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Nuclear Open Thread

Open Thread 21

The previous Open Thread has gone past is off the BNC front page, so it’s time for a fresh palette.

The Open Thread is a general discussion forum, where you can talk about whatever you like — there is nothing ‘off topic’ here — within reason. So get up on your soap box! The standard commenting rules of courtesy apply, and at the very least your chat should relate to the general content of this blog.

The sort of things that belong on this thread include general enquiries, soapbox philosophy, meandering trains of argument that move dynamically from one point of contention to another, and so on — as long as the comments adhere to the broad BNC themes of sustainable energy, climate change mitigation and policy, energy security, climate impacts, etc.

You can also find this thread by clicking on the Open Thread category on the cascading menu under the “Home” tab.

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There are two very important articles now posted on The Guardian website. 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. Which option would you choose?

By Barry Brook

Barry Brook is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Chair of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He researches global change, ecology and energy.

544 replies on “Open Thread 21”

Douglas Wise

(…) I learned more from reading MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air”

Don’t you wish you had written that book? Personally, I think that MacKay and Richter are complementary in several ways. MacKay’s strategy led him to exclude cost information, and to largely exclude any policy-related discussion. Richter wrote very much in the context of evaluating policy options, where cost is central.
I read MacKay in the same order as you did – it’s a good sequence, at least for the wonkish community. However, most of the people we meet are not wonks and are not willing to invest the learning time – so far, very few are game to tackle MacKay. For them I think I have a better chance of moving the needle by recommending Richter. Another way to use Richter’s knowhow is via the CCST report California’s Energy Future: The View to 2050. I was surprised to see such a well researched result come out of a California group. It is really quite excellent, and Richter chaired the nuclear section (that sub-report alone is useful).
If they then have questions (and if they are fairly numerate) we can suggest MacKay. Or alternatively that they experiment with MacKay’s DECC 2050 pathways analysis. That is less formidable than the book. BTW, the Excel version of the calculator has been upgraded to include costs, but not the web tool.
For the folks who are really drinking the 70% renewables Kool Aid, I’ve also recommended the UK Climate Change Committee renewables report. That has provoked some exclamatory feedback.

My one criticism is that most experts, Richter among them, appear to insist that global warming can only be addressed by multiple solutions, including non hydro renewables. Despite his praise for nuclear and criticism of renewables, it seems perverse that Richter refuses to admit that the former begins to look more and more like a silver bullet solution.

Frustrating, isn’t it? My speculation is that Richter’s experience in the political arena teaches that politicians’ ears close up to an all-nuclear scenario. Even if we had the King-seat we would likely reach for the low-cost renewable options, like onshore wind that makes sense given the geography and the cost of grid realities. Wasting public resources, like Germany has on solar PV, leaves us less flexibility to make real cuts in coal, transport, buildings, etc. But if I can offset coal with CCS, onshore wind, efficiency I will go for progress-at-a-price.
Which reminds me, the Oxford Physics TrillionthTonne is another useful set of education resources. I’ve been hoping that Barry would comment on how useful that framing is. I find it compelling, and don’t see any major problem with the way they derive the 50% chance of 2° C or less. I find the 10^12 tonne carbon limit illuminates a lot better than X% reductions in Y% “except for blah, blah, ….”
Check out Ken Caldera’s NearZero.org videos, see if you think it is a useful resource.

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I am considering buying a Kindle, but am concerned about the problem you experienced when reading a book containing figures and tables.

Frank,
Strictly FWIW, I’ve been reading Kindle books for ~16 months on iPad 1 and iPad 2 and using the Kindle software on various Macs. I’ve not been disturbed by the presentation of graphics, tables, etc. I’ve little experience using a Kindle-brand device, so can’t directly address what those limitation may be. The screen is smaller, and not color.

I don’t wish to read paper any more at all. The iPad is so much more convenient and efficient. Hopefully the Kindles are too.
Do you have a friend who has say a Kindle Touch that you can try out?

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Re: Kindle, I have a device (the large screen version) and use it for white-paper novels (it’s very nice for this – easy on the eyes, battery lasts for ages), but find it is not good for anything else (PDFs, images, etc.) and of course can’t be seen in colour. For these, the iPad 2 excels. Overall, if I had a choice of only one device, I would choose the iPad first, second and third. It is brilliant, and even works very nicely for white-paper novels via the Kindle app. So both are good value for money, but really, the iPad rules unless you need your reader to last more than 8-10 hours without a charge (and are on a budget).

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RG the increasing wave of resentment will reach a crisis point at some time. In my opinion a country the size of Australia should have at least one viable steel smelter and one aluminium smelter in case of some kind of international tension. I also think we should have a uranium enrichment plant once we have a Gen3 nuke up and running.

While I agree with imposed carbon pricing I think the planners could have predicted the manufacturing exodus and the carbon offsets scam we are yet to experience. By adding to the landed price a carbon tariff hurts both the greenhouse rogue country and the importer. Therefore it shares the pain. China has few second thoughts about export restrictions (rare earths for example) so will understand if we slap a carbon tariff on their steel. That would be 1.7 X $23 = $39 per tonne. Maybe that will help OneSteel and Bluescope to hang on locally.

The EU airline tax is just the warmup exercise. This link is brand new
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2012-02/21/content_14653548.htm

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Steve & Barry,

Thank you for your information.

This evening, I bought a Kindle 3G, but I’m still learning how to use it. As near as I can tell, it should be possible to read electronic books on either a PC or a Mac. For ordinary material, the Kindle is handier because one can read while relaxed in a chair, on a recliner, or even in bed (which I often do). I believe that I will be able to find a way to display chars, tables, and graphs on the computer.

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And… she’s back with more claims about I-129. Anyone help out here? I’m no scientist, let alone oncologist, so how do I know how deadly I-129 is, and what quantities can kill, or significantly raise changes of ill health and, da da da doom!, MUTATION!

Her (rather hysterical) claims follow.

To add your say go to http://theconversation.edu.au/oakeshotts-call-for-wood-powered-electricity-means-more-logging-5370

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Shirley Birney commented:

“Eclipse Now, beta emitters are biologically damaging. Further,beta particles are fast-moving electrons that are much smaller than alpha particles and can penetrate up to 1 to 2 centimetres of water or human flesh. Your trivialisation of Iodine-129 is either a result of ignorance or deliberate deception. The USEPA states that “Iodine-129, if released into the environment, its water solubility allows its uptake by humans, where it concentrates in the thyroid gland.” Further, I-129 contamination is a US priority listing due to its permanent pollution of the biosphere due to its long half life. Not only must we endure climate denialists, and creation scientists, – we must now endure “radiation denialists” including Alex Cannara spinning unscientific rubbish about radiation hormesis. Role up folks and get your hormesis fix from a nuclear reactor. “The theory of “adaptive response”, (not to be confused with hormesis) shows that a low dose can reduce the effect of a higher dose when administered after a short time delay. And it is that theory that is based on substantial evidence.” ( L. De Saint-Georges – Secretary treasurer of European Radiation Research Society – Senior scientist) Eclipse Now, now that you’ve already dug yourself a big hole, stop digging: 1) Nuclear industry discharges I-129 and contaminates forage, soils and deer thyroids – all now several orders of magnitude of background levels: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0265931X8890032X 2) “The contribution of marine discharges and transport by water mass of I-129 from reprocessing plants to the Baltic Sea can be estimated to be >30% in the south Baltic and >93% in the Kattegat.” http://meeting.helcom.fi/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=69805&name=DLFE-27625.pdf 3) “Dounreay pleaded guilty at Wick sheriff court to a “failure to prevent fragments of irradiated nuclear fuel being discharged into the environment”. The plant’s operator at the time, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, was fined £140,000, somewhat less than the previous year’s fine of £2 million. 4) 09/2011: “Scottish nuclear fuel leak ‘will never be completely cleaned up. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has abandoned its aim to remove all traces of contamination from the north coast seabed.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/21/scottish-nuclear-leak-clean-up http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15006516 And while you assure readers that commercial waste gobbling Gen.IV reactors are imminent, the dirty diggers are getting at the uranium. Hey that’s some contradiction Eclipse. And just last week, Japan’s nuclear safety chief, Haruki Madarame said the country’s regulations were fundamentally flawed and the nuclear industry was shaped by freewheeling power companies, toothless regulators and a government more interested in promoting nuclear energy than in safeguarding the health of its citizens. And we’ve know about France’s brazen assault on humanity’s collective health and well-being for years: http://www.wise-uranium.org/uccoghi.html “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” -Thomas Jefferson And no worries Eclipse that you dodged my question in my previous post on rusty valves v. public safety. It’s less grist for an ecocidal nuclear mill that never flinches from an opportunity to bob, weave and scheme while its sticky fingers are in the taxpayers’ money pots. “

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Smelting Iron

As we all know, the usual way to smelt iron from iron ore is carbon intensive. I don’t know whether it is ever smelted using using hydrogen instead of coke, but it should work. However, doing so would require plentiful inexpensive energy to electrolyze water to get the H2. A side benefit would be the production of O2.

Whether the H2 would combine in some undesirable way with the Fe I don’t know, but if it did, presumably there would be a work-around. Normally Fe is converted to steel by burning out the carbon from it. But if the Fe were smelted using H2 instead of C, presumably that step would not be necessary.

In any case, there should be ways to smelt Fe without emitting CO2.

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@EclipseNow

There is an ANL fact sheet on health risk from various radioisotopes that is quite useful. I don’t have time to go through the number now, but it does say this about I-129:

The very long half-life of iodine-129 (with its subsequent low specific activity) combined with the low energy of its beta particle and minimal gamma radiation limit the hazards of this radionuclide.

Click to access ANL_ContaminantFactSheets_All_070418.pdf

The radiological risk coefficients for the various radioistopes can be compared against each other, but keep in mind that these are defined in terms of activity not mass of the amount of each isotope ingested or inhaled.

The bottom line is that anybody claiming that I-129 presents any environmental hazard at all, needs to show that there is a plausible scenario where there would be sufficient uptake to present a tangible risk. Just waffling on about several times natural background says nothing about risk.

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Barry, I liked that article. And it looks as though my rather elementary knowledge of chemistry was correct.

Your article contained information indicating that blast furnaces using coke are much more efficient than they were when Andrew Carnegie was a steel magnate. His biography, by Wall, which I have almost finished, indicates that even while Carnegie was a steel magnate, blast furnaces had significantly increased in efficiency. From you article, it appears that a conventional blast furnace could easily be converted to using H2 instead of coke. All that is needed is an economical source of H2, which perhaps nuclear power will eventually provide.

The article didn’t say whether using H2, because it doesn’t add carbon to the Fe, would eliminate the need to convert the output of the blast furnace from iron to steel, but it seems to me that it might.

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@EclipseNow,

Quick back of envelope calculation (which definitely should be checked).

From the ANL risk coefficients, ingesting 1 gram of I-129 would incur a cancer mortality risk of about 0.006. ie 6 in 1000.

The highest measured I-129/I-127 ratios appear to be about 10e-6. At such concentrations, you would need to eat a tonne of iodine to incur a 6 in 1000 risk of cancer mortality.

Please check the figures before using.

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Barry,

Congratulations on your Breakthrough selection. The 2012 Breakthrough Dialogue should be able to power the resort on pure brainwave energy – on a quick scan I see eight Senior Fellows listed that have already earned my respect (Brook, Long, Richter, Wigley, Kareiva, Rayner, Sarewitz, Pielke). By association the other Fellows must be of similar quality.

Personally I hope the conference results include some highly effective “policy marketing” ideas.

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It is my understanding that the millisievert includes both a quality factor (higher quality factor for alphas–if emitted internally– and neutrons) and tissue sensitivity of particular radioisotopes. so the key issue is dose. what’s the dose in miilisieverts or millirem?

I’ll discuss with radiologist pal and email you.

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The discussion on hydrogen for steel making made me wonder what happened to the HIsmelt process that can use non-coking coal. Surprise surprise it is relocating to a country that doesn’t have carbon tax
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/rio-to-relocate-hismelt-plant-to-india

The big end of town seems to think ‘out of sight out of mind’ is the way to go with carbon emissions. While Australia is still scratching itself in disbelief wondering why the metals industry is up and leaving the Europeans saw it coming Airlines and tar sands proxy for bigger climate battles.

Of course if we didn’t burn coal in power stations we could keep using some for making steel or even jet fuel.

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I’m enjoying RenewEconomy; Giles Parkinson’s latest media venture.

Interesting article today on how much coal corps are investing in R&D as a % of revenue
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/why-king-coal-wont-pay-to-clean-the-throne-31173

It is a small number. The comparison with Kodak is interesting.

They quote some numbers for renewables and not surprisingly the % of R&D is relatively high.

Anyone seen similar for nukes? My suspicion is that plant operators, market participants might not be doing much research, but Governments and related agencies are? Then again, I bet Westinghouse and GE are pouring some coin into it.

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John Newlands, my understanding is that not much thermal coal is suitable for coking?

Also, this “While Australia is still scratching itself in disbelief wondering why the metals industry” seems a tiny bit disengenuous. The companies in question (Al smelters) said themselves that the reason they are closing is NOT due to carbon pricing, but more over due to a high dollar and high wage prices. Perhaps another victim of the mining boom?

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Frank R. Eggers — Mettalugists intentionally add carbon, as well as other elements, to iron. This produces superior construction materials.

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Ev, indeed the bifurcation between RenewEconomy and Climate Spectator (which Giles Parkinson edited until a couple of months ago) has been an interesting development in this media niche. RE looks very similar to CS in its architecture (so much so that I wonder if Parkinson encountered any IP issues), but the name says it all – it allows Parkinson to indulge his clear predilection for renewables, without feeling a strong imperative to accommodate alternative perspectives on climate and energy issues.

In contrast, it seems to me that Climate Spectator’s new editor, Tristan Edis (ex-Grattan Institute), is making it subtly but firmly clear that he intends Climate Spectator to be a broader church than it was under Parkinson’s stewardship.

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Mark, the post today on Solar Flagships in CS is, ah, “professionally interesting”. I offer no more comment on the topic :-)

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ev the HIsmelt process at Kwinana WA aimed to take coal with high volatiles content and somehow cook this out. All academic now since the plant has closed and presumably sections will be taken to India. $250/t low volatiles coking coal is 25c per kg. I read one estimate of the cost of electrolytic hydrogen as $8 per kg at which price it can’t compete.

The high $A is a secondary effect of our exports notably including coal exports which appear to be increasing despite all the climate pledges. A global carbon price could correct that. Apart from low wages Asian metals producers may offer economies of scale or newer plants. On the other hand heavy ores, fuels and products have to be shipped across oceans. One reason why Peak Oil may ironically slow coal demand.

The Saudi Arabia aluminium smelter will use newer plant, Pt Henry staff, their Middle East bauxite and gas fired electricity. Less CO2 than Victoria but not 80% less. Hence carbon taxing Middle East aluminum if we have to import it.

By not value adding here we will end up with big holes in the ground where rich mineral deposits used to be and just a few dollars from royalties. The plasma TVs we bought with the high Aussie dollar will have long been thrown on the tip. Perhaps we can mine the tip next time round.

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David Lewis, @ 19 February 2012 at 4:42 PM on the IFR FAD 10 thread asked

I’d be interested in more detail on what a civilization that was on a war time footing now that it had realized how badly it had blown its climate problem could do.

IFR FaD 10 – metal fuel and plutonium

This might be relevant to this question:

Click to access 5564.pdf

In 1943-44, the US built Hanford B reactor. It was built in 18 months from first earth moved to going critical.

It then ran for 24 years. During that time its power output was increased by a factor of nine.

That was the first ever large reactor. I repeat, it ran for 24 years and its power was increased by a factor of nine over those years.

If we could build the first ever in 18 months, way back in 1943-44, what on Earth has happened to our productivity and capacity to innovate that they now take 5 years and some take 20 years to construct?

I think this shows what we could do if we wanted to.

I am also convinced this experience show we could have cheap nuclear power and rapid roll out across the world if we wanted to. Focus on irrational policies like Kyoto and carbon taxes is one of the main causes of the problem.

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BNC’s stated aim is to focus on policy relevance and to try to help guide development of polices that will be practicable and can achieve the desired results.

To achieve that aim means we need to focus on what can make nuclear energy affordable. The cost and the cost / safety trade off are critical issues to discuss, IMO.

I think Geoff Russel’s comment in reply to mine is insightful and spot on. [Unfortunately it has been deleted, so hopefully Geoff will repost it]. His comment explains one of the main reasons why nuclear is more expensive than fossil fuel generation. IMO, the technology has become buried in bureaucracy, over-regulation, over engineering and excessive complexity.

I think the success of Handford B demonstrates what I am saying is correct.

Therefore, I’d urge people to move their sights from safety to cost. They will be plenty safe enough once they can start running through some development generations. But we’ll make no or slow progress if we insist on excessive levels of safety. Let’s get used to the idea there will be accidents; they cannot be entirely avoided. History shows that nuclear accidents are no worse and far less damaging than many industrial accidents. For example, almost every airline crash causes far more fatalities than all the civilian nuclear accidents that have occurred in the past 50 years. Let’s get some perspective and let’s move the focus to what is important – making them economically viable.

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Steve Darden,

Thank you for responding to my comments on Richter’s book. It seems that we hold nearly identical views on MacKay and Richter.

Like you, I suspect that “Richter’s experience in the political arena teaches that politicians’ ears close up to an all-nuclear scenario”. However, it is surely the role of an independent advisor with an apparent belief in the overwhelming benefits of nuclear to say so in an unambiguous manner. This is the most likely route to achieve the desired objective in that it would strengthen the hands of those politicians who were willing to be convinced to stand up to antis and renewable lobbyists.

We appear to have reached a stage when independent energy advisors are tip toeing towards suggesting that nuclear could/should be the least cost supply option for a clean energy transition, but remain reluctant to come off the fence.

If all clean supply options are being kept open, while the overwhelming quantity of subsidies and privileged access to the market are reserved for non-hydro renewables, nuclear is clearly going to be disadvantaged. This is what seems to be happening. In other words, politicians in western democracies are half heartedly pursuing the most expensive route to transition and, in so doing, they are harming the economic hopes of their own citizens to the benefit of those in rapidly developing nations.

I have one other gripe. Most expert committees highlight the importance and benign economics of demand reduction. While, in principle, they may be correct, this is not always the case in practice. Advocates of an all renewable strategy need to advocate a maximum demand reduction policy to make their plans even remotely plausible. However,with nuclear, the costs of demand reduction will often not prove to offer value for money. I am thinking, for example, of retrofits in old building stocks and hauling biomass long distances for energy conversion.

In summary, we are now seeing expert committee reports that point out the potential cost benefits of nuclear, but which back away from anything other than recommending the implementation of a broad range of clean supply options. Their apparent reason is that antis will either partially block their preferred option or render it unnecessarily costly. They are thus moving from scientific judgements to political ones. IMO, they should “stick to their last”.

Finally, thanks for bringing my attention to the “trillionth tonne” – most impressive.

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Regarding the risk of I-129. Here’s a document about handling precautions of I-129:

http://or.ucsf.edu/ehs/12491-DSY/version/default/part/4/data/

Dosimetry
The low energy beta emissions from millicurie (37
MBq) quantities of 129I do not present a significant
external exposure hazard because they barely penetrate
the outer dead layer of skin. Gamma and x-ray
emissions from 129I can present a penetrating external
exposure hazard. Individual iodine metabolism can
vary considerably(5). It may be assumed that 30% of
an uptake of iodine is translocated to the thyroid and
70% directly excreted in urine(5). Iodine in the thyroid
is retained with a biological half-life of 120 days
in the form of organic iodine. Organic iodine is
assumed to be uniformly distributed in all organs
and tissues of the body except the thyroid, and
retained with a biological half-life of 12 days(5). 10%
of organic iodine is directly excreted in feces and the
rest is returned to the transfer compartment as inorganic
iodine(5). The uptake of 129I to the thyroid is in
practice limited by the physical mass of 129I due to its
very low specific activity.

It is very simple really. Weak beta and alpha emissions don’t penetrate the skin, so only internal decay is dangerous. The half life of I-129, at 15 million years, is so much longer than the biological half life after uptake in the body, it doesn’t get a chance to decay inside the body. Unlike I-131, which, with a half-life of just 8 days, decays almost completely inside the body after uptake – depositing all its damaging energy inside your body.

That is why I-131 is very dangerous, and I-129 not at all. Only when you are handling the stuff in large amounts (megabecquerels) do you have to be careful, which is only if you are a nuclear professional working with spent fuels (in which case you must worry about lots of fission products far more dangerous than I-129!).

There is no evidence whatsoever of I-129 deaths or injuries. Not from bomb tests, not from Chernobyl, not from cosmic ray produced I-129. Radioactivity is perfectly normal, naturally occuring, with large differences in background radiation yet no higher cancer incidence for these higher background radiation.

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

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Peter, you are probably right to suggest that nukes are over regulated and over engineered. But, democracy being what it is, you’ve got to convince the population that you are right.

This is the biggest barrier to nuclear power in Australia, and I genuinely don’t see it being fixed, probably ever. Given the scepticism that climate change exists at all, it’s a long way from there to convincing people that less-safe nuclear power is the answer.

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“As annual radiation exposure of up to 100 millisieverts poses no specific cancer risks, the estimated radiation is unlikely to cause any adverse health effect,” Fukushima Medical University Vice President Shunichi Yamashita said at the press conference held to announce the figure.

This is a quote from The Japan Times in an article about the various levels of radiation to which people in the Fukushima area had been exposed. If the power plant workers are included, the number of people who got at least 10 millisieverts rises to 95. 5,636 of the 9,747 residents of Namie, Kawamata and Iitate or, were exposed less than 1 millisievert of radiation over the four months. I intend to post this review on all the doomsayer, anti-nuclear sites I can.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120221a6.html

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IFR is fast reactor integrated with pyroprocessing.
Regarding the future fast reactors mentioned in Wikipedia, any one could be a part of IFR if combined with reprocessing. The original document speaks of metallic fuel, sodium coolant, and pyroprocessing. In my (a lay person) opinion, a liquid chloride reactor using isotope Cl37 and chloride volatility and electrolytic separation would be the best way forward.

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The thing is Jagdish, ANL has already done the R&D for a metal-fuel, liquid-sodium reactor. GEH could make a FOAK PRISM today if they got the funding and a location for it.

On the other hand, there has been no chloride fast reactor prototype built or much R&D down that path at all. This means that for all its possible technical superiority it still needs a lot of basic R&D for a proof-of-concept reactor and so on.

We should be going forward with the solutions that are available to us now. We should be definitely investing in nuclear R&D as well for all of these interesting unbuilt reactor designs, but we can’t put off building any reactors until the ‘next reactor design around the corner’ is proven.

This means that we need to build advanced LWRs now, PRISM/IFRs soon (once the design is mature and over it’s FOAK building hurdle) and research DMSR/LFTR/Liquid Chloride Fast Reactors all through that period. The LWR is good enough while we still have ample U-235 supplies, IFR-type designs solve the fuel problem and have a bunch of other safety advantages and LFTRs unlock a whole new untapped source of fuel.

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GEH could make a FOAK PRISM today if they got the funding and a location for it

Will, I agree with most everything you say, but the above needs clarification. GEH is a nuclear giant. If they thought FOAK PRISM was low risk and worthwile for strategic considerations, they would have made an exception on their supplier based business model and just built the darn thing already. So what’s wrong? Is GEH lacking courage? Or is the processing plant insufficiently developed to go for a full commercial FOAK unit just like that? It occurs to me that the chem & corrosion/FP cleanup unit for BWRs is about as complicated as the entire PRISM processing unit. A location is easy enough to find, just pick a pro-nuclear country like Sweden and you can select from a phalanx of locations.

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Cyril R, on 23 February 2012 at 10:53 PM said:

GEH is a nuclear giant. If they thought FOAK PRISM was low risk and worthwile for strategic considerations, they would have made an exception on their supplier based business model and just built the darn thing already.

The fuel cycle and waste issue in the US is an unresolved issue.

The US Nuclear Power Utilities have paid about $30 billion into a Waste Disposal Fund.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKeJF1vuteJ8

Obviously…the simple solution would be to use some of the waste disposal money to build a reprocessing facility and a FOAK IFR. Unfortunately coming to a ‘political agreement’ at the moment in the US on anything is pretty close to impossible. I think Australia has rules about ‘hung parliaments’ triggering new elections or something. In the US we have no such rule.

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Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is impossible to prevent tritium releases. I’m not an engineer, but I do have a reasonably good background in physics.

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Frank R. Eggers — First consider a BWR so that the water converted to steam by the reactor passes through the Rankine cycle turbine. That water/steam contains a small and harmless portion of tritium via neutron activation by the nuclear reactor. Tritium is a tiny atom, so tiny that a portion diffuses through the condenser into the reject heat removal water outside.

In an PWR there is another heat exchanger, that between the pressurized water cooling the nucleaar reacotr and the water/steam for the Rankine cycle steam turbine. Still, some very tiny portion of the tritium diffuses through both heat exchangers into the outside environment. Moreover, in PWR operation in sometimes happens that some steam has to be vented. That steam then contains a higher propotion of tritium since there is only one heat exchanger in the way.

It has only been fairly recently that ionized radiation detection instruments have become sensitive enough to record these tiny tritium doses. The amounts are about the same as if you poured a glass of water and let it sit for a time being bombarded by cosmic rays, AFAIK. The point is the amounts are harmlessly small.

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/grndwtr-contam-tritium.html

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Thank you, David, for the explanation.

It would seem to me that if instruments sensitive enough to detect the tritium have only recently become available, the amount released must indeed be to small to cause problems. Compared with the natural background radiation, or even with the radiation already present in out bodies, the amount must indeed be tiny.

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Tritium can be grabbed in a variety of ways. It can be converted to a stable hydride, by passing it over a titanium bed. It can also be blocked effectively by dense protective oxide layers on metals, such as chromium and aluminium. Tritium can also be oxidised to water by putting some copper oxide pellets in the primary loop.

For a light water reactor, these are unnecessary, because they don’t make a lot of tritium. The anti-nukes like to scream about picocuries. When you see this word, pico, you must know it is a fancy word for exactly nothing and you have to be on guard since there will be anti nuke propaganda about. A pico is a millionth of a millionth. So a million picocuries is still only a millionth of a curie. Even the entire inventory of a large LWR being released at once, 50 curies, is not going to harm anyone. The stuff will simply float off and rapidly mix in the environment to negligible doses (tritium does not bioaccumulate in any way, even if ingested).

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Tritium, in the form of T2O, is used to make emergency exit signs and watch dials glow. Strangely, I’ve never heard any objections to that.

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Indeed, tritium exit signs, with 25000000000000 picocuries of tritium in them, are actually allowed in buildings, and even find their ways into landfills from time to time, due to improper disposal.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently completed a comprehensive two-year study at 54 landfills within the Commonwealth, testing for the presence of radioactive materials in landfill leachate. The study was performed as a follow-up to DEP’s new requirements for radiation monitoring at all solid waste management facilities in Pennsylvania. Although sample results quantified certain naturally occurring elements within natural background levels, including uranium, thorium and potassium, above-normal levels of tritium were noted in leachate at many facilities. Results of the Department’s studies are available for download from the “Documents” section below.

The source of higher-than-background levels found in landfill leachate samples was presumed to originate from the improper disposal of self-luminescent exit signs found in construction/demolition (C/D) waste and other solid waste streams. There are no other known sources of tritium in industrial or consumer products that would cause elevated levels of tritium in landfill leachate. Thus, it is apparent that tritium exit signs, which when new may contain up to 25 curies, or 25,000,000,000,000 picocuries (pCi) of tritium, are entering landfills via municipal or residual waste streams. A single tritium emergency exit sign has the potential to cause the tritium levels observed.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/brp/radiation_control_division/tritium.htm

For reference, the Vermont Yankee tritium leak had a total leakage of 0.35 curies. So a single, new, tritium exit sign has 70 Vermont Yankee nuclear accident leaks inside.

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Improperly disposed of smoke alarms containing americium are also a source of radiation in land fills (rubbish tips). I wonder why there has been no publicity about that.

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Check out this thread on ocean thermal energy:

http://2greenenergy.com/ocean-thermal/20560/

Although, in theory, it would be possible to extract energy from oceans because of thermal gradients, the temperature differences are too small for doing so to be practical. I wonder whether the people at Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation are naïve or dishonest.

It is interesting to examine the various posts at the 2greenenergy.com website. Perhaps people here would like to post comments on it.

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Frank R. Eggers, on 25 February 2012 at 7:44 AM said:

Improperly disposed of smoke alarms containing americium are also a source of radiation in land fills (rubbish tips). I wonder why there has been no publicity about that.

The local authority…at least in the US, would end up with the ‘cleanup’ costs.

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FRE I think the rule is no more than 10 discarded smoke alarms per garbage truckload. With mercury in discarded CFL bulbs the US EPA claims there is a net Hg reduction compared to burning more coal to power incandescent bulbs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Think of a truckload of appliance waste garbage containing a few micrograms of Am241 maybe half a gram of Hg80. The bulldozer then squishes it then the rain percolates it down to the creek and into the reservoir. Don’t want to sound alarmist though.

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The Hg doesn’t alarm me. When I was a kid, we had a jug of Hg and did various experiments with it. Sometimes you could even see the Hg vapor rising when we did electrical experiments. That wasn’t a good idea, but at that time, the risks of Hg were less well understood.

There was at least one power plant built that used Hg for the first stage. The idea was that by taking advantage of the ability to operate an Hg boiler and Hg turbine at a higher temperature, efficiency could be increased. After passing through the Hg turbine, the lower temperature / pressure Hg was used to boil water for a steam turbine and the condensed Hg was pumped back into the Hg boiler. There was an accident in which Hg vapor was released and at least one employee overcome by Hg vapor, but he recovered.

The concern with power plant emissions of Hg is probably valid, but I think we’ve become too obsessed with trivial amounts of Hg. And, the amount in CFLs, and probably traditional fluorescent tubes also, is tiny, especially compared with the reduction in power plant emissions achieved by reducing power requirements.

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Noting that Hobart is 1,000km closer than Sydney to the South Pole but is also 12C hotter today I think we’re in for a bumpy ride. My suspicion is that we will get both El Nino and $150 oil in the next two years. That should make the public take low carbon seriously.

However since politicians seem to live on a different planet I expect our carbon abatement efforts will be rolled back. Just look at this weekend’s Murdoch press and it’s not hard to see things getting hysterical in the next few months.

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Andrew Orlowski, author of the shale-oil piece above, links to another interesting article on the VERY REAL money going into algae-fuels now:

After years of watching synthetic hydrocarbons with suspicion, Exxon has put substantial funding behind Venter to the tune of $600m. Venter doesn’t see a return within 10 years, but it has obvious appeal to those still concerned with climate change, and who realise it’s a low priority for BRIC countries (including China and India) that are determined to industrialise as quickly as possible. Venter’s renewable oil kills two birds with one stone: removing CO2 and creating a low-carbon renewable alternative to excavating the stuff.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/22/synthetic_hydrocarbons/

But, unlike GenIV reactors where we’re hopefully watching *known* physics get commercialised, this algae proposal seems to assume huge breakthroughs in *unknown* genetic advances. And to me that seems to contain all sorts of unknown unknowns.

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EN the author seems not to understand declining net energy which is why oil with EROEI of 30 will not be fully replaced by tar sands, ethanol, hydrogenated synfuel and so on. I’ll believe algae fuel will scale up when we see it at the bowser. My feeling is that natural gas vehicles will become popular as they are in Iran, Pakistan, Argentina and so on. If transport fuel demand surges that will price gas too high for baseload generation.

Since it’s 40C where I live in SW Tas I’ve retreated to an 18C underground bunker which is online thanks to 25m of LAN cable. Long term cheaper than aircon.

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Hi John,
I’m with you 100% on the algae! If we *did* somehow crack that enigma, I’m not sure if the net benefit would offset the cost of enabling the continuation of suburban sprawl. Sprawl is so bad on so many levels that I’m almost relieved peak oil is on the horizon.

EN the author seems not to understand declining net energy which is why oil with EROEI of 30 will not be fully replaced by tar sands, ethanol, hydrogenated synfuel and so on.

Maybe, but what’s the *real* difference of an ERoEI of 30 compared to 15 or even 10? Surely that is covered by today’s high oil prices?

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The only rational choice of converting atmospheric CO2 to fuel is photosynthesis as it uses free solar or atmospheric energy. Any other input involves putting more energy than the energy of the fuel. Biomass could be taken as the feed-stock for carbon in synthetic fuel.
There is an urgent need to start using the greenhouse effect as just that and to use atmospheric CO2 and temperatures for growing more biomass as food and fuel.

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EN if the available net energy is ((E – 1) X input energy) then we will need more input to maintain the net yield as E declines. The problems being crowding out of other parts of the economy and physical constraints. Thus more biofuel could mean less food. Oil or near substitutes could be deeper, harder to find, harder to refine, create too much CO2 or simply run out in key regions like Australia.

Whatever major energy sources we use will probably need an EROEI of 8 or more as tabulated here
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8625
I’d question some entries; for example wind cannot make cement and steel to build new wind towers, PV is too intermittent to be practical and they seem to presume every NPP has to be totally decommissioned.

I see no way the world can keep consuming the current 85 million barrels (1bbl =159L) a day of finished fuel precursors. I’ve seen estimates of global liquid fuels supply like 65 mbpd by 2030 but that will be less net energy per barrel if it means more fuels like ethanol. If decline estimates are correct I’d say we’re screwed. Where I live the bus to the city is once a week. Everything you can think of (eg battery cars) has major problems.

However I have a suggestion to make it less worse. Run a lot of transport requiring onboard fuel with natural gas and generate most baseload electricity with nuclear.

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For fuel in Australia, you have to think coal or uranium only. Biofuel is for neighboring Indonesia. Any extra biomass you can produce in Australia should be for food or higher value items.
Peak oil is one thing the world has to get ready for. You can use bio-mass/coal/municipal trash as carbon sources. CO2 need too much energy.

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John Newlands, on 25 February 2012 at 10:08 PM said:

However I have a suggestion to make it less worse. Run a lot of transport requiring onboard fuel with natural gas and generate most baseload electricity with nuclear.

Concur…converting a ‘natural gas’ vehicle fleet to a ‘hydrogen’ vehicle fleet isn’t all that difficult. The existence of a ‘natural gas’ vehicle fleet solves the ‘chicken and egg’ problem of changing transport fuels. I.E. Nobody will create a ‘new vehicle fuel’ distribution system if there are no ‘new vehicle fuel vehicles’ and nobody will buy a ‘new vehicle fuel vehicle’ without a substantial fuel delivery infrastructure.

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Methane at 40 MJ thermal per kg is a rich fuel, is non toxic, has an existing distribution grid, can be made multiple ways and blended. Shame about the GW potential which means we have to be diligent about leakage. By not converting NG to methanol or Fischer Tropsch fuel we save a lot of the starting energy of the gas.

Since there are so few compressed natural gas pumps at service stations I think CNG bifuel vehicles are the way to go. Example. The number of CNG pumps can build up as petrol or diesel get dearer. I think petrol in Australia will exceed $2/L (as in Europe) in just a few years but our far sighted politicians are likely to cut the fuel tax first.

Of the 20 Mt of natural and coal seam gas Australia uses each year I’m not sure how much is used in baseload generation but changing to nuclear could free up a lot of gas for transport. Adelaide for example has a 1.28 GW steam cycle only gas fired plant. Replace that with a nuke and use the gas to help long distance commuters like some of my friends and relatives. Some could be looking at over $100 per week in commuting fuel costs.

BTW I’ve been driving on 80% biodiesel since 2005 and I can see it is a very limited niche.

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The problem is how to encourage people to use electrified (or high-efficiency ICE/hybrid) public transport and EVs in the cities and suburbs but save the fossil- or bio-fuels for long-range personal transport. Do we use a carbon tax on those fuels with a rebate for rural users? A heavy urban congestion charge with lesser concessions for EVs?

As for CNG, I would think that a fuel like DME might be easier to use – requires minimal modifications to burn in diesel engines, only requires a light pressure vessel to store it as a liquid compared to LNG or CNG.

The big problem with biofuels from my perspective is that the only good way that they can be used is with waste-to-energy techniques like landfill gas, bagasse (from sugar cane processing) and things like biodiesel from used cooking oil. Once you use up those sources they start encroaching upon agriculture.

Synfuels are better from a production perspective, but the question is how much we want to use them if they are using coal or natural gas as the feedstock. If we are making substantial emissions cuts in the transport sector by electrifying it to a reasonable extent then it might be worth it.

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Hi Will,
if the early peak oil barrel-counters are right, we simply will not need a carbon tax or legislative agenda to reduce oil use. There just won’t be enough. The Pentagon predicts world production will be down 10mbd or 1/8th by 2015!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply

Instead of wondering how we’re going to reduce driving, start to wonder how we’re going to have *enough* of an economy and liquid fuels surplus to both maintain the society we live in *and* build out the next generation of electric transport systems and nuclear power. I’m just amazed that we are not already 5 years into a crash program of weaning off oil! The ABC screened a number of peak oil specials on their science flagship Catalyst, and the first was way back in 2005. What do Australian’s watch? Big Brother?

Some days I’m more optimistic than others. Today is not one of those days.

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LNG does not require a hefty pressure vessel. Just real good insulation (which doesn’t weigh that much, especially if using the best type of insulation, aerogels). LNG also has more energy per volume, more natural gas molecules can be crammed in per liter of storage. In my opinion, LNG is the fuel of choice for long distance transport – ships and planes.

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Notwithstanding what happened to the shark in ‘Jaws’ modern steel scuba tanks are rated to 232 bar. CNG tanks will be rated at 220 bar and can be made of aluminum, steel or fibreglass. I presume as with 15 var LPG (propane/butane) tanks any rupture is meant to direct away from the vehicle cabin in the event of an accident. Adsorbed natural gas ANG doesn’t give heavier vehicles a range of hundreds of kilometres which is what we are trying to achieve. Since LNG requires cryogenic facilities the intention seems to be that trucks that use it will return to base not fill up on the highway.

I haven’t been able to find a comparison table of EROEI for methane, methanol and dimethyl ether. However according to some sources the world already has 11 million natural gas vehicles. Factors that could instigate a sudden switch from diesel include not only a high oil price but removal of subsidies, in Australia worth about 18c per litre. It may well be that DME is a good diesel replacement but things could happen too fast for it to be considered.

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LNG may be suitable for ships and planes assuming that they are in constant use and enough LNG is continually withdrawn to keep the temperature down. However, it would not necessarily be practical for cars and trucks.

Sometimes cars are not used for days at a time. No insulation is perfect and if a car were not used for a few days, the LNG would begin to boil off.

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@ JN Just had a look at that preview for the SBS program on Fukushima (No problem with the sound btw) Looks good, doesn’t seem to be the usual anything nuclear therefore evil type of doco. Will certainly have a look next Sunday

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John Newlands,

Since LNG requires cryogenic facilities the intention seems to be that trucks that use it will return to base not fill up on the highway.

In the US anyway the number of fueling centers required to accommodate a significant portion of long hauls trucks would be relatively small. For a relatively large trucking firm it’s easy enough to restrict ‘alternative fuel’ tractor-trailers to route X.

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Yes, CNG makes more sense for cars and trucks, though LNG is certainly practical enough, with modern insulation materials, boiloff is very low.

LNG is pretty much the only option for aircraft; they can’t use massive pressure vessels for weight limitations. Ships could, but they typically need much bigger fuel resevoirs and pressure vessels become much more difficult (expensive, heavy) to make in larger sizes. By contrast, a larger size is great for thermal stores (including cold stores): less surface to volume means lower thermal losses.

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LFTR factories

Jim, I can find no mention of a factory to make salt for LFTR but let’s think about it a little.

The fluid fuel in LFT, flibe = 2LIF-BeF2) contains fluorine, lithium, beryllium, a fission isotope, and a fertle isotope. Of course the lithium 7 will be separated from the normal lithium 6 in a factory but what about the rest of the fuel?

Beryllium is really poisonous! There is a picture of the original Oak Ridge staff making the carrier salt. They are in full body suits with breathers! I don’t think you want to ship beryllium to each reactor site and include the equipment at each reactor site to mix in beryllium. It is much cheaper and safer to handle and ship the salt from one specially equipped factory. There will be tons of this stuff for each reactor.

Fluorine is really poisonous! Isn’t this the stuff that eats glass? I suppose the fluorine might be shipped to the reactor as a gas but I would guess that the enriched uranium would be delivered as uranium fluoride directly from the enrichment factory. I think starting the first LFTRs on enriched uranium is more likely than using reprocessed (in a factory) spent fuel.

Two factories, both with approved processes and safety practices, are needed: one for the salt preparation and one for the U235 preparation.

It is interesting to think about what needs to be delivered to the LFTR plant on an on going basis. Thorium, of course, but is it in metallic or oxide or fluoride form? The amount of lithium, fluorine, and beryllium would not change much but small adjustments might be necessary. Some chemical engineer will need to balance site cost, safety, and transportation needs to decide what equipment and what size equipment each reactor needs to process incoming materials.

I can find no Oak Ridge document about which chemical processes would be done in a centralized factory and which would be done at every LFTR site. If someone could point me to such an article, I would appreciate it.

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Thanks Luke. The Chernobyl woman’s tale is sadly all-telling: she talkes about headaches, interestingly this isn’t associated with ionizing radiation at all. It is very clearly associated with stress. She talkes about fear of dying all the time, yet 25 years after Chernobyl she should have contracted cancer already if it were from ionizing radiation.

I fear we have not learned a very important lesson of Chernobyl: stress kills. Evacuation causes massive stress, media and Greenpeace scaremongering causes stress. History has repeated itself with Fukushima: the stress and general loss of livelihood will kill many.

Personally I don’t understand why the 13 million residents of Tokyo are not living in great anxiety. The pollution levels there, especially particulate matter, are a massive source of cancer (lung cancer). The entire city should have been evacuated a hundred times already (based on the Fukushima 20 mSv risk criterion).

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I just received this which I believe some my find to be an interesting and useful resource worth bookmarking. The email is self explanatory

Peter,

I’m not sure if this is of any use to you: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/capacity/xls/existing_gen_units_2010.xls

It’s the existing data for all US Power generators, and it’s a large XL spreadsheet of around 6.5MB, so I’ll just send you the link for it, if you wish to download it.

It shows plants, not as a whole, but as individual generators at each site

What interested me most was with all this talk of Solar Power, the largest Solar generator in operation is only 75MW. There are a couple of larger plants, but they also include on site Natural Gas backup.

While there are in fact 185 separate generators, nearly all of them are tiny.

As it is, Solar Power is barely managing 0.04% of Demand.

When the chart does show, at the bottom are the tabs for each generating source.

It lists all 109 Nuclear reactors and what is interesting here is the size of the generators they are driving.

Looking at the solar plants, what I’d also like to know is their annual MWh output, winter MWh, minimum MWh for 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 , 60, 90 days, and the Capital, Fixed O&M, Variable O&M and any other costs. Also what are their water requirements?

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It’s true that beryllium, fluorine, and soluble fluorides are toxic and require contained chemical handling. This however is routinely done with much larger industrial flows such as chlorine production. We currently produce enough chlorine to kill everyone in the world every day with chlorine to spare. This is the anti-nuke argument applied to fission products and plutonium. The fact though is that we know how to safely handle these chemicals and isotopes so it isn’t a big engineering issue. The amount of fluoride salt to start a LFTR is only about one truckload to power a medium sized city, so this isn’t a large material flow and can be handled with great care, in fact laboratory class care, unlike fossil fuel wastes such as bottom ash from coal plants (not to mention CO2, nox, sox heavy metal particles that are not “handled” in any other way than dumping them directly in the environment).

Beryllium is used today in specialized metallurgical applications. To make it, beryllium ores (such as beryl and chrysoberyl) are fluorinated, making beryllium fluoride. The beryllium fluoride is then reduced with magnesium or other active metal, leaving beryllium as the reduced metal. We simply skip that last step and keep the beryllium fluoride as-is for use as fuel solvent.

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Cyril, thanks for the info on the chemicals in flibe. I would like to be able to picture the deliveries to a new LFTR plant and by extension the equipment needed at the LFTR plant. I will imagine and hope you can bring the picture into better focus
.
One shipment to the plant will be beryllium fluoride probably in barrels of solid white crystals.
A second shipment would be lithium7 fluoride directly from the isotopic separation factory (a centrifuge) probably in barrels of solid white crystals.
A third shipment would be the enriched uranium, UF4, directly from the isotopic separation factory as green crystals.
A fourth shipment would be the thorium. Since the other ingredients are crystal fluorides, it would be convenient to receive barrels of white thorium fluoride, ThF4, also.

Now, the plant needs a barrel dumper, a melter, a mixer, and some way to guarantee the purity of the new mix. OK, in my imagination the chemical side of LFTR is coming into view from the semi unloading dock through a small (as compared to an oil refinery) chemical plant.

Of course, with each better view come new questions. I imagine the LFTR plant will need to have enough equipment to clean it’s radioactive salt in case it is contaminated with oil or something but it may be cheaper to have separate equipment to melt, mix, and purify the initial very low radioactive components. Perhaps it would be cheaper to have one factory to melt, mix, and purify the four ingredients into two mixes; 2LiF-BeF2-UF4 and 2LiF-BeF2-ThF4. Now the LFTR plant would receive two kinds of barrels; one with light green crystals and the other with white crystals. Dump the white stuff into the thorium blanket side and the green stuff into the reactor side.

Assertion: A flibe factory is needed because the flibe factory can produce flibe without needing expensive radioactive shielding.

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We haven’t come to a consensus as to what the online processor would be. Some want to get started with converter LFTRs, called DMSRs, with a focus on early production, that means no online fuel processing. Dr. David Leblanc is working mostly on this. Others want extremely fast and complete processing to take advantage of the liquid fuel processing ease. Oak Ridge worked on this in the molten salt breeder reactor (MSBR). There’s anything between those extremes, too. The French are considering a faster spectrum and very slow processing (years turnover).

In the minimal processing case, there will still be some fission product and chemical processing required, because some of the noble stuff such as noble metals and noble gasses come out of themselves and need a storage place where they can deposit short term activity before they are removed to offsite locations. There must also be a small hydrofluorinator, this removes corrosion products and such.

There is really too much to tell and I don’t have time. I must refer you to the library where many documents are kept on MSBR development, including documents with fuel salt inventory specifics.

http://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/

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I’ve just come across a little known organisation called the Energy Security Council
http://www.energysecuritycouncil.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=charter/default.htm#purpose
From various news items it appears its likely role is to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of soft financing to coal generators whose loans may be called in by the banks. It seems the banks may be worried that carbon tax will make the electricity business less profitable.

I would liken this to smuggling pizza into a weight loss club. The cheap refinancing helps prolong the use of coal. Carbon pricing has been publicly discussed for a decade so you’d think it would have long been factored in to financing arrangements. Thus Friends of the Earth will be justified if they say below-market interest rates are yet another fossil fuel subsidy.

A specific problem case I predict will be the proposal to build a 1 GW combined cycle plant in Victoria. Even if a major government handout reduces the financing costs gas will have dried up in Victoria long before the end of the plant’s 30 year lifespan.

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Peter Lang, you may be interested in a very fresh study by the Oak Ridge National Lab in the US – I read the cheat notes in the form of a NY Times blog entry which noted the study ” found locations for 515 gigawatts’ worth of new nuclear plants — nearly five times what exists now — based on considerations like the availability of cooling water and relatively low population density.” … and
“potential locations for solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to make steam and then electricity, are far more limited; if the plants are cooled by water, there is space for only about 18 gigawatts, the study said. If the plants are cooled by air, which reduces their efficiency, there would be space for 60 gigawatts, the authors found.”

Seems to be at the heart of your questioning on the EIA data – the full study is referenced in the NY Times entry at http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/location-location-location-700-million-times/

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This is an interesting perspective on the future of oil and gas.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/peak-oil-shale-gas-fracking-energy-nuclear-budget-pd20120229-RWR7C?opendocument&src=idp&utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=17865&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=commentary

If we don’t change our approach from demanding nuclear be high cost (i.e. uneconomic), we will continue to use more and more fossil fuels, the development of nuclear will be slow, its roll out will be slow, the rate of improvement will be slow – so the rate of improving its safety will also be slow.

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If the Australian population are not convinced they’re getting the state of the art ‘new nukes’ like the super-safe AP1000 with passive safety built in, the roll out of nukes will be… non existent. Better to have *some* nukes than none.

So what if the AP1000 costs a little bit more? A carbon tax can fund it.

It’s about what the Australian people will expect. From previous conversations here I don’t think the AP1000 will be prohibitively expensive. We can always buy them from China who seem to be able to make them cheap. They’re planning on over 100 by 2020. I say we just buy some of that action: it’ll be cheap enough.

The LAST thing my work colleagues (in a major communications industry) want to hear is … “We’re cutting safety to make them cheaper!”

Anyway, confusing fracking for liquid fuels with nuclear electricity is… well, beside the point. The nuclear conversation is mainly about shutting down coal fired power stations, not replacing the liquid fuel market. That’s a ‘whole nuther’ conversation, as they say.

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I don’t see how any of the nuclear supporters “demand” that nuclear be high cost. Rather, it is good to realize that FOAK nuclear is typically more expensive in western countries, but still perfectly affordable. Olkiluoto EPR has had massive cost overruns and delays, yet the levelised cost, at about 8 cents per kWh, is pefectly in line with today’s market prices. It is not ultra cheap and you won’t make big profits, but perfectly affordable.

Moreover, a larger scale buildout – at the scale required to phase out coal for example – will be much cheaper due to nth of a kind economies and standardization economies. France is a good example of this. They put the engineers in charge rather than the lawyers and shareholders. The engineers chose three standards sizes – small, medium and large reactors. This worked beautifully. In the other countries such as the US where the lawyers and shareholders are in charge, very little happens.

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I was reading a sci-pop book and found a reference to a Hydridic Earth theory by Russian geologist V.N.Larin. The theory claims (supported by enough evidence for him be awarded a doctorate degree) that the Earth core is a mix of energy-rich metal hydrides. As in some places around the globe (Iceland, USA, Israel) these come relatively close to the surface ~4-5km, drilling a well and using water to cause a release of hydrogen seems to be a feasible source of energy. The estimated volume (the Earth core) is more that any other source of energy. After a brief googling for Larin’s theory, I found this article http://energy-rich hydrides and lots more. If that is the case then nuclear becomes a secondary energy source. This published in HAIT Journal of Science and Engineering article discusses this hydrogen energy source in more scientific language http://www.magniel.com/jse/B/vol0201B/vg040720.pdf

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CyrlR

I don’t see how any of the nuclear supporters “demand” that nuclear be high cost. Rather, it is good to realize that FOAK nuclear is typically more expensive in western countries, but still perfectly affordable.

Nuclear is high cost and high financial risk for investors because of nuclear phobia and the effects it has on making excessive regulations on the industry over a period of 50 years. It is clearly not “affordable” or it would be being built instead of coal and gas for the past 50 years.

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CyrilR,

Further to my previous comment, have you considered why it is that the first ever large nuclear plant was built in 18 months (from breaking ground to going critical) and that was 67 years ago. But now, 67 years later it takes around 5 years (and up to 20 years for some). That demonstrates highly negative productivity improvement. Why has that occurred? Please no superficial answers. I’d urge people to, look into this seriously and carefully. I can make superficial answers too, but how is that helpful?

The other point is that nuclear fuel is 20,000 more energy dense than coal in a Gen III reactor and much more in future generations. On that basism nuclear shoul,d be much cheaper than coal generation.

We can bypass these questiosn with superfical, “smart” answers, or we can seriously consider the questions.

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Peter Lang, on 1 March 2012 at 8:18 AM said:

have you considered why it is that the first ever large nuclear plant was built in 18 months (from breaking ground to going critical) and that was 67 years ago

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is 1,500 sq km. The ‘evacuation zone’ in the event of an accident was ‘pre-evacuated’.

If you went out to Idaho National Labs(I think Barry has) you might ask yourself if anyone would notice if the whole facility cooked off. One of the most ‘barren’ pieces of land I have ever seen. There is a national park nearby called ‘Craters of the Moon’…which is an appropriate name.

There is surely lot’s of money to be saved in nuclear power plant construction is you just designate a large tract of relatively barren land as a ‘nuclear reservation’ and don’t bother with multiple safety systems to prevent the piece of land from becoming a ‘nuclear waste dump’.

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Peter, the Hanford B reactor was 250 MWt. I’m pretty sure that is thermal because it did not have a turbine. Would you admit that it takes less time to make a reactor that does not make electricity and does not need to be connected to the grid?

I don’t see a containment building. Just to be sure, Peter, can you tell us if you are in favor a cement containment building?

The size is about 15 times smaller than an AP1000. Would you expect the size to slow down the construction?

The Hanford B reactor was water cooled. (Deleted unsubstantiated personal belief)
Do you really want to build commercial reactors moderated by graphite and water cooled with no containment. It sounds like your 18 month Hanford B reactor is a sister to the one in Chernobyl. If that OK with you, please say so.

I have seen your request to talk about how reactors can be made more cheaply. If you are really in favor of building reactors like Hanford B, please say so. I think you are hinting at other factors, but I don’t get the hints.
MODERATOR
Please re-post your unsubstantiated comment re contaminated water with a link/ref which shows it to be the case and not your belief.

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The point I made is we are talking about 67 years of negative productivity. The original Hanford B ran for 24 years and its power (thermal) was increased by a factor of nine during those years. http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5564.pdf

If we could do that 67 years ago, why can’t we build them economically now? My point is to open your minds and think about why nuclear is too expensive – which it clearly is.
(Deleted personal opinion of other’s motives.)

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Tell us all, was Hanford B built on a production line? ;-)

China’s putting AP1000’s up on the assembly line in a factory. No down times due to rain, etc. We’re talking about established safety routines, component lines of supply, inspection protocols, and on-site construction drills. We’re talking about EFFICIENCY in capital letters.

Any economist can predict the difference between singular construction models and mass production. Safety can be improved while costs plummet.

But this is completely hypothetical, as in debating how many angels can dance on a pinhead, while nuclear power remains illegal in this country due to public paranoia.

And the moment the public get a whiff of activists at BNC demanding ‘cheaper, LESS SAFE’ nuclear power, it’s game over. The paranoia will only increase.

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From the link, it looks as though the Hanford B reactor was not intended for power production and was of a completely different design from the reactors use for power production. Probably power production reactors are much more expensive than need be, but the experience with the Hanford B reactor seems unrelated.

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I went with a tour group to visit one of the Hanford 100-area reactors in the early 1950s. I don’t recall which but the F reactor was closest to the town of Hanford, so that seems more likely than the B reactor.

Subsequently I learned that the first six were all just for plutonium production. There was no containment structure, just confinement with air filtering. And in other ways the 100-area reactors would no be considered adequately safe today. All have subsequently been enclosed in containment concrete, but this doesn’t work as well as might be hoped [being subsequent to the original construction]. Clean up work at Hanford continues and may actually be ‘complete’ by 2065 CE.

All told, not a suitable precedent or anaalogy for civilian power production.

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I’ll try to present my message a different way.

Please follow me through for a moment while I present this.

First, I recognise there are a number of key hurdles to getting nuclear to be acceptable and suitable for rollout at the scale and plant size required to allow it to be suitable for electricity generation at all scales, particularly in the developing countries which are where most of the increase in electricity demand will be for decades ahead. Some of those huyrdles are:

1. public acceptance in the wealthy countries, which in my opinion is largely due to nuclear phobia

2. cost

3. construction duration – which creates financial risk for investors

4. plant size

Hurdle #1 on the above list is causing the higher cost and longer construction duration. It is also causing higher O&M costs. It is also causing slower roll out so we have not gone through the development and improvement cycles and the making of small size plants that we would have if we had not been prevented from doing so by #1.

Therefore, I conclude #1 is the main cause of nuclear being uneconomic.

But we’ve spent 50 years trying to argue that the anti-nukes have it wrong. And all that time we’ve kept accepting more and more regulations and impediments that increase the cost of nuclear. Yet in all that time, nuclear has proven to be the safest by far of the electricity generation technologies that are fit for purpose.

So I urge a different approach. Take a clean sheet of paper. Let’s just make the assumption for the moment that the public had never been opposed to nuclear and had been perfectly rational in its choice between nuclear and fossil fuels for the past 50 years (based on health, risk and cost). Then consider, and try to answer with an open mind, the following questions:

1. What would nuclear power plants be like now?

2. What sizes would be commercially available?

3. How widely would they have been deployed?

4. What would they cost compared with fossil fuels?

If we conclude that a rational public would have chosen nuclear over fossil fuels (even ignoring the CO2 emissions arguments), then clearly nuclear plants would be much cheaper than they are.

Furthermore, this demonstrates, IMO, that nuclear can and should be much cheaper than it is, and would be available in sizes to suit most requirements.

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By the way, just to address one possible diversion here before it comes up, I’ve stated many times before we cannot change the designs of the existing plants. They take too long to design and develop. So Gen III+ is as it is.

However:

1. that does not prevent us from changing our approach to the development of Gen IV. In my opinion the main criteria should be cost of electricity for acceptable risk, where acceptable risk means equivalent to what we accept now for other technologies and demonstration that the path to greater safety in the future will be at least as fast as the alternatives.

2. We can do a great deal to reduce the cost of Gen III+ without changing the design. That is because much of the cost is not due to the design. It is due to the regulatory environment and investor risk premium. That is why nuclear in Australia would cost more than twice what it cost in Korea.

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Peter, thanks for switching to the South Korean model instead of the Hanford model for Australia to emulate. One of the unique aspects of the South Korean approach has been the long and continuing dedication to designing their own reactor while at the same time building about one reactor a year.

So my first ideal would be for Australia to commit to a fleet of reactors built one at a time. Perhaps the new governmental agency would select a model, license the model, and sign a contract to purchase five or so reactors. The local utility would then bid to get one of the pre-approved reactors and handle the site specific licenses. The federal agency would maintain a rule something like “you can’t start one until the one under construction reaches point x”.

The South Korean model includes “we want to design and manufacture all the parts of our reactor”. Australia needs a different driver. “We want to build the most cost efficient fleet of reactors in the world.”

It would appear that Small Modular Reactors (SMR) would be a good fit due to the quicker build/cycle time. There are now 20 to 30 efforts underway to design small reactors. They will all have designs that work on paper but most will fail because they will not be able to build the first reactor. These companies would kill for a contract for x reactors to be built end-to-end. So the wise buyer would select the company with care and nurture that company. At the same time, the buyer would get a great deal.

Of course, a first step would be to make nuclear legal in Australia.

Just for the record, the fact that I am in favor of a containment building does not make me in favor of burning coal. I think burning coal is really bad for my grandchildren.

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PS: Factory construction and mass production also helps reduce the time factor between ordering an AP1000 and having it delivered, and snapped together, on site. This will reduce the waiting period between paying for the nuke and income finally trickling in.

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Indian 220MW PHWR is a small, cost-effective reactor already in production. It also uses un-enriched uranium fuel. It will take minimum time in starting power production and fuel fabrication in Australia.
I think it may be the suitable starting point for Australia, once the nuclear power is legal. The manpower trained on this reactor could help in further consideration.

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Hanford B was a weapons production reactor. That means smaller than power reactors, low pressure, no turbine, no generator, no fullpressure containment. And it was an inherently unsafe reactor, with strong positive void coefficients – Chernobyl type. The lack of safety, lack of power generating and pressure equipment, and general poor radionuclide management policy (Hanford is now the biggest radioactive mess in the USA) made this a very cheap reactor.

And if you think safety is expensive, try an accident.

And like other commenters have mentioned, it is silly to assert that nuclear should be cheaper than coal and so should be taking over their markets, because nuclear is either not allowed or discouraged through mazes of bureaucracies and anti-nuclear interests (mostly fossil lobbies that realize nuclear is a threat whereas wind and solar are toys that do not threaten their business). This isn’t about costs, it is about politics. Coal is cheap because of free dumping of wastes in the soil, water and air, and due to slave labor camps in low wage countries that mine the coal with great disregard for human and ecological life. When nuclear plants store the spent fuel responsibly and isolate it from the environment in simple casks, people call that a waste problem. When coal plants do the same, by filtering out their heavy metals, and storing it responsibly, people call it a solution. Strange – the toxic heavy metals will still be around a billion years from now whereas fission products are only hazardous for a couple centuries (and longer lived actinides can be recycled).

Here is Rod Adams’ take on the matter:

http://atomicinsights.com/2012/02/hydrocarbon-marketers-have-motive-to-oppose-nuclear-energy-growth.html

The biggest problem with nuclear is not cost, since modern responsible nuclear power is only marginally more expensive than coal plants that can’t contain their waste for 10 seconds.

The biggest problem with nuclear is that it is the most misunderstood technology of all times.

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Peter Lang, on 1 March 2012 at 2:29 PM said:

If we could do that 67 years ago, why can’t we build them economically now?

I don’t know that the comparative economics is different. A lot of the design and construction costs of generation III reactors appears to me to be related to the 60 year design lifetime and the accommodation of post construction non-destructive inspect-ability.

There is very little information related to how much money was spent by nuclear operators in order to upgrade their plants/procedures to achieve the current level’s of ‘availability time’.

The ‘average’ refueling outage in the US in 1990 was 104 days. In 2006 it was 39 days.
http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/fuelrefuelingoutages

A quote from an AP1000 licensing document
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/12/30/2011-33266/ap1000-design-certification-amendment#p-277
The QuickLoc mechanism allows the removal of the RPV closure head without removal of in-core and core exit instrumentation and, thus, decreases refueling outage time and overall occupational exposure

Without a full accounting for total life cycle costs it’s hard to compare how much of the AP1000 costs are for ‘excessive safety’ requirements and how much is for the longer lifetime and reduced operating costs.

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Quote: “China’s putting AP1000′s up on the assembly line in a factory.”

But what about the pressure vessel? Can that actualy be made on an assembly line? And what about the hugh concrete containment structure?

One of the attractions of the LFTR is that it could be produced in a factory on a production line. It operates at atmospheric pressure, so it does not need a pressure vessel. And also because of that, the concrete containment structure can be much smaller.

Although there is no guarantee that the LFTR is the way to go, it looks very promising and in my opinion, considerable resources should be devoted to preparing it for production.

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Yes pressure vessels for PWRs can be made on assembly lines. In fact they are made in special forges. Ditto for the steam generator shells (which are pressure vessels themselves).

BWRs are more difficult because they are much larger (especially taller than PWR vessels). I’m not actually sure what they do, perhaps they weld the cilinder tube sheets in place. The bottom and head is usually made out of one piece using an automated, giant, scary forging hammer.

LFTRs don’t need a pressure vessel. But they do operate at high temperature which means more thickness. And they need to withstand earthquakes, and seismic stresses from terrorist attack, so they must be thick enough for that reason as well. The earthquake criterion will dominate for a non pressurized vessel. So you want to have more than an inch at least, maybe 2 for larger vessels, despite the low pressure.

Containment structures are made using different techniques. Some concrete containments are slip-formed, where a hydraulically supported scaffolding-form continually pours the containment up, pulling itself up as it goes. The Canadians are good at this with their CANDU concrete containments. Metal containments like the AP1000 are welded in place, just like large oil storage tanks are. Newer AP1000s in the USA use steel plate concrete construction methods for the outer shield building enveloping the metal containment. These are made up of factory produced modular steel form elements, put in place like giant Lego blocks, then concrete is poured in them. This avoids the on-site laborious work of weaving and working the rebar. In stead the steel pour form is the rebar.

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Cyril, thanks for the info in different concrete containment methods. I have been trying to think through the AP1000 stay-in-place steel forms and what slips up as the containment is built. I would guess that instead of the forms slipping up only the work scaffolding would slip up. Assuming the scaffolding is needed for vibrators to get air out and inspections. Right?

Have the stay-in-place forms for the containment been used in Japan? Does it reduce onsite construction labor a lot?

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AP1000. I’m afraid a sort of mythology is developing around construction of the AP1000s that is not constructive at all.

Modularity only means the building of larger sections of the plant offiste rather than one piece at a time. It does NOT mean “factory production”.

It means that some layering of components can be put together in factories. It means that much can built … next to the reactor itself… and then loaded into place.

According the Westinghouse, there are about 235 distinct ‘modules’ that compose the AP1000 but this doesn’t mean they built 1000s of miles away and trucked or barged in. It means they can put in a room, next to the reactor site, put in all the stuff that goes into the room in that room or compartment, and then put it into place.

It is a LOT cheaper than convention non-modular forms of construction but it’s not a panacea. It’s cheaper, but not THAT much cheaper.

What it allows for is a much better *scheduling* of the build, it makes planning more humanly doable, and it cuts down costs.

Because of this one can repeat the way the modules are built on a more or less consistent manner that allows for small incremental improvements to accumulate to some big savings and of course *keep to budget* as component modules, for example [say, a pump AND it’s associated vales AND it’s first set of suction and discharge lines AND it’s controls AND have it all in place on concrete or steel beam support ready to go] can be assembled off site under some factory like conditions.

The Chinese are doing the learning curve on this for the rest of the world vis-a-vis their CAP1400 with Westinghouse/Shawgroup bringing the FOAK lessons on this out to he rest of the world.

David

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David, I agree with your assertion that an AP1000 is not built in a factory but think your description should include the difference between a module and a submodule. A module is assembled on site of submodules. The submodules are often made in a factory about a 1000 miles from plant Vogle. Shaw has a factory just north of New Orleans that makes submodules which are then shipped to Georgia or South Caroline. Shaw is very proud of its large pipe bending capability in its factory. There is also at least one submodule factory in China.

Is the AP1000 factory built? No. Is the AP1000 built onsite. No. It is some of each. Does anyone know if the South Koreans also make submodules that will be shipped to the UAE?

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A Circulating Water Pump story.

GE builds large 4160v Circulating Water Pumps (CWPs: used to pump cooling water through a turbine’s condenser).

These are built in factories, many in the United States. But there really are no assembly lines, per say. They are built in large factory floors on a stationary work pallet. The armature machined one at a time, is hand finished and assembled. It is placed in a machine where the coils, wires, are carefully interwoven around the motor’s armature.

The casing is hand built around the motor-armature/shaft and carefully checked. Circuitry is checked.

The pump itself is built in another factory, often near a forge where the steel forging can be machined to extremely close tolerances. The pump blading, two blades that look like an outboard motor propeller, hand polished and inspected as is the inside of the pump casing. The bearings and seals are hand placed into the top and bottom of the pump casing where the pump shaft, with the blades at one end, and coupling for the motor at the other, sits. Inserted, again by hand, this can be a days long process.

There is a tremendous of amount of hand labor in these very factory built pumps (pumps and motors are shipped separately and joined on site) that can pump out 160,000 gallons per minute.

I relate this to you to give you a very truncated, but accurate view, about factory built machines of this size. It’ still very slow and while components to the larger components can be ‘automated’ we are not talking about building microwave ovens or toasters.

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Martin Burkle,

Peter, thanks for switching to the South Korean model instead of the Hanford model for Australia to emulate.

You continue to misunderstand or misrepresent the point I made. I did not “switch”. I am trying to get those who are capable of doing so to think about what the cost of nuclear could and should be if we don’t confine our thinking to what we have now. Think about what could have been without the constraints of 50 years of anti-nuclear advocacy and the effect that has had on the designs and regulatory environment.

I am suggesting we break this down into two parts:

1. what can we do to get nuclear at a cost competitive with fossil fuels as soon as possible (i.e. with Gen II and III+), and

2. what can we do change the focus on Gen IV from excessive focus on safety to focus on cost as the primary focus

Dealing with the first of these, a Gen III nuclear plant like the Korean plant would cost around $173/MWh in Australia in the existing political and regulatory environment (EPRI ,2010, Table 10-13, p10-5
http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/Documents/AEGTC%202010.pdf)
We do not have any better cost estimates than that available. That cost is about five times the LRMC of the existing coal fired generation in Australia and more than twice the cost of new coal fired plants.

I suspect those figures are reasonable, even if we removed the ban on nuclear. There are many fundamental problems with our regulatory environment, labour productivity, labour rates, risk of public disruption to construction and operation, risk of labour disputes and cost increases (as demonstrated by the Victorian desalination plants and many other constructions in Australia) and all this would be much worse for a nuclear plant given our existing political, academic, public perception and regulatory environment.

There are issue we need to address and we won’t get anywhere by ignoring them or trying to avoid talking about them.

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Cyril R

Hanford B was a weapons production reactor.

Yes, CyrilR. We recognise that. But you continue to miss the point. It was built 67 years ago in 18 months. That is the point. I am not advocating that design for a modern nuclear plant. Could I urge you to try to understand the point I am making.

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Harrywr2

Without a full accounting for total life cycle costs it’s hard to compare how much of the AP1000 costs are for ‘excessive safety’ requirements and how much is for the longer lifetime and reduced operating costs.

Barry Cohen gave an estimate back in the 1990’s that the cost of nuclear had blown out by a factor of four due to regulatory ratcheting. I suspect he is correct. In fact I suspect it is much worse than that given that nucelear fuel for LWRs is some 20,000 times more energy dense than coal.

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Former NSW premier Bob Carr will become Australia’s Foreign Minister. A couple of years back I recall Carr and unionist Paul Howes made some pro-nuclear statements. I note something in Carr’s blog
http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/tag/nuclear-power/

Energy Minister Martin Ferguson apparently keeps his job for now despite displeasing the boss. My impressions is that MF has warmed to nuclear after giving big dollars to geothermal with nothing to show for it.

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The passive safety design of Nuscale’s 45 MWe SMR means there is little extra expenditure simply for ultra-safety. Its small enough to actually be constructed in a factory and trucked to site. Nonetheless, the cost estimates remain at about US$4000/kW to build and install in the USA. That is less expensive than a Westinghouse AP1000 and about the same as the South Korean units; I opine those are the rock bottom prices outside of China (and maybe India).

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John Newlands — The current standard is a 24 month replenishment cycle. The so-called robotics is simply advanced replenishment machinery, not actually a new concept. The goal is probably to complete the operation in about 16 days; I see no difficulties.

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(Comment deleted. Violation of the Comments Policy)
MODERATOR
A statement on the Open Thread regarding the appointment of a new Foreign Minister who is pro-nuclear is regarded, by BNC, as a news item and not a politically partisan comment.

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DBB the same link says the Hyperion SMR has the whole core unit replaced every 8-10 years. I’ll see what the fuelling cycle is for other makes which may not be as close to certification as Nuscale. Every fuel delivery is chance for opponents to make trouble.

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CANDU or Indian PHWR have 220 GW versions which are good, cost effective SMRs. They can be further simplified as a BWR.
If we strengthen the outer drum to boiler standards, we can make the tubes as simple as the normal boiler fire tubes. The half-meter fuel bundles can be pushed in or out with existing design of fueling machines. This fuel will not need air but molten lead or salt to transfer heat to water outside. No pressure will be required and online refueling will be easier than existing machines.
These “Nuclear Boilers”.could be run on LEU like existing BWR’s. They could also be converted to high burn up Thorium-PuO2 CERMET fuel. They would be more compact than PHWR and as compact as BWR.

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