[Viking Coder]

JimmyT wrote: The ice caps are melting on Mars too.

http://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm

Martian climate is primarily driven by dust and albedo and there is little empirical evidence that Mars is showing long term warming.

JimmyT wrote: We should drill in ANWR.

http://www.anwr.org/features/pdfs/ANWR_estimates.pdf
median estimate of technically recoverable reserve – 10.3 billion barrels

That figure is provided by the ANWR drilling lobbyist group, Arctic Power.

ANWR is estimated to have a 30-50 year production lifespan. If the mean of 40 years is taken, ANWR production (~700 thousand barrels/day) would account for 3.4% of current (2005) US oil consumption.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

As Brian H put it, “a short-term, expensive, and relatively trivial source.”

Brian H wrote: CO2 has about 5% of the influence of water vapour in the atmosphere.

http://skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

Water vapour is indeed the most dominant greenhouse gas. The radiative forcing for water is around 75 W/m2 while carbon dioxide contributes 32 W/m2 (Kiehl 1997). Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and a major reason why temperature is so sensitive to changes in CO2.

Unlike external forcings such as CO2 which can be added to the atmosphere, the level of water vapour in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. Water vapour is brought into the atmosphere via evaporation – the rate depends on the ocean and air temperature and is governed by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation.

If extra water is added to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls as rain or snow within a week or two. Similarly, if somehow moisture was sucked out of the atmosphere, evaporation would restore water vapour levels to ‘normal levels’ in short time.

Brian H wrote: geologically, CO2 spikes TRAIL global temperature spikes by about 800 years

http://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

The CO2 record confirms both the amplifying effect of atmospheric CO2 and how sensitive climate is to change.

I don’t have a “just in case” position. I have a “look at all the science, not just that which supports your preconceived notions” position. The skepticalscience.com site backs up all of its articles with peer-reviewed research papers.

[Viking Coder]

Helium can also be cryogenically extracted out of the atmosphere, especially when 0.1 cent/kWh electricity is available.

Multiply that desalination estimate by 1000, such that the energy usage is an order of magnitude larger than any other energy figure (electricity, petroleum or natural gas), and FF boron consumption is still only a fraction of its current rate.

30% of the world’s estimated non-irrigation water usage, 48 trillion gallons, would come from desalination. That would put usage of other water sources at approximately current levels.

Based on the prior calculations, it would require 800 trillion kWh/year; 90 TW of generator capacity. That is almost 3 times as much electricity generated by the whole of humanity from 1980-2004 or almost 50x the global electricity production of 2004.

Roskill Metals & Minerals Reports: Boron

Boron consumption rose by 4.7&#xpa; between 2001 and 2005, when it reached 1.8Mt.
…
World borate demand in detergents is expected to continue declining from 95,000t in 2005 to 85,000t in 2010.

Boron oxide molar mass: 69.6182 g/mol
Wikipedia: Boron oxide

1.8 million tonnes boron oxide ~= 26 billion moles boron oxide

52 billion moles of boron * 10.811g/mole = 560,000 tonnes of boron

Helium production from desalination alone is now 3x the current extraction rate. However, boron usage is only at 90,000 thousand tonnes / year. That is less than the amount used in detergents in 2005. It is only 16% of global boron consumption in 2005.

The boron consumption from a FF powered electricty production of 50x the global 2004 rate would be equivalent to the boron used for detergents in 2005.

[Viking Coder]

Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air (white paper available)

$5 billion capital cost for a plant that produces 18,400 bbl/day synthetic gasoline. Nuclear power accounts for more than 50% of the total plant capital investment. The estimated operating cost is $1.40/gal for synthetic gasoline.

Somebody already did the math for me, and it looks good enough for these rough calculations. 90 kWh per gallon of synthetic gasoline produced from CO2 extracted from the atmosphere.
Los Alamos Developing Process for CO2 Capture and Stripping from Air for Synthetic Fuels Production

Guesstimate the nuclear power plant included in the plant’s capital cost at $3 billion, leaving a base capital cost of $2 billion.

18,400 bbl/day = 773,000 gallons/day => 70 million kWh = 3 GW

The estimates are lining up. This is a Good Thing™. $3 billion for a 3 GW 3rd gen nuclear plant seems perfectly reasonable, since that is the conventional estimate of $1/W.

A 3 GW FF composite plant, i.e. 600 5 MW units with a linked output, would have a capital cost of $180 million. It would use 3 tonnes of decaborane per year.

90 kWh/gallon @ 0.1 cents/kWh = 9 cents/gallon of gasoline in electricity cost

There is no telling how much of that $1.40/gallon operating cost is for the nuclear plant. Figure on amortizing the $2.2 billion capital cost over 10 years at a 18% interest rate. That works out to monthly payments of $40 million, or $1.70/gallon. Round it down to a cost of $3/gallon.
syngas plant capital cost amortization

A $2 billion synthetic gasoline plant powered by a $180 million FF plant, with CO2 extracted from the atmosphere as a feedstock, could produce 280 million gallons of gasoline annually, at a cost of $3/gallon.

It would take 480 such syngas plants to completely fill the US’s gasoline consumption, based on its 2004 figure of 134.4 billion gallons.
Gasoline Consumption by Country

[Viking Coder]

These figures will be based off of the EIA projections for consumption in 2030.

petroleum: 239 quadrillion Btu (70 trillion kWh equiv.) – 5% used for electrical power generation
natural gas: 163 trillion cubic feet (50 trillion kWh equiv.) – 35% used for electrical power generation

International Energy Outlook 2007
Energy Calculator

non-electrical consumption
—
petroleum: 66 trillion kWh equiv.
natural gas: 31 trillion kWh equiv.

Assume the most electricity-intensive process, vapor compression, is used 100%. A vapor-compression evaporator can make clean water from any water source.

vapor compression: 10-15,000 kWh/AF (1 acre foot = 325,851.4 U.S. gallons)
Seawater Desalination – Energy Use

48 billion gallons ~= 150,000 AF => 2.2 billion kWh / day = 800 billion kWh / year

note: That amount of water would account for 0.03% of the projected global non-irrigation water usage in 2025.
Water consumption, non-irrigation

0.7 * 66 trillion + 0.95 * 31 tillion + 800 billion ~= 80 trillion kWh / year

80 trillion kWh / year ~= 9 TW

Compare this to the previous figure of 3.5 TW for 2006 global electric generator capacity producing ~12% of current helium extraction.

This usage projection would produce ~30% of current helium extraction, for a total of ~42%.

[Viking Coder]

The following figures are based on Lerner’s statement of a 5 MW plant requiring 5 kg of [decaborane] per year.

Decaborane (B10H14) has a molar mass of 122.221 g/mol.

1 kg decaborane / MW / year ~= 8 moles decaborane / MW / year

8 moles of decaborane = 80 moles of boron => 240 moles of helium

The US had a rated electric generator capacity of 1,075,677 MW in 2006.
Existing Capacity by Energy Source

In 2004, the US generated 4.7 trillion KWh of electricity, while the entire globe generated 16.7 trillion KWh.
International Electricity Generation

16.7 is ~3.5x 4.7, so let’s use 3.5 TW as the global electric generator capacity.

Gases are measured in terms of standard cubic feet (scf), where 1 scf ~= 1.2 gram moles.

3.5 million MW * 240 moles of helium/MW/year = 840 million moles helium/year = 700 million scf of helium / year

wikipedia: Helium

In 2005, approximately one hundred and sixty million cubic meters of helium were extracted from natural gas or withdrawn from helium reserves

160 million cubic meters = 5.65 billion cubic feet

700 million / 5.65 billion ~= 12%

Replacing all of the world's electric generators with FF would produce ~12% of current helium extraction.

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