Current (late May 2010) estimates of the rate of leakage in the Gulf of Mexico well are 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day. Pretty bad, and significantly worse than early estimates.
With total U.S. oil consumption at 19,714,000 barrels a day (May 21, 2010), the leak at 15,000 barrels per day would take 1,314 days (more than 3½ years) to equal one single day of U.S. oil consumption.
The point is not to belittle the disaster—it's an awful thing—but rather to point out the gargantuan scale of U.S. oil consumption.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Offshore oil
I’m as much or more of an “environmentalist” as many are. Most geologists are, because they love the earth. That does not mean we reject the value of earth products, whether oil or copper or neodymium. But those who would eliminate offshore oil exploration and production need to realize one thing.
More than a third (37% in December 2009) of U.S. domestic oil production comes from offshore wells.
Federal offshore areas (mostly in the Gulf of Mexico) produce more oil than any state. More than Texas, more than Louisiana, more than Alaska. More than 2,000,000 barrels a day in December 2009. Shut it off – and replace it how? There is no replacement source that can be tapped economically, if at all. By the time any new discoveries come onstream, in seven to 15 years from now, existing production will have declined by that much or more: we will only maintain the status quo if (IF) we discover and develop that much production. The only significant possible locations for those high-volume discoveries are offshore, and there is no guarantee that it exists at all.
To quote a fine summary (available here), “America simply doesn’t get it.”
Public domain image of offshore platform. Credit: NASA.
Friday, May 7, 2010
The kitchen floor
Last night I went to a Butte history talk focusing on home furnishings about 1910. Among the multitude of state-of-the-art items anyone could buy at Butte’s Hennessey’s store using the newly invented time payment plan (a.k.a. credit) was linoleum flooring.
Invented in England in the late 1850s, linoleum's basis was solidified linseed oil derived from flax plants. It gave a tough but flexible material. Minerals extend and improve the properties: finely ground limestone or whiting may comprise a third of linoleum’s volume while clays add flexibility and also serve as extenders or fillers. Various other additives—sawdust, gum, pine rosin—also help give linoleum its desirable properties.
An unusual mineral, wollastonite, calcium silicate, crystallizes as tiny elongate needles or blades. This geometry helps bind other materials together, and as tough little bars, wollastonite makes linoleum stronger while maintaining its flexibility. It’s a chemically stable mineral that helps linoleum resist chemical attack and cracking over a wider temperature range than wollastonite-free material.
Although wollastonite deposits were exploited in Inyo, Kern, and Riverside Counties, California, from 1930 to 1970, the largest wollastonite mines in the U.S. are in Essex County, New York, in billion-year-old rocks of the Adirondack Mountains. The ore is processed at Willsboro, and together with another mine in Lewis County makes wollastonite New York’s fifth most valuable non-fuel mineral product. Almost all U.S. wollastonite production today comes from New York, adding up to about a quarter of all produced in the world. That ranks the U.S. at #3 for wollastonite, following China and India which together account for about 70% of world production.
Thanks to the New York mines, the U.S. is largely self-sufficient in wollastonite production, with something like 5% of consumption imported. India is the leading source of those imports, but China, Canada, Germany, Finland, Japan, and France also ship small volumes to the U.S.
Wollastonite finds its way into ceramics, metallurgy, paint, plastics, caulking compounds, friction products such as auto clutches and brakes, and synthetic rubber including auto tires.
Much “linoleum” today is really polyvinyl chloride, made from natural gas and salt. Although Frederick Walton patented his linoleum-making process in 1860, he failed to trademark the name and lost lawsuits alleging others who used the word infringed on his trademark. Consequently, “linoleum” is considered the first product name to evolve into a generic term—and it happened just 14 years after its introduction.
Wollastonite specimen image from U.S. Geological Survey via Wikipedia.
Invented in England in the late 1850s, linoleum's basis was solidified linseed oil derived from flax plants. It gave a tough but flexible material. Minerals extend and improve the properties: finely ground limestone or whiting may comprise a third of linoleum’s volume while clays add flexibility and also serve as extenders or fillers. Various other additives—sawdust, gum, pine rosin—also help give linoleum its desirable properties.
Although wollastonite deposits were exploited in Inyo, Kern, and Riverside Counties, California, from 1930 to 1970, the largest wollastonite mines in the U.S. are in Essex County, New York, in billion-year-old rocks of the Adirondack Mountains. The ore is processed at Willsboro, and together with another mine in Lewis County makes wollastonite New York’s fifth most valuable non-fuel mineral product. Almost all U.S. wollastonite production today comes from New York, adding up to about a quarter of all produced in the world. That ranks the U.S. at #3 for wollastonite, following China and India which together account for about 70% of world production.
Thanks to the New York mines, the U.S. is largely self-sufficient in wollastonite production, with something like 5% of consumption imported. India is the leading source of those imports, but China, Canada, Germany, Finland, Japan, and France also ship small volumes to the U.S.
Wollastonite finds its way into ceramics, metallurgy, paint, plastics, caulking compounds, friction products such as auto clutches and brakes, and synthetic rubber including auto tires.
Much “linoleum” today is really polyvinyl chloride, made from natural gas and salt. Although Frederick Walton patented his linoleum-making process in 1860, he failed to trademark the name and lost lawsuits alleging others who used the word infringed on his trademark. Consequently, “linoleum” is considered the first product name to evolve into a generic term—and it happened just 14 years after its introduction.
Wollastonite specimen image from U.S. Geological Survey via Wikipedia.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Say – can you see?
An alchemist’s cabinet could have been the resource for modern eyeglass manufacture. The lenses contain a wealth of trace elements to improve their optical properties, from lanthanum (a rare earth, most of it mined in China today) to improve the refractive index and reduce color dispersion, to silver chloride or silver bromide in photochromic lenses that darken when exposed to ultraviolet light (UV).
Cerium, titanium, neodymium, and manganese in glass all help absorb harmful UV rays. Coloring and the non-reflective surface on sunglasses may contain erbium, one of the four rare-earth elements named for Ytterby, Sweden.
As with most glass, the fundamental component is high-purity silica, SiO2 – quartz, the most common mineral in the earth’s crust. Plastic lenses are polycarbonate petroleum derivatives. Such plastics may also form the frames and earpieces, but the nose pads are softer plastic, often rubber-like silicones. Silicones are complex organic-silica compounds typically synthesized from methyl chloride (usually derived ultimately from natural gas or petroleum, and salt (NaCl) to give the chlorine) in the presence of copper as a catalyst.
Metal frames, usually some alloy of steel, can include aluminum, magnesium, titanium, and other elements added for tensile strength, light weight, and other properties. Nickel or chromium coatings give varied appearances as well as corrosion protection. “Memory metal,” which springs back to its original shape after flexing, is one of several copper-zinc-aluminum-nickel or nickel-titanium alloys.
The inventor of the first eyeglasses is unknown, but early Renaissance Italy, a hotbed of innovation, is the likely location where some lucky resident wore the first spectacles. Old manuscripts suggest that convex lenses – barely more than frame-mounted magnifying glasses – began to correct farsightedness in the late 1200s; not until 1451 did Nicholas of Cusa, a German Catholic bishop, learn how to use concave lenses to combat nearsightedness. Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals in 1784, and George Airy’s astigmatic lenses provided correction for the last of the major eye focusing problems in 1825, a decade before Airy was appointed Britain’s Astronomer Royal.
George Airy (1801-1892) is better known (at least among geophysicists like me) for his determination of the earth’s mean density when he was only in his 20s. His pendulum experiments led to the Airy Hypothesis of isostasy, which says that mountain ranges must have root structures of lower density than the surrounding rock, proportional to their height.
Image: The 'Glasses Apostle' in the altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen, Germany. Painted by Conrad von Soest in 1403, the 'Glasses Apostle' is considered the oldest depiction of eyeglasses north of the Alps. Image in public domain via Wikipedia.
Cerium, titanium, neodymium, and manganese in glass all help absorb harmful UV rays. Coloring and the non-reflective surface on sunglasses may contain erbium, one of the four rare-earth elements named for Ytterby, Sweden.
As with most glass, the fundamental component is high-purity silica, SiO2 – quartz, the most common mineral in the earth’s crust. Plastic lenses are polycarbonate petroleum derivatives. Such plastics may also form the frames and earpieces, but the nose pads are softer plastic, often rubber-like silicones. Silicones are complex organic-silica compounds typically synthesized from methyl chloride (usually derived ultimately from natural gas or petroleum, and salt (NaCl) to give the chlorine) in the presence of copper as a catalyst.
The inventor of the first eyeglasses is unknown, but early Renaissance Italy, a hotbed of innovation, is the likely location where some lucky resident wore the first spectacles. Old manuscripts suggest that convex lenses – barely more than frame-mounted magnifying glasses – began to correct farsightedness in the late 1200s; not until 1451 did Nicholas of Cusa, a German Catholic bishop, learn how to use concave lenses to combat nearsightedness. Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals in 1784, and George Airy’s astigmatic lenses provided correction for the last of the major eye focusing problems in 1825, a decade before Airy was appointed Britain’s Astronomer Royal.
George Airy (1801-1892) is better known (at least among geophysicists like me) for his determination of the earth’s mean density when he was only in his 20s. His pendulum experiments led to the Airy Hypothesis of isostasy, which says that mountain ranges must have root structures of lower density than the surrounding rock, proportional to their height.
Image: The 'Glasses Apostle' in the altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen, Germany. Painted by Conrad von Soest in 1403, the 'Glasses Apostle' is considered the oldest depiction of eyeglasses north of the Alps. Image in public domain via Wikipedia.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Let’s play gossip
You remember the game—you whisper something to your neighbor, who whispers to the next person and so on around the room, until something incredibly different gets back to you. I see the Internet as one big game of gossip.
You’d think people could search around until they figured out the “truth,” whatever that may be. But it seems that many just latch onto the story of the moment, take a few highlights, add some embellishment, and pass it on.
A simple example comes from the questions I get through the Oil Statistics pages of my web site. It’s astonishing how many people ask whether or not it’s true that all of Alaska’s oil is exported to the Far East. And more astonishing how many, after I point out the answer with reliable sources, tell me I have to be lying and that I’m part of the conspiracy.
In 1996, when oil cost $12 a barrel and there was a glut of the stuff on the West Coast—refineries couldn’t handle it all—a law was passed allowing Alaskan oil to be exported. At a maximum of 7% of production. For four years, some oil was shipped to Japan, South Korea, and China. Only rarely was as much as 7% exported—the most was about 80,000 barrels per day when the US was consuming 19,000,000 barrels per day and Alaska was producing around 1,300,000 barrels per day.
In 2000, with prices up and the glut in West Coast refineries relieved, the State of Alaska and oil companies voluntarily ceased the exports, and since then every drop of Alaskan crude has gone to US refineries. But you’d be amazed how many people flat-out will not believe that.
More information and links are available on my Alaska Oil page.
Alaska Pipeline photo from US Geological Survey.
You’d think people could search around until they figured out the “truth,” whatever that may be. But it seems that many just latch onto the story of the moment, take a few highlights, add some embellishment, and pass it on.
In 1996, when oil cost $12 a barrel and there was a glut of the stuff on the West Coast—refineries couldn’t handle it all—a law was passed allowing Alaskan oil to be exported. At a maximum of 7% of production. For four years, some oil was shipped to Japan, South Korea, and China. Only rarely was as much as 7% exported—the most was about 80,000 barrels per day when the US was consuming 19,000,000 barrels per day and Alaska was producing around 1,300,000 barrels per day.
In 2000, with prices up and the glut in West Coast refineries relieved, the State of Alaska and oil companies voluntarily ceased the exports, and since then every drop of Alaskan crude has gone to US refineries. But you’d be amazed how many people flat-out will not believe that.
More information and links are available on my Alaska Oil page.
Alaska Pipeline photo from US Geological Survey.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
My t-shirt
My t-shirt reads “If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined.” And while that’s a mantra of the mining industry, it’s also completely true.
This particular shirt is 100% cotton, and “Hecho en Mexico.” For a future post, I’ll write about 50-50 blends of cotton and polyester, but for now I want to address the mineral underpinnings of this cotton, something that is grown.
Even things that are grown require minerals. Think soil and fertilizer and pesticides. Yes, I know there is a small and growing movement toward “organic agriculture,” including cotton farming, but it is tiny compared to the industrial scale of most textile crops. World-wide, 25% of all chemical pesticides and fertilizers contribute to cotton’s growth.
China is the world’s largest cotton grower, but the U.S. is the #1 cotton exporter. China is our #1 customer, with Turkey and Mexico next in line. Mexico relies on the US as its greatest supplier of cotton. So although my shirt is hecho (assembled, sewed) in Mexico, at least some of the cotton probably came from fields in Texas or California. Just as you can’t boycott Arab oil by boycotting any (and I really mean almost any) U.S. gas station, you can’t “buy American” simply by avoiding a product “made” elsewhere. Cotton farmers, potash miners, natural gas producers in the U.S. have all contributed to my “Made in Mexico” t-shirt.
Ninety percent of the cost of nitrogen fertilizer is in the cost of the natural gas that becomes ammonia and ultimately the nitrogen component. Some comes from coal, but natural gas, mostly from the U.S., is the feedstock for most of it. Potash, another mineral vital in fertilizers (the source for potassium) is mined in New Mexico and extracted from brines in Utah and Michigan, adding up to a 686-million-dollar business employing more than 1,000 workers. But the U.S. fertilizer industry is so big we also import 73% of more than three million tons of potash each year. Most of it comes from Canada, but Belarus supplies about 5% of our potash imports.
Pesticides have a well-deserved negative reputation. They are, after all, killers, and they have negatively impacted humans and beneficial animals and plants as well as pests. Whole books and advertising campaigns champion and condemn their value and their evil. For now, suffice it to say that they are ultimately made from chemicals derived from minerals, from oil and natural gas to arsenic and chlorine. And love them or hate them, they are used in agriculture on a huge scale world-wide.
Farming of course requires other mineral-based equipment and supplies, from tractors and their fuel to water-supply systems. My primary point in this post is to highlight the extreme interdependency on a global scale of the things we take for granted. And to point out that a label like “Made in Mexico” or “Made in USA” isn’t a black-or-white statement.
My t-shirt’s imprint boasts at least six colorful dyes. I’ve posted previously about the deep blue color ultramarine, and again the topic of mineral pigments fills more than one book. That’s enough for now.
Photo by Lady von Gaga-Gaza.
This particular shirt is 100% cotton, and “Hecho en Mexico.” For a future post, I’ll write about 50-50 blends of cotton and polyester, but for now I want to address the mineral underpinnings of this cotton, something that is grown.
Even things that are grown require minerals. Think soil and fertilizer and pesticides. Yes, I know there is a small and growing movement toward “organic agriculture,” including cotton farming, but it is tiny compared to the industrial scale of most textile crops. World-wide, 25% of all chemical pesticides and fertilizers contribute to cotton’s growth.
Ninety percent of the cost of nitrogen fertilizer is in the cost of the natural gas that becomes ammonia and ultimately the nitrogen component. Some comes from coal, but natural gas, mostly from the U.S., is the feedstock for most of it. Potash, another mineral vital in fertilizers (the source for potassium) is mined in New Mexico and extracted from brines in Utah and Michigan, adding up to a 686-million-dollar business employing more than 1,000 workers. But the U.S. fertilizer industry is so big we also import 73% of more than three million tons of potash each year. Most of it comes from Canada, but Belarus supplies about 5% of our potash imports.
Pesticides have a well-deserved negative reputation. They are, after all, killers, and they have negatively impacted humans and beneficial animals and plants as well as pests. Whole books and advertising campaigns champion and condemn their value and their evil. For now, suffice it to say that they are ultimately made from chemicals derived from minerals, from oil and natural gas to arsenic and chlorine. And love them or hate them, they are used in agriculture on a huge scale world-wide.
Farming of course requires other mineral-based equipment and supplies, from tractors and their fuel to water-supply systems. My primary point in this post is to highlight the extreme interdependency on a global scale of the things we take for granted. And to point out that a label like “Made in Mexico” or “Made in USA” isn’t a black-or-white statement.
My t-shirt’s imprint boasts at least six colorful dyes. I’ve posted previously about the deep blue color ultramarine, and again the topic of mineral pigments fills more than one book. That’s enough for now.
Photo by Lady von Gaga-Gaza.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Does the US import everything? Not quite!
It seems I’m always focused on the United States’ dependency on foreign imports for most everything, and to tell the truth, increasing that awareness is an important motivation for What Things Are Made Of. But what about the other way around? What raw mineral commodities does the U.S. export?
Not too many, but U.S. mineral exports are important and valuable.
For example, the U.S. is a net exporter of gold. In 2008, the U.S. was the world’s #2 gold producer, behind China, but in 2009 China expanded its lead and the U.S. was tied in third place, lagging Australia (barely) and on a par with South Africa. World production shares for gold are given below for 2009:
The gold mining and milling industry employs nearly 10,000 workers in the U.S., mostly in Alaska and Nevada, yielding mine product worth about $6.4 billion.
What about oil? Yes, the world’s largest consumer (18,520,000 barrels a day in January 2010) does export crude oil. 33,000 barrels (under two-tenths of one percent of consumption) every day in January. I hear the outrage: we need every drop, prices are too high already, companies are screwing us. But consider: all that exported crude goes to Canadian refineries, typically those nearer the producing fields than US refineries. And virtually every drop comes back to the U.S. as imported gasoline. It would in all likelihood cost more to ship the oil from a remote North Dakota field to a refinery in Texas than across the border to Canada. And to repeat something that needs repeating, not one drop of Alaska crude goes to the Far East or any nation other than the U.S. At most, from 1996-2000, 7% of Alaska’s crude was exported.
Nearly half the U.S. output of soda ash is exported, half of a $1.4-billion-a-year industry centered on southwest Wyoming. A vital component of glass manufacture, soda ash also finds its way to soaps and many chemicals, but its role in glass makes the business sensitive to housing and automobile manufacture; consequently production dipped a bit in 2009. But the U.S. remains the 600-pound gorilla of soda ash, with 93% of the planet’s natural product yield and 96% of estimated world reserves, all thanks to an unusual deposit of the mineral trona, laid down in a huge Wyoming lake about 45,000,000 years ago.
Other commodities that the U.S. exports include molybdenum, boron, helium, diatomite, and zirconium.
Gold crystals photo from Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
Not too many, but U.S. mineral exports are important and valuable.
- China – 13%
- Australia – 9%
- South Africa – 8.9%
- USA – 8.9%
- Russia – 7.9%
- Peru – 7.7%
The gold mining and milling industry employs nearly 10,000 workers in the U.S., mostly in Alaska and Nevada, yielding mine product worth about $6.4 billion.
What about oil? Yes, the world’s largest consumer (18,520,000 barrels a day in January 2010) does export crude oil. 33,000 barrels (under two-tenths of one percent of consumption) every day in January. I hear the outrage: we need every drop, prices are too high already, companies are screwing us. But consider: all that exported crude goes to Canadian refineries, typically those nearer the producing fields than US refineries. And virtually every drop comes back to the U.S. as imported gasoline. It would in all likelihood cost more to ship the oil from a remote North Dakota field to a refinery in Texas than across the border to Canada. And to repeat something that needs repeating, not one drop of Alaska crude goes to the Far East or any nation other than the U.S. At most, from 1996-2000, 7% of Alaska’s crude was exported.
Nearly half the U.S. output of soda ash is exported, half of a $1.4-billion-a-year industry centered on southwest Wyoming. A vital component of glass manufacture, soda ash also finds its way to soaps and many chemicals, but its role in glass makes the business sensitive to housing and automobile manufacture; consequently production dipped a bit in 2009. But the U.S. remains the 600-pound gorilla of soda ash, with 93% of the planet’s natural product yield and 96% of estimated world reserves, all thanks to an unusual deposit of the mineral trona, laid down in a huge Wyoming lake about 45,000,000 years ago.
Other commodities that the U.S. exports include molybdenum, boron, helium, diatomite, and zirconium.
Gold crystals photo from Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Prices
Prices of mineral commodities, like those of most things, vary over time according to supply and demand and natural and geopolitcal events that artificially inflate or deflate prices. Tariffs and government regulations can impact prices too, as can market speculators.
Copper’s price has been driven in recent decades mostly by the rate of building construction in the biggest consumers – the US for all of the 20th Century, and China since 2002. Half the copper used in the US goes to building construction. During the 1990s, copper’s average price for the year ranged from a high of $1.38/lb in 1995 to a low of 76¢ a pound in 1999. It remained below $1.00 per pound until 2004; in 2006, the price nearly doubled to an average of $3.15/lb and has remained above $3.00/lb on average every year since then (except 2009, at $2.37). Copper was near or above $4.00/lb briefly in 2006 and again in 2008. A general upward trend in 2010, to more than $3.50 now, may signify an improving economy – or at least a perception of one in the markets.
Neodymium, critical in many applications but in rather low quantities, was around $6/kilogram (2.2 kg/lb) in 2003 but as demand increased (for magnets in electric motors for cars and windmills, among other things), the price reached $60/kg in 2007 and has been in the $40-$46 range since then.
Indium, an important component of thin films in liquid crystal displays and flat-panel TVs and computer screens, ranged in average annual price from $120 to $375 per kilogram from 1991 to 2001, and reached a low in 2002 at $60/kilo. As technology improved and we began to buy more and more flat-panel products, indium’s price climbed dramatically in the 2000s — $176/kg in 2003, $643 (2004), $961 (2005), $815 (2006), $637 (2007), $519 (2008) and $390 in 2009 as economic problems reduced its consumption. In April 2010, indium was at about $625/kg. Indium is three times more abundant in the earth’s crust than silver, but it forms few minerals and almost never in economic concentrations. The 600 tons per year produced on earth come mostly as byproducts of zinc mining; half the world production comes from China.
Even a common commodity like rock salt shows price fluctuations. From 1991 to 2003, its price hovered between $19/ton and $23/ton. Since 2004 the price has climbed steadily, to $35/ton in 2009. In the same time frame, US imports of salt nearly doubled, from 11% in 1991 to 20% in 2008-09. The biggest consumer of salt is the highway deicing business (43% of consumption), with the chemical industry in second place (35%).
When you compare prices, be aware that different materials may be priced differently. It could be pure metal, or a metal oxide, or a metal concentrate that’s priced, but all under the heading of cobalt (or whatever).
Image from Wikivisual under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Neodymium, critical in many applications but in rather low quantities, was around $6/kilogram (2.2 kg/lb) in 2003 but as demand increased (for magnets in electric motors for cars and windmills, among other things), the price reached $60/kg in 2007 and has been in the $40-$46 range since then.
Indium, an important component of thin films in liquid crystal displays and flat-panel TVs and computer screens, ranged in average annual price from $120 to $375 per kilogram from 1991 to 2001, and reached a low in 2002 at $60/kilo. As technology improved and we began to buy more and more flat-panel products, indium’s price climbed dramatically in the 2000s — $176/kg in 2003, $643 (2004), $961 (2005), $815 (2006), $637 (2007), $519 (2008) and $390 in 2009 as economic problems reduced its consumption. In April 2010, indium was at about $625/kg. Indium is three times more abundant in the earth’s crust than silver, but it forms few minerals and almost never in economic concentrations. The 600 tons per year produced on earth come mostly as byproducts of zinc mining; half the world production comes from China.
Even a common commodity like rock salt shows price fluctuations. From 1991 to 2003, its price hovered between $19/ton and $23/ton. Since 2004 the price has climbed steadily, to $35/ton in 2009. In the same time frame, US imports of salt nearly doubled, from 11% in 1991 to 20% in 2008-09. The biggest consumer of salt is the highway deicing business (43% of consumption), with the chemical industry in second place (35%).
When you compare prices, be aware that different materials may be priced differently. It could be pure metal, or a metal oxide, or a metal concentrate that’s priced, but all under the heading of cobalt (or whatever).
Image from Wikivisual under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Coal: chemical gold
Coal has been in the news lately, with a deadly explosion in a West Virginia coal mine and a near-disaster at another mine in China. Leaving aside the dangers, both human and environmental, what is coal used for?
Most people will be aware that about half the electricity in the U.S. is generated by burning coal (world-wide, the figure is about 40%). Burning coal has been used historically to create steam for locomotives, ships, and machinery, and as a direct fuel for heating homes and businesses. I’ll focus on more obscure, non-fuel uses.
One use that is not really obscure, but involves burning coal, is steel manufacture. Coke, coal that has been baked to drive off volatiles, is the main fuel for steel blast furnaces.
Diverse chemicals derive directly or indirectly from coal. Coal tars are residual by-products of coal gasification. Coal gas was used for city street lighting in the decades before electric lights became common. Coal tar chemicals led to the development of some insecticides, paint thinners, and moth balls, as well as mauve and other synthetic dyes (see Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World, by Simon Garfield, a good read) including the color in the 1882 stamp seen here.
Coal tar chemicals yield both aspirin and the plastic bottle containing the medication. Fertilizer, smelling salts, and baking powder have a chemical heritage in the ammonia derived from the coking process. Soap, nylon, and synthetic rubber in car tires have coal-derived components.
Activated charcoal filters, from air cleaners to kidney dialysis machines, are made from coal. TNT explosives and perfumes have coal in their pasts.
The United States owns the greatest coal reserves in the world, at 27% of the total (Russia is #2 at 17%), but China is the world production leader with almost 40% (U.S. is #2 at 17%). China’s industrialization means it exports less and less coal, using most of it internally as the world’s largest coal consumer, with the consequence that Australia is the leading coal exporter, at about a third of the world total (and Indonesia is the #2 exporter, with 13%).
Most people will be aware that about half the electricity in the U.S. is generated by burning coal (world-wide, the figure is about 40%). Burning coal has been used historically to create steam for locomotives, ships, and machinery, and as a direct fuel for heating homes and businesses. I’ll focus on more obscure, non-fuel uses.
One use that is not really obscure, but involves burning coal, is steel manufacture. Coke, coal that has been baked to drive off volatiles, is the main fuel for steel blast furnaces.
Coal tar chemicals yield both aspirin and the plastic bottle containing the medication. Fertilizer, smelling salts, and baking powder have a chemical heritage in the ammonia derived from the coking process. Soap, nylon, and synthetic rubber in car tires have coal-derived components.
Activated charcoal filters, from air cleaners to kidney dialysis machines, are made from coal. TNT explosives and perfumes have coal in their pasts.
The United States owns the greatest coal reserves in the world, at 27% of the total (Russia is #2 at 17%), but China is the world production leader with almost 40% (U.S. is #2 at 17%). China’s industrialization means it exports less and less coal, using most of it internally as the world’s largest coal consumer, with the consequence that Australia is the leading coal exporter, at about a third of the world total (and Indonesia is the #2 exporter, with 13%).
Monday, April 5, 2010
Pandemonium rules
If you’re like many Americans, you probably think your home and life represent marginally controlled pandemonium, sometimes verging on delirium. But if you operate a safe home, you may well have some useful pandemonium and not even know it.
Pandemonium and delirium were the working names for radioactive Elements 95 and 96, synthesized in 1944 by Glenn Seaborg, Albert Ghiorso, and Ralph A. James during the Manhattan Project to unleash the power of the atom. Radioactive plutonium decays by emitting beta particles to form Element 95 – now called americium – and Element 96, curium.
Americium, named for the Americas, occupies a tiny wafer in ionization-type smoke detectors. A fraction of a gram of radioactive americium metal, rolled with gold to form a thin foil, is sandwiched in a silver-palladium pellet. Alpha particles emitted by the americium are big and can’t travel very far. They ionize the air in a small chamber, and the ions set up a small current between two plates connected to a battery or electrical source. When smoke enters the chamber, the ions are attracted to smoke particles rather than the electrical terminals, so the current measured is less than normal. Once the current falls beneath a pre-set threshold, the smoke alarm goes off, and pandemonium follows.
Most americium production comes from nuclear facilities, where it is a by-product of plutonium reactions. One such facility, Los Alamos National Lab, recently put out a call for commercial partners to work with them in marketing and distributing the element.
Radioactivity in your smoke detector is not dangerous. As noted above, the particles can’t travel beyond the chamber in which they form. It would not be a good idea to eat your smoke detector, however.
Smoke detectors have been suggested by the paranoid as targets for terrorists who would use the americium to make nuclear explosives. There’s only about 0.00000029 gram in each smoke detector, and it takes around 80 kilograms to attain critical mass to explode, so it would take a LOT of smoke detectors – likely, most of those in existence, or more – to make an explosive. Don’t lose any sleep over it.
The photo via Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
Pandemonium and delirium were the working names for radioactive Elements 95 and 96, synthesized in 1944 by Glenn Seaborg, Albert Ghiorso, and Ralph A. James during the Manhattan Project to unleash the power of the atom. Radioactive plutonium decays by emitting beta particles to form Element 95 – now called americium – and Element 96, curium.
Most americium production comes from nuclear facilities, where it is a by-product of plutonium reactions. One such facility, Los Alamos National Lab, recently put out a call for commercial partners to work with them in marketing and distributing the element.
Radioactivity in your smoke detector is not dangerous. As noted above, the particles can’t travel beyond the chamber in which they form. It would not be a good idea to eat your smoke detector, however.
Smoke detectors have been suggested by the paranoid as targets for terrorists who would use the americium to make nuclear explosives. There’s only about 0.00000029 gram in each smoke detector, and it takes around 80 kilograms to attain critical mass to explode, so it would take a LOT of smoke detectors – likely, most of those in existence, or more – to make an explosive. Don’t lose any sleep over it.
The photo via Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Jargon
Today I take my text from Charles B. Hunt, US Geological Survey geologist mapping the Henry Mountains in southern Utah in the 1950s.
In the 1950s US Geological Survey publications were intensively reviewed for style and accuracy, so it’s a minor miracle that the definition got published. This was Hunt’s way of poking fun at the proliferation of –lith words for various rock bodies (the suffix derives from Greek lithos, stone). The definition has a cult following among geologists – I love to roll it off my tongue at parties, where people then stare at me with more than the usual concerned look – so much so that when it was removed from the Glossary of Geology, the hue and cry was such that it returned to future editions, where it remains to this day.
All scientists, all specialists, have their own argot, jargon, and particular terminology that tends to exclude the uninitiated from their secret club. At this stage in my career, one important motivation for me to write What Things Are Made Of is to try to open those secret doors to give non-scientists a look at geoscience. Whether I succeed or not can be argued, but I am trying. Will I be the next Simon Winchester (The Map that Changed the World, Krakatoa) or John McPhee (Annals of the Former World)? I’d be the last to compare myself to them, but they give me a clear target for lucid writing to which I aspire.
"A cactolith is a quasihorizontal chonolith composed of anastomosing ductoliths whose distal ends curl like a harpolith, thin like a sphenolith, or bulge discordantly like an akmolith or ethmolith."
In the 1950s US Geological Survey publications were intensively reviewed for style and accuracy, so it’s a minor miracle that the definition got published. This was Hunt’s way of poking fun at the proliferation of –lith words for various rock bodies (the suffix derives from Greek lithos, stone). The definition has a cult following among geologists – I love to roll it off my tongue at parties, where people then stare at me with more than the usual concerned look – so much so that when it was removed from the Glossary of Geology, the hue and cry was such that it returned to future editions, where it remains to this day.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Fragments of the starry firmament
Grinding the blue rock, mixing it with waxes and oils, and processing in a lye solution yielded natural ultramarine pigment.
Lapis lazuli’s rarity made for notable expense (greater than gold) in making ultramarine pigment. In European monasteries, highest quality ultramarine was used only on the most important, prestigious artworks, for the robes of Mary and the Christ child. By the 1820s, a synthetic version was devised, and reliance on Afghan sources, the most significant in the world, waned.
The rock lapis lazuli contains multiple minerals, with the blue color coming mostly from two complex sodium-calcium aluminosilicates, lazurite and sodalite.
Even after synthetic dyes became the rage in the 1850s and 1860s, the natural material still served special purposes such as printing postage stamps. Stamp collectors who own blue-tinted U.S. postage stamps from the 1860s (such as the 3¢ ultramarine locomotive in the 1869 pictorial issue) probably have some microscopic bits of Afghan lapis lazuli.
The word ultramarine means “beyond the sea,” whence came lapis to Europe. Pliny the Elder gave the beautiful stone a more admiring description, calling it “a fragment of the starry firmament.”
Photo of polished slab of lapis lazuli, from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License
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