The first, by Duncan Clark, is titled New generation of nuclear reactors could consume radioactive waste as fuel: The new ‘fast’ plants could provide enough low-carbon electricity to power the UK for more than 500 years.

It talks about Britain’s options for plutonium (Pu) disposal, and the GEH proposal to build a pair of S-PRISM reactors (311 MWe each) to rapidly ‘spike’ the weapons-grade Pu inventory, and thereafter consume it and spent fuel for energy. The alternative option, a new MOX plant, is far less desirable.

Tom Blees wrote a detailed explanation of this plan on BNC here: Disposal of UK plutonium stocks with a climate change focus

To accompany this piece there is an excellent new essay by George Monbiot: We cannot wish Britain’s nuclear waste away: Opponents of nuclear power who shout down suggestions of how to use spent waste as fuel will not make the problem disappear.

As usual, George writes persuasively and gets to the heart of the matter. In this case, he poses a simple question for the critics:

So which of these options do you support? [IFR recycling, MOX fuel, or immediate deep geological disposal]. None of the above is not an answer. Something has to be done with the waste, and unless you have invented a novel solution, one of these three options will need to be deployed. But it is a choice that opponents of nuclear power are refusing to make – and that is not good enough.

The essay provides more details, and some examples of people who wish to shut their mind to reality.

The IFR has been proven out at the engineering scale, and there is a wealth of detail on this in the book Plentiful Energy, see this recent BNC post. I’d strongly encourage you to read this.

In short, progress is being made to get a commercial IFR built, but it’s a slow process. Such is life, it seems, for all clean energy projects, as the sense of urgency still seems to be lacking in policy makers.

I was actually wondering if building this reactor had started yet. It doesn’t appear so from what I can see. I’m keen to find out just how well it will live up to the hype. It seems pretty hard to get any kind of objective data. Pro-nuclear groups appear to be pushing IFRs as THE solution to all anti-nuclear fears – citing similar, yet not identical prototypes and reactors to the proposed S-PRISM design – while the anti-nuclear side still appear to have reservations that this is, in fact, the Holy Grail of sustainable global energy production. I tend to side with the pro-nuclear on this one, based on what I have read about IFRs – but until I can see an S-PRISM reactor in action, it would be premature of me to make claims about its utility.

Of course, there has been lots of money, time and effort invested in the pro-nuclear lobby, and much rides on being able to convince people (especially governments) of the viability and desirability of such an operation. This is not a fault in itself, however it does cause one to be wary of claims, studies and figures that surface from that group (you just need to look at studies funded by Big Oil and Tobacco companies to realise that numbers can be skewed to serve a particular interest). On the other hand, the anti-nuclear stance and the arguments made against the use of nuclear power typically seem to be dated in antiquity, and can involve scare tactics with little scientific basis.

For me, the decider will be the construction of an operational IFR, along with independent audits on life-cycle costs and environmental impacts. I’m especially interested to see how far an IFR can go with nuclear waste reduction through its reuse of spent fuel – and in particular the half-life of the most radioactive final waste product produced. I’ve heard claims that the waste from an IFR will be radioactive for a matter of hundreds of years, instead of tens of thousands as in a normal fuel cycle. I would like to see evidence of this. Do you know of any data that can validate this?

Cheers,
Paul

Any word on the Gen4 reactor that was potentially going to be built (started) in 2009?

Cheers,
Paul

Best of luck from the ‘other side’ ( a horrible contractor who has had industry exposure to coal, oil, power generation, power transmission and lots of other terrible things ;-)

In all, excellent work.

Regards, Mark.

I’d love to, but at the moment I can’t. Politics, especially nuclear politics, can’t always be transparent. I know politicians who are convinced that IFRs are a great idea but they won’t utter such a sentiment in public. Having to pander to the public’s prejudices and irrational fears is an unfortunate corollary of democracy (such as it is). So a lot gets done behind the scenes. There seems to be little alternative.

Then there’s no way I can make a decision.

I’m hoping these things can be as *cheap* as you guys say, simply because we need all the options we can get.

Even if the actual energy infrastructure costs come in cheaper than renewables with backup, it would probably be the “externalities” that blow it out. Not including the real cost of extra security and insurance issues would be just the same as not including the real economic impacts of global warming in the coal budget. Society pays, but the books are cooked (a bit like the planet).

Again, if a terrorist blows up a solar plant, it just doesn’t matter.

It’s not worth anything in this instance. It looks like we’ll be building one of these things very soon, perhaps even starting by the end of this year. Lots of serious groundwork is being laid that you won’t find mentioned in Wikipedia or anywhere else.

I don’t get this faith in Gen4 when the reactors are so far away. If these super-safe, super-cheap Gen4 reactors are not built till about 2030 (according to wikipedia, whatever that’s worth)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

Any time I hear “oh, but they’re coming in about 20 years” I think of the abundant fusion energy we were all supposed to have by now.

By 2030 we’ll already have 2 decades of experience with renewables! Wind won’t be on his own, but will have heavy hitting baseload friends such as solar thermal, CETO wavepower (+ desal at night!) and geothermal.

Next year we should get to test a whole town running on solar thermal. (Although only Cloncurry, QLD, a small town of 2,340 people it should give us a good idea for that region at least).

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22700605-2702,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloncurry_solar_power_station

How can you make such bold assertions about the costs of cheap *modular* Gen4 technology when we can’t walk up and kick one yet?

Can you 100% guarantee that solar thermal and a mixed renewable grid will keep the lights on? Germany’s experience has shown that to be a pipe dream (please, Ender, don’t bother to quibble, I’ve heard all your arguments and I simply don’t buy them. I know how to count.). In which case you are left with the other options: fossil fuels or nuclear. With the risk assessment studies of the PRISM indicating it’s about as meltdown proof as can possibly be expected, I’d opt for IFRs any day of the week.

Hey, if nuclear works out as safe and cheap as you’re saying, then why not? I’m just waiting on more data. Maybe new nuclear technology will come out so cheap that the overall cost to society drops, including insurance.

But it’s a significant economic factor that solar thermal doesn’t have to deal with. If a terrorist blows up a solar thermal plant, oh dear, we have to rebuild some glass and concrete. But if a terrorist DOES manage to blow up a nuke with high level radioactive waste going everywhere, we have to evacuate a whole region.

What is the economic cost to ‘lose’ Melbourne of Sydney in this manner, even if everyone is evacuated in time?

Seems to me a risk management exercise. If the chance of something, although incredibly small, is still incredibly NASTY, we HAVE to insure against that chance.

How much is this insurance really going to cost? DO insurance companies really insure against such scenarios? ;-) Or is “moving Melbourne” just so unthinkable a scenario there’s no policy in the world that will cover it?

I know this is all alarmist hippie crap to some reading here, but CAN you 100% guarantee this will not happen? With solar thermal & a mixed renewable grid, we can.

Also not all the CSP plants would have to have storage as the peaks when it is needed would be quite sufficient for perhaps 30% of the CSP plants as we do not need as much supply at night.

nice point there regarding off-peak demand, although don’t forget night time demand may rise a bit when the “Better Place” electric cars start pluggin in and charging overnight.

Also, found this, which makes me wonder how much governments are subsidising the insurance costs and whether or not there is far more to “insurance” in the real world of nuclear accidents, however unlikely, than implied by even by your quote?

One of the biggest of several hidden subsidies for nuclear power is that it is only required to pay a small fraction of the cost of insuring fully against claims from a Chernobyl-style disaster, or worse:
“… in the United States, the Price-Anderson Act limits the nuclear industry’s liability in the event of a catastrophic accident to $9.1 billion, which is less than 2% of the $600 billion guaranteed by the Congress. In any case, $600 billion is considered to be a gross underestimate …” (Helen Caldicott, p. 32). There are similar limitations on liabilities in other countries around the world, including the UK.

* The costs of providing protection against terrorist attack for nuclear plants, and for trains and ships carrying nuclear fuel and nuclear waste;
* The costs to us all arising from the fact that any such protection can only ever be partial;
* The cost of decommissioning nuclear plants. An estimate in 2006 by the UK Treasury for the cost of decommissioning the UK’s old nuclear power stations was £90 billion;
* The costs born by national governments in that ultimately they must underwrite all risks, as evidenced by the way the UK government had to bale out British Energy in 2005 at a cost of £5 billion;
* The costs arising from nuclear waste that will be dangerous for thousands of years. These costs will be born by future generations but they will receive no compensating benefit.

http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/nn.htm

2. What do you do when you have a few cloudy days in a row, especially in winter when generating capacity is at half the summer insolation? How much extra thermal storage do you build in to your system to stop extended blackouts?
I have always wondered about this exact question, and wondered whether the heat could also be backed up by a few large onsite bio-gas tanks? You know, methane biodigesters (like Kompogas in Europe) or Biochar gas, stored in tanks for just this occasion? Not sure how large the tanks would have to be to top up the heat for a week of cloud.

Would it be economical to have huge sheds of good old fashioned WOOD pellets just for these occasions, and have a backup furnace that can pipe some extra heat to the turbines when required? When we are dealing with enormous industrial areas of this magnitude a few huge farm sheds of wood lying there aren’t really going to add too significantly to the land required, especially given the importance of electricity to the local economy.

Is it possible to elaborate on how these facilities are highly visible? I remember you saying in a talk that remote sensing could be used to discern PUREX processing from pyro-processing, meaning that nations could no longer hide weapons grade material production behind a nuclear power program.

For me it could help to clarify the position that IFRs cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. Sorry if this has already been addressed.