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One of the most interesting things about the use of focused solar is its potential to steam reform biomass and/or low grade hydrocarbons into pipeline gas. I have a very limited understanding of the reformation process (I'm a mining engineer) but I have a paper in my library that describes the creation of pipeline natural gas by reformation in a solar focus where the BTU content of the resultant gas was that of the biomass and 70% of the incident solar - that's a pretty good solar storage system and it lends itself to around-the-clock exploitation.

From a metals supply perspective we face a compounding challenge: decreasing ore grades and increasing global demand. The mines get larger, the energy demand increases even as the specific energy use is reduced, the aerial land disturbances and resulting impacted, AMD-type, water flows into local catchments in increased volumes. What I'm describing is a "paradigm" that, in my lifetime, has increased all segments of water, energy and earth movement activity by 500% (based on 12,000 gpm AMD water flows now routinely sitting at 60,000 gpm - I'm in the water treatment business). I'm pretty much convinced that a mining paradigm change is required: we need to create more value from what we do. We need to look into the exploitation of value that accrues to: a) the long-term water wells we dig that we call "mines;" and b) the re-forming of the land that's inherent to the "waste rock" disposal process (terraces that support beneficial end use energy production, agricultural and human-habitat activities). If we assign "real-estate" value to what we do, i.e., the rail, road, and air accesses we create, the housing and power supply infrastructure we create (the "company town"), and if we augment this intrinsic value with the intelligent use of the "waste" rock, sand and water that's co-produced with the metals, we might find that the"terra-forming" of land-disturbed mining sites is the real value in what we do. If residual "landformed," water-power improved real estate becomes part of the mine revenue strategy (build permanently powered and water infrastructured habitats on a yearly sequential basis in deference to the investor's needs for time-value-of-money considerations) we might find that the next mine is a lower grade property in proximity to a metropolitan center - a place where people value intelligently constructed land that has a long-term water supply. I contend that mining industry "waste" is really a deficit of creative, intelligent, entrepreneurial thinking and that t what miners (land-reformers) really do we'll be moving mindlessly moving-crushing-grinding mountains in service of an energy intensive, long-term disruptive, boom-bust land use cycle that needs to be put to bed. Utopian? Maybe. But if 50 years from now we continue to chew through the earth with the single purpose of pulling increasingly fewer and fewer flakes of metal from the tonnes we unearth, crush and grind we'll find the simplest of metal objects to be luxuries for the costs we'll have incurred and passed on to the consuming public. Let's join with the land developers and build cities that last with the rock-water that's on-the-move while we do our job; then let's share in the value-add of the cities we we helped to build.
Anecdote: I once did a design (1982) for a consulting firm where we moved the pozzolonic debris of oil shale retorts (surface roasters) onto the adjacent desert where they were placed in terraced windrow fashion, then retrofitted with double-torroidal solar mirrors and used to make electric power. The "retort" debris of a 2,000,000 bbl/d oil shale industry would produce enough electric power to meet the needs of a fully, transportation included, electrified California within 50 years (7th largest economy in the world at the time). Once one pushed back from the table and looked at it, the real value to the country of the oil shale play was probably the intelligent use of the industry's debris. The aforesaid 1982 design was far from optimal and there would need to be a far-reaching assessment of the unintended consequences of such a project (water, wildlife, et al), but it is representative of the new paradigm thinking I'm espousing.

We may also focus on alternative source(s) of energy. For example, we can make use of hydrogen in place of the conventional sources of energy such as coal or petroleum. This will not only compensate with our current energy demands, but is also environmental friendly.