Open Thread 18

@peterc, Joffan

yes well written stuff from what I read so far. Thanks for the additional pointer Joffan, this ->

“Understanding how civil nuclear technology is the safe green solution”
a student lecture (May 2007)

Click to access webpptMay07.pdf

am reading now, very good set of slides.

Am also reading Monbiot’s nuclear section very good too, e.g.

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/08/the-moral-case-for-nuclear-power/

The Caldicott exchanges are particularly interesting too in his other articles.

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@Ek

I think it’s far too early to suggest (as Peter Lang has done based on one pilot project), that “EGS geothermal is likely to be another dud renewable like wind and solar.”

2011 US DOE Blue RIbbon Panel report on Geothermal

Click to access brp_draft_report_june_17_2011.pdf

IMHO Having read the report ‘Dud’ is too strong a phrase…unresolved challenges is probably accurate.

Recovery Act in 2009 boosted this investment to $400 million.
My community built a $20 million bicycle overpass with recovery act money(previously bicyclists had to dismount and use the pedestrian overpass or use the bicycle underpass 3/4 mile down the road).
The only requirement to get ‘recovery act’ money was that you had to be in a position to spend it quickly. There were no evaluations as to ‘wisely’. Obviously $400 million in R&D money spent ‘wisely’ might make a difference.

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The 2008 MMA report on geothermal stated

AGEA’s views of the key findings of the report include: The emerging Australian Geothermal Energy Industry can be expected to provide at least 1,000 MW and potentially up to 2,200 MW of base-load capacity by 2020 into the National Electricity Market

http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/…/AGEA_Final_Report.pdf

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GDY.AX#symbol=gdy.ax;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

Yet how do you reconcile this claim with Geodynamics share price falling from a high of $2 to the current price of 27 cents, despite $100M in government funding, with an investor commentary noting

A recent management presentation to investors shows no shortage in superlatives: “Geodynamics offers the only available, base-load, low emissions, large scale geothermal project available in Australia” it reads on page one of the presentation. Elsewhere it states “world-class resource in the Cooper Basin”, and “global leader with most deep hole, high temperature geothermal drilling experience in granites”.

Clearly, something’s missing in between the company’s self-promotion and action in the share market.

Morningstar points out the company has now been loss-making for ten consecutive years, a statement that comes with an exclamation mark from the analysts. Judging by their forecasts, there is no prospect for positive earnings whatsoever.

http://www.fnarena.com/index2.cfm?type=dsp_newsitem&n=932B7E5A-DEE0-1E86-B78B66D0519BE619

This does not mean that geothermal will never work, but simply suggests that investors and enthusiasts should treat some of the optimistic claims with caution. It is clear that the “prospective geothermal industry”, including the consultants that provide the optimistic outlooks, have little incentive to emphasise the challenges when government largesse is being sought, and employment is secured by investor and government funding in what is probably an interesting area of research.

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MMA is “notoriously biased” (to use Seth’s words from another thread.) MMA has long had a pro-renewables anti-nuclear bias.

Treasury, the Australian Greenhouse Office (now DCCEE), and ABARE used MMA to provide another perspective – the Green perspective – when modelling energy issues.

I have very little faith in anything that MMA produces. Martin used their modelling results because they forecast the largest renewable proportion by 2050. Tis is a conservative assumptions for Martin’s analysis, as he explains in the paper.

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@EL, and in this country (Australia), they still have to get it to the grid, which is not a small / cheap job & happening in this decade ?? hmm.

e.g. Graham Palmer said:

“RE : network extension costs for Cooper Basin

Click to access 0400-0005.pdf

Provides a range of AC/DC/routes, refer page 7, for 500 MW, $0.3 to $1.5 B, and for 5 GW, $2.3 to $6.1 billion”

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ps: comments quoted from Graham Palmer were before we moved over to this open thread, from

Graham Palmer, on 12 October 2011 at 5:31 AM ->

Cutting Australia’s carbon abatement costs with nuclear power

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Largest componenets of Westinghouse AP-1000 and Areva EPR to be built in a factory!
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Ansaldo_joins_heavy_component_partnership-1210115.html

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In response to Gavin Mudd’s ridiculous article about the Olympic Dam expansion over on The Conversation, I wrote a lengthy comment in response. It’s posted over there but I will also copy it here for interested readers.

Contrary to the usual tendentious nonsense from anti-nuclear activists, Olympic Dam is not really a uranium mine. Olympic Dam is a copper mine. Following the expansion, the total copper production at Olympic Dam will be 730,000 tonnes per year, up from about 220,000 tonnes per year at the present. (Copper smelting is, incidentally, what requires most of the energy input to the Olympic Dam site, nothing to do with uranium.) After the ore is mined and milled, the copper minerals are separated and processed and we’re left with powdered mineral waste – the so-called tailings which seem to be a cause for great concern amongst environmentalists.

At Olympic Dam, however, those tailings contain a small amount of gold and uranium, and further processing of the ore (which you’ve already mined and milled anyway) to separate the gold and uranium into saleable products is economically attractive. (If those same relatively low concentrations of U and Au were present in an orebody that was not already being mined for the copper anyway, mining such a deposit would not be economically attractive.)

The gold and uranium are essentially “free” byproducts recovered from what would otherwise be tailings from the copper mine, with no additional mining – no additional hole in the ground – required to extract those resources. In this sense, it would appear that polymetallic Cu/Au/U extraction operations at Olympic Dam are actually a very environmentally friendly way to mine those metals, as opposed to the alternative of having additional, separate mines at other sites mining gold and uranium deposits. Getting the most value that you can practically get out of one single hole in the ground is an environmentally efficient, conscious approach to mining.

As Mudd points out, the Olympic Dam orebody contains rare earths, which are essential for wind turbines, LEDs, electric vehicles, fuel cells and the like, and for which demand is growing rapidly. I’m sure BHP Billiton is well aware of the chemistry of the Olympic Dam orebody, and as the price of rare earths continues to rise over the coming years, I’m sure they will pursue rare-earth extraction at the point when it becomes economically viable. As with gold and uranium, extracting these different elements from the polymetallic orebody is an environmentally friendly alternative to having multiple additional mines. (Incidentally, all other rare-earth mining prospects in Australia also seem to attract criticism from the predictable band of anti-nuclear “environmentalists”, who complain that horrible, radioactive, scary uranium and thorium will also be extracted from these polymetallic ores where it is present along with the lanthanide metals.)

What exactly does Mudd propose we should do with the uranium at Olympic Dam, if the status quo is not the way to go? If we are to mine the copper and gold (and perhaps rare earths too), then of course the ore that is mined contains the uranium as well. Should we simply cease the extraction of uranium from that ore? But that would simply leave all that uranium in the tailings – significantly increasing the amount of radioactivity present in that tailings waste, whilst of course it would not at all decrease the volume of that tailings waste or change its characteristics in any other way. Given the concern expressed by Mudd and other anti-nuclear activists about those scary radioactive tailings, leaving the uranium in the tailings does not seem to make sense at all.

Mudd calls the mine tailings “billions of tonnes of radioactive waste”, calling to mind nonsense fictional mental images of billions of rusty 44-gallon drums full of luminous green goo, but in fact those tailings really are just natural rock that comes out of the ground. The tailings contain natural uranium and the natural daughter-product radionuclides in the uranium series, all naturally created and naturally present in the ground. Mining the ore and extracting the uranium does not create, or add, or change the radioactivity of this natural material in any way – except for removing the uranium from it.

Removing the uranium (well, essentially all of it, not 100% of it) from the tailings removes most of the uranium daughter-product radionuclides (Ra, Rn, Po etc.) that will form in the tailings over the long term, into the future, and will therefore remove most of the radiation dose that workers or the public may be exposed to from exposure to said tailings (a long time in the future). Leaving the uranium in the tailings, as well as the uranium daughter radionuclides that the uranium will become over long timescales, will substantially increase the radioactivity and potential radiation dose from those tailings.

If you live in a part of the world where uranium (and uranium daughters) are naturally geologically abundant, then you’re exposed to natural background ionising radiation dose from that natural geology – from uranium, radium and the other uranium daughters in the soil, in dust, from gamma radiation directly from the ground, from radon in the air, and from uranium and uranium daughters in water. All these background dose pathways are completely natural – they’re a fact of life. If you’re afraid of that, move to a location where the natural geology contains minimal uranium or thorium.

Does the mining by humans of these natural rocks that contain uranium and its daughter products actually cause any real change to the background ionising radiation dose rate that people receive from that natural radioactivity, compared to the radiation doses received anyway when that radioactivity just sits in the ground naturally (and is subject to natural erosion, natural geological and hydrogeological transport) and does not get mined? Good question… perhaps Dr. Mudd could point us to some research or evidence on this subject.

It is a well-worn and predictable rhetoric sound-bite from the likes of Mudd, Ludlam, Diesendorf and Lowe that Australia’s uranium exports, in terms of revenue dollars, are less than Australia’s exports of cheese or lamb. But these people should know better than to simply think about everything in terms of the economist’s bottom line when it comes to science-based ecology and environmental best practice.

In the 2010 calendar year, Australia exported 301 million tonnes of coal, which corresponds to about 7.2 * 10^18 J of thermal energy content. The 7555 tonnes of natural uranium oxide exported in 2009-2010 contains a thermal energy content (ignoring the thermodynamic losses in a heat-engine power station, and assuming inefficient, once-through use of low-enriched uranium in LWRs) of about 3.4 * 10^18 J.

Australia’s three modest uranium mines provide a total energy output which is about 50% of all of Australia’s coal exports (a bit more than 50% of Australia’s total coal output including domestically-consumed coal). And yet this clean energy resource is supplied from three mines which have a total environmental footprint on the landscape which is far, far smaller than 50% of the environmental footprint of Australia’s numerous coal-mining holes in the ground. 15,000 tonnes of uranium oxide would give you the same energy output (in LWRs) as all that coal, and 15,000 tonnes of mineral production is a hell of a lot less environmentally intensive than 301 million tonnes.

Clearly Australia’s uranium exports are not essential for Australia’s economy. But such an enormous resource of clean energy, with such a high energy density, which is abundant in the earth and is available at such a low cost is obviously incredibly valuable and important for the global environment.

Following the expansion of mining operations at Olympic Dam, the mine will produce about 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide per year, which will generate (in relatively inefficient once-through use in LWRs) about 800 TWh of electricity. Over the coming years, Australia’s clean energy exports (in the form of uranium) are likely to provide enough clean coal-replacement capacity to catch up with, and offset, the greenhouse gas emissions from all of Australia’s coal exports.

When natural uranium is used very efficiently, in the Integral Fast Reactor for example, one tonne of natural uranium oxide (U3O8) will yield about 8 * 10^16 J of thermal energy in the reactor. Therefore, if the 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide from the Olympic Dam expansion was to be used in this way, the amount of energy produced would be about 1.5 * 10^21 J (thermal) – an amount of clean energy nearly 10 times greater than the energy content (about 1.7 * 10^20 J) of all the coal production on Earth. That’s basically all the energy for all the world. And for all the people that don’t yet have access to electricity. From just one mine!

Given that Australian-Obligated Nuclear Material is carefully safeguarded and watched and is not allowed to be diverted into nuclear weapons (and in fact most of this material, such as depleted uranium, highly radioactive used fuel which contains some reactor-grade plutonium in it, and reprocessed reactor-grade plutonium, is not physically useful as the fuel for nuclear weapons), would Mudd care to explain to us exactly how Australia’s uranium exports are “potentially increasing nuclear weapons risks”?

Depleted uranium, used LWR fuel and recycled reactor-grade plutonium are not a “burden” – they are enormous resources of fuels for clean energy which can be used throughout the world to provide energy, replacing the need to mine a hell of a lot of coal – and indeed, replacing the need to mine lots of new uranium which might otherwise be used.

Mudd lists “massive energy consumption” amongst the mine’s other supposedly negative effects. In fact, Olympic Dam has an enormous “energy gain” – the mine’s clean energy production (in the form of uranium) is far, far in excess of the mine’s total energy inputs. The highly efficient use of uranium, for example in the Integral Fast Reactor, as opposed to enrichment and inefficient once-through use of low-enriched uranium in light-water reactors, will increase that “energy gain” enormously.

Australia is, and will certainly continue to be, a major exporter of uranium, for civilian nuclear energy use under strict safeguards, to the world. This uranium has a very valuable role in providing clean, safe, abundant energy to replace coal and fossil fuel use throughout the world – today and into the future.

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Luke Weston,

That’s an excellent comment.

Unfortunately, it is completely unaccessible in ‘Open Thread 18’.

Barry,Could you post this as a thread so we can easily access it in future and so we can refer others to it and they can comment on it?

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Peter Lang wrote:

EL,

I’ve just realised that you writing all the comments on BNC, calling yourself and academic, and do not understand the most basic concepts of power, energy, capacity, availablity and capacity factor. I’d urge you to start at the beginning of the TCASE series here: https://bravenewclimate.com/renewable-limits/ and read through the articles to get an understanding of the basics.

Putting the personal tenor of your comment aside …

I’m still looking for any useful or productive input on EGS technological viability and field tests that might support your claim that water flow through in an EGS reservoir “may well be an unsolvable problem.” Your one source is an article on early tests of EGS at Soultz (dated 2001), when Soltz has had an operating power plant with geothermal loops, heat exchangers, and generators providing electricity to the grid since 2008. The NYT has documented several recent setbacks with EGS pilot projects in the States (here, here, and here), but these have largely been anticipated by earlier reports (which recommended additional research on reservoir models and fracture stratigraphy across different geological and environmental conditions). Some have suggested “tremors caused by EGS are not likely to be a major stumbling block to the technology” (here). The US now has new rules in place on seismicity and EGS development (in response to these and other concerns), and models are now being developed to minimize these issues with better reservoir modeling and understanding of geomechanics, but require further field testing (here, here, here, and here). We’re likely going to get a huge assist from oil and gas development on this area (if they decide to start sharing information on a wider basis). In fact, your example of flow-back and rupture of production well casing at Cooper Basin (just prior to commercial operation), would seem to indicate that water flow is no longer a problem (but well casing design and long-term operation at high pressures may be). I still view this as a promising technology that is in the very early stages development, and we are no-where near a commercial large scale plant (in the 100 MW range), and nobody is suggesting otherwise. The DOE’s Blue Ribbon committee on Geothermal Technologies just released it’s preliminary findings on June 17, 2011, and recommended “accelerating the development of enhanced geothermal systems” (p. 3). Among their key concerns: identifying geophysical parameters best suited for EGS reservoir creation, further testing of reservoir models, development of low cost supporting technologies to achieve goal of 10 cents/kWh LCOE (drilling research, generation, alternative fluids, etc.), and long term flow tests on reservoir stability and durability of equipment (p. 6).

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bryen said: “So does that mean that China has lost more people to wind than Fukishima[sic] to nuclear?”
Of course it does! You must know darn well that nobody was killed by nuclear at Fukushima. Are you are a troll , asking a 2-minute provocation that costs each of us an hour to answer?

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@Luke Weston. I echo Peter Lang’s comment concerning your terrific summary of the Olympic Dam expansion.
Well argued.

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(Deleted violation of the citation policy)

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@bryen “As I am not expert in …. I suggest that maybe some BNCers …”

Well, no, I’m not a dog to be sooled onto passers by. However, if a newcomer to the thread were to do some earnest study on an aspect and then present a little essay, a few sentences and perhaps a link, I would read it carefully, respecting any naivete.

I believe that is what the moderator means by “contributing”. I know how others on this site can put in a lot of effort responding to such contributions. In the to and fro of intellectual or professional discourse, the rest of us are intrigued and entertained.

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