center. And finally, I took a wonderful drive through a mysterious, foggy Glacier National Park.
And now it's on to 5,000 miles. As I've said many times before, I wonder where I'll be.
For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
Rapid climate change is resulting in the disappearance of the glaciers at Glacier National Park, in Montana. Scientists estimate the last glacier in the park could be gone by 2030. There were at least 150 of them identified in 1850.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Note: All information in this story, unless otherwise noted, is from the National Park Service's pamphlets on and in-park signs about climate change and Glacier National Park.
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont.--The small graphics on a single sign, deep inside this incredible natural treasure says just about all you need to know about the drastic effects of rapid and intense climate change on the park and what's inside it.
"With warmer temperatures and changes to the water cycle, Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030," the sign reads. "These changes will also have consequences for park vegetation, which will migrate up the mountains with temperature and moisture gradients."
I had come, on Road Trip 2009, to this incredible national park in northern Montana, just below the Canadian border, to see its beauty and grandeur. But I quickly realized what the real story is: in a place like this, the effects of climate change can be seen, right before every visitor's eyes.
"In the last 100 years, global average temperature has increased by 1.5 degrees Farenheit, with accelerated warming over the last two to three decades," a National Park Service brochure on climate change at Glacier National Park begins. "Scientists project that by 2100, the Earth's surface could warm by as much as 10 degrees. While this may not seem like much, it could bring major changes to our water cycle and to many...species that are adapted to the current climate. High latitude and high altitude environments, such as those found in Glacier National Park, are especially vulnerable."
In the mid-1800s, the park was known to feature about 150 glaciers. As the 1960s wound down, warming trends had already reduced that number to around 50. And today, on the heels of the six hottest years in recorded history, there are just 26 glaciers still standing in the park, and the same pattern is being seen globally.
"While Earth's climate has undergone cooling and warming cycles in the past, the rate and magnitude of the change we are witnessing today has not occurred since human civilization began," the brochure reads. "If the current rate of warming persists, scientists predict the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be completely gone by 2030."
"Water towers of the world"
The rapid retreat of the glaciers may seem like bad news for visitors hoping to see the giant ice rivers at Glacier National Park. But there's more to glaciers than just beauty. They also play a crucial role in the ecosystem, and their disappearance may have widespread consequences.
"More than 50 percent of the world's fresh water supply comes from runoff in mountain environments," the so-called "Water Towers of the World," the brochure reads. "Alpine glaciers are an important contributor to mountain streamflow. Globally, glacial meltwater provides one-fourth of the water in mountain streams."
This National Park Service graphic explains the drastic effects of climate change on Glacier National Park.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Thus, glaciers are obviously a major player in the healthy maintenance of aquatic and riparian ecosystems. "They also provide fresh drinking water for downstream populations and dilute pollutants that are generated mostly in lowland areas," the brochure explains. "As climate warms and glaciers melt, mountain systems, and the downstream communities they serve, are losing an important source of fresh water."
Global warming also means changes in the timing of regular weather patterns. Because temperatures are warmer, that means there's less snow, and more rain. And that means earlier snowmelt and earlier spring runoff. The National Park Service estimates that spring runoff in the Pacific Northwest now occurs two weeks earlier than in the past, and that, over time, will likely mean an increase in flooding. It also means less water later in the year, and the eventual drying out of many rivers, something that would have far-reaching effects on the ecosystem.
Wildlife in trouble
Inside Glacier National Park, there are all kinds of wild animals: grizzly bears, mountain goats, big-horned sheep, white-tailed deer and many more, not to mention the abundant plant species.
But with changes in the aquatic ecosystem, all that wildlife and plant life is in danger. Those species dependent on the ecosystem will have to adapt to changes in the climate and the ecosystem, or they will face peril. "Of major concern is the potential loss of alpine and subalpine environments that provide prime habitat for plants such as Jones' columbine and White Mountain avens, animals like big-horn sheep and mountain goats, and winter hibernation space for bears. Species living (in Glacier National Park) cannot migrate to higher ground."
As a result, what visitors may be able to see--animals and plants native to environments like Glacier National Park--may soon change forever. Scientists are working on management plans for how to deal with the changes, but some effects may be irreversible.
There may be controversy about whether climate change and global warming are real. But to see it in action, all one has to do is drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, and what you don't see speaks volumes: dozens of glaciers that used to dominate. Today, it is still a wondrous beauty. But the days before some of the park's treasures are gone for good may not be far off.
Over the last two weeks, Geek Gestalt has been on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'm now writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
In 1955, the tiny town of Arco, Idaho, became the first community in the 'free world' to be powered by nuclear-based electricity. With the power coming from the nearby Experimental Breeder Reactor I, operated by the Nuclear Reactor Testing Station. Over time, the idea of using nuclear power for municipal electricity fell out of favor. But today, at the Idaho National Lab, the leading U.S. Department of Energy nuclear energy research institution, the idea is very much at the forefront, as scientists and policymakers alike search for ways to provide more power while creating less of a carbon footprint.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)ARCO, Idaho--On July 17, 1955, this tiny town, which might otherwise have forever escaped notoriety of any kind, was put on the map for a very historic reason: It became the first place in the "free world" to be powered by "electrical energy developed from the atom."
The power was generated by an experimental reactor run by the nearby National Reactor Testing Station, and the flipping of the switch seemed to usher in a new era for the United States and the world: the nuclear era.
Over time, the U.S. and other countries grew more and more attracted to the idea of nuclear power as a major alternative to fossil fuel-based power. But by the 1980s and early 1990s, the country had lost its appetite for the fuel source. It was seen as dangerous, too closely related to nuclear weapons, and too productive of nuclear waste, and gradually, the number of working nuclear power plants got smaller and smaller. In many places, in fact, the mere mention of nuclear power will draw a dirty stare.
But in Arco, there is still a civic pride associated with the events of 1955, and today, there is a growing national enthusiasm for the idea that back then, in the heart of the Cold War, seemed so novel: turning to nuclear power as a major source of energy.
Nowhere, perhaps, is that enthusiasm more palpable than at the Idaho National Lab (INL), the U.S. Department of Energy's lead nuclear research institution. Located in and around Idaho Falls, Idaho, INL is at the forefront of developing the technology that could bring nuclear back to the grownups' table, and the researchers there--and clearly, some policymakers in Washington, D.C., as well--feel that nuclear is our best bet for providing a good deal of the power needs of both the general population and industry, while at the same time keeping the carbon footprint small.
I visited INL this week as part of Road Trip 2009, and was given the lowdown on why nuclear is thought to be a better energy alternative than ever before, and why the public shouldn't worry about the kinds of safety concerns that were so prevalent after high-profile reactor accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and in Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in 1986.
My first stop was for a visit with Phillip Finck, INL's associate director for nuclear science and technology (see video below).
Finck explained that the genesis of his lab, which was formed about four years ago, was a feeling that a nuclear renaissance is coming, driven both by a need for new dependable sources of energy and by major climate concerns.
The vision behind the lab, he continued, is to figure out how to address America's carbon dioxide problems with nuclear. Today, roughly one-third of our domestic power output goes into electricity production, a third into transportation and a third into industrial, home heating, and other applications. Of that total output, nearly 85 percent comes from fossil fuels, while only 6 percent to 7 percent comes from hydropower and an equal amount from nuclear. A very small amount comes from other sources, such as biomass, he added.
As a result, the thinking is that nuclear can be a significant part of the solution, and in several ways.
The first, he explained, would be the building of new nuclear power plants; the second, the extension of the lifetimes of the 104 existing nuclear plants in the country; and the third would be using existing--and new--plants to produce new processed heats and liquid fuels that could replace existing carbon-based fuels.
Of course, there would still be the question of how to deal with the nuclear waste from the plants, but Finck said that is also something INL is working hard on. To begin with, INL is looking into ways to make existing reactors produce less waste, and at the same time, the lab, and other research facilities, are working on technologies designed to take spent fuels and through the process of transmutation, reduce their toxicity. The latter would mean, he added, that it could be possible to reuse much of the radioactive waste and reduce the toxicity of the eventual waste by a factor of up to 100.
What this all means is that the time has come, Finck continued, to pursue the development of what he called fourth-generation nuclear power plants. This is a growing research field that is being worked on in as many as 12 countries around the world, including the U.S., Japan, France, and China, all of which are working together to make these next-generation reactors possible.
The criteria of these new reactors are simple, Finck said: they would need to be cheaper, be more sustainable--meaning that they would produce less waste; have constantly improving safety standards; and would have improved proliferation resistance--meaning they would have less and less applicability for nuclear weapons.
Today, this is all in the research stage, but according to Finck, it's possible that the first fourth-generation plant could come online sometime around 2020.
In the meantime, however, there are factors that make even today's nuclear reactors more of a solution for our national energy problems than ever before, he said. To begin with, the operating and safety performance of the nation's plants have never been higher. There haven't been any notable safety problems in the U.S. since Three Mile Island, Finck said, and today, plants are operating at 92 percent efficiency, meaning that they are online 92 percent of the time.
And that has come as a result of better-than-ever training and discipline and means that existing plants are producing power at the equivalent of several entirely new plants, just from that increased efficiency, he argued.
Hydrogen Production
My next stop was to visit with Stephen Herring, the technical director for High Temperature Electrolysis in the Energy Department's office of nuclear energy nuclear hydrogen initiative.
Herring and his team are working on a number of experiments, but their major purpose is to develop methods, using nuclear reactors, of producing hydrogen as a way of improving the quality of existing liquid fuels and to produce more liquid fuels with zero, or at least much less usage of carbon dioxide.
As well, Herring's lab is all about looking for technical answers to problems raised by industry and then finding out, from industry, if they're on the right track.
At the next facility, the Fuel Conditioning Facility, I was shown a series of what are called "hot cells," which are highly radioactive areas behind five feet and nine layers of lead glass.
One of the first things I saw in the hot cells was a series of spent fuel rods from INL's Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR II), which was a formerly working reactor closed down by congressional decree in 1994.
If someone were to go inside the room, my host for the day, Don Miley, said, they "wouldn't see the sun go down. So we're not going in there."
In a similar facility, the Hot Fuel Examination Facility, we saw a different set of hot cells, this time behind four feet of glass, but no less dangerous on the other side (see video below). There, David Petti, the director of the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) technology development office, explained that his program is to work on a gas reactor, a "passively safe reactor" that is cooled with helium, and which has a reactor core made of graphite, and which is "tall and skinny" at 28 meters high and 8 meters wide.
Because it's graphite, which absorbs heat, he explained, it's resilient to accidents. That would mean that even in the case of an accident, it would take hundreds of hours to overheat.
"The joke," Petti said, is that in the case of an accident, "the operators could go to lunch, dinner and breakfast before having to figure out what to do."
Developed after Three Mile Island, the VHTR uses a unique kind of fuel: half-inch diameter and inch-long pellets made from huge numbers of compacted microscopic uranium particles covered in three layers of carbon and silicon carbine and then coated in graphite. The pellets, Petti explained, can take heats up to 1600 degrees Celsius without failing.
Inside the reactor, there are millions of these pellets, as well as tennis-ball sized spheres called "pebbles," and when bombarded with neutrons, they fission and create heat.
But the carbon covering the particles protects the uranium up to temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius, and the reactor is designed, he said, not to get above 1,600 degrees. "Everything is designed from that worst-case accident," he said, "so heat is always moved, and so it never gets that hot."
Looking into the cooling pond at the Idaho National Labs Advanced Test Reactor, it is possible to see a blue glow coming off of nuclear fuel stored below, which is based on the Cherenkov Effect.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Another goal, he said, is to increase what is called "burnup," or how much of the fission is used for getting power on the grid. Today's water-cooled plants have a burnup rate of around 5 percent, he said, but at the INL's Advanced Test Reactor, they're working on getting that number up to 19 percent.
The idea, then, is to use the VHTR to prove the model and then begin building out similar reactors for use in industry. Ideally, then, companies like Chevron and Dow would license such plants in order to produce heat at constant cost and low carbon footprint, Petti said. And such a buildout of new reactors would make a big difference, he added, because a company like Dow has the same level of hydrocarbon usage as a country like Kuwait.
National Scientific User Facility
The last stop of the day was at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), a fully functional reactor that is used in large part by the Navy for a series of experiments, as well as by universities and government and industry researchers.
A big part of the ATR's mission is as the National Scientific User Facility, under which university researchers submit proposals for time in the reactor to conduct experiments. At any given time, there might be about 45 different experiments underway.
And one of the biggest utilities of the ATR is that because its core is geared towards giving every experiment exposure to as many neutrons as they need, it serves as somewhat of a "time machine," explained Frances Marshall, the ATR experiment program manager. That means, she said, that because neutrons erode metals, researchers can see a 20x aging effect on the metals in their experiments due to the bombardment of neutrons inside ATR.
Ultimately, it's too early to know whether the nation and the world will get behind a re-emergence of nuclear power plants as a major energy source. But at INL, the researchers and scientists there are making the argument that such facilities are both safe and energy and cost effective.
If true, a lot more towns like Arco, Idaho could someday see their power provided by nuclear reactors. In the short term, though, the world is hungry for new clean power, and a lot of people think the best answer is nuclear.
For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
