JPMorgan joins HSBC as vault custodian for top gold ETF

Bloomberg News | December 1, 2022 | 

Gold bullion. (Image by National Bank Of Ukraine, Flickr).

JPMorgan Chase & Co. will store gold held by the world’s biggest exchange-traded fund in its vaults, a major coup for the bank’s bullion business.


The lender will now act as an additional custodian for the SPDR Gold Trust, according to a statement from the World Gold Council, which launched the fund. Previously HSBC Holdings Plc had sole responsibility for holding the bullion.

It’s a major win for JPMorgan, which will now be paid to guard part of the fund’s more than $50 billion of bullion. Better known as GLD, it accounts for just under a third of all gold held by ETFs globally, according to an initial tally by Bloomberg.

JPMorgan and HSBC are the world’s top two bullion banks, with businesses spanning everything from trading futures with hedge funds to sending physical gold across the globe. Their vaults are key to underpinning the London and New York markets, and also act as custodians for the biggest ETFs.

The boom in demand for precious metals over the coronavirus pandemic saw both banks reap a windfall from storing metal for growing ETFs. The surge in their holdings even prompted JPMorgan to open a new silver vault in London. Vaulting typically accounts for about a tenth of the profits that banks earn in precious metals, according to Coalition Greenwich.

This year, Federal Reserve tightening triggered outflows from ETFs, a major driver of gold’s drop from near a record level in March. Much of it was flown to Asia to meet huge demand there, though holdings remain elevated compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Gold held by GLD will be stored in vaults located in London, New York and Zurich, according to the World Gold Council’s statement. Before gold was only held in HSBC’s London vault.

(By Eddie Spence, with assistance from Jack Farchy)

Orezone Gold’s Bomboré mine in Burkina Faso enters commercial production

Staff Writer | December 1, 2022 | 

Construction of the Bomboré gold mine as of July 2022. Credit: Orezone Gold

Orezone Gold (TSX: ORE) announced Thursday that its Bomboré gold mine in Burkina Faso has now entered commercial production, having achieved 30 consecutive days of mill throughput exceeding 70% of nominal nameplate capacity of 14,250 tonnes per day and recovery reaching design levels of 90%.


“Commercial production at Bomboré is a significant milestone and transforms the company to producer status. We congratulate the Bomboré team for their excellent execution in achieving this goal,” Orezone CEO Patrick Downey said in a news release.

With this announcement, Bomboré now becomes the 16th mine to go into production in Burkina Faso. Management plans to provide an annual guidance for Bomboré in January 2023.

Located 85 km east of the capital city of Ouagadougou, the Bomboré property is host to a large free-digging oxide resources underlain by higher-grade sulphide resources. Orezone owns a 90% interest in the mine project, with the government of Burkina Faso retaining a 10% carried interest.

A feasibility study published in 2019 outlined a long-life, low-cost open-pit gold mine for Bomboré, highlighted by an after-tax net present value (at 5% discount rate) of $361 million and internal rate of return of 43.8% with a 2.5-year payback.

Orezone has only been focused on mining the Phase I near-surface oxides and processing them as a carbon-in-leach operation at a planned annual throughput of 5.2 million tonnes. However, the company believes that Bomboré’s underlying sulphide resource could support a substantially larger Phase II expansion.

A 77,000-metre infill and expansion drill program is currently underway, and once completed, an updated mineral resource and feasibility study will be issued as part of this Phase II expansion. Orezone expects these studies to be completed during the first half of 2023, and a production decision will follow.

Shares of Orezone Gold jumped 6.3% by 12:15 p.m. in Toronto, placing its market capitalization at C$451.5 million ($335m).

Biden moves to bar mining waste in Alaska, blocking Pebble mine

Bloomberg News | December 1, 2022 | 

Bristol Bay, Alaska. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Biden administration proposed a ban on waste disposal that would thwart a long-planned gold and copper mine in Alaska, citing the potential harm to the area’s thriving sockeye salmon industry.


The Environmental Protection Agency issued a formal recommendation Thursday to bar the disposal of mining waste in Bristol Bay, which hosts the world’s largest harvest of the fish. If finalized, that would effectively block efforts by Pebble Limited Partnership to extract gold, copper and molybdenum from southwestern Alaska.

Pebble, a subsidiary of publicly-traded Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., has been seeking to mine in the area for more than two decades.

The move represents the penultimate step in a Clean Water Act process that EPA Region 10 Administrator Casey Sixkiller said would “help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years.”

The proposed Pebble Mine has been a source of contention for years. Under former President Barack Obama, the EPA proposed restrictions that would rule out the project. But the agency later withdrew the proposed controls after a legal challenge. A federal judge last year sent the issue back to the EPA for reconsideration.

“The Biden administration has the opportunity to follow through on its commitments by finalizing comprehensive, durable protections for our region as soon as possible,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, in an emailed statement.

Conservationists have lobbied the Biden administration to definitively kill the mine by wielding the EPA’s broad authority under the Clean Water Act to veto projects involving the discharge of dredged material.

Under the recommended determination advanced Thursday, the EPA is proposing to prohibit certain waters in the Bristol Bay region as disposal sites for the discharge of dredged or fill material associated with Pebble Limited Partnership’s mine plan as well as any future proposals to construct and operate a mine tapping the same deposit.

Each year about 30 million sockeye salmon are caught in Bristol Bay. They sell at higher prices than other salmon, supporting local fisheries, processors and sports fishing companies.

(By Jennifer A. Dlouhy)

Pebble CEO criticizes US EPA veto suggestion

Reuters | December 2, 2022 | 

The area where Pebble mine would be built, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, within the Bristol Bay watershed. (Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals)

The top boss of a proposed Alaskan mine, which has been through a roller coaster of regulations for the past 15 years, called the recommendation that the US environmental agency should veto the project a “massive regulatory overreach”.


Mining waste from the Pebble Mine project, which has one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits, would threaten Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed, home to important salmon species including the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries that have supported critical wildlife and a multibillion-dollar industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).


Late Thursday, the EPA’s Pacific Northwest region, which includes Alaska, recommended the project should be vetoed.

In response, Pebble Limited Partnership chief executive John Shively on Friday called the EPA’s suggestion “wildly speculative” and “not supported by any defensible data”, adding the agency was acting outside the authority given to it by Congress.

The EPA did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Pebble Limited Partnership is the main subsidiary of Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.

(By Ruhi Soni; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

Will Big Oil Jump At The Opportunity To Drill More In Alaska?

By Haley Zaremba - Dec 03, 2022

• In May, the Biden administration canceled three major oil and gas auctions in the Cook Inlet.
• 
  
• This week, the Interior Department announced the planned auction of more than 958,000 acres in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
• 
  
• It seems uncertain whether the Cook Inlet leases included in the December 30th auction will ever actually result in drilling.
• 
  
• Environmental groups: drilling in the allotted waters would harm a number of species.

It seems like the Inflation Reduction Act does just about everything – everything, that is, but curbing inflation. In order to pass the Act the Biden administration had to appeal to a broad base of supporters, from staunch climate advocates to hardcore coal country representatives. In particular, the Act had to appeal to holdout West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Though Manchin is a democrat he represents a constituency that depends on fossil fuels for their livelihoods and prioritizes coal country jobs over climate measures. So while the Act includes huge incentives for clean technologies, it also promised a massive oil and gas drilling auction. Now, the time has come for the federal government to make good on that promise. This week, the Interior Department announced the planned auction of more than 958,000 acres  – an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island – in Alaska’s Cook Inlet next month. The sale includes a stretch of federal waters starting around Kalgin Island all the way to Augustine Island in the south. Department estimates say that the area being auctioned has the potential to produce nearly 200 million barrels of crude and 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas over the lifetime of the lease sales. 

Set to be held on December 30, the lease sale is actually the renewal of one of several previously canceled auctions. In May, the Biden administration canceled three major oil and gas auctions in the Cook Inlet ("due to lack of industry interest in leasing in the area") and the Gulf of Mexico (due to "conflicting court rulings"). Such leases have been the subject of serious legal battles, with some rulings forcing cancellations due to insufficient consideration of the auctions’ impact on climate change, and other rulings ordering the resumption of such auctions.

While citing “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area" as a reason to cancel Cook Inlet auctions might be a convenient simplification of a larger context of political and geopolitical complications, there is also a core truth to the federal government’s statements. A controversial sale of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge under the Trump administration fell far short of its revenue goals. 

After huge publicity leading up to the highly contested sale, the auction was a dud. Not one major energy company made a bid. The government sold only half of the tracts on offer – 11 tracts of 22 – and the vast majority of the winning bids were submitted by a development corporation owned by the state of Alaska. That corporation, The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, bought their 400,000 acres at the minimum bid, and has never drilled a well in its history. According to reporting from the Anchorage Daily News, the results of the sale were a “bad start” to reach anticipated revenues. “It had estimated the lease sales would bring in $1.8 billion over a decade, to be split between the Alaska and federal governments,” the report stated. “The money raised [in the auction] fell far short.”

The message seems to be that while oil and gas leases still hold major political sway, they have lost their luster in the eyes of the private sector. An opinion piece written for the Houston Chronicle at the time of last year’s “failed auction,” argued that the shocking lack of interest from anyone other than a state-owned economic development corporation signaled that the oil itself was no longer needed, but oil jobs are desperately missed. 

That may no longer be the case. The context could not be more different this time around. Last year energy demand was low and reports of peak oil were high in the wake of global Covid-19 quarantines. This year, we’re in the midst of a “global energy crisis of unprecedented depth and complexity,” in the words of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The huge cutback of Russian oil and gas on the global market has left a huge vacuum and governments and consumers alike are paying the price, while Big Oil receives the windfall. 

While there may be some fresh incentive for new oil and gas drilling, however, Big Oil doesn’t think that this fossil fuel renaissance is here to stay. In fact, OPEC is anticipating major decreases in demand in the coming year(s) and has responded with major production cuts to buoy oil prices. Indeed, even now it seems uncertain whether the Cook Inlet leases included in the December 30th auction will ever actually result in drilling. Already, the announcement of the sale has drawn vocal scorn from environmental groups. One such group, the Center for Biological Diversity, told Bloomberg that drilling in the allotted waters would harm a number of species, including the Cook Inlet beluga whale, one of the most endangered whale populations in the world. 

It’s up in the air the way that the lease will play out, and the results will be very telling about private sector attitudes over which way the winds are blowing for Big Oil. 

Rio Tinto completes Kemano power station work for British Columbia aluminum smelter

Nelson Bennett - Business in Vancouver | December 2, 2022 |

Rio Tinto’s modernised Kitimat smelter. Photo by Rio Tinto Alcan.

Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) has commissioned a second tunnel for the Kemano power station that powers its Kitimat aluminum smelter in British Columbia, 27 years after work was halted on the project by the Mike Harcourt NDP government.


The second tunnel was originally part of the Kemano Completion Project, which was intended to add additional generating capacity to the Kemano generating station, 75 kilometres southeast of Kitimat.

That was when the aluminum smelter and Kemano power station were owned by Alcan, which Rio Tinto acquired in 2007.

The Kemano hydro generating station is powered with water drawn from Tahtsa Lake and moved through a 16-kilometre tunnel that slopes down to the power station. Alcan originally planned to expand the Kemano power station with a second tunnel and additional turbines to generate additional power.

Work had already started on the second tunnel’s construction when, in 1995, the Harcourt government halted the project over concerns that drawing additional water from the Nechako River system would negatively affect salmon. At the time, Alcan said it had already spent $500 million on construction of the second tunnel when it was halted.

According to Hatch, the project’s engineering and construction management contractor, the tunnel twinning project involved excavating 7.6 kilometres under a mountain and “refurbishing” another 8.4 kilometres of tunnel that had already been excavated in the 1990s.

Rio Tinto recently marked the official commissioning of the new 16-kilometre tunnel. Unlike the original Kemano Completion Project, the T2 project doesn’t involve any additional turbines or generating capacity.

The second tunnel was created for redundancy, the company said. The original tunnel is nearly 70 years old.

“The second tunnel does improve hydraulic efficiency, but only marginally increases generation capacity,” a spokesperson for Rio Tinto said in an email.

The second tunnel was completed in May, at a cost of C$1 billion, and has had several months of testing and commissioning.

“The completion of a second tunnel to supply water to the Kemano hydropower facility will ensure the long-term, sustainable production of low-carbon aluminium at our smelter in Kitimat,” Andrew Czornohalan, director of energy and watershed partnerships for Rio Tinto BC Works, said in a press release.

“This extraordinary construction feat is the result of the work of generations of workers over three decades. Partnerships with local communities and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation have been instrumental in the project’s success.”

The Kemano power station was built to power the Rio Tinto BC Works aluminum smelter in Kitimat in the 1950s. To provide water for the power station, the Kenney dam was built on the Nechako River.

The creation of the Nechako Reservoir through the Kenney dam has had negative impacts on salmon and sturgeon, First Nations say, because it has lowered water levels in the river system.

The Stellat’en and Saik’uz First Nations in recent years have gone to court to try to get the dam removed and have Nechako River’s water levels restored. Last year, the BC Supreme Court released a decision acknowledging the dam’s negative impacts on the Nechako River and, as a consequence, on the aboriginal rights of the Stellat’en and Saik’uz First Nations.

The court did not make any ruling requiring Rio Tinto to remove the dam or otherwise restore river levels. It did, however, acknowledge that senior governments have an obligation to protect aboriginal fishing rights and take “appropriate steps” to protect the river and its fish.

In an interview last year, Stellat’en Chief Robert Michell told BIV News that, at the very least, First Nations would like to see Rio Tinto reduce the amount of water it uses for generating power in order to maintain higher river levels.

He said the Kemano power station generates more power than is needed for the aluminum smelter in Kitimat. About 20% of the power is sold to BC Hydro. Michell said river levels might be restored somewhat if Rio Tinto reduced power generation by 20%.

(This article first appeared in Business in Vancouver)

Argentina pressing US for exception to tap EV tax bonanza

Bloomberg News | December 2, 2022 |

Salar de Atacama. Stock image.

The world’s fastest-growing lithium producer is lobbying hard to gain access to President Joe Biden’s new electric vehicle tax credits, despite Argentina not meeting the requirement of being a US free-trade partner. So far, it’s being rebuffed.


Designed to end China’s overwhelming dominance of the critical metals sector and passed in August, Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act has been welcomed as a landmark climate law that will boost EV manufacture and uptake in the US. But to qualify for the credits, it requires 80% of the battery metals in each vehicle to be “extracted or processed” in the US or a country with US free-trade agreement by 2027.


That rules out Argentina, which on paper looks a logical partner in Biden’s push and could help alleviate supply constraints for carmakers including Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. The South American nation has one of the largest known reserves of lithium, the biggest pipeline of new projects, and its relations with the US have improved since Biden took office.

The IRA has created a concern among Argentine officials that they’ve discussed at several levels with US counterparts, according to an Argentine official familiar with the mining secretary’s thinking. Since the law has not yet been implemented, both countries’ embassies and the Argentine foreign ministry are spearheading talks to receive an exception, the official added.

A spokeswoman from the US Commerce Secretary did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

After meeting with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo last month, Argentina’s Production Secretary Jose de Mendiguren said of the US: “We want them to incorporate us into the new law on inflation, so that we’re in the chain of suppliers of lithium products because up until now we’re not there.”

“If we can reach this agreement, we’ll be able to integrate our production with the US’ strategic production,” he added.

US Treasury has said it will provide more clarity around the end of the year. But as it stands the wording of the IRA clearly rules out non-FTA countries from refining the metals to a battery grade level onshore, UBS battery-markets analyst Tim Bush said.

It could also affect Indonesia, as its plan to process the majority of its nickel — another key EV ingredient — onshore and also lacks a free-trade agreement with the US.

“It’s possible they’d say you can extract it in Argentina or Indonesia as long as it’s processed in an FTA country,” Bush said. “But if it’s extracted and processed in Indonesia, I can’t see how they can possibly say that that’s okay.”

Australian-listed producer Allkem Ltd., which has a number of lithium projects in Argentina, is hopeful the company’s output will comply with the IRA as long as it is processed in the US or an FTA country. But the language of the law is unclear, Martin Perez de Solay, the company’s Argentine chief executive officer, said last month.
“Ambiguous” wording

The key to whether producers in Argentina and some other nations will be eligible for the tax credits is in the interpretation of “extracted or processed,” according to Conrad Mulherin, director of energy transition at PwC Australia. The “ambiguous” wording in the law could see countries like Argentina and Indonesia excluded from the tax credits, making achieving Biden’s climate targets “very difficult,” he said.

Still, he said the market outside the US was large — particularly in China — and there would also still be a market for non-IRA compliant battery metals in more expensive US vehicles that are not eligible for tax credits.

But as it stands, the law raises questions over supply deals between US carmakers and Argentine producers. Shortly before the IRA was announced, Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second-biggest miner, signed a non-binding agreement with Ford to sell it lithium from its Rincon lithium project in Argentina. Rio Tinto declined to comment on the future of this deal.

South Korean steel giant Posco Holdings Inc. is also building a lithium hydroxide refinery in Argentina.

(By James Fernyhough, Yvonne Yue Li, Patrick Gillespie and Joe Deaux, with assistance from Jonathan Gilbert, Eric Martin and Ana Monteiro)

Brazil to let private sector mine for uranium
Cecilia Jamasmie | December 1, 2022 |

Angra is Brazil’s only nuclear plant. (Image courtesy of International Atomic Energy Agency Brazil | Flickr Commons.)

Brazil’s lower house has approved a constitutional reform that authorizes the private sector to enter the uranium sector, which is currently the exclusive responsibility of state-run Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB).


INB controls all activities related to mining of materials used for generating nuclear power. The country currently has to import most of the uranium used to power Brazil’s only nuclear plant — Angra.

The state-run firm will now be allowed to partner with private companies for uranium exploration and mining. INB would be able to also team up in related activities, such as processing of uranium ores, uranium enrichment and production, as well as the development of nuclear power technologies, the lower house said in a statement.

The proposed amendment must now be approved by the senate by December 9, otherwise it loses validity.

Brazil has the sixth largest uranium reserves in the world, but only a third of the country has been explored for the radioactive material, data from the World Nuclear Association shows.

Latin America’s largest economy reopened in late 2020 its only uranium mine, Caetité, located in the state of Bahia. The operation had been halted since 2014.

Mining from the new open pit, Engenho, is expected to make the country self-sufficient in terms of feeding its nuclear power reactors.

Brazil’s only nuclear plant has two operating reactors, which generate about 3% of the nation’s electricity.

Construction of a third reactor resumed November, after being stalled for over seven years.

Bill Gates-led fund backs Robert Friedland’s pulse technology to reduce carbon emissions at mines
Bloomberg News | November 21, 2022 | 

Gates’ Breakthrough Energy’s efforts include investment vehicles, philanthropic programs, policy advocacy, and other initiatives, such as Catalyst. (Image courtesy of World Economic Forum | Photo by Moritz Hager.)

A climate fund founded by Bill Gates is investing in technology that uses surges of electricity to shatter rocks and mineral ores in a bid to reduce energy usage and carbon emissions at mines.


A European fund tied to Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures invested €12 million ($12.3 million) in the I-ROX pulsed-power venture with Robert Friedland’s I-Pulse Inc.


The technology is based on short, high-intensity bursts of power to streamline crushing and grinding processes that today make up the most energy-intensive and expensive part of mining.

That would help producers of metals like copper and nickel achieve carbon-reduction targets, thereby boosting industry efforts to gain acceptance for expansions to meet growing demand in the transition away from fossil fuels.

(By James Attwood)

US, Philippines to negotiate nuclear power tech-sharing pact

Bloomberg News | November 20, 2022 | 

US Vice-President Kamala Harris. (Image by Gage Skidmore, Flickr.)

The US and the Philippines will open talks on a deal for the Asian nation to build nuclear power plants with American technology, Vice President Kamala Harris announced.


Harris is set to meet Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio in Manila on Monday as part of an Asian trip to deepen security and economic ties. Last week, she unveiled a clean-energy partnership with Thailand that includes a US offer of help with building small nuclear reactors.

Talks on a civil nuclear-energy agreement with the Philippines will aim for deploying advanced reactor technology to help the Philippines meet its power needs. Any deal would provide the legal basis for US exports of nuclear equipment and material, according to a White House fact sheet.

In a bid to boost the supply chain for critical minerals, the US also will support development of a nickel and cobalt processing facility in the Philippines.

The facility will expand the Philippines’ production of refined nickel and cobalt by 20,000 metric tons per year and enhance sustainable development of those critical minerals, the White House said.
Defense pact

The US military currently operates at five sites in the Philippines, with the two countries conducting joint military exercises.

The two countries have identified new locations to expand their defense cooperation pact, but exact locations and their uses will not yet be publicized, a senior administration official told reporters.

Manila is Harris’s second stop on her trip to the region, following her stop in Thailand. She departs Tuesday for Palawan, on the edge of the disputed South China Sea, which is claimed in whole or in part by several countries including China and the Philippines.

(By Jenny Leonard)

Precious metals no longer needed in reactions to produce hydrogen fuel – study

Staff Writer | December 2, 2022 

A reaction cell tests copper-iron plasmonic photocatalysts for hydrogen production from ammonia. (Image by Brandon Martin, courtesy of Rice University).

Researchers at Rice University, Syzygy Plasmonics Inc. and Princeton University have engineered a key light-activated nanomaterial for the hydrogen economy.


In a paper published in the journal Science, the scientists explain that using only inexpensive raw materials they were able to create a scalable catalyst that needs only the power of light to convert ammonia into clean-burning hydrogen fuel.

According to the article, liquid ammonia is easy to transport and packs a lot of energy, with one nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms per molecule. The new catalyst breaks those molecules into hydrogen gas and nitrogen gas. Unlike traditional catalysts, it doesn’t require heat. Instead, it harvests energy from light, either sunlight or LEDs.

The paper also explains that the pace of chemical reactions typically increases with temperature, and chemical producers have capitalized on this for more than a century by applying heat on an industrial scale. However, the burning of fossil fuels to raise the temperature of large reaction vessels by hundreds or thousands of degrees results in an enormous carbon footprint. Chemical producers also spend billions of dollars each year on thermocatalysts—materials that don’t react but further speed reactions under intense heating.

Study co-authors Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander pointed out that the best thermocatalysts are made from platinum and related precious metals like palladium, rhodium and ruthenium. There’s also the possibility of using light-activated (plasmonic) metal nanoparticles to speed up reactions but the best of these are also typically made with precious metals like silver and gold.

Yet, the new work shows that transition metals like iron can become efficient plasmonic photocatalysts when subjected to LED photon sources.

In the researchers’ view, this discovery paves the way for sustainable, low-cost hydrogen that could be produced locally rather than in massive centralized plants.
Antenna-reactors

Following their 2011 discovery of plasmonic particles that give off short-lived, high-energy electrons called “hot carriers,” Halas and Nordlander discovered in 2016 that hot-carrier generators could be married with catalytic particles to produce hybrid “antenna-reactors,” where one part harvested energy from light and the other part used the energy to drive chemical reactions with surgical precision.

The researchers, their students and collaborators have worked for years to find non-precious metal alternatives for both the energy-harvesting and reaction-speeding halves of antenna reactors. The new study is a culmination of that work. In it, Halas, Nordlander, Rice alumnus Hossein Robatjazi, Princeton engineer Emily Carter, and others show that antenna-reactor particles made of copper and iron are highly efficient at converting ammonia. The copper, energy-harvesting piece of the particles captures energy from visible light.

“In the absence of light, the copper-iron catalyst exhibited about 300 times lower reactivity than copper-ruthenium catalysts, which is not surprising given that ruthenium is a better thermocatalyst for this reaction,” said Robatjazi, now chief scientist at Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics. “Under illumination, the copper-iron showed efficiencies and reactivities that were similar to and comparable with those of copper-ruthenium.”

Syzygy has licensed Rice’s antenna-reactor technology, and the study included scaled-up tests of the catalyst in the company’s commercially available, LED-powered reactors. In laboratory tests at Rice, the copper-iron catalysts had been illuminated with lasers. The Syzygy tests showed the catalysts retained their efficiency under LED illumination and at a scale 500 times larger than in the lab setup.

“This is the first report in the scientific literature to show that photocatalysis with LEDs can produce gram-scale quantities of hydrogen gas from ammonia,” Halas said. “This opens the door to entirely replace precious metals in plasmonic photocatalysis.”

The authors believe that given their potential for significantly reducing chemical sector carbon emissions, plasmonic antenna-reactor photocatalysts are worthy of further study.

“These results are a great motivator. They suggest it is likely that other combinations of abundant metals could be used as cost-effective catalysts for a wide range of chemical reactions,” Carter said.

Researchers Aim To Understand A Power Grid Phenomenon

By Brian Westenhaus - Nov 24, 2022, 11:30 AM CST

For the first time, an international team, including researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), researched how and why new transmission lines can also lead to grids becoming more unstable rather than more stable, as would be expected.

A sustainable energy supply requires the expansion of power grids. However, new transmission lines can also lead to grids becoming more unstable rather than more stable, as would be expected. This phenomenon is referred to as the Braess paradox. Researchers have now simulated this phenomenon in detail for power grids, demonstrated it on a larger scale, and developed a prediction tool, which is to support grid operators in decision-making.

The researchers' report has been published in the journal Nature Communications.  At the posting date, the report is not behind a paywall and for those more than casually interested quite useful. There are graphics and a more descriptive look at the Braess paradox.

The sustainable transformation of the energy system requires an expansion of the grids to integrate renewable sources and transport electricity over long distances. Such an expansion calls for large investments and aims to make the grids more stable. However, by upgrading existing lines or adding new ones, the grid may become more unstable rather than stable, resulting in power outages.

Dr. Benjamin Schäfer, head of the Data-driven Analysis of Complex Systems (DRACOS) research group at the KIT Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics, said, “We then speak of the Braess paradox. This phenomenon states that an additional option leads to a worsening of the overall situation instead of to an improvement.”

Related: Officials Issue Warning To Texas Oil Country As “Freak Storm” Approaches

The phenomenon is named after the German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who first discussed it for road networks: Under certain conditions, the construction of a new road can increase the travel time for all road users. This effect has been observed in traffic systems and has been discussed in biological systems. For power grids, it has so far only been predicted theoretically and illustrated on a very small scale.

Researchers Simulate German Power Grid Including Planned Expansions

Researchers led by Dr. Schäfer now have simulated the phenomenon in detail for power grids for the first time and demonstrated it on a larger scale. They simulated the German power grid, including planned reinforcements and expansions.

In an experimental setup in the laboratory showing the Braess paradox in an AC grid, the researchers observed the phenomenon in simulation and in experiments, placing special emphasis on circular flows. The latter is crucial to understanding the Braess paradox: A power line is improved, for example, by reducing its resistance and can then carry more current.

Schäfer explained, “Due to conservation laws, this gives rise to a new circular flow, and more current then flows in some lines and less in others. This becomes a problem when the most loaded line has to carry even more current, becomes overloaded, and eventually has to be shut down. This makes the grid more unstable and, in the worst case, it collapses.”

Intuitive Understanding Enables Fast Decisions

Most power grids have sufficient spare capacity to withstand the Braess paradox. When building new lines and during operation, grid operators examine all possible scenarios.

However, when decisions have to be made at short notice, for example to shut down lines or shift power plant output, there is only sometimes enough time to run through all scenarios. “Then you need an intuitive understanding of circular flows to assess when the Braess paradox occurs and thus make the right decisions quickly,” explained Schäfer.

With an international and interdisciplinary team, the scientist has therefore developed a prediction tool to help grid operators take the Braess paradox into account in their decisions. “The results of the research have enabled a theoretical understanding of the Braess paradox and provided practical guidelines for planning grid expansions sensibly and supporting grid stability,” Schäfer said.

***

At the time of writing, the grid situation is almost dire. In Europe, the crisis level is more pronounced than in the U.S. The war forced on Ukraine has impacted the entire world’s energy situation and no reports show any benefits. The rush to renewables in Europe has shown clearly that the demand levels and renewable production are very far apart and unlikely to close in the foreseeable future.

In the U.S. where the rush to renewables is less pronounced, the grid is still holding up. But the harshest part of winter weather is yet to come.

The war Russia has forced on the world has had two major impacts. The natural gas supply to Europe has stalled with heating issues starting and are sure to increase in severity. In the U.S., the current administration’s idyllic dream state about oil, gas and renewables hasn’t hit us quite yet. The pre-crisis clues are there, middle distillates such as diesel and home fuel oil are in very short supply, and the trend is headed for shortages. The fuel oil issue will impact the power grid, and the diesel shortage will affect everyone. There won’t be shortages of goods first, things will simply be undeliverable due to no truck fuel. The heavier crude oils needed to refine lots of diesel come from places like Russia.

The lesson is simple. The growth of new energy and fuel supplies is going to take Lots Of Decades, and no mandate from politicians or enthusiasm from special interest lobbyists is going to do anything but make things more expensive and worse.

Far better if you and I choose for ourselves. This winter, the lesson might sink in. Wishing you Good Luck and Wise Choices!

By Brian Westenhaus via New Energy and Fuel