Powering up: If NRG Energy gets its way, there may be two more reactors operating at this Texas nuclear-power station by 2015. Last week, the company filed the first application for new nuclear reactors in the United States since 1978.
NRG Energy
NRG Energy kicks off an expected rush of nuclear-reactor applications.
Nuclear power hit an important milestone late last month as NRG Energy, based in Princeton, NJ, filed a licensing application to build a new nuclear reactor. It is the first such filing in the United States since 1978. There is good reason to anticipate more: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in Washington, DC, expects to receive four more applications this year to build and operate nuclear reactors, and another fifteen in 2008.
Nuclear-industry advocates say that NRG Energy's application and those in the pipeline show that a nuclear renaissance is under way. Many observers credit the Energy Policy Act of 2005. NRG Energy says that the law's loan guarantees and tax incentives could cover up to 80 percent of the cost of its $5.4 to $6.8 billion project. "The purpose of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was to help jump-start the revitalization of nuclear infrastructure, and that's what it's doing," says NRG Energy spokesman Dave Knox.
NRG Energy's application seeks permission to build two new reactors beside two existing reactors at the South Texas Project nuclear-power station, in Bay City, TX, adding 2,700 megawatts of capacity capable of powering about two million homes. NRG hopes to begin construction in 2010 and to be operating the reactors by 2015, assuming there are no significant regulatory or construction delays.
Concern over such delays means planners are favoring updated versions of tried-and-true reactor designs. NRG Energy and its partners say that concerns over the risk of licensing and construction delays drove their selection of a reactor design that NRC certified a decade ago: GE's advanced boiling-water reactor. Four of these types of plants are operating in Japan, and two more are under construction in Taiwan. "What was most important to us was having a very complete application that answers all the questions," says NRG Energy's Knox. "I just can't overemphasize the value of that proven design."
A majority of the 16 other utilities known to be preparing licensing applications for nuclear plants have opted for a similarly conservative approach. Six utilities plan to use a pressurized water reactor from Westinghouse, which NRC certified in 2006. Another six plan to use French nuclear-technology giant Areva's EPR, which is not yet certified by NRC but is under construction in France and Finland. A joint venture of Electricité de France and U.S. utility Constellation Energy plans to build the first EPR in the United States.
The utilities' risk-averse reasoning is well founded, says Ray Ganthner, senior VP for new plant deployment at Areva Nuclear Power, based in Lynchburg, VA, a subsidiary of Areva. He points to the experience of GE, which is experiencing delays with design certification for its economic simplified boiling water reactor, which uses passive water circulation to protect the reactor core. Such passive safety designs may be safer than current designs that rely on pumped cooling water, but they are as yet unproven. GE's design application has bogged down since the company filed in 2005, as NRC sought more engineering detail, asking for nearly 3,000 additional pieces of information. Design approval, once projected for 2007, is now slated for 2010.
Italian-Russian reactor could be the first to reach a major milestone.
Loan guarantees in the 2011 federal budget could help revive the nuclear power industry.
Better detection technologies and a global alliance could prevent an attack on a large city.
Nuclear power plant proliferation.
Problems of energy supply, suffered few years ago
by residents of west coast and middle belt, and
ENERGY, considered, a critical fulcrum of any modern economy, inevitably support government censored strategic proliferation of nuclear energy generating power plants, at the same time, pursuing and funding other known and available
energy options, without any compromise to quality
standard in structure and functionality operations and in absence of any politiking.
It could be a colossal mistake to dismiss the move outright as politically motivated, or at best, capitalistic.
While overview articles like 'Nuclear Energy Revs Up' have some value,there is little understanding among the general public of our various electric energy supplies and their pros and cons (safety, reliability, output) - - and in the abscence of understanding, the "gut" reaction is that nuclear is too dangerous to compare favorably with other sources.
Frankly, few among the press, politicians, and pundits on the topic have a strong grasp of the real, day-to-day world of nuclear, and how an accident might progress. I can safely say that, having both worked in nuclear plants over twenty years, and kept a close eye on the public discussion.
If readers would like an entertaining look at the real world on nuclear power in the US (both the good and the bad), I invite them to read my novel "Rad Decision". It is available online at no cost at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com and is also in paperback at online retailers. (I get no royalties.) You'll find many reader reviews in the homepage comments.
"I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read." - Stewart Brand.
Mr Brand is author of "Environmental Heresies" in the April, 2005 Technology Review, is the founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, and is also a National Book Award winner.
I hope that all those proponents of nuclear power are signing up to have the radioactive waste, which is the inevitable byproduct of the costly process, trucked into their back yards. That would solve at least one problem.
and will you sign up to have coal mine tailings and power-plant fly ash dumped in your back yard?
Well, your suggestion got me curious, so I went to a well-known anti-nuclear website (figuring they'd give me the worst possible scenario) and tried to figure out how much nuclear waste my personal electrical energy consumption generates.
Here's the website:
Nuclear Fuel Energy Balance Calculator
Then I went to this website to find out how much the average American uses in electricity each year. They said it was about 12,343 kilowatt-hours.
So I went to the calculator, down to the spot where it says "Electricity Production" and tried to type in 0.012343 GW*hr (12,343 kW*hr) and hit calculate. The calculator then told me that each year I would personally be responsible for 0.000041 metric tonnes of spent nuclear fuel. I did some simple math and arrived at the knowledge that my actions, as a semi-average American, resulted in the production of 41 grams of spent nuclear fuel each year.
Now, since I know that most spent nuclear fuel is uranium oxide, and that uranium oxide is fairly dense (~11 g/cc), I wondered a bit about how much volume 41 grams is. Turns out it's about 4 sugar cubes (each sugar cube is 1 cubic centimeter).
Well, I've got four people in my household, and let's assume that we all live to the goodly age of 75 years. In such a case I had better multiply these numbers by 300. Now I'm up to about 1200 sugar cubes.
Now, it's entirely possible that I've made some mathematical error, so I included all the websites and numbers so that you can check my work. But the idea that my family of four, over 75 years, will produce about 12 kilos of nuclear waste with a volume of about one liter is somewhat reassuring!
If I had to fit it in my basement I probably could.
Guest (CarlHitchon)
It's nice to see someone calculate instead of expound. Did you happen to calculate the equivalent quantity of C02, mercury and ash that would be produced using coal?
You should calculate how many people you could kill, in a "worst-case scenario", with 12 kilograms of high level radiotoxic waste.
I also hope your basement is well built. It will have to last several tens of thousand of years, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years, to last the life of the waste.
Imagine every basement having a package of nuclear waste. Imagine a terrorist stealing just one of these packages for use in a nasty dirty bomb.
Or imagine just one of the packages failing. Murphy's law dictates that if the n is big enough (lots of basements) and t is big enough (tens of thousands of years), things will go wrong.
Maybe you would also have your kids play American football with the package?
Well, I already have things in my garage that would kill everyone in my neighborhood in a "worst-case scenario". I store them on the top shelf and tell my kids not to mess with them. Their toxicity does not change with time, but the radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel decreases rapidly. I built a simulation to allow one to see just how quickly radioisotopes from a typical fission product distribution decay.
Again, returning to my fire analogy, nuclear energy is a marvelous tool just like fire. We learn how to use it safely and effectively and we will find that it is a great boon to the human race.
Do you have things in your garage that can kill tens of thousands of people? That's what a worst-case scenario would look like. Your garage must be a dangerous place indeed.
Nah, the radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel is several orders of magnitude more lethal than anything that could legally be allowed to have in your garage.
Depending on reactor design/after treatment of waste, it takes almost a thousand years for the waste to reach natural ore levels. Which can be seen as a fair enough goal. Still, not as good as solar thermal, which doesn't produce any radiotoxic materials. And a thousand years is still a long time. The US is three centuries old, to give an idea.
And again, turning to your analogy, it's strained. I already answered this with another analogy. We must first ask ourselves the question if we need nuclear fission in the first place. If we really can't do without. Not just as a nation, but as the world as well. There are too many liabilities for the future.
I am concerned about the climate. I will not play Russion Roulette with the world at large to try and save it. Nuclear power is great in theory, but in reality things like geopolitics have to be taken in account. And things like the highly subsidized tendency of nuclear power, which, as this announcement shows, is still there, even in the mature nuclear industry of the US.
Nuclear power had it's chance. It should by now have been producing power for one cent per kWh, without waste and with a safety level that asymptotically approaches 100%.
If the message isn't clear by now, then perhaps it's time for another energy department.
Thank you for the simulation. It is really very good. Do you have more under development? Do you do this instead of wasting your time sleeping like the rest of us? Is there some way I can learn about some of the features that are not obvious to me. Such as the two "peaking" bar graphs?
Thanks, Tom Arnberg
Imagine every basement having a package of nuclear waste. Imagine a terrorist stealing just one of these packages for use in a nasty dirty bomb.
I'm certainly not proposing storing each family's nuclear waste allotment in their basement--that was your idea. So if you don't like it don't suggest it.
But you had said that "truckloads" of waste would be delivered to someone's house as their share of nuclear waste. My calculations showed it was about 12 kilos and a liter of volume.
No, it's much better to keep the spent nuclear fuel in one place under protection. There just isn't that much of it. Nothing like coal.
First, it wasn't my idea. Someone else mentioned it. I don't suggest it. On the contrary, that's pretty clear by now isn't it? Second, I said "imagine". Does that imply that you are proposing it?
Point me to the part where I said "truckloads".
Of course the waste should be kept in one place.
Third, coal waste isn't much of a problem if you burn it in a DCFC. The sulphur is removed from the coal, and is very useful. You can make all sorts of useful things from sulphur, such as batteries. The ash is also separated. This can be turned into granulates as foundation for buildings, roads etc. You can't do that with nuclear waste. Well you can but it's not a good idea. Even after a thousand years, it's better if the nuclear waste is kept away from human proximity. It's only a small amount so this should be manageable. But then what will the world look like a thousand years from now?
And anyway, we won't have to be burning coal anymore when industrial bio-energy becomes available. Grey charcoal (de-torrified biomass) fed into DCFC's is the most efficient way to convert biomass into electricity. This also solves all the waste problems. Such an efficient bio-energy scheme could complement other renewable sources. We're already there. No need for more nukes. They just soak up tax money forever. Remember, we're on a limited budged here. Irak was (and still is) expensive. If we put all the billions in nukes (such as this goverment subsidy already does) then we can't invest those billions in anything else now can we? And nukes are like big babies. They never grow up, you have to look out for them, feed them, all the time.
There are also all the practical energy problems I've mentioned around here, which become apparent in a nuclear renaissance scenario.
Thank you kfsorensen. It is helpful to quantify what we are arguing about, occasionally. You probably know about Dr. Patrick Moore, early member of Greenpeace (and disputed "founding member") who has switched to the pronuclear side for environmental reasons. He said, “Another convert to nuclear energy is author Gwyneth Cravens, whose book, ‘Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy’, began as a pessimistic investigation into nuclear power’s dubious future and ended as an ode to the wonders of nuclear fission. Cravens, who says her book is ‘fundamentally about prejudice based on wrong information,’ spent 10 years reporting from national laboratories, uranium mines and nuclear waste sites. She claims, among other things: • Annual waste from a typical nuclear reactor could fit in the bed of a pickup truck and 50 years of waste from all the reactors in the country would fit in a single football field." [I think she meant the depth to be the height of one dry storage canister.]
phoenix: As a matter of fact, I heard a volunteer at the ICONE-12 conference (International Conference On Nuclear Engineering). He said he would like 5 canisters of used nuclear fuel. Two to bury beneath his driveway and three beneath his front sidewalk. He expects that his neighbors will soon volunteer when they are out shoveling snow and see him peeking out at them with a smug look on his face. (I don't know if he was serious, but it sounds cute.) If it catches on we may have snow and ice free freeways, roads and playgrounds. I expect this to raise a howl.
Add to the glowing, happy children
Now that India has the bomb, now that Pakistan has the bomb...does that mean we are no longer the superpower we used to be before the advent of the Nintendo Age?
And the nuclear industry hyperbole over and over again...we can make the reactors safer, we can handle the wastes, we won't make bombs! The India-Pakistan argument invalidates all argument and debate; instead our issue, like in the 50's, should be survival and bomb shelters.
Well I guess that is the price we have to pay for our Nintendoes and computers and security lights!
Re: Add to the glowing, happy children
You can't be serious. The spread of nuclear know-how is practically inevitable. It's not a good thing, but it is something that is going to happen. Nuclear energy offers many many more short term and long term benefits overall. The NRC needs to serious consider pyro-reprocessing, of both newly spent fuel and existing stores of waste. This would reduce our dependence on mined uranium drastically, and eliminate the thousands of tons of highly radioactive extremely long term waste. Denying the nuclear energy option is turning a blind eye to a very valuable resource.
As for the comparisons, look up total weapon stocks by country. I think the US and Russia are 'safely' on top of the pile.
The opponents to most nuclear technology and 'wastes' are by and large highly uninformed propagandists that not only do not understand reprocessing (and newer much safer forms of it) but also refuse to attempt to comprehend the situation as a whole, instead focus on a very narrow very ignorant view point that is seemingly stuck in the 1960's.
Re: Add to the glowing, happy children
The problem is not so much safety, but that reprocessing doesn't really solve the high level waste issue. There is a big difference between reprocessing and recycling.
Energy efficiency measures can provide us with more energy whilst using less fuel . Also nuclear power isn't really part of the carbon question , our energy system is responsible for elevated CO2 levels , it has has to be reponsible for reducing CO2 , nuclear power doesn't achieve this , therefore there is an added cost on top of nuclear power for reducing CO2 levels , making nuclear power more expensive .
Guest (CarlHitchon)
Can you explain that? What is the added CO2 costs of N-energy?
We are collectively responsible for incresed CO2 levels . Therefore , there is an inherant cost in the price of our energy for reducing CO2 . If it is not inclusive in the cost of energy , where does the money come from ?
You would think from reading about the glowing reports on this new non-nuclear, nuclear technology, that produces only 'safe' radio-active, radio-active waste, that they have solved all the problems associated with producing the almost negligible amounts of energy they see being available in the newclear future.
In a recent article, Peter Gellatly reviews the research on the latest reactor technology (the Generation IV initiative) and asks the question:
Can nuclear plant reach a stage of sophistication where natural fuel is fed in, and fissile-free waste comes out?
Of the six Generation IV technologies preselected in 2002 (and reaffirmed in 2006) by the Generation IV International Consortium, only one - the Molten Salt Reactor - has this potential.
The Molten Salt Reactor is a salt moderated reactor designed to use Thorium instead of Uranium as its main fuel. This technology is being explored world wide (US, Czech Republic, France, Norway, Russia) to address various aspects of the reactor design.
The reactor design is quite innovative: it uses a mixture of molten lithium and beryllium fluoride salts as the working fluid in the reactor. Added directly to these molten salts is a relatively small amount of Thorium and Uranium-233 fluoride salts. The resultant salt mixture simultaneously works as a moderator, coolant, and fuel medium.
As it happens, Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) technology was first successfully tested in the 1960s, but recent advances in materials, fuel processing, and energy recovery systems, have made the technology very compelling.
The advantages of such a technology are numerous:
• The reactor system is the only practical way of utilizing the Th-U233 fuel cycle, which unlike the U235-Pu239 fuel cycle, produces almost no transuranic nuclear waste. As a result, the waste products have decay times measured in hundreds of years, as opposed to millions. On top of this, the amount of waste produced is much smaller than the standard reactor.
• The Th232-U233 fuel cycle is unique in that it can be configured to produce more fissile material than it consumes without requiring the fast neutron spectra and exotic coolants that doomed the previous breeder reactors.
• The nuclear materials from MSRs contain as a byproduct of the reaction U232, which is a strong gamma radiator. This makes the reactor products impossible to redirect for illicit purposes due to the inherent detectability of U232, and it the inability to use it in a nuclear weapon (or separate it from the fissile U233). This property is essential in effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.
• MSRs tend to burn up most of their nuclear waste; this property can be utilized to eliminate excess plutonium waste from other sources if desired.
• The design of MSRs enables the possibility of including a very small on-line fuel reprocessing loop within the reactor structure. This prevents the need of shipping nuclear fuels over long distances to be reprocessed. This also lowers dramatically the operating costs, as the plant may be operated indefinitely without shut-down.
• MSRs have an inherent, strong negative coefficient of reactivity as a function of temperature, indicating that the reaction rate will slow as the temperature rises. This means that there is absolutely no possibility of the runaway thermal event that occurred at Chernobyl, which had a regime in which there was a positive coefficient of reactivity.
• MSRs will be designed with passive safety systems. For example, should the core overheat, a salt plug at the bottom of the reactor would melt, and the working salt mixture would flow into tanks below the reactor. Since the tanks have no graphite moderator, the reaction would become subcritical and immediately stop.
• The molten salt coolant has a very low working pressure, as opposed to water moderated reactors. Thus the single most catastrophic event for a water moderated reactor, namely, a container vessel rupture, would not be a particularly dangerous situation for molten salt reactors. And, due to the low working pressure, such a rupture is much less likely.
• Because the boiling temperature of molten salts is so high (1500 C), MSRs can and will be designed to run at higher temperatures. This makes them much more efficient at converting thermal energy to electrical energy (50% as opposed to 35%). This also enables them to use dry air cooling instead of water cooling. The latter fact is important as this, for the first time, enable reactors to be built far from water cooling sources like lakes or rivers, and therefore further away from population centers.
• MSRs can be designed to be much smaller than conventional reactors due to the low pressure/ high temperature operation. The compact design should significantly reduce the initial capital costs. (Some have even suggested building the major components at a central factory and transporting them to their final destination)
In short, Molten Salt Reactors promise to be inherently safe, efficient and clean, and as such represent a significant departure from present designs.
And when will these molten salt reactors be a commercial reality?
How much more tax payers money is needed, and for how many more years?
Until we've built and tested these things, we won't know if the claims are true.
What timeframe do you think we've got to mitigate global warming?
And when will these molten salt reactors be a commercial reality? This depends on a lot of factors, but it could be possible to get an MSR online in about 10-15 years, given the will. How much more tax payers money is needed, and for how many more years? I've seen figures like 1 Billion dollars over 10 years. Which seems like a lot, until you consider that 40 Billion dollars will be spent on our pets in 2007 alone. It's likely no American taxpayer money will be used for this, as it appears that France or Russia (or possibly India) will take the lead on this technology. Until we've built and tested these things, we won't know if the claims are true. An MSR was sucessfully run for 5 years in the 60s, and many tests of various newer technology were recently conducted in various labs in France, the Czech Republic, and Russia. These tests indicate that money spent on MSR technology with an eye toward power generation is a good bet. What timeframe do you think we've got to mitigate global warming? Since I have no expertise in the impact of global warming, I'd prefer to leave that question to someone who does...
That's only tax dollars for research. Odds are those plants still need billions of dollars in subsidies for the actual projects themselves. If history is any lesson, these subsidies - meant to jumpstart the technology - will continue to be needed. The relative subsidies is what's more relevant though. These two proposed plants may be getting as much as 80% in subsidies.
I also think that, in 10-15 years time, we could have a very large nationwide HVDC grid for less money, and direct solar will almost certainly be cheaper than coal by that time.
The question is: how do you justify heavily subsidizing one carbon lean power source more than the others?
And, to reiterate, why would a mature industry need such vast amounts of subsidies in the first place? One-fifth of all our power comes from nukes. If it cannot compete in a liberal environment by now, after so much R&D and learning, what good is it?
And again, nuclear power plants can only be baseload. You cannot go 90% nuclear in the USA, because then there would be a serious loss of average capacity factor. A nuke running at 60% capacity factor (which is about what you'll get if nuclear supplies 90% of the power) will cost considerably more than the current 90+% capacity factor ones.
France was able to deal with it by:
A. Streamlining projects (a good thing, lowers cost and speeds things up)
B. Exporting electricity to other countries (allowing nukes to have a higher capacity factor, but still less than 80%. This is not an option for the US as a whole, just as it is not an option for Europe as a whole, that is, if all of Europe was 80% nuclear, they would get lower capacity factors)
C. Various major subsidies. Loan guarantees. Free insurance from the government. Socialist power. (NOT a good thing at all. Cannot be considered an option in the USA).
What people often do not understand, is that, in the USA, if you want x energy source to expand rapidly, that this requires private investment on a large scale, and this will not likely be available for nuclear fission in the USA, at least not on favorable terms. That is because of many reasons, not in the least because they are financially risky (more get cancelled than actually built), and require long build times, so there won't be any profit for years, and after that there will be market uncertainty, as nuclear power requires guaranteed customers (because it's high baseload capacity factor). Those kind of risks really drive up interest rates that private investors will ask.
Compounding all this, nuclear power doesn't integrate very well with other carbon lean power sources; it is not flexible, has a slow ramp rate, needs guaranteed customers as it can only serve pure baseload.
This begs the question: if nuclear fission cannot be a major part of the solution, then is it really worth so much headaches as a minor part of the solution?
I've read your source. I was looking for words like "proliferation-proof", but found "proliferation resistant" instead. Not good enough. I was also looking for "completely safe" while what I found was "enhanced safety". Not good enough either. Finally, I was looking for "no waste" and found "minimal waste".
These are all partial solutions. Not good enough, especially considering this long timeframe (2030 at the earliest, e.g. the World Energy Council thinks 2040). If the long term goal is to solve nuclear's problems partially, then it becomes relevant not to consider nuclear fission as an option.
It's time to re-evaluate the worth of nuclear fission in a liberal, democratic and capitalistic environment.
I've read your source. I was looking for words like "proliferation-proof", but found "proliferation resistant" instead. Not good enough. I was also looking for "completely safe" while what I found was "enhanced safety". Not good enough either. Finally, I was looking for "no waste" and found "minimal waste".
I read this and I couldn't help but remember a recent analogy I had heard made between fission energy and fire. It was a rather good analogy in my opinion. I can imagine two cavemen named Ug and Bog discussing the properties of a new energy source called "fire":
Ug: this "fire" stuff is pretty great! We don't have to be cold anymore, we can cook our food, we can keep predators away, and we can see at night!
Bog: hmmm, I'm unconvinced. How do we know that the "fire" won't get away from us and cause an uncontrolled reaction and burn down the forest? How do we know that other cavemen won't steal the fire away from us and burn us down? How do we know that that we won't fall asleep in the cave and the fire will poison us with smoke?
Ug: Well Bog, those are valid points you make, but I think that if we're careful we can use "fire" to our advantage and avoid all those scenarios that you pointed out.
Bog: I'm unconvinced. You sleep here in the cave with your "fire". I'm going to go sleep on the grasslands tonight.
Ug: be sure to watch out for the saber-toothed tigers!
Kfsorensen, your analogy is a bit strained.
The cavemen didn't have an alternative to fire. We have many good ways of making electricity.
If the cavemen had safe solar space heating, and "passive solar design caves" they wouldn't need dangerous, stinking fires.
If the cavemen had safe solar PV panels on their caves, combined with safe durable nano-phosphate batteries, they could power safe efficient lighting in their caves. They could also cook electrically with this, much safer and cleaner than cooking with wood. They wouldn't have to worry about the ashes they would otherwise produce. They wouldn't have to worry about dry wood being available. They wouldn't have to worry about creating forest fires.
If they had safe high power flashlights and ultrasound alarms, they could scare the saber tooth away without risk of burning themselves with the fire.
We have many good, responsible ways of making electricity. Nuclear fission is not one of them, and is likely never to be one of them. To say otherwise would be subjective; belittling the problems of nuclear fission, or dismissing these problems as irrelevant, does not make them any more so.
If nuclear fission is the answer, it must have been a very silly question.
Guest (CarlHitchon)
Odds are that 500 billion have been spent in the last few years trying to secure mid-east oil supplies.
How long do we have? The question is how viable is CO2 to climate change. From what I have read- little, it's GHG forcing factor is minuscule. Just go to website like: http://adognamedkyoto.blogspot.com
and check out the articles and links.
That just leaves us with what is the most viable sources of energy. I think MSR type reactors with carbon fuel cells for coal with a mixture of various renewables. Remember that solar and wind need prime locations with a method of storing their offline generation. It will take decades to transform the grid to accommodate that and have cost effective storage systems. And they are still slave to climate factors that are most likely beyond human control.
A better use for solar and wind would be biofuel generation such as converting ethanol, methanol and CO2 to other fuel forms such as butanol, a fuel similar to gasoline. It may become cost effective to manufacture hydrogen from these for for fuel cells which currently are limited to commercial application because of their still high costs.
Renewables are still speculative in their ability to replace conventional uses of fossil fuels. Research is still going on to find a cost effective way of making ethanol out of cellulose plant byproducts yet people and media outlets talk as if it we be here by next year. Science mags use to talk about the future of transportation of high speed monorail trains and flying cars.
So just because it's looks probable does not mean it's likely to come about. It's still speculative.
How many years have they been working on the fuel cell technology-50?
If we wants a crash program to offset fossil energy dependence then how about government subsidized solar cells on every rooftop connected to the grid? People could pay a rental cost with and option to buy their own system. Now there's a concept!
Thanks honzicek for the stats. But if what you say is true, then why hasn't the nuclear lobby made the American government aware of its obvious potential in mitigating the majority of problems faced by its convential counterparts? And while we are debating the point, where has the scientific community been all this time? Don't they have a moral obligation to be promoting it?
Phoenix asked: Thanks honzicek for the stats. But if what you say is true, then why hasn't the nuclear lobby made the American government aware of its obvious potential in mitigating the majority of problems faced by its convential counterparts?
This is actually an interesting story, related to the history of the development of the nuclear technology, to the economics of the nuclear industry, and to the natural pattern of technology introduction in a risk-averse industry.
One important point to remember that the fundamental model of the commercial reactor has not really changed in 40 years. It is based on fuel rods moderated by water using a rankine cycle to extract energy. In the beginning, it was difficult enough just to get these to work correctly, but over time they have undergone continuous improvement, predominantly with regard to their simplification and reliability. As such the designs are solid, proven, and certified. What's more, there is a lot of accumulated scientific infrastructure and intellectual property in these companies. For obvious reasons, these companies are reluctant to give these things up.
Second, the nuclear industry has a razor/razor blade business model, wherein a significant part of their income comes from building fuel assemblies and refueling reactors. With MSRs, the refueling is continuous, depriving the industry with a significant income stream.
Third, MSRs represent a complex interplay of chemistry along with the nuclear physics and the thermal hydraulics. I can imagine that many nuclear firms simply do not have the expertise in fluoride salt chemistry, which would add to their reluctance.
Fourth, when MSRs were developed, a plan was in place to build a MSR based breeder reactor. That plan was dropped in favor of the ill-fated sodium moderated fast breeder (perhaps because the fast breeders had a dual use for the military production of plutonium while the MSR had not.) Alvin Weinberg, the head of the ORNL in the 60s, argued strenuously for the MSBR against the prevailing political wind, which probably cost him his job. As a result, I think there is a natural resistance to starting anew on a technology that was set aside at one point.
Lastly, it's important to point out that there have been some important recent advances in the technology to model and design such complex systems, in the development of materials that allow for the MSR to be built more compactly with longer life, and of energy extraction technologies that don't rely on the rankine cycle. Before these advances one might argue convincingly enough against the MSR, now, I think, such arguments are no longer valid.
Guest (CarlHitchon)
Re: Nuclear Industry non-support
There is a powerful force involved in the determination of the benefit/cost ratio of nuclear power - the "oil industry" or more broadly the "fossil fuel industry". The technical merit of nuclear power is an anathma to this industry which happens to be well represented in the US government.
Re: Nuclear Industry non-support
Both the fossil and nuclear industries are behemoths. Neither are innocent. The cost/benefit and efficacy of nuclear power and fossil power as well are subject to heavy lobbying. These are, after all, multi-billion dollar organisations.
Remove all government support, introduce a small carbon tax, and neither coal nor nuclear fission becomes cost-effective.
How would you like it if the government gave people an 80% subsidy on PV systems?
Re: Nuclear Industry non-support
New nuclear plants just lack financial viability.
If the present nuclear designs, with their baggage, will take 10 years for approval and acceptable designs for Thorium, or whatever, will not be available for 15+ years, then it is quite likely that any future investment in nuclear power plants will be a white elephant because solar PV, as well as solar thermal, wind, wave, etc., will be far cheaper by then. In this case, there will not be enough years to recoup the investment unless it is the only viable base load solution.
Besides the other issues with nuclear - waste et al., another strike against expansion of the nuclear option is that it is a base load solution. So, it would not address the pending shortage in peak power capacity in the short or medium term.
If cost effective energy storage is available such that solar and other renewables can also provide base load, then any further investment in nuclear plants would be financial suicide, an investment only suitable for the most gullible of governments.
Re: Nuclear Industry non-support
It's all true. What's more, nuclear fission is being met with stiff social resilience - a large number of people don't want more nuclear plants. With things like solar thermal, there is considerably more social acceptance. Because they don't have any waste issues of significance. Because they have to be sited in largely unused types of land (hottest deserts). Because they do not have any catastrophe risk for humans. Because they don't have a bad reputation.
Most people want solar. Most people do not want nuclear. We're in a democracy, last time I checked.
Having read - some weeks later - all the comments, I am startled that I cannot find any mention of the CanDU system. This system (with historical origins in the forgotten "other half" of the Manhattan project) does not require enrichment technology as it uses uranium with the isotopic ratio that occurs naturally. This decouples energy generation from weapons production (which is why Canada can't sell this technology to anyone) and significantly reduces radioactive waste. The primary coolant is heavy water, which is also the neutron flux moderator, so there is reasonable intrinsic safety in the design (lose the coolant, and the neutron flux is no longer productive). It is also the most efficient to operate, and has been used to generate power since the early 1960s.
It does require the extraction of heavy water form sea water, but this is presumably useful for possible fusion reactors. The steel fuel rod assemblies do fatigue in the neutron flux, but I suspect new materials are now available that would reduce this particular operational issue.
Yes - it does generate spent fuel which is radioactive waste, I won't ignore this. Unfortunately, the discussion of nuclear waste has become sufficiently irrational that I can no longer participate. However, since fission products from natural occurring deposits of fissile material that were above critical critical mass appear to be well contained geologically, I suspect that geological depositories would satisfy the necessary requirements for extremely long-term waste storage.
There are others much better qualified to reply, but I will risk a few comments. First, I have great respect for Canada's contribution to the nuclear power field, and other aspects as well, such as production of medical isotopes. The advantage of not having to enrich their fuel above naturally occuring U-235 concentration is now somewhat lost, since their new reactor design will use moderately enriched fuel to obtain better performance. Heavy water is expensive, and if there are leaks it becomes an operating cost instead of a capital cost. Pressurized water reactors predominate, world wide. These are being uprated and having life extensions of 20 years, which is an enormous economic benefit for the nuclear power industry. The CanDU reactors cannot have life extensions at costs that are very much below the cost of a new reactor. The Canadian government is going to be faced with an extremely difficult decision in choosing their new reactor fleet. If they are loyal to their CanDU, and buy the new design, they will have the risk of about 20% of the reactor being new and unproven. US utilities cannot shoulder such risk. Instead they have a choice of 4 highly developed generation 3 and 3+ PWR reactors to choose from plus one or two boiling water reactors, all of which entail very little new risk. These are intended to be positive comments to your good post.
Tom Arnberg
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bkshilo
35 Comments
Go Nuclear!
Want to burn less coal? Build more nuclear plants.
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Guest (heprv)
Re: Go Nuclear!
This nuclear travesty is brought to you by the same folks who brought you the Iraq "liberation". They wasted a trillion of your tax dollars on that undeclared war so far and now they figure that stuffing a few hundred billion more into the pockets of nuclear investors must also be a good idea. This has nothing to do with science. It doesn't have anything to do with global warming or even with energy. It's 100% about money. Taking from the poor to give to the rich is the philosophy behind this taxpayer subsidized nuclear renaissance.
Go ahead and forget about all the fossil fuels required to produce the concrete and steel needed to build these plants. Forget about the required energy for mining and enrichment of the fuel. Forget about the fossil fuel required for decommissioning and "cleaning up" which is of course impossible. And most importantly, forget about the fact that after all these years no one has a clue what to do with the very long-lasting and very toxic nuclear byproducts. And of course, Yucca Mountain isn't unlikely to store anything but wasted taxpayer money.
There are too many better and truly renewable options to even begin listing them here. But with the Bush administration behind anything that takes from the poor and gives to the rich, nuclear power looks like the last gasp of the Kleptocrats of nonrenewable life threatening energy.
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
Agreed 100%. Notice the following sentence:
"NRG Energy says that the law's loan guarantees and tax incentives could cover up to 80 percent of the cost of its $5.4 to $6.8 billion project."
Loan guarantees. Tax incentives. Eighty percent!
Um, I thought nuclear fission was so "competitive".
There should be no remaining doubts now, that nuclear fission is a socialist form of power.
Those who would claim to be capitalistic would do well to leave this source of power alone.
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smithpm
1 Comment
Re: Go Nuclear Amplification
EDF and Constellation set up their joint venture in 2007 to develop the plants. Previously, Constellation set up a technology joint venture with AREVA in 2005. AREVA is the preferred techology provider for EDF with whom they have a strategic alliance. EDF is considered a French National Champion, with AREVA (34% owned by Siemens) being considered for consolidation by France's President Sarkozy as a future champion combined with Alstom or Bouygues or both.
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mtbrown
2 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
I for one am a huge proponent of nuclear energy. The fact of the matter is, we are in a position where we need to come up with 15 terawatts of cleaner energy in the next 50 years, or humanity is facing a major catastrophe. And, even if we were to come up with something like fusion, global warming is nothing compared to what we are doing to the oceans and forests. Regardless, cheap energy is about to become one of the greatest business ventures in history. The problem with the energy supply field is, it takes huge economies of scale to enter it and compete. Personally, I am an advocate for solar startup companies and small-scale biomass plants which are recently able to compete, but nuclear fission is a very promising source. I’ve studied all the newer forms of energy production and unless we use all of them combined, petroleum and coal will still play huge roles in the market.
Now if everyone could get over his or her fears of nuclear waste and war, we could make nuclear power supply a large portion of this planet. True, nuclear waste is harmful, radiation can kill you, but the safety systems are excessive and in comparison to fossil fuels, it is nothing. Thousands of people die from coal plants a year, be it workers in the mines or the radiation and particles the emissions give to the surrounding cities. Aside from the fact that coal pollution is far more dangerous to the world than nuclear, people’s basements and slabs of concrete on buildings emit more radiation from radon than any nuclear power plant would ever give off. We’ve seen things like Chernobyl and had evacuations even in our own country. It’s true, if a meltdown were to occur, entire cities could be contaminated. But, something like Chernobyl would never happen again, the modern safety systems along with government regulations make these plants so sophisticated and clean, a disaster is just not even a possibility. 5 levels of near impossible scenarios make a safety system impenetrable even to a terrorist.
In terms of it not being ‘renewable’, we know how to make breeder reactors that turn 99.9% of the waste back into fuel creating a nearly inexhaustible source. This remaining .1% can be dealt by simply burying it in a single mountain for a million years and I’m sure we can eventually just shoot it into space when it becomes a cheaper alternative. The waste transport and storage systems are so effective at blocking radiation, any fear of poisoning the surrounding cities is purely media driven.
The only real problem with nuclear power is the political ethics of sharing it with other countries. Regan banned breeder reactors in the US because the same plutonium used in bombs comes along in the process and he didn’t want other countries to have the same technology, so he promised we wouldn’t use it either. But even without breeder reactors, nuclear waste would be minimal and manageable for the next few thousand years even if the whole world ran on it.
As for saying the huge tax incentives prove that they are not competitive and highly profitable. It goes back to the whole economies of scale thing. It’s not that nuclear power isn’t competitive with fossil fuels; it’s that building a nuclear plant costs billions of dollars and takes years. It’s not like a casino where you can build it in a few months and start making money to make it worth taking a loan out for a few hundred million. The government needs to step in and bolster these companies or they wouldn’t survive the 10 years of interest payments on 20 billion dollars when they are not making a return. Once producing power though, don’t think that Mr. Burns is making any less money than God.
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dsluis
2 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
The important issue mtbrown points out is that civilization needs to meet its huge engergy demands. We need lots of it! while reducing CO2 emissions. 15 Tera watts is probably too conservative an estimate. The alternative is far fewer people, an unacceptable alternative most would agree.
Nuclear may not be the most attractive long term alternative, but it is probably a key technology in the interim, while other renewable sources develop. I agree we can't dismiss nuclear.
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
15TW? That's 15,000 GW. With 1350MWe units, that's 11,111 nukes. In 50 years. That's at least 222 nuclear power plants per year. Every year, starting right now.
They are going to build 0 over the next three years. If all goes well, they can build two in the three years after that. Then they will have built 2.7 GW. Only 1329.3 GW behind schedule. That's 0.2 percent of the six year target, and a bit more than 0.02 percent of the 50 year goal.
What are other countries going to do? Also build a few nuclear fisson power plants. A few GW here, a few GW there. Some of these countries, however will be those that are not on friendly terms with us. Iran is the proliferation 101 example. Would there be such serious international concern, even mention of going to war, if Ahmedinnejad built his deserts full of solar thermal electric plants? That's one other problem with nuclear power: that it's often not about electrical power, but about political power. About provoking. About ambition. Not always about creating clean, safe, competitive electricity.
But meanwhile, 6 years have passed. Most renewables will have made considerable progress. PV will have grown exponentially from today's levels. Ausra will likely have built Gigawatts of solar thermal plants by this time. And those will be load-following plants, far more useful than nuclear. Because nuclear fission can only be pure baseload. It cannot compete at all in intermediate markets, let alone peaking.
That's right we do not need baseload. The average capacity factor in the US is typically 40-60 percent or so. If you build a nuke, you have to compensate for the high capacity factor (90+%) with an expensive peaking plant. Unless this can all be done with biomass, these will likely be a natural gas fired plants, not exactly good for the climate. We wouldn't have any need for that CO2 emitting peaking plant if the nuke didn't have such a high capacity factor.
Wouldn't it be great to have load following technologies, so that expensive peaking plants can be eliminated? And technologies that are dispatchable, and can ramp quickly to respond to renewables? Nuclear fission plants cannot do this. They do not integrate well with wind and solar. We stand at a crossroads: do we choose a renewable grid, or a nuclear grid? We cannot plausibly do both, at least not on a major scale.
And nuclear has not proven to be very competitive in a liberal market, without subsidies. The problem is, that private funding will not likely be available on favourable terms for nuclear power plants in the US. And no private funding, no rapid expansion. Or high interest rates, ie venture capitalists. Nuclear power does not compete very well under high interest rates.
Solar thermal is load following technology. The concept is very simple, in particular the new CLFR design by Ausra. It can scale much faster than nuclear power. It can deal with other renewables, and respond to them, ramping up quickly. It eliminates expensive peaking plants. It is safe, clean, and has very little social resilience. There are no geopolitical security issues. There is no resource issue. It is all commercially proven technology, unlike breeders. It works very well on hot days, when nuclear power plants sometimes fail. It provides more in-state jobs than nuclear fission plants. There is no price volatility. There is no mining of fuel and the environmental impact this implies. It will show other countries how it should be done. USA can take the lead, exporting the technology, making big $ without worrying about proliferation or security implications. It gives the US energy independence on a relatively short timeframe, unlike nuclear fission, which may one day be produced through seawater mining or otherwise, but these technologies are long ways from mass scale commercialization and right now the fuel is imported from other countries right now. We will not have energy independence very soon with nuclear fission.
And what proof do we have that these subsidies are for jump-starting the industry, one time only?
Why, for that matter, does an industry that is already mature, indeed one that provides one-fifth of electrical demand, need any jump starting in the first place!?
Let nuclear swim on it's own. Or also subsidize all renewables 80%. After all, why would the nuclear industry be eligible for such a large subsidy, when the other low carbon options are not? Jumpstarting or other reason, this is unfair competition.
It's not like nuclear fission is the shining winner. This is a democracy, an a lot of people are opposed to nuclear power plants, for the above reasons and many more, such as human error and Murphy's law.
And anyway, the government should not be in the business of picking winners. Let the market handle it, or else there will be the risk of making the wrong choice, that is an unaffordable one. It has to be affordable, because eventually, someone has to pay for the kWh's. Whether directly or via taxes. Saving the climate by making America a socialist agency? Dubious trade-off.
Seriously, all nuclear fission has proven is that it can supply most of the electric needs of a socialist economy. Mandatory picking any power source as big part of the energy mix and stimulating it with heavy financing can put the entire economy at risk, possibly harming the international competitive position of the US on the long run.
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Guest (CarlHitchon)
Re: Go Nuclear!
Please, you are reciting oil company / eco-nut propaganda.
Nuclear is very practical and cost effective. In France, 80% of electric power comes from nukes. A good portion of the transport sector (trains) runs on nuke electricity.
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
France has already been disected elsewhere.
State enacted, State run, unfair competition, government subsidies, government insurance, loan guarantees.
Oh yes! That's progress.
If you're so fond of that, go live in France.
Nuclear has never proven to work well in a completely liberal environment.
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doteman
6 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
Buddy,
How can you suggest that we don't need baseload? If we want to eliminate the CO2 problem, we are going to have to find a new stalwart baseload technology and eventually shut down the coal- fired plants.
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TomArnberg
7 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
Thank you dsluis. As long as we agree that nuclear power must move forward now, and rapidly in my opinion, it makes little difference whether we see the same future in our crystal balls. But it is fun, and I will return to this. But first, we are fortunate that inspite of U.S. political "leadership" (or absence thereof)nuclear is presently developed to such an advanced state that we can standardize and deploy a new generation of power plants with confidence. Think of how far we have advanced since France standardized and ran their percentage of nuclear power up to 80%. If any country wants to go up to that percentage nuclear they should plan more pumped hydro and/or compressed energy storage so that the nuclear plants are "base loaded", rather than becoming partly "load following". But even so, nuclear power is the way to go.
Now for the fun stuff (crystal balls). I noted recently that "big money" is moving into thin film flexible substrate PV solar panels in silicon valley. They are developing with private funds proprietary manufacturing methods by adapting rotary printing press technology and think they can reduce the cost by a factor of 10x. If so, I hope it will be in time for Swartzeneger's one million panels on California's roofs (or is it panels on a million roofs?), because without it solar is not energy or cost effective. My crystal ball reads that even with massive distributed solar we will still need central station plants and distribution networks for the months when we are socked in by bad weather. The cows cannot wait for the sun to come out for the twice daily milking. (I am a country boy at heart.) We need to develop superconducting coast to coast power transmission to help keep the nuclear plants operating full time. Links of DC superconducting cables in the system might also help to stop the power surges that wipe us out occasionally. I would advocate a lot of storage in with this mix except for one thing. My favorite, compressed air energy storage (which I invented) has one major disadvantage. To operate best the compressed air is delivered to a burner, which at present uses natural gas, before delivery to the "peaking power" gas turbine. And our natural gas should be conserved for more important uses. Regards, and thanks again.
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TomArnberg
7 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
Thank you M.T.Brown
I agree totally.
I think it was Gerald Ford, followed by Jimmy Carter who stopped the Clinch River Breeder Reactor project. Regan tried to start it back up, but conditions had changed too much. And then there was the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). Quoting Max Carbon, Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim? page 79, "Officials under President Clinton have chosen to stop breeder reactor development in the United States. ... I believe this action was misguided and unfortunate." As it turns out, all is well that ends well. Our nuclear program is eons ahead of where it was then. But if the incoming party stops the implementation of nuclear power it will be a disaster. Tom Arnberg
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stoolhandluke
1 Comment
Re: Go Nuclear!
Just commenting on the political side of this issue. The enabling legislation was the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which was approved by the Senate 85-12 with 35 Democrats for and only 7 against. Those voting for it include both Hillary and Barack. Noted liberals such as Carl Levin, Ted Kennedy, and Barbara Boxer voted for it. To say the GOP administration shoved it through is not correct. Bear this in mind when you go to the Primary and see Obama, Clinton, Biden, and Brownback's names.
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JF111
1 Comment
Re: Go Nuclear!
Given the Renewable/alternative Energy Technology that is available today, can someone estimate what kind of power equipment, PV, CHP, or other can we buy for $6.8 billion for home owners. How much energy will it produce over what period of time. What kind of positive effects on the environment will it have, pollutions, cost of cleanup, etc.
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TomArnberg
7 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
You have an interest in solar, JF111. I have had an interest for many decades, with my hopes mostly dashed. The power tower at Barstow CA was built and operated and the power generated was so expensive it was shut down. It was then redesigned with thermal storage, operated for a few years and shut down. It has been idle since 1999. Huge solar cylindrical collectors arrays are being built, with CA laws guaranteeing that the power will be purchased regardless of cost. The electric bills will continue to go up in CA.PV as presently marketed is uneconomic. Professor Borenstein showed that "the cost of a solar PV installation today is three to four times greater than the benefits of the electricity it will produce." {Press Release: “Study finds cloudy outlook for solar panels”, by Ronna Kelly, Hass School of Business, 20 February 2008} However, matters may be looking up for PV. See my reply to dsluis above.
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Guest (Rand)
Re: Go Nuclear!
The cleanest and safest power for the last 30 years, and probably the next 30 or more is nuclear.
I agree with bkshilo. As far as the other comments, I agree it is sad that government has to subsidize them to counteract the absurd impediments imposed on them by - government.
For those worried about nuclear waste disposal,
most can be recycled now. And, with the logarithmic growth in technology, we will be making baby food out of the rest in this century. Yet people are concerned that we can only absolutely guarantee it's safety for 10,000 years in Yucca Mountain. God willing, we will be populating the universe in 100 years, and Earth will just be an historical landmark on a forgotten highway.
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
Recycling of nuclear waste is not possible anywhere on Planet Earth. You mean reprocessing, which does not solve the problem of high level nuclear waste.
And it's not being done it he USA anyway. Breeders are illegal, for good reasons such as safety.
Nuclear fission might be sustainable one day, but no one really knows when that day will come. Betting on some future technology to be ready in time is not my idea of a strategic energy policy.
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Guest (CarlHitchon)
Re: Go Nuclear!
Exactly why is it not possible to store the tiny amount of nucear waste resulting from a nuclear economy?
We currently store coal and oil waste by the millions of tons in the atmosphere.
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DJTal
154 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
How does nuclear deal with the problem of coal and oil waste in the atmosphere ? Do you think that waste is a good thing ?
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Siphon
152 Comments
Re: Go Nuclear!
First, let me just say that comparing CO2 with radiotoxic materials is silly. We all breathe CO2; it is not poisonous unless in insanely high concentrations. The only problem is that it's a GHG. So, we can't emit any more of the stuff.
What are our options? Well it would be mighty easy if we could just sequester the stuff. Unfortunately, that's rather costly. Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle is highly uneconomical.
Direct Carbon Fuel Cells show some promise. We could try that. Just take the pulverized coal, desulphurize and de-ash it, and then just put it directly in the DCFC. Very efficient, more than 70% already and it's getting better. That means much less coal used, and thus much less CO2. Which will also be easier to sequester, because DCFC's are very clean: no nasty pollutants, the exhaust stream is high purity CO2, which makes it easier to sequester. And they're coming down in price nicely. All we have to do, is scale up their deployment. They don't contain rare elements so this won't be an issue. And they don't have to come in GW sizes, as they are just as efficient in smaller sizes. That means more manageable logistics in fuel delivery and power managment, less societal objection as they're just small buildings, and as an added bonus, they could deliver heat to companies and residents nearby, to displace CO2 spewing space and water heating. And distributed generation also lowers transmission losses.
It gets even better. DCFC's offer a very interesting transitional route to bio-energy. Biomass can be pyrolised, which yields various useful products, one of them looks surprisingly like... pulverized coal. But it's not. It's bio-energy. It's agrichar. Put some of it in the ground to increase crop yield in a sustainable manner. Which, at the same time, is a form of carbon sequestration as well. Put the rest of it in the DCFC together with the pulverized coal, and guess what... you're carbon negative. Even though you're burning a lot of coal. Because you're still sequestering. As time wears on, and more biomass becomes available on an industrial scale to pyrolize, more and more bio-energy could be utilized, and less and less coal. That means we're getting more and more carbon negative, as the carbon can still be sequestered.
It gets better still, because by this time, other renewables have penetrated the energy market, and can take care of most of the energy required. That means we won't need all that much biomass, just for back-up and extra peaking etc. Which is good, as that will leave plenty of land to produce food. So we've essentially solved bio-energy's problems (such as food competition when you use too much of it) with other renewables, and solved the other renewables' problems (such as intermittency and unreliability) with bio-energy.
This strategy gives no long term waste. Which implies that this is actually a REAL strategy, contrary to producing highly lethal dangerous waste for which there is no real solution.
Sure, nuclear waste is a small amount. But it stays very dangerous for tens of thousands of years. The USA is just three centuries old. We can't make insane ten thousand year commitments.
And when you're going to build enough nukes for it to matter anything on the scale that will be required, the amount of waste will not be small anymore anyway.
Then there's terrorism. Who knows how this phenomenon will develop during the course of this century? Another liability for nuclear fission power.
Finally there's proliferation. Imagine every country in the world powered by nuclear fission. Imagine the global security and environmental management diffulties.
If we can make do without nuclear fission, then we must certainly give that a try.
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