BURN: An Energy Journal

Col. Pete Newell runs the Rapid Equipping Force - the Army outfit tasked with getting supplies to soldiers in the field. Fast. One of his biggest challenges: energy. Batteries and generators are big and heavy. Alex Chadwick reports the retiring colonel is pushing the REF to quickly find energy solutions for soldiers around the world. From BURN - today on PRI's Marketplace. http://goo.gl/dwaKG

Another oil source is tar sands, or oil sands - loose sand or sandstone saturated by a kind of thick, goopy petroleum called bitumen. They are tough to work with because the petroleum is so heavy. In these deposits, the natural oil/sand mixture has to be heated in order to extract the petroleum. Refiners may have to process a ton of sand to get a barrel of oil, explains Michael Poehl, who teaches about the oil industry at the University of Texas at Austin. Still, a lot of oil people are betting on tar. For the full story, visit http://goo.gl/BU7sw

There are different kinds of refineries. Those built mainly to process light crude are focused on creating gasoline. Heavy crude refineries are designed to first get the impurities out, and then process the oil. Michael Poehl teaches about oil refining at The University of Texas at Austin. He says that the key to refinery economics is to optimize whichever crude strain is being processed. That means finding the cheapest, fastest, most efficient ways to get as much product as possible out of the crude that goes in. For the full story, visit http://goo.gl/BU7sw

Liquid petroleum pumped up out of the ground needs refining. Once the sulfur and other impurities are removed, it goes through a distillation process that Michael Poehl - who teaches about oil refining at The University of Texas at Austin - says isn’t unlike making your own liquor. For the full story, visit http://goo.gl/BU7sw

Japan used to get a third of its electricity from nuclear power plants. But after the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster, nearly all of the plants were idled. Now, the country is importing fossil fuels, plunging it into a trade deficit for the first time in a generation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart the idled plants. But polls show the people of Japan are strongly anti-nuclear these days. Catherine Winter asked some families in Japan what they think.

In Japan, farmers and fishermen are having a tough time making a living anywhere near the site of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima two years ago. Many consumers are afraid products from the disaster region may be contaminated with radiation. But one restaurant in Tokyo deliberately serves food from the Fukushima area. Reporter Catherine Winter visited on a recent evening. She discovered that customers are drawn by a desire to help the disaster victims – and by 96 different kinds of sake.

In Japan, people call it 3-11. It’s shorthand for the tsunami and nuclear accident two years ago. The disaster left behind devastation that may never be completely cleaned up. Tens of thousands of people still can’t go home. People are still missing. And people are still afraid of radioactive contamination. Japan’s government insists the food supply is safe. But in Tokyo, reporter Catherine Winter found that some people have made big changes in their eating habits.

BURN host Alex Chadwick welcomes users to the project website, burnanenergyjournal.com

When the Fukushima nuclear disaster happened in 2011, Charles Casto went to help. The nuclear engineer with 3 decades of experience with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission spent almost a year in Japan. He saw the pressure plant officials were under to provide answers to the public. Meanwhile, inside the plant, Casto learned a valuable lesson as a leader during a crisis. Because as broken as things were, he could see systems working, and problems being solved. Slowly, but it was happening.

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