The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part IV: Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion?

This is the fourth part of a four-part guest post by Dr. Michael Dittmar. Dr. Dittmar is a researcher with the Institute of Particle Physics of ETH Zurich, and he also works at CERN in Geneva.

The accumulated knowledge and the prospects for commercial energy production from fission breeder and fusion reactors are analyzed in this report.

The publicly available data from past experimental breeder reactors indicate that a large number of unsolved technological problems exist and that the amount of "created" fissile material, either from the U238 → Pu239 or from the Th232 → U233 cycle, is still far below the breeder requirements and optimistic theoretical expectations. Thus huge efforts, including many basic research questions with an uncertain outcome, are needed before a large commercial breeder prototype can be designed. Even if such efforts are undertaken by the technologically most advanced countries, it will take several decades before such a prototype can be constructed. We conclude therefore, that ideas about near-future commercial fission breeder reactors are nothing but wishful thinking.

We further postulate that, no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.

(Links to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd parts)

1. Introduction

Over one hundred years ago, physicists began to understand that a huge amount of energy could be obtained from mastering nuclear fusion and fission energies. For example, the production of only 1 kg of helium from hydrogen "liberates" a thermal energy of about 200 million kWh. In the sun, this fusion reaction transforms about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second, thus liberating 4 × 1026 Joules per second.

The understanding of nuclear physics and its technological applications proceeded with breathtaking speed. It took only seven years from the discovery of the neutron in 1931 to the observation of the neutron induced fission of uranium at the end of 1938. This was followed, on the 2nd of December 1942, by a sustained nuclear chain reaction with a power of 0.5 Watt (and up to 200 Watt at a later time) by E. Fermi and his team in a laboratory located below the Chicago University football stadium [1]. The next steps in using nuclear energy were the explosions of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki fission bombs, on the 6th and 9th of August 1945, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths and the beginning of the nuclear arms race. Only a few years after the first fission bombs exploded, the USA and the Soviet Union had constructed hydrogen fusion bombs. These bombs were up to 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima fission bomb.

Also the peaceful application of nuclear fission energy advanced very quickly: by 1954, the thermal energy from a controlled fission chain reaction could be used to produce commercial electric energy [2]. During the next 30-40 years, a large number of commercial nuclear power plants were constructed in most industrialized countries.

The rapid scientific and technical success in bringing this form of power into the production of commercial energy was impressive. Many nuclear pioneers expected that nuclear fission and fusion would provide their grandchildren with cheap, clean, and essentially unlimited energy. In fact, these successes led most of us to a euphoric and blind belief in continuous scientific and technological progress.

In contrast to such dreams, nuclear fission energy nowadays is not cheap, and even the most optimistic nuclear fusion believers do not expect the first commercial fusion reactor prototype until after 2050. One observes further that nuclear fission energy has been stagnating for about ten years and that its relative share in the worldwide electric energy production has decreased from about 18% during the nineties to only 13.8% currently [3].

Furthermore, the average age of the existing nuclear power plants, the limitations of primary and secondary uranium resources as well as the problems related to nuclear proliferation and nuclear waste all lead to doubts about the prospects of the standard water moderated nuclear fission reactors. In fact, it seems clear at this point that as fossil-fuel energy production declines, sufficient energy to ensure the survival of our highly industrialized civilization cannot come from a rapid growth of nuclear fission energy of this sort.

The problem with the limited amount of economically producible uranium resources can theoretically be addressed with the mastering of the technology of nuclear fission breeder reactors. It is claimed that this technology could increase the amount of fissile material from uranium by a factor of 60-100 and much more if the thorium breeder cycle can be realized [4]. It is believed that breeder technology will enable us to bridge the time gap before nuclear fusion energy, which would become the "final solution" to all energy worries, can be mastered [5].

In this fourth and final part of the Future of Nuclear Energy report, we discuss the experience with past and current breeder reactors in Section 3. We analyze how the remaining problems will be addressed with the worldwide Generation IV breeder reactor program and with thorium based breeder reactors (Section 4). The remaining obstacles towards a controlled and sustained nuclear fusion reaction chain are presented in Section 5. In order to simplify the discussion, we start in Section 2 with some facts and basic physics principles of nuclear fission and fusion energies.

2. Energy from nuclear fission and fusion, some facts and physics

As we have discussed in detail in parts I-III of this report [6], the publicly available data on long term worldwide natural uranium supply are in conflict with even a moderate annual 1% growth rate for conventional water moderated reactors.

Consequently, believers in a bright future of nuclear energy should concentrate their efforts on either (i) the realization of nuclear fuel breeder technology based on the uranium cy­cle, U238 to PU239, and/or the thorium cycle, TH232 to U233, or (ii) the mastering of commercial nuclear fusion reaction. In this section, an overview of the existing and planned nuclear reactor types and the experience with fast breeder reactors (FBR) is given (2.1). This is followed by a basic summary of the most important principles relevant to the use of nuclear fission and fusion energies (2.2 to 2.4).

2.1. Some facts concerning existing and planned nuclear reactor types

The worldwide nuclear fission reactors produced 2601 TWhe during the year 2008, or roughly 14% of the worldwide electric energy.

For the year 2009, one finds that commercial nuclear energy production will come from 436 nuclear fission reactors with a combined nominal electric power of 370,260 GWe [7].


Table 1: The evolution of different reactor types and their corresponding electric power ratings from the IAEA/PRIS data base (October 2009) [7]. Another five reactors are listed in the "Long Term Shutdown" category, four of which are PHWR's and the fifth is the 0.25 GWe Monju sodium cooled FBR reactor in Japan.

The PRIS data base of the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) shows that the dominant reactor type today including reactors that are currently under construction is the water moderated fission reactor type. The abbreviation PWR (PHWR) stands for pressurized (heavy) water reactor whereas BWR denotes the boiling water reactor. As can be seen from Table 1, these reactors provide over 94% of the nuclear fission power worldwide. The remaining 6% of the nuclear fission power comes from graphite moderated and water or gas cooled older and smaller reactors. It seems that the PWR type has won the competition for the existing reactors and for the next generation of reactors by a large margin.

One observes that only two FBR's are declared operational. A third FBR has been in a "long term shutdown phase" since 1995. The two operational FBR's contribute together 0.2% of the world nuclear power. This tiny contribution from FBR's today is even smaller than it used to be. In the list of 122 decommissioned reactors, one finds 6 FBR's with a combined power of 1.6 GWe, or 4.3%. In the list of 53 reactors (October 2009) currently under construction, one finds only two relatively small FBR's.

These numbers indicate not only that FBR's play a negligible role today and during the next 10 years, but also that their operation experience is far from being an economical and technological success story. Some more details on the worldwide experience with various types of commercial FBR and thorium fuel breeder reactors and their operation are listed below:

  • The best operation experience comes from the Russian BN-600 FBR reactor with a rated power of 0.56 GWe. This reactor has been operated commercially for 28 years and is scheduled to close in 2010 [8]. Its average energy availability is given as 73.79%. In a document from the IAEA fast reactor data base [9], one finds that this reactor would be better called a "Fast Reactor," as it was designed to use more fuel than it could produce. A new BN-800 reactor with 0.8 GWe is currently under construction in Russia, and its scheduled start is now given as 2014. Like its smaller "brother," it is designed to consume Pu239 rather than breed surplus fissile material.
  • The other "operating" FBR is the Phenix reactor in France. Phenix originally started operation with a power of 0.233 GWe in 1974. Since 1997, it is rated with 0.13 GWe only, and an energy availability factor of 60.23% is given for 2008. According to the WNA (World Nuclear Association) data base, it ceased power production in March 2009 and will continue being operated as a research reactor until October 2009 [10]. The larger Super Phenix reactor, with a power rating of 1.2 GWe, achieved a maximal energy availability of 32.6% only. This very low performance, in comparison to PWR's, was achieved during the last operational year (1996) after a very short lifetime of only 10 years.
  • The Monju reactor in Japan was closed after a serious sodium leak in 1995. For many years now, the reactor is scheduled to "restart the subsequent year." Perhaps this time, it will really restart during the first few months of 2010 [11].
  • A next generation FBR reactor is currently under construction in India. According to the current plans, it will start producing electric energy during the year 2011 [12].
  • The KNK II reactor in Germany is listed in the IAEA data base [9] with a tiny capacity of 0.017 GWe. During its operational lifetime, 1978 to 1991, it achieved an average energy availability factor of 23.65%. A larger FBR, the SNR-300, with a rated power of 0.3 GWe was completed in 1985, but for various reasons never started. A large 1.5 GWe FBR, the SNR-2, never completed even the design phase.
  • A limited experience with a thorium admixture in the nuclear fuel in commercial pro­totype reactors exists as well. A WNA document mentions two THTR's (Thorium High Temperature Reactors) [13]: one with 0.3 GWe in Germany, which operated commercially between 1986 and 1989; the second was the Fort St. Vrain reactor with a power rating of 0.33 GWe in the USA. It is listed as the only commercial thorium-fuelled nuclear plant, following closely the German design. It was operated between 1976-1989.
  • The WNA document mentions further that the experimental Shippingport reactor in the USA, with a power rating of 0.06 GWe, has successfully demonstrated the concept of a Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) using thorium. The Shippingport reactor began commercial electricity produc­tion in December 1957. In 1965, the Atomic Energy Commission started designing the uranium-­233 / thorium core for the reactor. The reactor was operated as a LWBR between August 1977 and October 1982.

Several countries have so far managed to construct GWe water moderated slow neutron reactors, mostly of the PWR type. These reactors were operated safely and efficiently for many years, using U235 fuel enriched to 3-4%.

In contrast, large breeder reactors, based on a large amount of initial fissile material and the transformation of U238 and Th232 for breeding new reactor fuel, have so far not even successfully passed a prototype phase.

2.2. Energy from nuclear fission and fusion, some basics

Atoms consist of a nucleus, made of protons and neutrons, and electrons. The size and the chemical properties of atoms are defined by the number of electrons surrounding the nucleus. The combined mass of the protons and neutrons, each 2000 times heavier than the electrons, defines roughly the mass of the atoms. As the nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the atom, it follows that its mass density is huge in comparison with that of the atom. The same chemical characteristics can be expected for atoms with a fixed number of protons and with different numbers of neutrons, and the energy in chemical reactions is of the order of 1 eV (1.6 × 10-19 Joule). As the nuclear properties of an atom depend on the number of neutrons, the name isotope has been introduced to separate the chemically identical atoms according to their numbers of neutrons.

Without going into details, it is known today that the energy source of the sun and other stars is nuclear fusion. This fusion starts from the large number of hydrogen atoms present in the sun. The fusion reaction in stars is possible because of the enormous gravitational pressure that overcomes the electric repulsive force between positively charged protons. Fusion is the source of all heavier elements that were formed in super-novae explosions of super large early stars and shortly after the big bang. For our subsequent discussions on nuclear fusion, it is important to note that a relatively low fusion power density of about 0.3 Watt/m3, is found in the sun [14]. In contrast, the power density envisaged for a hypothetical fusion reactor must be at least one million times larger.

The nucleus is bound by the very strong nuclear force, which acts against the repulsive electrostatic force of the protons. Measurements have shown that the mass of the various atoms is almost 1% smaller than the mass of the individual protons and neutrons combined. Following Einstein's famous E = mc2 formula, this mass defect corresponds to a huge amount of energy, about 8 MeV (8 million eV) per nucleon. This energy is liberated when one manages to fusion different nucleons together. Starting from the different hydrogen isotopes, e.g. one proton, deuterium (one proton plus one neutron), and tritium (one proton plus two neutrons), a binding energy of up to a few MeV is found. Further fusion of these hydrogen isotopes into the helium nucleus liberates another roughly 20 MeV.

Neutrons and protons in heavy atoms, such as uranium, are less strongly bound than in lighter atoms, such as iron, and energy can be released in the fission of such heavy atoms. For example, 1 MeV per nucleon, or 200 MeV in total, will be liberated in the fission processes of U233, U235, and U238, each containing 92 protons and 141, 143, and 146 neutrons, respectively. The energy liberated per fission reaction is at least 100 million times larger than in a chemical reaction.

It is therefore not surprising that this has created an enormous interest in subatomic physics and its application for ultimate weapons and/or for the commercial use of energy.

2.2.1. Civilian and military use of nuclear energy, some remarks

The focus of this report is the commercial use of nuclear energy. As the evolution of nuclear energy has always been strongly coupled with the military sector, we feel that a few remarks about the dangers of nuclear weapons and the ambiguity of the commercial use of nuclear energy are needed. First of all, governments wishing to have nuclear weapons were not faced with unsolvable problems related to the development of fission bombs based on Pu239 and U235. This is especially true if nuclear physics and engineering knowhow had been built up under the umbrella of peaceful and commercial use of nuclear fission energy.

Furthermore, it is interesting to notice that advocates of nuclear fission energy like to explain why the dangers from nuclear weapons are far less alarming than believed. This is usually followed by the statement that their praised future nuclear energy technology will avoid proliferation problems. A similar appeasement in their argumentation is found with respect to safety and radiation issues. The existing nuclear power plants are claimed to be very safe, and risks are small compared to many other dangers of modern life. Yet, when their favorite future nuclear energy system is being introduced, it is always pointed out that it further reduces the remaining risks by a large factor.

For example it is often argued that U233 produced in a future Th232 breeding cycle will be useless for nuclear weapons. This argument is certainly flawed as countries who want to have nuclear weapon capability will most likely choose the simpler way to make a bomb using Pu239 or U235. Yet, those who know how to breed and separate hundreds of kg's of U233 can easily replace Th232 with U238 and produce a few tens of kg's of Pu239, sufficient to construct a few nuclear bombs.

Those not yet convinced of the mutual support of peaceful and military applications of nuclear energy technology should rethink their positions with respect to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, and to the so-called "evil" government of Iran.

A careful reading of the treaty [15] reveals that Iran, at least so far, is in agreement with the NPT obligations. However one finds that NPT member countries should not exchange nuclear knowledge with nuclear weapon countries outside the treaty. It is also worth remembering that the official nuclear weapon states, Russia, USA, UK, France, and China, have declared in the treaty their intention to eliminate nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. Almost forty years after these countries signed the NPT, they still have more than 20,000 nuclear warheads.

The nuclear arms race at the end of the second world war and during the subsequent cold war is well documented in many reports, books, and movies, and we refer to the extensive literature largely available now on the internet. Especially for those who are not yet convinced about the dangers of nuclear weapons, we would like to recommend the short you-tube video on the largest explosion ever, the 60 Megaton hydrogen bomb in Siberia in 1961 [16] and to Stanley Kubric's masterpiece movie "Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb" from 1964 [17]. This film, even though almost 50 years old, presents many still relevant ideas related to the 20,000 remaining nuclear warheads.

2.3. Liberating the energy from nuclear fission and fusion

As we have seen in the previous section, a large amount of energy per reaction can be liberated from the fusion of light elements and from the fission of heavy elements like uranium. However at least two additional conditions must be satisfied before such a process can be considered for energy production.

  • In order to obtain a useful amount of energy from nuclear reactions, a continuous and controllable fission or fusion must be achieved for a large number of atoms. For example 1020 U235 atoms, i.e., 0.05 gr, the amount of U235 found in 6 gr of natural uranium, need to be split every second in a 1 GWe nuclear fission reactor.
  • Enough raw material must be continuously available to sustain this chain reaction.

Only three relevant isotopes satisfy these conditions for the nuclear fission process. These are the two uranium isotopes U235 and U233 and the plutonium isotope Pu239. The energy liberated in the fission process is carried dominantly (about 80%) by the two daughter atoms. This energy is relatively easily transferred to a liquid or gas, and the heat can be used to operate a generator.

The chain reaction is possible as each neutron induced fission reaction produces on average between 2-3 neutrons. As one neutron is needed to initiate another fission reaction, 1-2 excess neutrons minus some inevitable losses are in principle available to increase the reactor power or perhaps to start a nuclear fuel breeding process. The introduction of neutron absorbers allows to control the reactivity of the nuclear reaction and thus to increase or decrease the reactor power.

As we have seen in Section 2.1, most of the large scale nuclear power plants of today are of the PWR (pressurized water reactor) type. They use dominantly U235 as primary reactor fuel. In these reactors, the prompt fission neutrons, with kinetic energies of 1 MeV, are slowed down (moderated) by elastic collisions with the hydrogen nuclei in the water molecules to subeV kinetic energies. The nuclear fission probability with such slow neutrons is increased by a factor of up to several hundred. As a consequence, a large reactor can be efficiently operated and controlled with a relatively low initial enrichment of U235, and large scale power production with moderated neutrons has been mastered by many countries. The combined running experience of such large scale reactors, currently more than 13,000 years, has resulted in stable electric energy production combined with small or negligible risks during regular operation up to an electric power output of more than 1 GWe.

In contrast, the neutron escape rate in smaller reactors and in unmoderated fast reactors is much higher. Therefore, a chain reaction in FBR's with comparable reactor power is more difficult to control, and a larger amount of initial fissile material with a higher density is needed. One consequence is that the required technology to make such highly enriched nuclear fuel will always be faced with the problem of its dual use for bomb making.

The use of the excess neutrons for the transformation of the U238 and Th232 isotopes into fissile Pu239 and U233 looks very promissing, as the amount of fissile material could be increased theoretically by a factor of more than one hundred. The breeding reactions considered would use the excess neutrons according the two reactions:

Some advantages and disadvantages for the U238 → Pu239 and the Th232 → U233 breeding cycles and some practical problems are listed in Table 2. Some of these problems and their proposed solutions will be discussed in detail in Sections 3 and 4 of this report. So far only little or no experience exists with large scale GWe breeder prototypes.


Table 2: A qualitative comparison of the fissile breeding cycles with U238 and Th232. The breeding gain is defined as the ratio of (C-D)/F, where C, D, and F are the numbers of fissile atoms created, destroyed, and fissioned. In order to be called a breeder, more fissile material must be created than fissioned, and the breeding gain must be larger than zero. The “(?)” indicates guestimates, as good information has so far not been found by the author.

We now turn to the fusion process. Nuclear fusion can happen, once the short range nuclear force between nucleons becomes larger than the electrostatic repulsive force between two positively charged nuclei. This can happen if the protons involved either have large kinetic energies or if the protons are compressed by super large gravitational fields as observed in stars. Very high kinetic energies correspond to nucleus temperatures of several tens to hundred million degrees. Such high kinetic energies can be obtained for example in accelerators but only for small numbers. Larger amounts of fusion reactions can be obtained in special magnetic field arrangements.

It follows from first principles that the sometimes discussed "cold fusion" reaction is in contradiction with well established knowledge of subatomic physics. As the repulsive force increases with the number of protons involved, the conditions to achieve fusion with atoms heavier than hy­drogen and its isotopes become more and more difficult. It follows that fusion reactions based for example on the "proton-boron" reaction and many others are only possible using accelerators. Ideas to use accelerators for continuous fusion reactions with commercially interesting GW power prove to be wishful thinking once the required amount of 1021 fusion reactions per second is considered. The very low efficiency for transforming electric energy into kinetic energy of proton beams poses another fundamental problem for such exotic ideas.

The probability of a fusion reaction depends on the product of the plasma temperature and the fusion reaction cross-section. The deuterium-tritium fusion is a factor of 100 to 1000 easier to achieve than the next two fusion reactions of deuterium and He32 and deuterium-deuterium, respectively. As it is already extremely difficult to achieve even the lowest interesting plasma temperatures on the required large scale, it follows that the only possible fusion reaction under reactor conditions is the deuterium-tritium fusion into helium (He42).

An additional advantage of this reaction is the fact that the produced additional neutron carries 14 MeV of the liberated energy of almost 18 MeV per fusion reaction out of the plasma zone. Thus in theory, it can be imagined that the 4 MeV carried by the helium nucleus are used to keep the plasma temperature high enough, and that the neutron energy is transferred somehow to another cooling medium. This medium is imagined to transfer the heat to a generator.

Unfortunately tritium is unstable; its half life is only 12.3 years; and it does not exist in sizable amounts on our planet. It must therefore be produced in a breeding process. A possible chain reaction could follow the scheme:

In comparison to the breeding and energy extraction in fission reactions, at least three additional fundamental problems can be identified for the fusion process:

  • A sustained super high temperature, at least 10 million degrees, is required in order to have fusion reactions happening at an interesting rate. Such high temperatures can be achieved in some special magnetic field arrangements or in a tiny volume with very intense laser or particle beams. Unfortunately, no material is known that can survive the intense neutron flux under sustained reactor conditions and the sometimes occurring plasma eruptions.
  • It is difficult to transfer the energy from the 14 MeV neutron to a gas or a liquid without neutron losses.
  • The considered breeding reaction requires essentially that 100% of the produced neutrons must be used to make tritium. As this is even theoretically impossible, some additional nuclear reactions are proposed where heavier nucleons act as neutron multipliers. However so far, even the most optimistic and idealized theoretical calculations have failed to produce neutrons in sufficient numbers.

In short, the accumulated knowledge today indicates that the proposed fusion reaction is unsus­tainable and cannot lead to a sustainable power production. This statement will be corroborated with more details in Section 5.

2.4. Dangers related to radioactive material

We will conclude this section with some issues related to radioactive elements produced and liberated in the use of nuclear energy and the related dangers from ionizing radiation. First of all, there are three types of radioactive decays, producing α, β, and γ radiation. In addition, cosmic rays and various particles produced in high energy physics experiments should also be considered as a potential radiation hazard.

The damage to cells is related to the ionizing potential or the energy deposit per volume originating from a source. The hazard is usually split into high and low radiation dose effects. Very high radiation dose and the corresponding energy deposit result in fast cell death. If large and concentrated enough, the result can be the destruction of vital organs and death. It is important to know that the careless use of radiation during the early days of nuclear physics and its applications have resulted in relatively high cancer rates among the participating scientists and engineers [18].

The more tricky and less well understood damage comes from small dose and long-term effects to the cell DNA. While some self-repair mechanism to broken DNA exists, it is also known that a single unlucky hit by a cosmic ray can transform the normal DNA into a cancer developing DNA, resulting in the death of the host many years later. It follows that the importance of small radiation doses for the development of a particular cancer type and in comparison to many other causes like smoking and asbestos is difficult to quantify. As a result, the associated cancer risks from small radiation doses will continue to fuel the emotional debate about nuclear energy for a long time.

Despite these uncertainties, today the precautionary principle is used in many countries, and very strict rules for people working in a radiation environment are applied. These rules are often summa­rized under the name ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable). The goal to reduce any radiation exposure to essentially negligible levels is one of the most important occupations of a radiation safety group. As a result of these efforts, assuming that expensive protection measures are taken, the health risks from radioactive contamination under "normal operation conditions" are often much smaller than risks associated with working hazards in many other industrial domains. However, time pressure and profit optimization will always be in competition with ever more strengthened safety regulations.

It is also evident that it is essentially impossible to guarantee "normal operation" of the nuclear industry with its accumulating waste over periods of hundreds of years. A solution to these problems is, as with other similar long-term problems of our industrial growth-based societies, left for future generations.

3. Experience with real breeder reactors

Breeder reactors are based on the idea that only one neutron, out of the 2.5 neutrons on average from the fission of U235 and U233 (and 2.9 neutrons from Pu239), is required to keep the chain reaction going. It can thus be imagined, even if some neutron losses are allowed, that the additional neutrons can be used to make more nuclear fuel from U238 or Th232 than fissioned. Accordingly, a reactor is defined as a breeder reactor if more fissile material is produced than consumed.

The number of free neutrons per fission reaction is η = (σf a) × v, where σf is the neutron induced fission cross-section, and σa the neutron absorption (the sum of the neutron capture and fission) cross-section, and v is the average number of prompt fission neutrons [19]. The fission to capture ratio and thus η depend on the neutron energy and the different possible isotopes. As one neutron is required to sustain the chain reaction, breeding is only possible if η is larger than 2. This condition is found for Pu239, U235, and U233 fission, where η for prompt fast fission neutrons is 2.7, 2.3, and 2.45, respectively. For thermal (moderated) neutrons, U233 has the highest η value of 2.3, followed by 2.11 for Pu239, and 2.07 for U235.

Some Pu239 fuel production happens also in standard PWR reactors. Depending on the reactor and fuel design characteristics as well as the amount of remaining fissile fuel in the reactor, up to 30% and more of the produced energy comes from the secondary Pu239 fission.

Two theoretical breeder options exist:

  • The use of thermal neutrons and Th232 as input breeding material.
  • The use of fast prompt neutrons dominantly from Pu239 fission, thus the name fast reactor, with U238 as the breeding material.

The use of the Th232 → U233 cycle seems, at least on a first glance, more attractive. The reaction can occur in the high fission cross-section domain using moderated neutrons. The fission process with moderated neutrons is well understood, relatively easy to control, and already in use with the standard nuclear water moderated reactors. It seems that in principle one only needs sufficient amounts of U233 mixed with Th232 in order to keep such a reactor operating. Some of the remaining technical obstacles will be discussed in Section 4.4.

For the U238 → Pu239 breeder cycle, one has to operate the fission process, either starting with U235 or Pu239, in the low fission cross-section domain. As a consequence, such reactors have to be operated with highly enriched U235 (HEU) or Pu239 fuels. Thus, one is not only confronted with special safety conditions for a large amount of bomb making material, but also with a huge amount of fissile material that could under certain conditions reach the critical mass resulting in an uncontrolled chain reaction followed by a nuclear meltdown. Furthermore, the cooling of the active reactor zone has to be done with a low neutron absorption cross-section and a high thermal conducting material like liquid sodium. Unfortunately, sodium is chemically very active and can easily burn in contact with oxygen.

3.1. The Shippingport LWBR thorium reactor

The experience with the thorium breeder cycle comes mainly from research at the US Shippingport reactor, rated with a net power of 0.06 GWe. This reactor operated during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. In 1965, the Atomic Energy Commission started designing the uranium-233 / thorium core for the reactor. The reactor was operated as a LWBR between August 1977 and October 1982.

According to the documentation, the reactor was started with a highly enriched 98% U233 inven­tory of 501 kg and a total of 42,260 kg of Th232 [20]. No details are given about the origin of the 501 kg of U233. However, one can assume that it came from a standard U235 fission reactor, where excess neutrons can be used to transform Th232 (or U238) blankets into U233 (or Pu239).

The reactor had a maximum thermal power of 0.2366 MW (therm) and was operated for 29,047 effective full hours, or about 66% of the time. After five years of operation, a very detailed analysis of the fuel elements was performed. It was found that the total U233 inventory had increased to 507.5 kg, a factor of 1.013. While it is impressive that the reactor could be operated and fueled with Th232 over a period of 5 years, the U233 gain was only about 6 kg of fissile material.

Assuming that such a reactor is supposed to eventually produce the U233 starting fuel for another reactor, it will take a long time before the second package of initial reactor core has been produced. Significant technological breakthroughs are required before this chain can be called feasible on a large scale.

The documents do not say much about the contamination of the 507.5 kg of U233 with fission products and its usefulness for further studies after this five year experiment. The fact that no subsequent reactor experiment has been performed might provide a partial answer to this question.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large. It can be estimated that this amount, placed in a standard PWR, could have produced at least 5 times more electric energy than it had during the actual experiment.

In contrast to the experiments performed at the Shippingport reactor, where the initial core was already U233, a realistic Th232 reactor cycle must be started with an initial U235 or Pu239 core. Consequently, the experience gained with the Shippingport reactor experiment cannot be considered as a proof that the envisaged system can function. It follows that many more tests are needed, before a functioning large-scale prototype Th232 breeder reactor can be constructed.

3.2. Experience with fast reactors

For the purpose of this report, concerning the future of nuclear energy, we are mainly interested in the situation with the most important aspect, the question of the fuel breeding option. Unfortunately very little information is provided for the experimental breeding achievements, and most reports present the theoretical design breeding ratios. For example the breeding ratio for the FBR Phenix reactor in France is given in many textbooks as 1.14 [21]. This number corresponds however to the theoretical design, and it seems that a detailed experimental analysis, like the one done for the Th232 to U233 cycle and the Shippingport reactor, is either secret or has not been performed.

Despite the missing experimental data of achieved breeding gains, the IAEA document [22] about the FBR core characteristics provides useful information about the design of such reactors. In this document, a large number of FBR reactors, separated into (1) experimental fast reactors, (2) demonstration of prototype fast reactors, and (3) reactors of commercial size, are presented.

The breeding gain, defined as the ratio of (C-D)/F, where C, D, and F are the number of fissile atoms created, destroyed, and fissioned, and other characteristics of different fast reactors are summarized in Table 3.


Table 3: Some design values for the three groups of fast reactors, experimental, demonstra­tion or prototype, and commercial size [22]. Reactors marked with a "*" are currently under construction. The design numbers can be compared with the ones of existing large commercial 1 GWe PWR reactors, assuming an average charge of 500 tons of natural equivalent, given in the last line. The "**" and "***" stand for a mixture of different plutonium isotopes dominated by Pu239 and the amount within the initial core, respectively.

It is very unfortunate that experimental breeding gains are not given in the IAEA fast reactor data base. In absence of any detailed publication, one can assume that the required detailed and very expensive isotope analysis of the reactor fuel has not been performed or published. The theoretical hopes for fuel breeding are thus not backed up with hard experimental data. Nevertheless, already the theoretical breeding gains of the different FBR's are revealing. Ten out of the twelve small experimental reactors were operated in a configuration not for breeding. The other two experimental reactors, listed in Table 3, are the Joyo in Japan and the Fermi in the USA. The Joyo reactor was not designed for the production of electric energy. The Fermi reactor operated for a few years and had a partial core meltdown in 1966. This reactor was the first and only effort in the USA to operate a larger scale breeder reactor and was terminated in 1972.

Another twelve demonstration or prototype reactors are listed in the IAEA report. Among them are the Monju reactor in Japan, the "Russian/Soviet" BN-600, and the Phenix reactor in France.

Only the BN-600 reactor is currently operational and is often considered as the prime example of a successfully operating FBR reactor. However, the IAEA document reveals that this reactor was designed with a negative breeding gain of -0.15.

In comparison, the Phenix and Monju reactors are presented with theoretical breeding gains of 0.16 and 0.2, respectively. It is interesting to note that the potentially better constructed next generation PFBR reactor in India, currently expected to start in 2011, is given with a much smaller theoretical breeding gain of only 0.05.

The third FBR group in the IAEA document describes commercial size reactors. Eleven out of the listed thirteen large FBR projects have been abandoned before any construction plans have been presented, or exist currently only in the design phase. Only one reactor, the Super Phenix reactor in France, has produced some electric energy. During its short operation time, it was operated with a very low efficiency and cannot be considered as a successful breeder prototype. A new commercial size fast reactor is under construction in Russia. The BN-800 is currently scheduled to become operational during the year 2014. It is however quantified with a negative breeding gain of -0.02.

A further confirmation that the BN-800 reactor is not a breeder comes from a WNA document [23], where the reactor is described as:

"It has improved features including fuel flexibility - U+Pu nitride, MOX, or metal, and with breeding ratio up to 1.3. However, during the plutonium disposition campaign it will be operated with a breeding ratio of less than one."

A possible interpretation of this statement could be that plutonium stocks are already a delicate problem and that Russia wants to get rid of them.

In summary, the IAEA data base for fast reactors does not present any evidence that a positive breeding gain has been obtained with past and present FBR reactors. On the contrary, the presented data indicate at best that a more efficient nuclear fuel use than in standard PWR reactors can be achieved during normal running conditions. However, once the short and inefficient running times of FBR's, in comparison with large scale PWR's, are taken into account, even this better fuel use has not been demonstrated. In fact, the required initial fuel load in FBR's contains at least twice as much natural uranium equivalent and with a fissile material enrichment that is roughly 5 times larger than that in a comparable PWR. A fair comparison of the fuel efficiency should include the efficiency to recycle fissile material from used nuclear fuel in both reactor types.

Three more areas of concern for a future breeder program should be added:

  • Fast reactors are known for their worrying safety record. For example, it might be true that serious incidents, like the one that happened with the Chernobyl graphite moderated reactor, cannot happen with modern PWR's. However, only very few nuclear experts would agree to such a statement for sodium cooled FBR's.
  • FBR’s are known for their huge construction costs relative to PWR's, and it might be tempting to compare some of the past FBR's to a monetary "black hole." An equivalent of 3.5 billion Euros has been invested in the construction of the SNR-300 in Germany. Because of safety concerns related to sodium leaks and other problems, this small FBR has never started operation. This amount of money corresponds to the price tag for a five times more powerful modern PWR reactor.
  • A third problem is related to the FBR requirements to have a large inventory of high purity fissile material. The amount of fissile material listed in Table 3 should be compared to the few tens of kgs required for a Pu239 bomb. This problem makes even small experimental FBR reactors highly sensitive to the proliferation problem.

4. Future breeder reactors

As our short overview in Section 2 has already demonstrated, neither sodium cooled FBR reactors based on U238 → Pu239 nor the Th232 → U233 cycle are fashionable commercial reactor types.

As a consequence of the observation that known uranium deposits are limited, scientists from many countries have joined forces and created during the year 2001 the Generation IV reactor forum [24].

In their own words (quote):

"The Generation IV International Forum, or GIF, was chartered in July 2001 to lead the col­laborative efforts of the world's leading nuclear technology nations to develop next generation nuclear energy systems to meet the world's future energy needs."

The work of over 100 experts from ten countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency has re­sulted at the end of the year 2002 in a roadmap document with the title:

A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems

After the definition of the goals, identifying promising concepts, their evaluation, and the estima­tion of the required R&D efforts, six systems have been selected. The selection was based on their estimation that they (quote):

"feature increased safety, improved economics for electricity production, and new products such as hydrogen for transportation applications, reduced nuclear wastes for disposal, and increased prolifera­tion resistance."

Within the context of this analysis, we are mainly interested to know whether the acknowledged U235 fuel shortages can be solved with future breeder reactors. Therefore, we will only take a closer look at the three FBR's and the one design that has the potential to become a Th232 based thermal breeder. According to a WNA document from August 2009 [25]:

"At least four of the systems have significant operating experience already in most respects of their design, which provides a good basis for further R&D and is likely to mean that they can be in com­mercial operation well before 2030."

It is remarkable that the same WNA document contradicts this statement a few lines later:

"However, it is significant that to address non-proliferation concerns, the fast neutron reactors are not conventional fast breeders, i.e. they do not have a blanket assembly where plutonium-239 is pro­duced. Instead, plutonium production takes place in the core, where burn-up is high and the proportion of plutonium isotopes other than Pu239 remains high. In addition, new reprocessing technologies will enable the fuel to be recycled without separating the plutonium."

4.1. Some details about Generation IV breeder reactors

The Generation IV roadmap document from the year 2002 describes a detailed planning for what needs to be achieved during the next 10-20 years. Depending on the results, one might be able to decide which of the different future reactor concepts can be used to construct real prototype FBR's.

The qualitative proposed research plans for the three FBR's and the Th232 reactor can be sum­marized as follows:

  • The Gas-cooled Fast Reactor System (GFR) is based on a helium-cooled reactor with a small thermal power of roughly 0.5 GW only. A large number of major technological gaps are mentioned in the roadmap leading to a research program of about 20 years and a cost of 940 million US Dollars.
  • The Lead-cooled Fast Reactor System (LFR) with a possible thermal power between 0.1 GW and 3.6 GW. A relatively long list of "technology gaps" for the LFR is presented, including even some insufficient knowledge of neutron interaction cross-sections. A 15-20 year R&D program with a price tag of 990 million US Dollars is needed before any further statements about the realization of this concept can be made.
  • The Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor System (SFR) with a thermal power rating between 1 - 5 GW. This concept is closely related to the doubtful success with past sodium-cooled fast reactors in France, Japan, Germany, the UK, Russia, and the United States. It is said that this reactor must be capable of also using the thermal neutron spectrum, because the startup fuel for the fast reactor must come ultimately from spent thermal reactor fuel. The list of technology gaps includes the need to ensure a "passive safe response design base," a "capital cost reduction," and the "proof that a reactor has the ability to accommodate bounding events." A somewhat frightening conclusion of this statement might be that previous sodium prototype FBR's did not satisfy any of these basic reactor safety standards. It is also mentioned that this sodium cooled reactor is the most advanced FBR system. The required R&D program to investigate the remaining problems could be completed over a period of less than 15 years and for 610 million US Dollars.
  • The Molten Salt Reactor system (MSR) is imagined as 1 GWe reactor with a net thermal efficiency of 44-50%. The design assumes the use of either U238 or Th232 as fertile fuel dissolved as fluorides in the molten salt and that it can operate with thorium as a thermal breeder. The technology gaps mentioned contain a large number of items related to the chemistry of molten salts as well as the need for more accurate basic neutron cross-sections for compositions of molten salt. The time scale of the required R&D program is 15-20 years with an associated price tag of 1000 million US Dollars.

The Generation IV roadmap document can be summarized with the statement that the known technological gaps to construct even prototype breeder reactors were enormous at the time when the document was written. These unknowns are addressed with a detailed planning for the required re­search projects and the associated cost. Only after these problems shall have been solved, a design and construction of expensive prototype breeder reactors can start.

We are now at the end of the year 2009 and almost half of the originally planned R&D period is over. Essentially no progress results have been presented and the absence of large funding during the past eight years gives little confidence that even the most basic questions for the Generation IV reactors program can be answered during the next few years. Thus, it seems that the Generation IV roadmap is already totally outdated and unrealistic.

This is confirmed by the latest statements at the Global 2009 conference in September 2009 by B. Bigot, the chairman of the French Atomic Energy Commission, which indicate that the plan to have the reactors ready by the year 2030 is now delayed to 2040 and onwards. According to the Website "Supporters of Nuclear Energy," Bigot said "from 2040 onwards, France is planning to use Generation IV FBR's when renewing its fleet" [26].

4.2. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)

Another initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) [27] was announced by President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address. By September 2007, all major nuclear energy countries, except for Germany and a few others, have signed the statement of principles. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the goals of the initiative are (quote):

"First, reduce Americas dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels and encourage economic growth. Second, recycle nuclear fuel using new proliferation-resistant technologies to recover more en­ergy and reduce waste. Third, encourage prosperity growth and clean development around the world. And fourth, utilize the latest technologies to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation worldwide."

However in June 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial reprocessing, and had largely halted the domestic GNEP program. Research would continue on proliferation-resistant fuel cycles and waste management.

According to a WNA press information [28], the status of this initiative is:

"Although the future of GNEP looks uncertain, with its budget having been cut to zero, the DoE will continue to study proliferation-resistant fuel cycles and waste management strategies."

It follows that the GNEP initiative will not result in the construction of future breeder reactors.

4.3. Ideas about using thorium as a reactor fuel

During the past years, a large number of articles and books, websites and blogs propose the use of thorium as the breeder material for future nuclear reactors [29]. The promoters advocate many interesting possibilities, indicating that the Th232 cycle might have lots of advantages compared to the U238 breeder cycles in FBR's.

The main problem with these "great" new insights into the use of nuclear fission energy seems to be that nobody from the nuclear energy establishment is interested.

As a result, little or no private and public research money is invested into the question of how to develop a thorium breeder reactor. Ignoring the possibility that past investigations into the thorium fuel cycle have revealed several important problems, one needs to speculate about other reasons.

  • that the established nuclear energy experts do not like to see competition from outsiders, or
  • that the nuclear fusion community has managed to dominate the entire nuclear energy research domain, and that the available research budgets are already allocated to the ITER plasma research project.

If either of these two possibilities contains some truth, those in favor of developing a thorium breeder re­actor should start taking a strong position against the current nuclear energy establishment. They should point out that (i) the current use of nuclear energy has no perspective because of the limited amount of available uranium resources, (ii) the Th232 breeder cycle is by orders of magnitude better than the ideas about U238 breeder cycles with FBR's, and (iii) nuclear fusion is at least 50-100 years away. Leaving these more political issues aside, we would like to repeat some rational statements and the otherwise rarely mentioned problems about the use of the Th232 breeder cycle from the WNA information article [30] entitled:

Developing a thorium-based fuel cycle

where one can read that:

"In one significant respect U233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. Given a start with some other fissile material (U233, U235 or Pu239) as a driver, a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U238 and plutonium (in normal, slow neutron reactors) can be set up. (The driver fuels provide all the neutrons initially, but are progressively supplemented by U233 as it forms from the thorium.) However, there are also features of the neutron economy which counter this advantage. In particular the intermediate product protactinium-233 (Pa233) is a neutron absorber which diminishes U233 yield."

The statement continues with:

"Despite the thorium fuel cycle having a number of attractive features, development has always run into difficulties."

The main attractive features are:

  • The possibility of utilizing an abundantly available resource that has hitherto been of so little interest that it has never even been properly quantified.
  • The production of power with few long-lived transuranic elements in the waste.
  • A reduction of radioactive waste, in general.

The problems include:

  • The high cost of fuel fabrication due partly to the high radioactivity of U233 chemically sepa­rated from the irradiated thorium fuel.
  • Separated U233 is always contaminated with traces of U232 (69 year half-life but whose daugh­ter products such as thallium-208 are strong gamma emitters with very short half-lives). Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle, it results in increased costs.
  • The similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present.
  • Some concern over weapons proliferation risk of U233 (if it could be separated on its own), although many designs such as the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor address this concern. The tech­nical problems in reprocessing solid fuels are not yet satisfactorily solved. However with some designs, in particular the molten salt reactor (MSR), these problems are likely to largely disap­pear.
  • Much development work is still required, before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialized, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. In this respect, recent international moves to bring India into the ambit of international trade might result in the country ceasing to persist with the thorium cycle, as it now has ready access to traded uranium and conventional reactor designs.

The WNA article concludes with the following diplomatic statement:

"Nevertheless, the thorium fuel cycle, with its potential for breeding fuel without the need for fast neutron reactors, holds considerable potential in the long-term. It is a significant factor in the long-term sustainability of nuclear energy."

A "logic" interpretation of the WNA statement and the list of arguments about thorium and within the context of our review could be:

  • The breeding of Pu239 with fast neutrons has huge problems, and it would be great if another nuclear fuel could be found.
  • Thorium breeding shows interesting potential if the remaining large number of problems can be mastered in the long term, but right now, we are still far away from this. The contamination with the strong neutron absorber Pa233 and the large radioactivity from U232 and other elements are chief among the currently unsolved problems.
  • The well known use of nuclear fission energy in PWR's is unsustainable. The problems related to long-lived transuranic elements, e.g. plutonium and heavier elements, as well as nuclear waste in general, are unsolved. The concern with nuclear weapon proliferation cannot be dismissed either.

5. Fusion Illusions

This section offers a short version of a detailed article by the author in the second edition of The Final Energy Crisis [31].

After the second world war, many nuclear pioneers expected that nuclear fusion would provide their grandchildren with cheap, clean, and essentially unlimited energy.

Generations of physicists and physics teachers have been taught at the university and have gone on to teach others that (i) progress made in fusion research is impressive, (ii) controlled fusion is probably only a few decades away, and (iii) given sufficient public funding, no major obstacles stand between us and success in this field.

Here are some quotes from physics textbooks that reflect this sort of optimism:

"The goal seems to be visible now" (Nuclear and Particle Physics; Frauenfelder and Henley 1974)

"It will most likely take until the year 2000 to bring a laboratory reactor to full commercial utiliza­tion" (Energy, Resources and Policy; R. Dorf 1978)

"As the construction of a fusion reactor implies a large number of unsolved practical problems, one cannot expect that fusion will become a usable energy resource during some decades! Within a longer time scale however it seems possible!" (Physics, P. A. Tipler 1991)

Obviously this has not happened yet. The fusion optimists have meanwhile become a bit more modest. One can now read: "If everything goes well, the first commercial fusion reactor prototype might be ready in 50 years from now."

Such statements only hide the fact that no concept has yet been developed for how to solve the remaining problems. The uncritical media of today reverberated enthusiastically the recent decision by "world's leaders" to provide the ten billion US Dollars needed to start the ITER fusion project [32]. During the past few years, one could read, for example [33]:

  • "If successful, ITER would provide mankind with an unlimited source of energy" (Novosti, November 15, 2005).
  • "Officials project that 10% to 20% of the world energy could come from fusion by the end of the century" (BBC News, May 24, 2006).
  • "If successful, it could provide a source of energy that is clean and limitless" and "ITER says, within 30 years, the electricity could be available on the grid!" (BBC News, November 21, 2006).

The public, worried about global warming and oil price explosions, seems to welcome the tacit message that "we -the fusion scientists, the engineers, and the politicians- do everything that needs to be done to bring fusion energy on-line, before fossil fuel supplies become an issue, and before global warming boils us all."

In the following, we challenge the assumption that the ITER project offers any solution to the energy problem, and we quantify the arguments of fusion skeptics.

We start our discussion with an overview of the remaining huge problems facing commercial fusion and offer a detailed description of why the imagined self-sufficient tritium breeding cycle cannot work. In fact, as we are about to see, enough knowledge has been accumulated on this subject to safely conclude that whatever might justify the 10 billion US Dollar ITER project, it is not energy research.

5.1. Remaining barriers to fusion energy

Producing electricity from controlled nuclear fusion would require overcoming at least four major ob­stacles. The removal of each obstacle would need major scientific breakthroughs before any reasonable expectation might be formed of building a commercial prototype fusion reactor. It should be alarming that at best only the problems concerning the plasma control, described in point one below, might be investigated within the scope of the ITER project. Where and how the others might be dealt with is anyone's guess.

These are the four barriers:

  1. Commercial energy production requires steady state fusion conditions for a deuterium-tritium plasma on a scale comparable to that of today's standard nuclear fission reactors with outputs of 1 GW (electric) and about 3 GW (thermal) power. The current ITER proposal foresees a thermal power of only 0.4 GW using a plasma volume of 840 m3 . Originally it was planned to build ITER with a plasma volume of 2000 m3 corresponding to a thermal fusion power of 1.5 GW, but the fusion community soon realized that the original ITER version would never receive the required funding. Thus a smaller, much less ambitious version of the ITER project was proposed and finally accepted in 2005.

    The 1 GW (el) fission reactors of today function essentially in a steady state operation at nominal power and with an availability time over an entire year of roughly 90%. The deuterium-tritium fusion experiments have so far achieved short pulses of fusion power of 15 MW (therm) for one second and 4 MW (therm) for 5 seconds, corresponding to a liberated thermal energy of 5 kWh [34]. The Q-value (produced energy over input energy) for these pulses was 0.65 and 0.2, respectively.

    If everything works according to the latest plans [35], it will be 2018 when the first plasma experiments can start with ITER. From there, it will take us to 2026, at least another eight years, before the first tritium experiments are tried. The original plans from 2005 are now, even before any serious construction has started, already delayed by four years. In other words, it will take at least 20 years from the agreement by the world's richest countries to construct ITER, before one can find out if the goals of ITER, a power output of 0.5 GW (therm) with a Q-value of up to 10 and for 400 seconds, are realistic. Compare that to the original ITER proposal, which was 1.5 GW (therm), with a Q-value between 10-15 and for about 10,000 seconds. ITER proponents explain that the achievement of this goal would already be an enormous success. But this goal, even if it can be achieved by 2026, pales in comparison with the requirements of steady-state operation, year after year, with only a few minor controlled interruptions.

    Previous deuterium-tritium experiments used only minor quantities of tritium, and yet lengthy interruptions between successive experiments were required, because the radiation from the tri­tium decay was so excessively high. In earlier fusion experiments, such as JET, the energy liberated in the short pulses came from burning (fusing) about 3 micrograms (3 × 10-6 grams) of tritium, starting from a total amount of 20 gr of tritium. This number should be compared with the few kilograms of tritium required to perform the experiments foreseen during the en­tire ITER lifetime and with the still greater quantities that would be required for a commercial fusion reactor. A 400 sec fusion pulse with a power of 0.5 GW corresponds to the burning of 0.035 gr (3.5 × 10-2 grams) of tritium, a very large number, when compared to 3 micrograms, but a tiny number when compared with the yearly burning of 55.6 kilograms of tritium in a commercial 1 GW (therm) fusion reactor.

    The achieved efficiency of the tritium burning (i.e., the amount that is burned divided by the total amount required to achieve the fusion pulse) was roughly 1 part in a million in the JET experiment and is expected to be about the same in the ITER experiments, far below any acceptable value, if one wants to burn 55.6 kg of tritium per year.

    Moreover in a steady-state operation, the deuterium-tritium plasma will be "contaminated" with the helium nucleus that is produced, and some instabilities can be expected. Thus a plasma cleaning routine is needed that would not cause noticeable interruptions of production in a commercial fusion plant. ITER proponents know that even their self-defined goal (a 400 second long deuterium-tritium fusion operation within the relatively small volume of 840 m3) presents a great challenge. One might wonder what they think about the difficulties involved in reaching steady-state operation for a full-scale fusion power plant.

  2. The material that surrounds and contains thousands of cubic meters of plasma in a full-scale fusion reactor has to satisfy two requirements. First, it has to survive an extremely high neutron flux with energies of 14 MeV, and second, it has to do this not for a few minutes but for many years. It has been estimated that in a full-scale fusion power plant the neutron flux will be at least 10-20 times larger than in today's state-of-the-art nuclear fission power plants. Since the neutron energy is also higher, it has been estimated that -with such a neutron flux- each atom in the solid surrounding the plasma will be displaced 475 times over a period of 5 years [36]. Second, to further complicate matters, the material in the so called first wall (FW) around the plasma will need to be very thin in order to minimize inelastic neutron collisions resulting in the loss of neutrons (for more details see next section), yet at the same time thick enough so that it can resist both the normal and the accidental collisions from the 100-million-degree hot plasma for years.

    The "erosion" from the neutron bombardment has been estimated to be about 3 mm per "burn" year for carbon-like materials, and it has been estimated to be about 0.1 mm per burn year even for materials like tungsten [36].

    In short, no material known today can even come close to meeting the requirements described above. Exactly how a material that meets these requirements could be designed and tested remains a mystery, because tests with such extreme neutron fluxes cannot be performed either at ITER or at any other existing or planned facility.

  3. The radioactive decay of even a few grams of tritium creates radiation dangerous to living organ­isms, such that those who work with it must take sophisticated protective measures. Moreover, tritium is chemically identical to ordinary hydrogen, and as such is very active and difficult to con­tain. Since tritium is also a necessary ingredient in hydrogen fusion bombs, there is additional risk that it might be stolen. So, handling even the few kg of tritium foreseen for ITER is likely to create major headaches both for the radiation protection group and for those concerned with the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    Both of these challenges are essentially ignored in the ITER proposal, and the only thing the protection groups have to work with today are design studies based on computer simulations. This may not be of concern to the majority of ITER's promoters today, since they will be retiring before the tritium problem starts in something like 10 to 15 years from now [37], but at some point, it will become a greater challenge also for ITER and especially once one starts to work on a real fusion experiment with many tens of kilograms of tritium.

  4. Problems related to tritium supply and self-sufficient tritium breeding will be discussed in detail in Section 5.2, but first, it will be useful to describe qualitatively two problems that seem to require simultaneous miracles, if they are to be solved.
    • The neutrons produced in the fusion reaction will be emitted essentially isotropically in all directions around the fusion zone. These neutrons must somehow be convinced to escape without further interactions through the first wall surrounding the few 1000 m3 plasma zone. Next, the neutrons have to interact with a "neutron multiplier" material like beryllium in such a manner that the neutron flux is increased without transferring too much energy to the remaining nucleons. The neutrons then must transfer their energy without being absorbed (e.g. by elastic scattering) to some kind of gas or liquid, like high pressure helium gas, within the lithium blanket. This heated gas has to be collected somehow from the gigantic blanket volume and must flow to the outside. This heat can be used as in any existing power plant to power a generator turbine. This liquid should be as hot as possible, in order to achieve reasonable efficiency for electricity production. However, it is known that the lithium blanket temperature cannot be too high. This limits the efficiency to values well below those from today's nuclear fission reactors, which also do not have a very high efficiency.

      Once the heat is extracted and the neutrons are slowed sufficiently, they must make the inelastic interaction with the Li6 isotope, which makes up about 7.5% of the natural lithium. The minimal thickness of the lithium blanket that surrounds the entire plasma zone has been estimated to be at least 1 meter. Unfortunately, lithium like hydrogen (tritium atoms are chemically identical to hydrogen) in its pure form is chemically highly reactive. If used in a chemical bound state with oxygen, for example, the oxygen itself could interact and absorb neutrons, something that must be avoided. In addition, lithium and the produced tritium will react chemically -which is certainly not included in any present computer modeling- and some tritium atoms will be blocked within the blanket. Unfortunately, additional neutron and tritium losses cannot be allowed, as will be described in more detail in Section 5.2.

    • Next, an efficient way has to be found to extract the tritium quickly, and without loss, from this lithium blanket before it decays. We are talking about a huge blanket here, one that surrounds the few 1000 m3 plasma volume. Extracting and collecting the tritium from this huge lithium blanket will be very tricky indeed, since tritium penetrates thin walls relatively easily, and since accumulations of tritium are highly explosive. An interesting description of some of these difficulties that have already been encountered in a small-scale experiment can be found in reference [38].

      Finally assuming we get that far, the extracted and collected tritium and deuterium, which both need to be extremely clean, need to be transported, without losses, back to the reactor zone.

Each of the unsolved problems described above is by itself serious enough to raise doubts about the success of commercial fusion reactors. But the self-sufficient tritium breeding is especially problematic, as will be described in the next section.

5.2. The illusions of tritium self-sufficiency

A self-sustained tritium fusion chain appears to be not simply problematic but absolutely impossible. To see why, we shall now look into some details based on what is already known about this problem.

A central quantity for any fission reactor is its criticality, namely that exactly one neutron, out of the two to three neutrons "liberated" per fission reaction, will enable another nuclear fission reaction. More than 99% of the liberated fission energy is taken by the heavy fission products such as barium and krypton, and this energy is relatively easily transferred to a cooling medium. The energy of the produced fission neutrons is about 1 MeV. In order to achieve the criticality condition, the surrounding material must have a very low neutron absorption cross-section, and the neutrons must be slowed down to eV energies. For a self-sustained chain reaction to happen, a large amount of U235, enriched to 3-5%, is usually required. Once the nominal power is obtained, the chain reaction can be regulated using materials with a very high neutron absorption cross-section. A much higher enrichment of 20% is required for fast reactors without moderators and up to 90% for bombs.

In contrast to fission reactions, only one 14 MeV neutron is liberated in the D + T → He + n fusion reaction. This neutron energy has to be transferred to a medium using elastic collisions. Once this is done, the neutron is supposed to make an inelastic interaction with a lithium nucleus, splitting it into tritium and helium.

Starting with the above reaction, one can calculate how much tritium burning is required for a continuously operating commercial fusion reactor assuming a power production of 1 GW (thermal). One finds that about 55.6 kg of tritium needs to be burned per year with an average thermal power of 1 GW.

Today, tritium is extracted from Canadian heavy water reactors at extraordinary cost - about 30 million US Dollars per kg. These old heavy water reactors will probably stop operation around the year 2025, and it is expected that a total tritium inventory of 27 kg will have been accumulated by that year [39]. Once these reactors stop operating, this inventory will be depleted by more than 5% per year due to its radioactive decay alone - tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years. As a result, for the prototype "PROTO" fusion reactor, which fusion optimists imagine to start operation not before the year 2050, at best only 7 kg of tritium might remain for the start (Normal fission reactors produce at most 2-3 kg per year, and the extraction costs have been estimated to be 200 million dollars per kg [39].). It is thus obvious that any future fusion reactor experiment beyond ITER must not only achieve tritium self-sufficiency, it must create more tritium than it uses, if there are to be any further fusion projects.

The particularly informative website of Prof. Abdou from UCLA, one of the world's leading experts on tritium breeding, offers relevant numbers both about the basic requirements for tritium breeding and the state of the art today [40]. Yet, let us start with first things first, as understanding such "expert" discussions requires acquaintance with some key terms:

  • The required Tritium Breeding Ratio (rTBR) stands for the minimal number of tritium nuclei that must be produced per fusion reaction in order to keep the system going. It must be larger than one because of tritium decay and other losses and because of the necessary inventory in the tritium processing system and the stockpile for outages and for the startup of other plants. The rTBR value depends on many system and technology parameters.
  • The achievable Tritium Breeding Ratio (aTBR) is the value obtained from complicated and extensive computer simulations -so-called 3-dimensional simulations- of the blanket with its lithium and other materials. The aTBR value depends on many parameters like the first wall material and the incomplete coverage of the breeding blanket.
  • Other important variables are used to define quantitatively the value of the rTBR. These include: (1) the "tritium doubling time," the time in years required to double the original inventory; (2) the "fractional tritium burn-up" within the plasma, expected to be at best a few %; (3) the "reserve time," the tritium inventory required in days to restart the reactor after some system malfunctioning with a related tritium loss; and (4) the ratio between the calculated and the experimentally obtained TBR.

The handling of neutrons, tritium, and lithium requires particular care, not only because of radiation, but also because tritium and lithium atoms are chemically very reactive elements. Consequently, real-world large-scale experiments are difficult to perform, and our understanding of tritium breeding is based almost entirely on complicated and extensive computer simulations, which can only be done in a few places around the world.

Some of these results are described in a publication by Sawan and Abdou from December 2005 [41]. The authors assume that a commercial fusion power reactor of 1.5 GW (burning about 83 kg of tritium per year) would require a long-term inventory of 9 kg, and they further assume that the required start­up tritium is available.

They argue that, according to their calculations, the absolute minimum rTBR is 1.15, assuming a doubling time of more than 4 years, a fractional tritium burn-up larger than 5%, and a reserve time of less than 5 days. Requiring a shorter doubling time of 1 year, their calculations indicate that the rTBR should be around 1.5. More numbers can be read out from their figures. For example, one finds that if the fractional burn-up would be 1%, the rTBR should be 1.4 for a 5 year doubling time and even 2.6 for a 1 year doubling time. The fractional tritium burn-up during the short MW pulses in JET was roughly 0.0001%.

The importance of short tritium doubling times can be understood easily using the following calculation. Assuming these numbers can be achieved and that 27 kg tritium (2025) minus the 9 kg long-term inventory would be available at start-up, then 18 kg could be burned in the first year. A doubling time of 4 years would thus mean that such a commercial 1.5 GW (thermal) reactor can operate at full power only 8 years after the start-up.

Unfortunately, these rTBR estimates are far too optimistic as a number of potential losses related to the tritium extraction, collection, and transport are not considered in today's simulations.

The details become even more troubling when we turn to the tritium breeding numbers that have been obtained with computer simulations.

After many years of detailed studies, current simulations show that the blanket designs of today have, at best, achieved TBR's of 1.15. Using this number, Sawan and Abdou conclude that a small window for tritium self-sufficiency still exists theoretically. This window requires (1) a fractional tritium burn up of more than 5%, (2) a tritium reserve time of less than 5 days, and (3) a doubling time of more than 4 years. Yet even using these numbers, the authors believe it to be difficult to imagine a real operating power plant. In their own words: "for fusion to be a serious contender for energy production, shorter doubling times than 5 years are needed," and the fact is, doubling times much shorter than 5 years appear to be required, which means that TBR's much higher than 1.15 are necessary. To make matters worse, they also acknowledge that current systems of tritium handling need to be explored further. This probably means that the tritium extraction methods from nuclear fission reactors are nowhere near meeting the requirements.

Sawan and Abdou also summarize various effects that reduce the obtained aTBR numbers, once more realistic reactor designs are studied, and structural materials, gaps, and first wall thickness are considered. For example, they find that as the first wall, made of steel, is increased by 4 cm starting from a 0.4 cm wall, the aTBR drops by about 16%. It would be interesting to compare these assumptions about the first wall with the ones used in previous plasma physics experiments like JET and the one proposed for ITER. Unfortunately, we have so far not been able to obtain any corresponding detailed information. However, as it is expected that the first wall in a real fusion reactor will erode by up to a few mm per fusion year, the required thin walls seem to be one additional impossible assumption made by the fusion proponents.

Other effects, as described in detail by Sawan and Abdou [41], are known to reduce the aTBR even further. The most important ones come from the cooling material required to transport the heat away from the breeding zone, from the electric insulator material, from the incomplete angular coverage of the inner plasma zone with a volume of more than 1000 m3, and from the plasma control requirements.

This list of problems is already very long and shows that the belief in a self-sufficient tritium chain is completely unfounded. However, on top of that, some still very idealized TBR experiments have been performed now. These real experiments show, according to Sawan and Abdou [41], that the measured TBR results are consistently about 15% lower than the modeling predicts. They write in their publication: "the large overestimate (of the aTBR) from the calculation is alarming and implies that an intense R&D program is needed to validate and update .. our ability to accurately predict the achievable TBR."

One might conclude that a correct interpretation could have been:

Today's experiments show consistently that no window for a self-sufficient tritium breeding cur­rently exists and suggest that proposals that speak of future tritium breeding are based on nothing more than hopes, fantasies, misunderstandings, or even intentional misrepresentations.

5.3. Ending the dreams about controlled nuclear fusion

As we have explained above, there is a long list of fundamental problems concerning controlled fusion. Each of them appears to be large enough to raise serious doubts about the viability of the chosen approach to a commercial fusion reactor and thus about the 10 billion US Dollars ITER project.

Those not familiar with the handling of high neutron fluxes or the possible chemical reactions of tritium and lithium atoms might suppose that these problems are well known within the fusion community and are being studied intensively. But the truth is, none of these problems have been studied intensively and, at best, even with the ITER project, the only problems that might be studied relate to some of the plasma stability issues outlined in Section 5.1. All of the other problem areas are essentially ignored in today's discussions among ITER experts.

Confronted with the seemingly impossible tritium self-sufficiency problem that must be solved before a commercial fusion reactor is possible, the ITER experts tell you that this is not a problem that the current ITER project is to address. It won't be until the next generation of experiments -experiments that will not begin for roughly another 30 years according to official plans- that issues related to tritium self-sufficiency will have to be dealt with. They seem to also be comfortable with the fact that neither the problems related to material aging due to the high neutron flux nor the problems related to tritium and lithium handling can be tested with ITER.

However, among those who are not part of ITER and who do not expect miracles, an ever increasing number of scientists is coming to the conclusion that commercial fusion reactors can never become a reality. They are even starting to receive attention from the media as they argue ever more loudly that the ITER project will contribute very little, if anything, to energy research [42].

One scientist who should be listened to more widely is Prof. Abdou. In a pre­sentation in 2003 that was prepared on behalf of the US fusion chamber technology community for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science on Fusion Chamber Technology, he wrote that "tritium supply and self-sufficiency are a 'Go-No Go' issue for fusion energy, [and are therefore] as critical NOW as demonstrating a burning plasma" [capitalization in original]. He pointed out that "there is NOT a single experiment yet in the fusion environment that shows that the DT fusion fuel cycle is viable." He said that "proceeding with ITER makes Chamber Research even more critical" and he asked: "What should we do to communicate this message to those who influence fusion policy outside DOE?" [43]. In short, to go ahead with ITER without addressing these chamber technology issues makes very little sense economically.

In the light of everything that has been said in this section, it seems clear that the nuclear fusion scientists should be telling the truth to the tax payers, the policy makers, and the media. They should tell them that, after 50 years of very costly fusion research conducted at various locations around the world, enough knowledge exists to state that:

  1. today's achievements in all relevant areas of nuclear fusion are still many orders of magnitude away from the basic requirements of a fusion prototype reactor;
  2. no material or structure is known that can withstand the extremely high neutron flux expected under realistic deuterium-tritium fusion conditions; and
  3. self-sufficient tritium breeding appears to be impossible to achieve under the conditions required to operate a commercial fusion reactor.

It is late, but perhaps not too late, to acknowledge that the ITER project is at this point nothing more than an expensive experiment to investigate some fundamental aspects of plasma physics. Since this would in effect acknowledge that the current ITER funding process is based on faulty assumptions and that ITER should in all fairness be funded on equal terms with all other basic research projects, acknowledging these truths will not be easy. Yet, it is the only honest thing to do.

It is also the only path that will allow us to transfer from ITER to other more promising research efforts the enormous resources and the highly skilled talents that need now to be brought to bear on our increasingly urgent energy problems. In short, this is the only path that will allow us to stop "throwing good money after bad" and to start dealing with our emerging energy crisis in a realistic way.

6. Summary

In this fourth and final part of our analysis about the Future of Nuclear Energy, we have presented status and prospects for nuclear fuel breeder fission reactors and the true situation as it relates to nuclear fusion.

Despite the often repeated claims that the technology for fast reactors is well understood, one finds that no evidence exists to back up such claims. In fact, their huge construction costs, their poor safety records, and their inefficient performance give little reason to believe that they will ever become commercially significant.

Indeed, no evidence has been presented so far that the original goal of nuclear fuel breeding has been achieved. The designs and running plans for the two FBR's, currently under construction in India and in Russia, do not indicate that successful breeding can even in principle be achieved.

Nevertheless, assuming that extensive and costly efforts are being undertaken during the next 20-30 years, a remote possibility of mastering nuclear fission breeder reactor technology can still be imagined. However, it is unclear if (1) enough highly enriched uranium remains to start future commercial breeder reactors on a large scale in 30-40 years from now, and (2) if the people in rich societies will accept risky and costly research efforts during times of economic difficulties. In any case, fast breeder reactors, even under the most optimistic assumptions, will come far too late to compensate for the looming energy decline following the peaking of oil and gas.

In contrast to the remaining open questions relating to fission breeders, we find that the accumulated knowl­edge about nuclear fusion is already now large enough to conclude that commercial fusion power is not only 50 years away, but that it will always be 50 years away.

The current situation concerning the future of nuclear energy appears in many respects similar to the one described in a famous fairy tale [44], but with a slightly modified ending:

"In the coming 'autumn and winter' of our industrial civilization brought on by the decline of fossil fuels, it seems clear that the clothes of the Nuclear Fission Energy emperor are far too thin to keep him and others warm, and that the Nuclear Fusion Emperor has no clothes at all!"

Acknowledgments

This report about the Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fic­tion, and especially its fourth part, is a result of many questions that the author asked scientists active within the fission and fusion research communities over the past few years. Essentially, none was answered and no help was provided to get in contact with the corresponding "fission" and "fusion" experts. Thus in some kind of "hobby" research, which included dis­cussions with friends, colleagues, and many believers in never ending technological progress, the different pieces concerning the future of nuclear energy summarized in this report came together.

During early 2007, an attempt was made to discuss the fusion problems in an open and scientific way directly with scientists from the fusion community. After coming as far as fixing the date for a seminar, the author received an email stating that there had been a "misunderstanding," and the envisaged dialog never took place. A similar initiative to discuss open issues about nuclear fission energy was undertaken in 2008. Again, it came as far as a seminar invitation that was canceled when trying to fix a date.

However during the spring of 2007, the author received an invitation to present the "Status and Prospects of Nuclear Energy" at the 6th ASPO meeting in Cork, Ireland in September 2007. In preparation for this presentation, the author took the time to study the 2005 edition of the Red Book in detail. Many questions about the uranium resource numbers, presented in the Red Book, came up, but the inconsistencies were not yet large enough to start doubting the data. This view changed however, when the 2007 edition appeared together with an enthusiastic press declaration in June 2008. As it turned out from comparing the 2007 and 2005 editions, the reported uranium resource data were nothing but a collection of proven and unproven geological data mixed with politically correct wishful thinking about a sustainable and bright future for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. This is how this report with its first three parts concerning the Red Book and the analysis of future nuclear energy technologies started to take shape.

Even though the views expressed in this paper are from the author alone, I would like to thank several colleagues and friends who took the trouble to discuss the content of this report during the past few years with me. They all helped me to bring it into its final form. I would like to thank especially D. Hatzifotiadou, W. Tamblyn, and F. Spano for many valuable suggestions and the careful reading of the paper draft. I would also like to thank S. Newman, who had asked me during the spring of 2007 to prepare a chapter about "Fusion Illusions" for the second edition of the book "The Final Energy Crisis." Her encouragement was essential to writing the longer report about nuclear fusion energy.

Finally, after several attempts to complete also the report about the Red Book and the status and prospects of nuclear fission energy, it was Prof. F. Cellier who suggested to split this report into four separate parts and submit it to the Oil Drum for publication. I am very grateful to him about the many valuable discussions we had, for the encouragement to complete this report, and for his editing work to transform the article into the style needed for the Oil Drum publication. I am also grateful to the staff of the Oil Drum for having created a place where such articles, often censored in other places, can be published and confronted directly to the comments of a large number of critical readers.

Thus, the author hopes, with the ideas expressed in the quote from Gustave Le Bon below, that this report will function like some kind of "telescope," helping others to observe that some objects are moving around Jupiter.

"Science promised us truth, or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or happiness"
Gustave Le Bon

References

[1] For a historic overview, cf. http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/cp-1_critical.htm.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power.

[3] For the fraction of nuclear electric energy production in 2007, cf. page 17 of http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2009/key_stats_2009.pdf.

[4] Cf. for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor; http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/fasbre.html; and under the sub­title "Is nuclear energy renewable?" in http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf09.html.

[5] "All agree, however, that successful completion of this research could pro­vide humans with perhaps the 'final solution' to their energy needs." in http://www.bookrags.com/research/nuclear-fusion-enve-02/ or "The final solution of energy problems seems to be achieved only by the realization of nuclear fusion." from the abstract in http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5915187.

[6] Parts I, II, and III of this four-part article have been published at the Oil Drum, August/September 2009 at http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5631, http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5677, and http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5744, respec­tively. The articles are also available at the preprint archive http://xxx.lanl.gov/ filed under Physics and Society at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0908.0627, http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0908.3075, and http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0909.1421, respectively.

[7] The IAEA data base about existing nuclear reactors can be accessed at http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/. A qualitative overview of different FBR's is pre­sented at http://www.eoearth.org/article/Fast_neutron_reactors_(FBR).

[8] The WNA document about Russia, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf45.html, men­tions the year 2010 as BN-600 termination date.

[9] The IAEA fast reactor data base with many detailed publications can be accessed at http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/frdb/index.html. The BN-600 design breeding gain of -0.15 is mentioned in [22], page 46.

[10] The actual status of the Phenix reactor is described in the WNA document about FBR's: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf98.html.

[11] For a list of previously scheduled Monju restarts, cf. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/stdsearch.aspx?sparam=monju&fid=778.

[12] The WNA document about India, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf53.html, mentions 2010 as the FBR startup date, with commercial power production starting in 2011.

[13] For some information about running experience with thorium reactors, cf. the WNA doc­ument http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html.

[14] According to a Wikipedia article, the power density in the sun is estimated at 0.272 W/m3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun. At other places, such as Klaus Heinloth, Die Energiefrage (2003), a roughly 1000 times larger fusion power density is given.

[15] The text of the NPT is reproduced at http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html. Especially, articles IV and VI have important implications for today’s discussions about Iran and other states.

[16] A three minute documentation about the explosion of the Tsar bomb can be found at you-tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2nQopP73XI&feature=player_embedded.

[17] Many interesting scenes from the "Dr. Strangelove" movie can be found at you-tube. For example, the ones from ending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iesXUFOlWC0&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls are very revealing.

[18] For some details about the relations between radiation and cancer, cf. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ped/content/ped_1_3x_radiation_exposure_and_cancer.asp.

[19] The formula is in chapter 4, page 106 of the book Nuclear Engineering: Theory and Technology of Commercial Nuclear Power by Ronald Allen Knief, New York: Hemisphere Pub. Corp., 1992. Many more interesting aspects about energy from nuclear fission are explained in this book.

[20] Details about the thorium breeding experiments with the Shippingport reac­tor are given in http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/2664750.pdf and http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/769053-hlSCmO/native/769053.pdf.

[21] The breeding ratio of 1.14 for the Phenix FBR is given in many papers and textbooks. However according to the [22] document, this value is the design value, and not the result of an experimental analysis.

[22] The fuel content of the FBR core and other pieces of information are taken from the IAEA document http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/frdb/fulltext/03_coreCharacteristics.pdf#37.

[23] For the WNA quote about the BN-800 FBR, cf. http://www.world-­nuclear.org/info/inf98.html, and for some interesting details about the timescale of the nuclear energy evolution in Russia, cf. the WNA document http://www.world-­nuclear.org/info/inf45.html.

[24] Details about the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) can be found at their website http://www.gen-4.org/. The detailed roadmap program is presented at http://www.gen-­4.org/Technology/roadmap.htm.

[25] The statements from the WNA can be found at http://www.world-­nuclear.org/info/inf77.html.

[26] The statement by Bernard Bigot, chairman of the French Atomic Energy Com­mission, made at the September Global 2009 "The Nuclear Fuel Cycle" conference is re­peated at the website of the supporters of nuclear energy http://www.sone.org.uk/ at http://www.sone.org.uk/content/view/1349/2/.

[27] Information about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) can be obtained from their website http://www.gneppartnership.org/index.htm.

[28] The June 29, 2009 news item from the WNA entitled "Fatal Blow to GNEP?" can be found at http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-DoE_cancels_GNEP_EIS-2906095.html.

[29] Many discussion topics, research articles, and discussions about the use of thorium can be found at the http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ website.

[30] The pragmatic down-to-earth statement about future thorium breeders comes from the WNA article about "thorium" in http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html.

[31] The original article "Fusion Illusions" is published in the second edition of the The Final Energy Crisis edited by S. Newman. For more details and many other articles about the coming energy crisis, cf. http://candobetter.org/TFEC/.

[32] For the ITER homepage and further details, cf. http://www.iter.org/default.aspx. More technical details about the ITER status can be found at the website of the USA fusion community at http://fire.pppl.gov/.

[33] Cf. for example http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6165932.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5012638.stm.

[34] Cf. for example John Wesson, The Science of JET, Chapter 1and Appendix I, March 2000 at http://www.jet.efda.org/documents/books/wesson.pdf for the timeline of the JET experiments.

[35] The new, four-year-delayed date for the first deuterium-tritium experiments in 2026 has been announced at the 4th ITER Council meeting in June 2009, as described at http://www.iter.org/proj/Pages/ITERMilestones.aspx. However, it seems that nothing goes as planned. According to an article in Nature, October 13, 2009, ITER has been at a standstill since April, http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091013/full/461855a.html.

[36] For more details, cf. the presentations by B. D. Wirth at http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/courses/classes/NE39/Wirth-FusionMaterials_lecture2.pdf and
S. J. Zinkle (2004), page 47 at http://fire.pppl.gov/aps_dpp04_zinkle.pdf.

[37] The ITER people seem to be working on a new quantitative construction and operation timeline, as details are currently not available on the ITER homepage. However a qualitative overview can be be found at http://www.iter.org/PROJ/Pages/ITERAndBeyond.aspx. The original 50 year timeline towards the realization of the DEMO and PROTO fusion devices is described at http://www.fusion.org.uk/culham/fasttrack.pdf.

[38] J. L. Anderson, Tritium Systems: Issues and Answers, Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol 4, Nos. 2/3, 1985 and http://www.springerlink.com/content/m34445687252l544/.

[39] Cf. for example M. Abdou, Notes for Informal Discussion with Senior Fusion Leaders in Japan (JAERI and Japanese Universities), March 24, 2003.

[40] The website of Prof. M. Abdou, http://www.fusion.ucla.edu/abdou/.

[41] M. E. Sawan and M. A. Abdou, Physics and technology conditions for attaining tritium self-sufficiency for the DT fuel cycle, Fusion Engineering and Design, 81 (2006) 1131-44 and http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2005.07.035.

[42] Cf. for example S. Balibar, Y. Pomeau and J. Treiner, La France et l'énergie des étoiles, point de vue, Le Monde, 24 October 2004, and W. E. Parkins, Fusion Power: Will It Ever Come, March 10 Science Vol 311.

[43] M. Abdou, Briefing to DOE Office of Science, Washington June 3, 2003 at http://www.fusion.ucla.edu/abdou/abdou presentations/2003/orbach pres (6-1-03) Final1.ppt.

[44] It seems that "history" sometimes repeats itself. Hans Christian Andersen (1837) fairy tale, "The Emperor’s New Suit," can be found at http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html.

A good summary of what's wrong with most of the nuclear programs but
you've left off a most promising technology; the US NIF fusion LIFE reactor being worked on at LLNL. Hybrid reactors were originally proposed by Hans Bethe.

I submitted an article on it here a while back at TOD but the editors must have lost it.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/how_li...

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/

https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nic/icf/

I think this could work. Small targets of deuterium/tritium are fused with high powered lasers to provide a controllable neutron source which could breed depleted uranium, actinides or thorium into fissionable fuel which would slowly burn down.
There is NO fuel problem and (almost) no waste with these reactors and they operate at slightly higher temperatures than normal LWRs so the efficiency is higher.

The US government is very quiet about this unique program which had 'non-technical' problems in the past. I'm sure they don't want to jinx this one.

As to ITER, there are lots of smart people working on it and lots of money committed to it so I think it probably will work --after NIF succeeds ;-)

Nevertheless fusion is a ways off and we need to deal with Peak Oil and GW so I'm content to let fusion science proceed at its own pace.

A watched kettle never boils!

The Polywell reactors are also kind of interesting. The idea of using a boron target (pB11 reaction) seems very attractive, as it results in no radioactive waste! Apparently those guys just got some money from the stimulus funds. We'll have to wait and see. Or we can join them, I guess...

As for ITER, I think it was the late Prof. Bussard (of Polywell fame) who said that the Russians gave us the idea of the tokamak so that we would never figure out commercial fusion power! The whole thing has been going on for so long and is so freakin' enormous by now that it really reeks of boondoggle. The technical challenges there are still considerable, and I think the current iteration of the project will be its last (much like the LHC will probably be the last collider of its type ever built).

It seems that the LLNL National Ignition Facility concept is rather unlikely to result in NET energy. They quote a 100:1 energy conversion (laser photons to thermal); now slap on the thermal efficiency for electricity production and the huge overhead of maintaining so many high-powered pulsed lasers. At any rate, they seem more interested in studying the details of the tritium reaction for further weapons development, which is the whole deal at LLNL.

I tend to concur with Dr. Dittmar; I think the whole commercial electricity-from-nuclear idea is flawed and should be altogether abandoned. There are good reasons that governments still have to finance and operate these things: because they're not profitable! Using Jeff Vail's EROEI analysis, we can conclude that they are probably not "energy positive" (a loaded term, but one we must live with). Their sheer complexity is a good indication that we're not going to be able to rely on them for primary energy for much longer; attempting to make them even more complex in the ways described in the article is surely a detour we cannot afford at this late stage in the game. I hold out some hope for the Polywell approach, because it's cheap and simple and with pB11, safe. But it's still in its infancy.

That said, I think uranium may be a fantastic fuel for space travel and other applications where very high density fuel is needed; but we should leave SOMETHING for future generations to play with, don't you think?! Haven't we already done enough?! We need to focus right now on getting back safely on the ground.

Like many here, I'm generally a pessimist when it comes to our future energy prospects. Inertial-electrostatic fusion, especially polywell is probably the greatest ray of hope. I am amazed at the low profile that polywell research has. It has to be the most promising avenue of fusion research at the moment. I guess governments are either unwilling to admit the billions spent on tokomaks has been flushed, or they are owned by the oil business and want fusion research to fail.

EMC2 - The late Professor Bussard's company has proposed that it would cost somewhere around $200M to build a 100MW net energy producing pB11 polywell reactor. Compare this with the cost of ITER...

As an aside, probably the best part of the pB11 reaction is that it's released energy is almost entirely contained in three alphas. The energy can be recovered directly as electricity - no steam cycle, potentially allowing very high conversion efficiency. This is why the US Navy has been funding research (albeit at depressingly low levels) - if it can be made to work, it's perfect for ship-board power.

As an aside, probably the best part of the pB11 reaction is that it's released energy is almost entirely contained in three alphas. The energy can be recovered directly as electricity - no steam cycle, potentially allowing very high conversion efficiency.

Yeah, I've heard that, but I haven't seen any detailed explanation. The other big plus is that it could potentially eliminate the overhead of all those turbines (so long as the capture mechanism isn't even more complicated; but I imagine it wouldn't have any moving parts). If you care to expand or have a link or something, I'd love to learn more. Thanks.

A bunch of papers on the subject can be found Here.

The basic theory is a series of positively charged electrodes decelerate the positively charged ions, which strip further electrons from the electrodes, imparting additional charge to them. No moving parts (apart from the He ions).

I've been perplexed by the Polywell/Bussard proposals. Clearly if you can create/maintain a concentrated negative charge, you should be able to attract positively charged nuclei at sufficient energy to do the job. But, I can't imagine how you keep the negative charge contained. Presumably theres some sort of clever trick that I simply can't imagine.

The electrons are confined by a magnetic field. Since they are many orders of magnitude lighter than the positive ions, they respond strongly to a magnetic field that barely deflects the protons/deuterons/B11 ions. The prototype polywell units (WB-6/7) are said to use a field around the 1 to 2 tesla range, similar to an MRI scanner.

It's definitely a big problem with NIF to maintain those high powered lasers. Check the firing rate on them too: once every few hours. The next generation Mercury system is supposed to be better.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/psa/fusion_energy/mercury.php

As currently designed, NIF's 192 beams can fire simultaneously only once every few hours. After each shot, the thousands of optics must be given a chance to cool down to ensure that they can operate correctly for the next shot.

yeah -maybe in five or ten years the lasers can be made to fire on a fairly regular basis.Then we can move on to another problem-building one that can be fitted into the reactor that is in and of itself not the size of a battleship.

Then we can tackle the next problem in sequence-ther probably aren't over a hundred or so that will take a few years each to solve -if they CAN be solved.

Concerning the Laser or accelerator made neutrons

so far it is always an incredible small number for the ``energy return/ energy invested"
and absolute numbers are so far below any commercial requirement that even a good solar panel makes more energy
at the end. Just think about the numbers a typical beam in an accelerator contains perhaps 10**11 to 10**12 protons
Thus to be generous 10**11 * 450* 10**9 eV (= 450 * 10**20 * 1.6 *10**-19 joule ) beam energy perhaps.
Thus roughly 10000 Joule within the beam. To make such a beam it requires a power of ten to hundred MWatt (If I remember correctly
we have a demand of up to 200 Mwatt!)

The efficiency on how the input electric energy is transformed is just tiny!
for more and future projects (compare what has been achieved and what is a far away goal!) have a look for example at
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1065364/files/ab-note-2007-035.pdf?version=3

concerning the LASER power links you propose
just read through the challenges and compare with the propaganda statements from the page you have linked

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/benefi...

you write:

As to ITER, there are lots of smart people working (1) on it and lots of money committed (2) to it so I think it probably will work (3)

what is the evidence for (1) when you look at the ITER website?

for the money (2) well have you never heard of projects getting lots of money and nothing ever came out of it?

for (3) what will work about ITER (try to figure out what the goal is and compare it to the remaining barriers listed in my paper!)
and what would it mean for commercial fusion energy?

Actually I suggest that you really read what I wrote in the section "Fusion Illusions" and
take a careful look at the references I provide.

michael

A hybrid LIFE reactor with a subcritical fission blanket is expected to have energy gains('EROI') of 120-200.

As a 'pure' fusion inertial reactor the gains from the laser are a more modest with 3 MJ of laser energy producing 200 MJ of thermonuclear energy.
The addition of a subcritical blanket increases that yield by 2.5 times.
OTH, the reactor would still operate as a heat engine and would require tremendous amounts of cooling compared to renewables like wind or solar.

It seems unlikely to me that LNLL's claims for the NIF are nonsense but it is certainly speculative at least until NIF is tested in 2010-2011 so caution is warranted.

Here's a possible deployment scheme for LIFE reactors as LWRs are phased out. It is based on building 5 to 12 commercial LIFE reactors by 2030 and a pilot plant in 2020.

The LLNL project is not nonsense; but it's not intended as a project to build a commercial fusion reactor. It's a weapons testing system (LLNL is a weapons lab); it's presented to the public as having to do with saving the planet, but I think the end goal is quite the opposite.

and absolute numbers are so far below any commercial requirement that even a good solar panel makes more energy
at the end.

Thats why they can only be used with a subcritical fuel assembly. If each fission can spanw say .99 further fissions (1.0 would be critical) then each absorbed neutron would generate a hundred fissions. So most of the neutron induced fissions are indirectly created by other fissions, only the individual fision changes are seeded by the neutron source.

Now you may still be right about the prospects. I haven't seen any details. Without an extremely efficient accelerator you clearly need fuel that is only slightly subcritical.

Concerning the Laser or accelerator made neutrons

so far it is always an incredible small number for the ``energy return/ energy invested"
and absolute numbers are so far below any commercial requirement that even a good solar panel makes more energy
at the end. Just think about the numbers a typical beam in an accelerator contains perhaps 10**11 to 10**12 protons
Thus to be generous 10**11 * 450* 10**9 eV (= 450 * 10**20 * 1.6 *10**-19 joule ) beam energy perhaps.
Thus roughly 10000 Joule within the beam. To make such a beam it requires a power of ten to hundred MWatt (If I remember correctly
we have a demand of up to 200 Mwatt!)

The LANL-ATP produces 100mA(6E17 protons per sec) 1700Mev beam at 170 MW,
(1.6E-19 Ws/Ev x 6E17p/s x 1.7E9Ev = 163 MW)so a 10E20 protons per second at 14Mev is just slightly more energy, 1.6E-19 x 10E19 x 14E6 = 224 MW.

That's a lot of energy but according to the site the fusion reactor would produce 500 MW of thermonuclear energy but as a hybrid fission reactor, you get 2500 MW of thermal energy out or as a +40% efficient heat engine(due to higher reactor temperature) you could produce 1000 MW of electricity out; 224 MWe in and 1000 MWe out--EROI of 4.5.

It's not terrific but no worse than present day nukes EROI.
http://www.eroei.com/eroei/evaluations/net-energy-list/

As far as ITER, site work has already started and in about 10 years 500 MW Cadarache should be in trials with an EROI electricity of less than 3.5, Q>=10. They say the reason ITER will work is the tokomakh chamber is larger than JET's.

The world production of tritium is 4 kg/yr which with an equal amount of deuterium could produce 30 Twh of thermal energy = 19 million barrels of oil. So I agree to a point with your tritium shortage argument and you can't stockpile it because it has a half-life of 12 years.(Tritium is made from lithium). Still NIF-LIFE would use much less than ITER.

http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Events/Lectures/file_30844.pdf

All this is based on current state of technology and it should improve as these projects develop.

I read you section on tritium but the hybrid system gets 80% of its power from depleted uranium and thorium so much less tritum would be required--only enough to generate neutron flux.

You're just TOO negative on hybrid fusion,
but I agree even NIF-LIFE reactors will
be less magical than I should like.

It could turn out that solar and wind with suitable cheap mega-battery technology will be more efficient than LIFE (but not at present).

JMHO

What, majorian found a techno-hack that he likes?!  I am without words.

And I started to miss you

michael
(ps ``without words.." I hope not!)

On a similar vein there are proposals for using small efficient accelerators to provide a controllable neutron source for subcritical reactors. These could also (I think) could be used for Thorium fission. The advantages of these sorts of reactors are twofold. First being subcritical the reaction is dependent upon the neutron source. Shut off the accererator and the reaction shuts down. Secondly the need for high neutron yield per fission is relaxed, allowing a wider selection of fuel.

And in the fusion arena, I think the chance of ITER leading to practical fusion is almost zero. There are a couple of private efforts that are exploring some potentially interesting alternate methods. These are recieving about a thousandth of the finances of ITER. The big problem with the government funded programs, is that the big Tokamac labs, always had undue political power. Whenever an alternative concept started to look threatening that program would recieve the coup-de-gra. There was no way these folks were going to share the limited R&D budget with other labs!

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) have similar properties.  The fuel can be held in the vessel using "freeze plugs", actively cooled to prevent fluid from going through them; if the reactor overheats and overwhelms the cooling system or the cooling system is shut off, the frozen zone melts and the reactor drains passively to dump tanks.  Also, the operating temperature is regulated by controlling the concentration of fissionables.  As the fluid heats up, the fluid density falls and the neutron leakage increases.  This puts a ceiling on the continuous operating temperature of the reactor, as the chain reaction cannot be sustained below a critical fluid density.

There is a further advantage of dispensing with all the fusion hardware.  It's doubtful that fusion/fission can be justified on the basis of cost, given that fission can do the same job with mostly passive hardware and 1960's technology.

Even Gould had to back away from the moon after Apollo 11. Some semblence of reality needs to take hold some time, even in the comics.

You do seem to agree with one of the author's conclusions: that fusion work should compete on a level playing field with other experimental projects. Any suggestions as to how we get the funding to better short and medium term prospects? From what I am reading here the author's approach of lumping fusion with fast breeders may be counter productive.

I think he lumped 20-years-from-pilot fusion technology in with 40-years-since-demonstration fission technology to discredit the latter.  He uses a lot of sleight of hand, non-sequiturs and other misdirection to arrive at conclusions not supported by the data, even his cherry-picked data.

regarding the breeding of Plutonium, I can find the following article :
at osti database

where the abstract says (emphasis mine) :
"The feasibility of breeding has been demonstrated in the Phenix reactor with a measured gain of 0.14"

One paper doesn't mean that it becomes an universal proof, but saying "The theoretical hopes for fuel breeding are thus not backed up with hard experimental data." is probably a bit harsh. Nuclear Science and Engineering is the research Journal of the ANS and is a serious publication. You may be right, but the burden of proof falls on you.

For the last 20 years, research on fast reactors has focused on nuclear waste (including plutonium) burning/transmutation. It is reasonable to assume that it is the case because the breeding problem is considered solved, whereas the optimal waste management problem is still open. Regarding the latter, I don't see how it is possible to burn minor actinides with thermal reactors, so at least a few fast reactors will be necessary, but we have time to develop them.

Hi,

sorry but the link you give does not work(for me?)

but again as I wrote the number of 0.14 is copy paste from the design value.
I would be surprised if after so many years all over sudden this number
which was always mentioned will be justified from a detailed analysis of the fuel rods.

like it has been done with the Shippingport reactor!

you say:

For the last 20 years, research on fast reactors has focused on nuclear waste (including plutonium) burning/transmutation.
It is reasonable to assume that it is the case because the breeding problem is considered solved,

how do you backup these statements?

In contrary the Generation IV roadmap (written by all the relevant insiders) claims essentially the opposite!

michael

Here is the link that works. link

Since 91, there is a programme called SPIN ("separation et incineration en reacteur") in which Phenix was involved as it was the most intense source of neutrons for the CEA. The goal is to burn plutonium and minor actinides.

Hi,

unfortunately one only gets the abstract
if you have the full article i would be grateful if you can mail it to me!

otherwise it is remarkable that this article
is from

1985 Aug 01

thus at best the input "information" is from 1984 and roughly 26 year old
(the reactor started operation in 1974!)

as nothing detailed about the real breeding from Phenix is written in the
most recent up-to-date IAEA fast reactor data base it
the chances that a detailed fuel rod analysis like in the Shippingport Thorium case has been done
is highly unlikely!

michael

ps..
if the goal of a fast breeder is to produce fast neutrons
it should from now on be called Fast reactor
like the russian one(s).

And in agreement with what I wrote
there is no evidence that breeders work!

Hi,

Apologies I can only get to the abstract too.

It seems quite natural that the first thing experimenters checked after starting the reactor was the actual breeding ratio. Once it was done, it was done. No need to check it again and again ! So the fact that the article is old is not a reason to dismiss it. I am also not surprised to not read many details about what happened to the blanket rods. After all, this is a plutonium producing machine, you can't expect to have the detailed plan and operating procedures completely revealed to the public (especially at the end of the seventies, it was still the cold war at that time !).

On a more technical standpoint, the fact that breeding worked for a thorium/U233 thermal reactor is quite auspicious for breeding Pu in a fast reactor. It was not obvious that, with maximum η so close to 2, the neutron losses due to reactor geometry and the absorption of neutron by the moderator would not prevent breeding.
However, in a fast reactor, you have much less moderator losses (you still have a bit because the fuel is not in pure form but in the form of Oxide or Carbide ; for instance the breeding ratio with Carbide fuel has been computed to be 1.42). I doubt the reactor designers miscalculated for decades what the neutron flux was in the reactor. So the generated neutrons should exist and have to go somewhere, and this somewhere is the blanket. Again, there is no big uncertainty on the absorption cross section of the fertile material. The real question becomes, why wouldn't it work ?

My problem with this affirmation that breeders don't work is that you put it at the same level of certainty than your affirmations that Uranium resources are more limited than most people think and Tokamak fusion is doomed to fail. On the two later subjects, it is not difficult to find geologists agreeing with the first, and plasma physicists agreeing with the last. However, I can't find any other reference to a nuclear engineer (say, a neutronics specialist) doubting the feasibility of breeding in a fast reactor. Add to that independent teams in US (EBR-II), France (Phenix) and Russia (BN-800), all hiding breeding failures, and to top it all, the Chinese recently buying two BN-800 to the Russians to check by themselves that breeding really fails (buying just one would leave a doubt I guess). Sorry, it is too much of a conspiracy theory to me.

It is a pity because it weakens a well documented and structured paper overall.

Dittmar is only interested in pronouncing nuclear energy to be a failure (with the possible exception of MSRs).  He looks at the final light-water breeder test run of Shippingport (section 3.1), with its confirmed breeding ratio of 1.013 (despite issues with neutron capture in Pa-233), and pronounces it a failure.  He also claims "the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large", when the initial fissile loading was only 501 kg or 1.17% of the total core*.  Fissionable loadings of current PWR cores are upwards of 4% of much larger total amounts†.

While he is claiming that nuclear energy is impossible, other people are doing it.  Lightbridge is commercializing thorium-uranium fuel, and claims to be working on disposal of reclaimed PWR plutonium.  That plutonium would suffice as the initial loading of fissionables in a reactor, thus requiring no uranium at all.  Spent LWR fuel is approximately 0.8% plutonium (depending on burnup), so 1.5 core's worth of spent uranium fuel would supply enough plutonium for a 1.2% loading of Pu for a new Th-Pu core.  Such a core would breed enough U-233 to maintain power output for years, without the refueling downtime required at 18-month intervals for LEU cores.  The increased uptime would increase capacity factor and net generation even if nameplate capacity was unchanged.

Nuclear weapons appear to be Dittmar's bogeyman.  He is terribly worried about the plutonium in PWR fuel, regardless of the fact that no weapons program has ever used reactor-grade Pu (too much heat from Pu-238 and too many spontaneous fissions from Pu-240 and Pu-241).  Chinese bomb designs supplied by N. Korea will not be suitable for reactor-grade Pu, so would-be proliferators have a much higher hurdle to jump; it should be no wonder that they are ignoring plutonium and going to centrifuge-enriched uranium.  This implies that the only serious proliferation issues are research reactors and the nuclear fuel cycle, not nuclear power per se (and especially not PWRs with their long downtime required to change fuel elements).  His neuroticism on this should be taken into account when appraising his conclusions.

* Dittmar sprinkles non-sequiturs and falsehoods throughout the series.  Claiming a large loading of fissionables for Shippingport (it was at the very low end of LWR fuel loadings) is simply false.  Whether he believes what he writes or not, you shouldn't; he is putting himself forth as an authority when he has none, and should have been laughed off TOD after Chapter I.
† The fuel burnup level is interesting.  The 43-odd tons of Th/U-233 in the final Shippingport core ran for 5 years at something like 2/3 capacity factor; call it 1200 full-power days.  This burnup corresponds to ~6500 MW-d/ton, or roughly what a CANDU achieves with natural uranium fuel.  However, in this process a CANDU burns its fuel from 0.71% U-235 to around 0.2%; Shippingport INCREASED its load of U-233 by about 1%.  If the breeding ratio can be sustained at higher power levels (higher neutron flux leading to greater losses from neutron capture in Pa-233), a thorium core could run for a very long time before needing replacement.

Dear EP
not yet without words! fine would be too much!

Thanks for your nice words and not taking the time to read what I wrote
or only in a very superficial way.

Yes, it is true I am worried a lot about nuclear weapons like many others.

If you are not fine with me. So why do you argue that your "favorite design" (what is it by the way and why is nobody influential
bothering to construct your wonder reactors) has no problems with proliferation.

Now concerning the Shippingport reactor experience..

May I just remind you that a few month ago (in one of our last exchanges, if I remember correctly), you didn't even know that the
experiment was performed with U233. I hope that now you have taken the time to study the references i provided.

Just do the simple calculation how much energy a PWR could have produced with 500 kg of fissile material
(lets ignore for now that this U233 was produced in a rather inefficient way in the first place from U235/Pu239 fueled reactor)
instead of throwing these 507 kg away afterwards. (which was done more or less either because it was too expensive to use or
because it was contaminated and could not be cleaned .. I am missing the relevant document. If you have it please mail it to me!)

for the ProActinum intermediate neutron absorber. Just agree that this is a real problem people are working on it.
(it can not be addressed easily in todays software simulations!)

michael

So why do you argue that your "favorite design" (what is it by the way and why is nobody influential bothering to construct your wonder reactors) has no problems with proliferation.

<sigh> Look, nitwit, it has been explained to you several times over the past 3 chapters (and there is no reason for you to keep asking unless you are stupid, willfully ignorant or playing dumb to try to win rhetorical points):  the PWR, while far from my favorite, is effectively proliferation-proof because other means of making weapons material are far easier and harder to detect.  No proliferator has tried making a weapon using PWR material, and the major proliferation threats do not even have nuclear reactors on their power grid.

LeBlanc claims that the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor creates material which is even worse for weapons than PWR products.  After seeing how you select your facts to mislead and jump to conclusions not even justified by those facts, I give zero credibility to your attacks on his work.

May I just remind you that a few month ago (in one of our last exchanges, if I remember correctly), you didn't even know that the experiment was performed with U233.

May I remind you that it is not important whether Shippingport started with U-233 produced from U-235 elsewhere or with U-235 in the reactor itself.

Just do the simple calculation how much energy a PWR could have produced with 500 kg of fissile material

Do your own homework.  You have figures ready to hand, you should be able to do this on the back of an envelope—you should ALREADY have done the calculation before making this demand.  Just as you failed to check your figures on enrichment work vs. NU requirements, your failure proves that you are intellectually lazy and unwilling to look into details where you are afraid you will not like what you find.  Well, tough.  Beautiful theories slain by ugly facts are inimical to ideology, but are an inherent part of science.  Take off your ideologue hat and maybe we can talk.

actually there is not much point in arguing with you!
keep your unsubstantiated views! Your are only repeating (and not very well) some statements from pro nuclear people
picked up here and there. And you are probably incapable of analyzing the documents.
Of course this is just putting the mirror up in front of your blind attacks and thus reflecting what you wrote.
In any case I am looking forward for your long document of rebuttal!

but for what it matters if you would even bother to read what I wrote you would have seen this statement
connected to bombs..

2.2.1. Civilian and military use of nuclear energy, some remarks
The focus of this report is the commercial use of nuclear energy. As the evolution of nuclear energy has always been strongly coupled with the military sector, we feel that a few remarks about the dangers of nuclear weapons and the ambiguity of the commercial use of nuclear energy are needed. First of all, governments wishing to have nuclear weapons were not faced with unsolvable problems related to the development of fission bombs based on Pu239 and U235. This is especially true if nuclear physics and engineering knowhow had been built up under the umbrella of peaceful and commercial use of nuclear fission energy.

michael

Your are only repeating (and not very well) some statements from pro nuclear people picked up here and there.
... says the clown who gets all his statements from anti-nuclear sources.  You're projecting, and trying to pre-empt with the "tu quoque" fallacy.
And you are probably incapable of analyzing the documents.
... says the clown who
  1. Failed to address enrichment anywhere in his "comprehensive" series.
  2. Failed to respond to questions raised in the comments.
  3. Showed no comprehension of contradictory data presented by some of his own sources (e.g. world-nuclear.org).
  4. Was given a spreadsheet to calculate fuel/DU fractions and SWU requirements (by none other than yours truly), and still could not present numbers to show that his appraisal of the situation was correct, or even close to the truth.
I smell hypocrisy.  No, it's worse:  I smell the Dunning-Kruger effect.

And I was missing your enlightening refreshing arguments for almost a week.
Thanks for coming back (late).

>his statements from anti-nuclear sources.

which ones?

(did EP look at the references I provided kindly?)

yes he did

>his own sources (e.g. world-nuclear.org).

now I understand
the WNA and the IAEA are the anti-nuclear sources.

thanks for being always so clear!

michael

Dittmar, these days everyone car get all the necessary textbooks off Amazon, so your comment could be valid 40 years ago, not now. The fact that no peaceful nuclear energy is necessary was demonstrated multiple times (US, USSR, China, Israel, North Korea, etc.), as was the fact that having the nuclear power plants does not lead to weapons (see the list of countries with peaceful nuclear program without weapons.)

Here is quote from katana0182:

Nuclear weapons are not the inevitable result of the use of fissile metals for the purposes of man. They are the result of human choices as to what to do with those fissile metals, just as steel can be used to make swords and make plowshares.
It is up to us to determine what is to be done with steel, and it is also up to us to determine what is to be done with uranium. It is failures of men to live peacefully, not of technology, that cause swords and nuclear weapons to be built. And it is the success of men trying to live peacefully that will allow them to be retired.
Nuclear power, by the way, provides a priceless opportunity to create a more peaceful world and end the balance of terror - by ending scarcity of energy, a major motivation for war is eliminated (for example, war for petroleum), as covetousness is often at the heart of warfare and scarcity is the cause of much of man's inhumanity to man.

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/atomicrod/5312590339009342635/#142697

If you are "looking forward for your long document of rebuttal", please tell TOD editors to stop censoring it, and to publish it. It is long over due.

I don't know what you want to say with this ``wise statement" from your book.

Rethink your position with respect to Iran perhaps?

or
just imagine our species and its elites who could so far not figure out a way to live a single year without a war
and all having potential know how and infrastructure to make nuclear weapons.

How many of the 190 countries are capable of having a 50-100 year stable society without starting to take arms against another country?

concerning your "now famous" rebuttal.

I can assume that it is full of insulting statements (as you have demonstrated during the past)
unreferenced claims and so on.
Thus not the style of the oildrum or a scientific way of arguing.

But, as I know you have plenty of other websites available publish it there,
or send it directly to the WNA .. or elsewhere.

At the end it will be the readers who judge!

enjoy life go for a walk and relax,
decisions are not taken here!

michael

Iran could have Busehr up and running long time ago, if they didnt try to run a separate and clandestine nuclear weapons program! Now there are sanctions imposed due to their cheating.

Concerning the rebuttal, it does not contain any insults, and all the claims are well referenced. It merely points out your numerous miss-information attempts and lapses of logic in clear and consistent fashion.

Your inability to accept you are in error even after the error was pointed out to you multiple times - with references, together with your poor theatrics used to avoid answering relevant questions - also pointed out here, is exactly opposite to a scientific way of arguing.

If you are "looking forward for your long document of rebuttal", please tell TOD editors to stop censoring it, and to publish it. It is long over due.

TOD does not censor information -- to your chagrin, not even the information that Michael Dittmar has to offer.

The "rebuttal" article was not published until now, because it was (and still is) full of personal attacks. Gail even undertook the effort to rewrite the "rebuttal" article by removing the personal attacks, while leaving all of the factual criticisms intact.

The article would have been published a long time ago, if EP would have agreed to removing the insults, i.e., to concentrate on attacking the message, rather than the messenger.

If the messenger has an agenda, cheery-picks facts and ignores relevant information, this needs to be pointed out. It is not an insult to shed light on such gross manipulation.

An insult is to call the messenger a buffoon, which - in my personal opinion - is entirely appropriate, however none of that was included in the rebuttal.

LeBlanc claims that the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor creates material which is even worse for weapons than PWR products.

Well not only LeBlanc, this is rather obvious to everyone. The isotopic mixture in DMSR is about the most useless mix feasible in a reactor design, (due to high content of Pu242 and U238).
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/ORNL-TM-7207.pdf

you still have not understood what I wrote.

"if the ruling elite of country that has the nuclear know how,
it can use this civil nuclear energy umbrella to do secretly the nuclear weapon construction."

please help to eliminate peacefully the danger from the Pakistan (and the other 2 non NPT member state countries and the 5 official one)
nuclear weapons.

We do really not need more countries with nuclear weapons!

michael

No you do not (want to) understand - states looking for weaponry need no such cover. They will physically "cover" the facilities themselves, keeping them secret and well separate from civilian power, if they have any. It has *always* been done this way, for many good reasons. This is entirely a strawman argument.

Indeed these days all the knowledge needed is out there. Including detailed designs and instructions. One example is the information published by House Intelligence Committee in 2006, conveniently in Arabic, as I've demonstrated earlier. The issues is how to persuade countries not to desire nuclear weaponry - which is politics, not technology. Technological fixes which limit nuclear energy are bogus at best, a tool to keep fossil interests fat and happy at worst.

Nuclear power, by the way, provides a priceless opportunity to create a more peaceful world and end the balance of terror - by ending scarcity of energy, a major motivation for war is eliminated (for example, war for petroleum), as covetousness is often at the heart of warfare and scarcity is the cause of much of man's inhumanity to man.

Nuclear energy is therefore a powerful aid to decrease tension between and within nations, to lessen a desire for (extremely) expensive investments into such weaponry.

for the ProActinum intermediate neutron absorber. Just agree that this is a real problem people are working on it. (it can not be addressed easily in todays software simulations!)

Dittmar, why don't you just stop making things up? Pa233 cross-sections are known well enough, the issue is with higher actinides. Please check with ENDF before making such unsubstantiated statements.

And for your information, the name of the element is Protactinium.

yes, Proactinium! right!

making things up..

cross sections are known well enough?

This is not what the "official nuclear energy scientists" are claiming in their documents.
Read the Gen IV road map document .. use the links in my paper.

michael

Dittmar, the Gen4 roadmap document says nothing like that! Again, please stop making things up.

The section on page 35 refers to a finding of the Grenoble group relevant to one particular design, which was since resolved - by them. It certainly does not refer to Pa absorption cross section. This is entirely your fabrication.

Indeed it seems like the Dunning–Kruger effect in action, along with a tendency to make stuff up to fit the pre-formed cognitive bias.

just look at the
section about the different reactor types
proposed for further studies...
(in the Gen IV document it is referenced in my paper)

michael

Yes that is what I did, here is the document http://www.gen-4.org/PDFs/GenIVRoadmap.pdf
and I didnt find anything to back up your claims. Please provide the page number and quote, or change your claims.

for the uranium resource problem look at the plot page 13

for the technology gaps and missing cross sections

start reading from page 21 onwards
look for "neutronics or neutronic data"

or page 35

``Cross Sections and New Fuel Data. Despite the successes of the prototypes, recent neutronics calcula- tions raise questions about the value of the temperature reactivity coefficient of the fuel salt. To gain confi- dence, new data measurements and qualification are needed."

but i guess if you make a search in the pdf document like
cross section neutronic or neutronics data
and read carefully what is written
it tells you all what is currently unknown.

but yes, read the entire section on what the technology gaps are
and complain to the Gen IV people if you know better!

michael

Indeed, nothing about Pa, and the cross-sections of concern are that of higher actinides, as I have already discussed. The problem mentioned on page 35 I have also pointed out already. It has nothing to do with cross sections, but with slow heating up of graphite in a particular accident scenario of a single fluid MSBR-type of a molten salt reactor, which was discovered (and solved) by the French group. There is an obvious need to build a prototype to confirm theoretical calculations, and actually to start to get anywhere close to commercial reactors. How surprising is that!

Your claim about insufficient data on protactinium cross sections is therefore a complete fabrication, an off-hand attempt to discredit the work of others by pulling stuff out of thin air.

You could ask the Grenoble group for technical details if you were interested in actual issues, however it seems to me you prefer to interpret documents without real understanding in a way which confirms your already pre-conceived narrative, which is what your critics are pointing to.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it".The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than actuality

>Your claim about insufficient data on protactinium cross sections is therefore a complete fabrication, an off-hand attempt to discredit the work of others by >pulling stuff out of thin air.

where did I claim this?

i wrote in the article that according to the Road Map a large number of technical problems remain to be solved
and quoted the uncertainties of cross section problems as mentioned.

What is your problem with this statement?

>There is an obvious need to build a prototype to confirm theoretical calculations, and actually to start to get anywhere close to commercial reactors. How >surprising is that!

so when i say that it is still a long term project 10-20 years before a commercial reactor can be considered
you object

now you agree and write that it is kind of trivial!

I might be too critical with what people claim to be understood

but you are inconsistent.

thus we agree 10-20 years of research work are required before one can claim
that this should work?

michael

Since you brought it up, here is the graph from page 13 of the PDF:

What it says destroys your argument.  Even with an LWR-only once-through cycle using only uranium, we have enough uranium to go until 2060 (and use of thorium would extend the usefulness of LWRs far beyond the lifespan of any plant currently operating or planned).  Your projection of a fuel crisis by 2015 has ZERO support even from your own sources.

I also note that the fuel cycle R&D that you raise as a "problem" is for a system "optimized for transmutation of actinides from other reactors" (p. 36, col. 2, par. 4).  The chemistry issues appear to have been more or less solved, just requiring testing.  Since the prototypes have been successful, it makes one wonder what "measurements and qualifications" must be performed before a pre-production unit can be commissioned.  The report is silent on that issue, and your record of mis-interpretation does not allow anyone to trust your claims on this or any related matter.

"optimized for transmutation of actinides from other reactors"

Exactly - the issue is actinide cores for burners, where minor actinides (Am and Cm isotopes in particular) are present in much higher concentrations than had been conceived for breeder cycles. Therefore the respective cross sections need to be known with improved precision than deemed necessary in the original LMFBR program(s). This has obviously no relation to the thorium cycle and MSRs.

Now Dittmar misleads twice here: first he misrepresented the shift of political goals from breeders to burners as a deficiency of fast spectrum reactors, as if breeding would be technologically unfeasible. Second the above "ProActinium" cross sections show.

The problem with Dittmar's "studies" is not primarily the facts he presents, but those he does not present, and most importantly the spin of miss-information he puts into interpretation of these cherry-picked facts. The erroneous conclusions are result of the spin, and any rebuttal needs to demonstrate how this spin comes about. It is very unfortunate that TOD editors consider pointing out such ill-informed propaganda attempts as "insults".

let me answer you and EP at once.

first many thanks to EP for putting up the graph!

1) there is nothing about Thorium in this plot and you should not mix

the U238 use and the Th232 here.

The roadmap document (as some of you or the other ``nuclear will do it") mentioned
says certainly too little about Th232 use and a lot about U238.

The plot demonstrates that someone who plans to construct now a 60 year lifetime Gen III reactor
of whatever type and pays a lot for it will have it ready by lets say 2020 and the year 2060
even if the unconventional uranium resources can be fully used
a growth scenario of conventional reactors should run into troubles.

exactly what I said in my Chapter III paper.
Thus countries without uranium mines should think twice before investing 5 billion dollars and more
into something which has to be operational for a 60 years without fuel resources assured.

now for EP
>Your projection of a fuel crisis by 2015 has ZERO support even from your own sources.

what I was referring to in chapter I and II is that the balance between actual mining and
secondary resources is already now in a critical balance
(as is pointed out by the WNA documents as well and the Red Book does not hide it for those who
can read the press declaration ..

here it is again

The seriousness of this situation, largely ignored by the media, has been expressed in the IAEA and NEA press declaration of June 3, 2008, launching the 2007 edition of the Red Book [1], [2]:

"Most secondary resources are now in decline and the gap will increasingly need to be closed by new production. Given the long lead time typically required to bring new resources into production, uranium supply shortfalls could develop if production facilities are not implemented in a timely manner."

can't help that you do not like that statement. But it is a fact.

I wrote further that there is no indication that the actions are not taken
and it looks unfortunately unlikely that the military resources will be opened enough

thus supply shortages are very probably (not the running out!).
by the way the latest OECD data up to August 2009 are out and August saw a huge 4% decline in TWH produced from nuclear!
-1.2% for the year 2009 so far compared to the same period 2008. Lets see the last few month but the french nuclear power plants
appear to be in bad shape for the coming winter... (check yourself!). Bad for my stable electric energy situation this winter perhaps..
do you care?

EP writes further
>The chemistry issues appear to have been more or less solved, just requiring testing.

more or less and just testing required looks very convincing indeed!
> Since the prototypes have been successful
many? which ones after the Shippingport reactor from 30 years ago?

> what "measurements and qualifications" must be performed before a pre-production unit can be commissioned.
ask the WNA and the Gen IV nuclear experts.

for what it matters I repeat here the WNA document statement about thorium fuel reactors

"Despite the thorium fuel cycle having a number of attractive features, development has always run into difficulties."

Thus, your claims stand against the ones from the nuclear energy establishment and their experts.
Fight with them!

I am just a "critical" reader who wants to see hard experimental proofs and suggest that others
pro or contra nuclear energy should not be satisfied with religious belief statements.

for

> The problem with Dittmar's "studies" is not primarily the facts he presents

so thanks you accept the facts i present!

good point to conclude.

Lets start with the facts and try to figure out some conclusions!
what more can I ask for?
michael

1) there is nothing about Thorium in this plot and you should not mix the U238 use and the Th232 here.

Why not?  The supply of LWR fuel is not limited to uranium.  Lightbridge is working to commercialize thorium-uranium fuel and is looking at thorium-plutonium fuel (no new uranium required).

what I was referring to in chapter I and II is that the balance between actual mining and secondary resources is already now in a critical balance

"Critical balance", meaning that uranium-mining companies are not mining and stockpiling material for which they have no immediate customers.  The rebuttal essay (which I am neglecting in order to respond to you here) notes that there are a large number of mines in planning or construction.

"Given the long lead time typically required to bring new resources into production"

This "long lead time" is 2-5 years to full production for a rock mine, and as little as 1 year from construction to production for an in-situ leach mine.  The mines with the longest lead time don't even need to start construction until next year to meet demand for 2015.

> Since the prototypes have been successful
many? which ones after the Shippingport reactor from 30 years ago?

Yup, that's the last one.  It was successful enough to make the uranium-mining interests worry, just like the MSRE was enough to make the PWR interests worry.

Lets start with the facts and try to figure out some conclusions!
what more can I ask for?

I've been asking for you to consider the full range of facts (like enrichment and the effect on NU demand) since Chapter I, with nothing to show for it but evasions and insults from you.  Cellier objects to me lowering myself to your level, but I've little patience left for talking to a stone wall.  This is a situation which calls for a trebuchet.

4% in August. Nothing to do with shortages of fuel.
A car analogy. The fact that 4% of a fleet of cars have to go into the shop for spark plugs and other repairs has nothing to do with parking some of them because there is not enought gasoline to go around.

This is the in the noise type events. No one said that reactors do not need maintenance or that the French workers (or other workers) will not occasionally go out on strike

I didnt get your link to work in seamonkey...

" Thus huge efforts, including many basic research questions with an uncertain outcome, are needed before a large commercial breeder prototype can be designed…"

" One observes that only two FBR's are declared operational. "

Obviously these two statements cannot both be true.

" We conclude therefore, that ideas about near-future commercial fission breeder reactors are nothing but wishful thinking. "

Agreed. So where is the discussion about next generation (generation III) reactors? These are simple non breeder reactors, in many cases simpler than our first generation reactors, with fewer pumps, valves and piping, and simple passive safety systems including a core catcher that can contain a full meltdown. They can meet our needs for several hundred years while we develop affordable breeder reactors.

But that would only take a few decades if we made it a goal and funded it. The U.S. has not built an experimental power reactor since the 70s. There are dozens of ways to split uranium and thorium atoms. We should build demonstration models of each and use whatever works best.

" We further postulate that, no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality. "

A very short sighted opinion that fails to account for the impact of time. I expect that in time this quote will be right up there with claims that humans cannot tolerate velocities greater than that of a galloping horse.

Obviously these two statements cannot both be true.

I think he means a prototype breeder reactor that actually works as a breeder reactor should (i.e. it breeds sufficient fuel to keep the cycle going starting with previously bred fuel). The key word in the first statement is "commercial", as opposed to experimental. From the article:

In contrast to the experiments performed at the Shippingport reactor, where the initial core was already U233, a realistic Th232 reactor cycle must be started with an initial U235 or Pu239 core. Consequently, the experience gained with the Shippingport reactor experiment cannot be considered as a proof that the envisaged system can function. It follows that many more tests are needed, before a functioning large-scale prototype Th232 breeder reactor can be constructed.

So the main objection to Shippingport is that the initial fuel was 98% U233, not the mix that's produced in the breeding cycle; to verify that you actually have a complete commercial cycle (with >1 breeding ratio), you need to start with bred fuel, and that, it appears, has not been demonstrated.

A very short sighted opinion that fails to account for the impact of time.

I agree. But I think what Dr. Dittmar is trying to emphasize is that we need to be short-sighted for the time being. We don't have the time. We are in a crisis; our society does not have (or will soon lose) the necessary financial stability needed to fund all these expensive research projects (sad for me, since I for one will certainly need to abandon my career), all of this brought on, of course, by a scarcity of primary energy.

The failure of nuclear power to live up to its initial promises is not due to lack of funding or prowess on the part of engineers and physicists; it has to do with the inherent complexity in such endeavors. They are beyond the "measure of a man"; pulling them off requires massive coordination and huge amounts of capital, representing surplus energy. That's a good way to pull off impressive stunts, but not a sustainable basis for providing electricity (if such a thing is possible, considering how we use the stuff these days). It's not to say that nuclear engineering doesn't have a future; just not one powering society.

yes right

The key word in the first statement is "commercial", as opposed to experimental.

the keyword is commerical!

concerning "shortsighted"

somehow one performs experiments to learn something from it

if experiments fail and are orders of magnitudes away from what is required
and if even the most optimistic and unrealistic experimental simulations fail
and if the promoters fail to tell the tax payers what the real situation is

at some point one can give up to walk in a certain direction

like it happened in the fairy tail "emperors new suit" referenced at the end of my article!

[44] It seems that "history" sometimes repeats itself. Hans Christian Andersen (1837) fairy tale, "The Emperor’s New Suit," can be found at http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html.

michael

Micheal,

I was thinking about trying to compose a comment dealing with the fact that for fusion to become a commercial reality that numerous problems will have to be solve SEQUENTIALLY and that a bottle neck in any one spot could hold up the entire process -for instance the non existent materials that will be used to capture the heat while controlling the neutron flux cannot be tested until after a reactor capable of generating the flux is built, etc.

Most of us are aware that if the probability of sequential events are multiplied then the likely result of success can approach zero in short order if the sequence is long or if any of the probabilites are much less than unity.

If you or EP or one of the other regulars with engineering expertise would compose such a comment I am sure we would all appreciate it.I can't do a good job.

Well,

if you read again what I have written, I think you find the answer.

but in short any of the four major problems I list are so far away in the future that the only way to "keep" on going
is to hide as much as possible. That is what the ITER experts and others are doing successfully so far.

if they would tell the truth just about the tritium problem one could stop the project right away!
Similar for the other problems!

What do you tell a young person who tries to answer different questions than asked?

I guess shut up and answer first the question we asked you.

Why not telling the same to the plasma physicists?

michael

if they would tell the truth just about the tritium problem one could stop the project right away!

If YOU would tell the truth about the tritium problem, it might help.  Start with the fact that D+n->T is not the only way to make tritium (it's a byproduct of CANDU operation); Li-6+n->T+He-3 is quite feasible, and is the usual method used in the USA.  Also, Li-7 can make tritium by induced fission:

Li-7 + n + 2.466 MeV -> He-3 + T + n

The neutrons from D-T fusion are emitted at 14.7 MeV, so they have plenty of excess energy to breed tritium in Li-7 before being captured in Li-6 (neutron-induced fission of Li-6 is exothermic).

Dear EP,

you are just showing your ignorance here.
Just read some of the basic papers I linked about the tritium supply problem.
(start with the Website from Prof. Abdou UCLA for example)

you are orders of magnitude away (and years behind the knowledge of today).

Does your ignorance on the tritium question indicate that your ``knowledge" on other areas is as superficial
as you have demonstrated now?

Michael

"...We are in a crisis; our society does not have (or will soon lose) the necessary financial stability needed to fund all these expensive research projects..."

Tosh. For all of the caterwauling over "expense", ten billion US$ for ITER - spread out, apparently, over quite a few years - is absolutely, utterly lost in the noise. It's what, a mere two or three extravagant palaces of stupid moronic "entertainment" or bog-standard idiotic government boondoggles? So just what would be the big huge deal about pursuing even hundreds of such lines of research simultaneously?

Unless something, somewhere is made to work, be it nuclear, solar, or whatever, we will indeed drift into the nightmare beloved of the sort of American doomer who seemingly seeks to purify the world according to a notion that only horse-and-buggy "simplicity" could ever be "fair" to idiots and morons. Unfortunately, as things stand, the nightmare seems to be where the "precautionists" wish to send us, being that nothing is ever "safe" enough or cheap enough or "fair" enough (gee, we might need to keep some nuclear activities out of the hands of savage brutes, who ever could have guessed?) in their eyes to be a proper subject even of mere research. Is anyone prepared to say "yes" to researching anything that might have a glimmer of hope of scaling???

If the Tritium Issue is in fact as much of a dealkiller as the article claims, then that's more than enough reason to put those measly few billions into programs that have at least offered a proof-of-concept that stands a chance to work.

I have no problem with our funding research, but not if it's funding 'Perpetual Motion Machines', when we have real problems that need to be tackled using open, honest Scientific methods.

Pointing to other examples of wasted public funds does nothing to justify this one, if it indeed turns out to have had clearly unmanagable or unreasonable obstacles to it.

Is anyone prepared to say "yes" to researching anything that might have a glimmer of hope of scaling???

Amen brother.

I'm personally not super optimistic about the world's chances of averting a malthusian die-off in the next century (especially without a massive, coordinated global population reduction effort), but we at least need to *try* to come up with a FF replacement. Sometimes I get the feeling that many here would *prefer* the nastiest possible outcome over a genuine scientific breakthrough that forestalls a massive die-off.

So the next question becomes, between the Tritium and other concerns raised above for Fusion, IS there a glimmer of hope to it, or should we be redirecting that funding, and hence those scientists towards prospects that DO?

How much longer does this continually evasive source get to be chased, while say Ocean Power basically lanquishes?

Given how dire the consequences of not solving the problem may be, we need to be pursuing even low-probability options like this one - and pursuing them in a results-oriented way rather than just colonizing them for the sake of doling out stacks and stacks of airline tickets to conferences and award ceremonies in pleasant climes. The pace is so bloody slow that I'm not prepared to declare the job provably not doable, when a major block may very well be that the people involved, when they finally get a result, must query their grandparents' generation in order to remember how the experiment had been designed in the first place. (Perhaps fixing this would require pulling the project out of ultra-hyper-cautious jumping-at-every-shadow Europe, I don't know.)

So how about, for the time being, instead of pitting this against OTEC or thin-film solar or vertical-axis wind turbines or whatever, we shut off the funds for the Palaces of Stupid Moronic Entertainment - and the massive subsidies of consumption that are the house-buyer credit and the mortgage deduction - and divert the proceeds into both. How about we keep that up at a meaningful pace at least until we establish good, quality consensus (mindful of the extensive foolish history of declared impossibilities that were not impossible at all) that we're dealing with an impossibility.

Palaces of Stupid Moronic Entertainment

Please just don't cancel "Monday Night Rehabilitation"!
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-29210190611743_2077_1072175

but we at least need to *try* to come up with a FF replacement.

Whenever anyone uses the collective "we",they aremounting a political argument to force their fellow man into a particular chosen path. It is therfore natural that a counter argumentwill be mounted with just a much vigour. You may have a desire to try to find a repalcement for fossil fuels and you may have a belief that such a thing is possible. i on the other hand, do not. I prefer to spend my (life) energy on what I see as the most important things, which is living a fulfilling life and allow my fellow man to do the same. I have no desire to work harder to pay taxes so that you may indulge your reserach into a dreamed up fantasy, just as I would (and do) object to many things that our current crop of political leaders spend my hard earned taxes on. I ahve the same opinion of many ofthe green fantasies of covering the deserts in solar panels (of any flavour) at the taxpayers expense.

I have no desire to work harder to pay taxes so that you may indulge your reserach into a dreamed up fantasy, just as I would (and do) object to many things that our current crop of political leaders spend my hard earned taxes on.

My government spends massive amounts of my hard earned taxes on *many* things I object to and have no say in: bailing out Wall Street criminals, foreign wars of occupation, maintaining huge military bases in countries capable of defending themselves, massive subsidies and tax breaks for special interests, spying on other Americans, building bridges to nowhere, military techno-boondoggles, funding right-wing religious groups, welfare for illegals, building sports stadiums, etc.

Funding next-generation R&D in alternative and next-gen nuclear energy is not even *close* to the top of that list --either in terms of wastefulness or total $$ spent. You may call it a fantasy, but if "we" don't even try, then "we" have a 100% certainty of failure. Every new technology or scientific breakthrough has been greeted with intense skepticism, opposition and FUD. And most R&D never produces tangible results, much less breaks even on $$ invested. So what? Shall we all curl up in the fetal position and give up? That's the spirit that made this nation great...

A possibility of mitigating some of the worst consequences of post-peak decline is certainly worth spending a tiny % of our GDP and my tax money. In my opinion.

Just a simple question.

Did you ever notice that the budget deficit in most countries is huge
and that the "education system" is harmed by this.

True there are many many other useless things being payed for.

Like wars for oil for example.

But as I suggested, if you have hopes in thorium breeder reactors anytime soon

you need to move the billions of dollars from fusion research and from Generator IV (research)
if there would be any money given to that to your favorite thorium research ..

or better stop the military madness and destroy the armies!

Michael

" you need to move the billions of dollars from fusion research and from Generator IV (research) if there would be any money given to that to your favorite thorium research .. "

the money spent on energy R&D is a tiny cupcake compared to the size of the problem. We should be pushing every possible technology as hard as possible.

hi Bill,

perhaps I should comment your many comments all in one but I try one after the other

you write:
>the money spent on energy R&D is a tiny cupcake compared to the size of the problem. We should be pushing every possible technology as hard as possible.

does it mean you finally accept that we have incredible huge problems to solve before
nuclear fission can be declared to be "functioning"?

if yes great thanks a lot for spreading the word!
if not perhaps make clear what you mean.

michael

" does it mean you finally accept that we have incredible huge problems to solve before
nuclear fission can be declared to be "functioning"? "

Nuclear power has been functioning for several decades. It is the only proven technology that can eliminate most fossil generation of electricity. We should expand the construction of generation III reactors (the ones you don’t talk about) as fast as possible to reduce emissions and slow the rising cost of fossil fuel and thereby minimize human suffering during the transition off of fossil fuel.

There are many ways to split uranium and thorium atoms. Most have not been tested, and it is likely that many of them are better than out primitive steroidal submarine reactors. We should be building demonstration plants of all these in addition to pushing any other technology that has the potential to make energy cheaper than fossil fuel.

We should create a level playing field and pick the best technology. This has been my recommendation for some time.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4961#comment-459021

Do you support this recommendation?

ok,

i should have specified for those who have forgotten that we are discussing "breeders"
to say functioning breeders.

" does it mean you finally accept that we have incredible huge problems to solve before
nuclear fission with breeders can be declared to be "functioning"? "

I answered Gen III already in another comment

but here it is again
Gen IV people have written black on white
we need breeder(s) if we do not want to exhaust nuclear fission because of U235 supply.

argue with them!

you are among those who fail to make a quantitative prediction
instead you write
>as fast as possible to reduce emissions and slow the rising cost of fossil fuel and thereby minimize human suffering during the transition off of fossil fuel.

whatever this means please quantify. It is just ``hot air" like that!

concerning the support for all kind of ``demonstration prototypes"

well, once the energy problem is officially acknowledged and the urgency of peak oil is explained in normal schools for example
and once the military use of nuclear energy is abandoned and once real final storage exists and
so on (meaning that the policy of ``profit now pay later" has been exchanged with a policy
of do no harm for future generations and leave a cleaner place behind) .

we can start thinking if I would support the construction of `demonstration prototypes"

but I guess if this policy change has been achieved we are unfortunately all dead and
the question becomes obsolete.

michael

You want enough hurdels for nuclear power to never succeed?

I could tick of
"once the energy problem is officially acknowledged"
and
"the policy of ``profit now pay later" has been exchanged with a policy of do no harm for future generations and leave a cleaner place behind"
and we have done
"the urgency of peak oil is explained in normal schools"
for climate change and general environmental awareness
and we did
"once the military use of nuclear energy is abandoned"
about 40 years ago
and
"once real final storage exists"
will take some more time to get building but the research and siting is done and the machinery excists as prototypes that are being test run.

But I still get the impression that you realy mean that everybody should do this everywhere before new nuclear power is built or even any research is being done.

And what is logical with stopping the research while waiting for the solution of unrelated problems? And it is even stupider when you wait for solutions to problems that could be solved with the research.

I would absolutely love to have research reactors sited in Sweden. We are already host for
advanced scientifical equipment and we are investing in building more.

>I would absolutely love to have research reactors sited in Sweden. We are already host for
>advanced scientifical equipment and we are investing in building more.

fine with me ask for it!

for what concerns me I like to see a change of attitude

and in remembering Einstein

"a problem can not be solved with the same methods which created the problem".

but you do not need my support to succeed, just start to campaign
and try to free the money from other research budgets!

its your choice

good luck!

michael

Its being worked on. The government RnD budget has been expanding and we got a margin that so far has been ok for the financial crisis. To get a good future you got to build it.

" does it mean you finally accept that we have incredible huge problems to solve before nuclear fission with breeders can be declared to be "functioning"? " "

Michael. Some breeders have run well for first of a kind experimental machines. Others have not. This is the nature of engineering. Build a prototype, test it, see what works and what does not work. If everything works perfectly we learn that what we thought would work, does work. We gain new knowledge and make progress from our failures.

The fundamental principles of breeder reactor design are well and accurately known. Some engineering details have yet to be worked out to produce a successful design suitable for production in large numbers.

" Gen IV people have written black on white we need breeder(s) if we do not want to exhaust nuclear fission because of U235 supply. argue with them! "

You are not one of them now? Glad to hear you acknowledge that we have enough uranium for at least a few hundred years without breeder reactors. Plenty of time to develop them, so they are not our highest priority now.

" you are among those who fail to make a quantitative prediction "

I am comfortable with advancednano’s predictions.

Your lack of support for a level playing field and an aggressive R&D program to pursue energy sources of any kind that are cheaper than fossil fuel indicates that you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. What is your motivation for such a cruel position?

" if it took 30 years to construct safe Gen II PWR's "

Which PWR's were unsafe? How many people have they killed? How many lives have they saved from coal plants that were never built due to their existence? How many lives would have been saved if we had continued building them at a substantial rate?

Early U.S. reactors were built faster and at lower cost than later ones because they were not encumbered by a huge regulatory and legal morass. They paid themselves off quickly and made their owners a lot of money. Many of them still do, making electricity for less than 2 cents/kWh.

The EPR is the Mercedes Benz of nuclear power plants. It has too many systems, too many components, too much complexity. It will never be cheap. I am not a big supporter of the EPR.

The thing I appreciate in engineering is Elegant Simplicity. Accomplishing the functional requirements with the minimum number of simple reliable components. Rube Goldberg solutions are easy to come up with; elegant simplicity is much harder and takes a bit longer, but is well worth it.

I like the AP1000

http://www.asmeconferences.org/ICONE16/pdfs/NewPlantsBeBuilt.pdf

and I like the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/downloads/ge...

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/passive_safe...

These are the ones you do not talk about, the ones that can make a big difference quickly.

I also like the modular reactor concept.

http://www.babcock.com/library/pdf/mpower.pdf

http://www.nuscalepower.com/index.php

And I support developing the simplest possible MSR running a once through fuel cycle that would use 1/3 the uranium that Gen II reactors use.

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/ORNL-TM-7207.pdf

" This means at least 30 years for designing a prototype Gen IV and with another 20 year learning curve "

Uranium supplies will be almost unlimited at $500/kg, so we do not need GenIV plants for hundreds of years, and Gen III plants are already built in Japan and elsewhere. They are evolutionary designs that take advantage of the experience and lessons learned with Gen II plants. Their performance will be even better.

Those modular concepts were realy nice! And I bet they are possible to rearrange for buiding underground in bedrock if you want close too rediculous security.

Bill, you are falling back into claiming unsubstantiated things
and blindly attacking instead of discussing and explaining.
(well may be you never changed..)

but in case:

>Michael. Some breeders have run well for first of a kind experimental machines. Others have not.

in the paper i gave a long list of breeder experience.
tell us which one I forgot, which one was a great experience (and why it was not continued)
and which one didn't work well and how you define that!

>The fundamental principles of breeder reactor design are well and accurately known.
yes correct!
>Some engineering details have yet to be worked out to produce a successful design suitable for production in large numbers.

indeed and that is what my paper describes. You didn't object to my list so i presume you agree with these ``details"
which translate into 20-30 years of expensive research work before a statement about larger scale construction can be made!
Thanks for agreeing again with me!

>" Gen IV people have written black on white we need breeder(s) if we do not want to exhaust nuclear fission because of U235 supply. argue with them! "
>
>You are not one of them now?

no, I am not one of them!
but if you would bother to read what I wrote or what the Road map document says you would know that
in the document they write and even have a nice diagram showing that ``we" run out of uranium within 30-50 years roughly and only
if one manages by miracles to exploit the unconventional resources.
>Glad to hear you acknowledge that we have enough uranium for at least a few hundred years without breeder reactors. Plenty of
>time to develop them, so they are not our highest priority now.

thus you are not capable or interested to read documents as you are a Mr know it all!
Why don't you do a minimum of homework first?

>you are part of the problem, not part of the solution
thanks for reminding me of the danger to write an article opposing the ideas of powerful interest groups and in a ``free society"
the way you deal with problems? Shoot first ask later!

> How many lives have they saved from coal plants that were never built due to their existence?
don't know? perhaps one can find numbers for how many people are killed because of existing coal power plants per GWe
what is this number and how many "americans" are killed by this cruel technology each year.
please give me a number and I am probably happy to support you activities to stop
``mountain top removal policies" in your country! great that you are an activist against this most cruel way to exploit coal
and just for a few years of greedy life

> I am not a big supporter of the EPR.
so you are a small supporter? what the hell are you trying to say? Destroy the french?
(freedom fries for ever?)

>The thing I appreciate in engineering is Elegant Simplicity.

if true, well why don't you go out for a walk in one of the few remaining natural beauties,
enjoy them and reflect on our "greatness".
Think for example to be someone who does archeology in 500 years from now
and what you would like to discover from the ruins of our society.

you might even compare this to some archeological discoveries from things made a few 1000 years ago!

michael
ps.. for
>I am comfortable with advancednano’s predictions.
great you are also offering a price to the oil drum every year you are wrong
thanks!

But I will only be paying if you are more right and have agreed to the terms where if I am right you pay me or my charity.

if you do not like me paying to the oildrum

bad luck!

anyway we have the numbers (and the agreement on how to decide who wins)
and we can check every year!

as you pointed out with an error margin of the guesstimate
(perhaps +-1-2% = 4-6 reactors) the reality check will come only in a few years from now!
but it is already interesting for 2009

michael
ps.. I am not after the money or interested in paying it to whatever charity you choose

So are you paying $20 to the oildrum if you lose ?
Then I can ask them how they plan to handle it.
I am willing to put my money at risk, it is not so much being after money.
It is a matter of a show of real confidence and belief in the predictions.

If you really believed in your numbers then you would have no fear in putting money at risk. But it seems that is not the issue. It seems to be a psychological thing where you are willing to intermediate a bottle of wine or use the oildrum as an intermediary instead of paying directly. Probably something related to your socialist ideology which drives your biases and worldview.

Anyway I will just need clarity from the oildrum as to how they will handle it, Because I think the loop can be closed. It needs to be closed because if you do end up weasling out of any obligation I do not want to be because of any amiguity or lack of clarity as to what was committed.

I also admit that there is significant risk that I could lose the 2009 portion of the bet series and I do not want to fulfill my obligations for 2009 if you are going to weasle out when I win 2010 through 2018. I am fully prepared to meet any obligations on these bets but I also want to see clarity and commitment on your end and the oildrum end if they are involved in this.

stop insulting!

i made my statement (as I said simple minded) long ago in chapter II and have my name as well as my professional background with it.

You did something only a few days ago (a simple ``copy" of the WNA estimate)
without telling your real name and professional background.
So give us all these details.

In any case we have reached a point and can check now for the future.

thats all required and now lets stop this!
(my last word on this bet with you!).

michael

I suggest that each person submit a check for $220 to the oil drum or agreeable neutral party. The money is to be deposited in an interest bearing account, and each year the winner will be announced and the winnings for that year delivered to the winner.

I will submit a check if Michael will cover an additional participant.

concerning the bet!

Why don't you all try to be a bit relaxed? Stress can only create heart attack in difficult times!

As I wrote in chapter II the numbers I presented are a comparison with the one from the McQuire Research group presentation.
It confronts a back on the envelope estimate with the one from a highly payed speculator group.

My numbers are a guess (i am willing to bet on). Not a serious estimate with error calculation and so on.
It should be understood like that and as I wrote many times.

The important thing in this estimate is that

1) uranium mining will not go up as quickly as "believers predict"
2) new nuclear power plants will all have longer construction times than predicted.
3) phasing out will happen faster (like old cars eventually get exchanged.
4) secondary resources are split into civilian and military.
I think my estimate of the remaining military reserves is the most up-to-date
and accurate enough.

Thus the slow phase out can only be stopped by opening the military reserves in a way similar to what is being
done since 15 years and after 2013. If this happens I am happy to pay my yearly bottle of wine to the oil drum
and I guess the editors will enjoy receiving it from me as a compensation for all their effort.
Like they would also acknowledge to receive it from anybody else.

Now, if you want a more serious guesstimate there should be uncertainties in the guess.

For this I would say the decline of nuclear produced kwh per year will be on average 1% for the coming 5 years
and faster if military reserves will not be opened (my unfortunate guess!). give it a +-1% 1 sigma error.

the exact % decline per year is tricky and "speculation" therefore a bet!

michael

Actually I did a little more than copy the WNA estimate. The WNA state of nuclear build is a primary input, but I also have verified key parts with statements from China, India, Russia and the other top countries and I have assessed the politics and other factors (financial strength etc...).

I also made modifications based on planned uprates and made estimates of uprates going farther out for the USA, Korea, Spain, France.

I have researched the situation in regards to uranium mines and other uranium supply and thorium supply. I know that fuel supply will not significantly impact the operation of nuclear reactors. Then it becomes how many reactors get built and how well will they be operated. I looked at the mines and the companies operating in Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, Africa and Russia.

I have not hidden who I am, I just have not repeated it a bunch. Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com.

831 articles on energy
480 articles of the 831 are nuclear related
50% of the number of readers as oildrum
25% of the traffic as oildrum.

I believe the situation will diverge from the WNA figures to even higher nuclear power generation, but not to the certainty level where I would bet money on it. I am confident enough in our situation that I would dial up the money at risk to hundreds of dollars each year from 2010 onwards. But I did not bother stating that because my assessment was that it was going to be difficult enough to get a formal $20 per year bet. $20/year is trivial money, a token commitment. but something to encourage some formality to the process. A larger bet of hundreds each year would involve escrowing funds and pre-depositing the at risk funds as bill indicated to ensure no welching.

For some reason, you are imprecise and vague on many things. Some things you go into a lot of detail about but other things - "you can't go into details now."

Upside beyond my estimate:

* Most reactors will be extended to 60-80 years of operation
* UK reactor build 10+
* Hyperion Power Generations small uranium hydride reactors will get built. Over 100, 27MWe reactors by 2020, but that is only equal to about 2 large reactors. Will have big impact beyond 2020 as it gets ramped up. Unless nuclear fusion pans out which I think is highly likely. (IEC fusion, General Fusion, Tri-alpha Energy - field reversed colliding beam, and possibly lawrenceville plasma physics - Dense Plasma Focus)
* Some other small reactors will come into play 2015 and beyond.
* Operational/capacity factor improvement in Ukraine, Japan, Russia and other places
* china's pebble bed reactor modules. Possibly 2-3 dozen by 2020, 200 MWe per module. Again bigger impact 2020-2030 and beyond.
* Nuclear fusion can be a commercial success but not be a dominating commercial success. Dense plasma focus can dominating and P-b11 can be dominating. the price per kwh could become dominating, but there are possibilities for factor mass produced deep burn fission to compete with many types of commercial nuclear fusion.

>I have not hidden who I am, I just have not repeated it a bunch. Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com.
>
>831 articles on energy
>480 articles of the 831 are nuclear related
>50% of the number of readers as oildrum
>25% of the traffic as oildrum.

I see, what an ignorant person I am. Your are the editor of
a science fiction website!

(actually more fiction than science as far as I can see.)

but what you didn't specify

what is your education background?

thanks for enlightening me and others about that!

michael

According to Technorati ranking my site is a top ten science site. Recently about sixth or seventh.
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/science/

In the green catogory (where oildrum is fifth or so), my site if 49th today and is usually 40-60.
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/green/page-3/

If you dismiss my site so much then bet the small amount of money against my prediction.

You have a phd, work at CERN etc...

Doesn't your Phd (presumably in particle physics) make you right all the time about the future. The PHd and working at CERN like the position of pope must make you infallible.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/03/hunt-for-hig...

Others are more forthright in their opinion of Dittmar's presentation. Tommaso Dorigo at the University of Padua, Italy, was in the audience during Dittmar's talk. He is a member of the collaboration behind one of the Tevatron's experiments, the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDFII) and on his personal blog condemns "Dittmar's obnoxious seminar" with a style of strong language not normally associated with particle physicists - follow the link to read Dorigo's views on the presentation in full.

I see that you are famous for being obnoxious. The link being one of the top ten that comes up when we search on your name.

Your presentation
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId...

The Dorigo presentation
http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/a-seminar-against-the-tevatron/

Dittmar concluded his talk by saying that:

“Optimistic expectations might help to get funding! This is true, but it is also true that this approach eventually destroys some remaining confidence in science of the public.”.

His last slide even contained the sentence he had previously brought himself to uttering:

“It is the time to confess and admit that the sensitivity predictions were wrong”.

Finally, he encouraged LHC experiments to looking for the Higgs where the Tevatron had excluded it -between 160 and 170 GeV- because Tevatron results cannot be believed. I was disgusted: he most definitely places a strong claim on the prize of the most obnoxious talk of the year. Unfortunately for all, it was just as much an incorrect, scientifically dishonest, and dilettantesque lamentation, plus a defamation of a community of 1300 respected physicists.

In the end, I am really wondering what really moved Dittmar to such a disastrous performance. I think I know the answer, at least in part: he has been an advocate of the signature since 1998, and he must now feel bad for that beautiful process being proven hard to see, by his “enemies”. Add to that the frustration of seeing the Tevatron producing brilliant results and excellent performances, while CMS and Atlas are sitting idly in their caverns, and you might figure out there is some human factor to take into account. But nothing, in my opinion, can justify the mix he put together: false allegations, disregard of published material, manipulation of plots, public defamation of respected colleagues. I am sorry to say it, but even though I have nothing personal against Michael Dittmar -I do not know him, and in private he might even be a pleasant person-, it will be very difficult for me to collaborate with him for the benefit of the CMS experiment in the future

You seem to have plenty of PHD enemies. Plenty who disagree with you.

Yes, you have an excellent professional reputation that you are putting "on the line" with these 4 articles. No need to risk $20/year on top of your "professional reputation".

>You have a phd, work at CERN etc...

and so what nobody is perfect!

>
>Doesn't your Phd (presumably in particle physics) make you right all the time about the future.
>The PHd and working at CERN like the position of pope must make you infallible.
>

why? I never said anything like that!
on the contrary

> You seem to have plenty of PHD enemies. Plenty who disagree with you.

yes some and so what? only the yes men saying always "oh great" have many fake friends!

but for what it matters these people became very quiet as they could not reproduce the faked Higgs limit!

many people agree with me (even inside the Fermilab experiments) that the entire claims are not justified!

sure some people do not like that this is made "public".
This is how modern science has evolved to ..

you are invited to discuss my spring presentation
(it is off topic sure) and thanks for spreading the word.

in any case we have made out predictions now and
the years to come will tell.

regards

michael

For some reason, you are imprecise and vague on many things. Some things you go into a lot of detail about but other things - "you can't go into details now."

Upside beyond my estimate:

* Most reactors will be extended to 60-80 years of operation
* UK reactor build 10+
* Hyperion Power Generations small uranium hydride reactors will get built. Over 100, 27MWe reactors by 2020, but that is only equal to about 2 large reactors. Will have big impact beyond 2020 as it gets ramped up. Unless nuclear fusion pans out which I think is highly likely. (IEC fusion, General Fusion, Tri-alpha Energy - field reversed colliding beam, and possibly lawrenceville plasma physics - Dense Plasma Focus)
* Some other small reactors will come into play 2015 and beyond.
* Operational/capacity factor improvement in Ukraine, Japan, Russia and other places
* china's pebble bed reactor modules. Possibly 2-3 dozen by 2020, 200 MWe per module. Again bigger impact 2020-2030 and beyond.
* Nuclear fusion can be a commercial success but not be a dominating commercial success. Dense plasma focus can dominating and P-b11 can be dominating. the price per kwh could become dominating, but there are possibilities for factor mass produced deep burn fission to compete with many types of commercial nuclear fusion.

thanks for the precise statements and the details about all of these ``fantastic" options.

You know my main problem with such fantasy devices is that I have heard it again and again and since at least 30 years!

I have seen also "great" movies like "back to the future" and similar.

I support you

fiction will become true if we all think it will become true!
spread the word!

michael

" tell us which one I forgot, which one was a great experience "

You wrote; “The best operation experience comes from the Russian BN-600 FBR reactor… This reactor has been operated commercially for 28 years... Its average energy availability is given as 73.79%.”

And for Phenix; “an energy availability factor of 60.23% is given for 2008.”

The Shippingport reactor ran over 5 years un-refueled, achieved a capacity factor of 66% and contained more fissile fuel at the end of that run than it started with.

" (and why it was not continued) "

Because uranium is dirt cheap and submarine reactors are simple, well known technology. Also irrational fear of the word nuclear.

" i presume you agree with these ``details" which translate into 20-30 years of expensive research work before a statement about larger scale construction can be made! "

As I have said many times, breeder reactors are not needed to make the initial transition away from fossil fuel, but we should be building demonstration reactors of all types to move them along.

" in the document they write and even have a nice diagram showing that ``we" run out of uranium within 30-50 years roughly and only if one manages by miracles to exploit the unconventional resources. "

We may run out of $130/kg uranium in 50 years, but we will probably never run out of $500/kg uranium.

" you are part of the problem, not part of the solution
thanks for reminding me of the danger to write an article opposing the ideas of powerful interest groups and in a ``free society"
the way you deal with problems? Shoot first ask later! "

You refused to endorse a recommendation that would produce the best possible solution in the shortest time. A solution that is not biased in favor of fission or any other technology. You have not recommended any solution of your own other than decline or collapse. That makes you part of the problem.

" I am not a big supporter of the EPR. so you are a small supporter? what the hell are you trying to say? Destroy the french? (freedom fries for ever?) "

Yes, I am a small supporter of the EPR. It is a far better use of money than feed in subsidies for wind and solar facilities that produce small quantities of unreliable intermittent power.

" These are the ones you do not talk about, (AP1000, ESBWR) the ones that can make a big difference quickly. "

I see you are still not talking about the designs that can make a big difference.

" are you claiming that "we" do not know how to fission u235 in a reactor efficiently and that a bomb does better? "

For every 1000 kg of uranium mined, Gen II reactors fission 6kg. Breeder reactors can improve that to 600 – 990+ kg.

The purpose of the explosive technique is to produce fusion energy. The bomb design would be focused on producing the minimum possible amount of fission so as to minimize the amount of radioactivity / kWh and minimize the use of uranium.

Large cold war weapons used a stair step approach. A small fission device ignited a small fusion device which ignited a larger fusion device. If that becomes possible using a very small source with non fissile ignition, laser ignition for instance, than fission can be completely eliminated. The lasers would not require a rapid firing rate, but the faster they fire the smaller the chamber would be. So we are talking about inertial confinement fusion on a very large scale, not fission.

Questions never answered;

1…What is your motivation for such a cruel position?

2…Which PWR's were unsafe?

3… How many people have they killed?

4… How long does it take a coal plant to breed enough coal to start up a second coal plant?

5… Why would anybody take the most difficult, expensive and time consuming road to nuclear weapons when the two easy, cheap and fast roads, enrichment and plutonium production, are always available, even if the world forgoes commercial nuclear power?

6… What is the world’s uranium supply, in tons, at 1 cent / kWh, ($200 / pound)?

7… Where is the discussion about the well proven next generation (generation III) reactors, the designs that will actually be built in the next decade or so?

8… What is your better solution and what does it cost?

As I have said many times, breeder reactors are not needed to make the initial transition away from fossil fuel, but we should be building demonstration reactors of all types to move them along.

" in the document they write and even have a nice diagram showing that ``we" run out of uranium within 30-50 years roughly and only if one manages by miracles to exploit the unconventional resources. "

We may run out of $130/kg uranium in 50 years, but we will probably never run out of $500/kg uranium.

" you are part of the problem, not part of the solution
thanks for reminding me of the danger to write an article opposing the ideas of powerful interest groups and in a ``free society"
the way you deal with problems? Shoot first ask later! "

You refused to endorse a recommendation that would produce the best possible solution in the shortest time. A solution that is not biased in favor of fission or any other technology. You have not recommended any solution of your own other than decline or collapse. That makes you part of the problem.
<\blockquote>

can you explain why "you" think we need to make a transition away from fossil fuels
and how fast?

For proposing the ``best possible solution in the shortest time"

Well, in my view and in the views of many here on the oildrum

the peak oil problem (oil makes about 40% of our energy sources and almost 100% of transport) is about to start is terminal decline.
by lets say 2%+-1% / year within the next few years starting date varies from 2008 to 2012(?) and few imagine a plateau
up to 2020 and the decline afterwards compared with demand growing 1% population growth and 2% from never ending growth demand.

thus, the problem is if this decline can be compensated by other means (just theoretically).

My 4 papers are on the nuclear option, the holy grail for the future for some.

The analysis demonstrates that the world wide nuclear energy situation is not in the claimed (since 5 years?)
nuclear renaissance phase and that in fact since 3 years the number of nuclear TWhe produced declines by 0.5-1% per year.

since two years now not a single new nuclear power plant has been connected to the grid and a few have been closed.
The "half" functioning Breeder reactors are in fact not breeders but fast reactors and will be closed
now (in France) and in spring in Russia after not even 30 years of operation. A real convincing argument that everything is great about breeders.

Back to the problem. If today nuclear fission energy with all the problems related (and many unsolved) provides only 14% of the world electric energy
in 31 countries (out of 190 or so) it appears that only rich countries can afford and manage to construct conventional nuclear power plants.
In these countries and especially the OECD countries the stagnation and decline is unstoppable and acknowledged.
(Euratom document). A large fraction of the population in these OECD countries is opposing nuclear energy and a large fraction of these
opposers are also opposing new coal fired power plants. This in contrary to nuclear activists (the crowd following blindly the nuclear energy establishment)
who never oppose anything coming from the coal and fossil fuel establishment)

(by the way are you an activist against "mountain to removal coal mining" like saying stop coal mining go nuclear?
if not do me a favor make yourself consistent and become an activist against this disaster!)

You finally(?) acknowledge that we may run out of uranium for a price tag of 130 dollar/kg and in 50 years
great! So my papers achieved something!

50 years times 65000 tons/ year = 3.3 million tons!
the number from the Red Book!

can you imagine a exploitation profile for these 3.3 million tons? flat and a sudden end?
or more like a gaussian curve?

for
>
>Questions never answered;
>

well I think i answered many during the last three months.
but as we are approaching an end for this series let me try again

> 1…What is your motivation for such a cruel position?

cruel? perhaps .. the answer i provided at the very end of this paper!

"Science promised us truth, or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or happiness"
Gustave Le Bon

2…Which PWR's were unsafe?

I said PWR's are probably the most safe of all types like:

>Fast reactors are known for their worrying safety record. For example, it might be true that serious incidents, like the one that happened with the Chernobyl >graphite moderated reactor, cannot happen with modern PWR's. However, only very few nuclear experts would agree to such a statement for sodium cooled >FBR's.

concerning the reports on Three Mile Island accident, as well as many other small incidents which cause 1-2 year shutdowns.
Like you and me "aging" does increase the risk of certain failures.
Just wait for another "human" error which will result in a nuclear meltdown in one of the old reactors.

3… How many people have they killed?

difficult to answer! lets try to make a time travel and
quantify the "dieoff" cost in humans and the effect of those who refused to accept the way down the mountain

Can you specify how many people will be killed because of the emission of Co2 in the next 100 years?
I can't but I would prefer to not enter into the "danger" zone.

4… How long does it take a coal plant to breed enough coal to start up a second coal plant?

stupid provocative question for ever!
but how long does it take to do this with a windmill
or the Thorium reactor like the Shippingport reactor?

5… Why would anybody take the most difficult, expensive and time consuming road to nuclear weapons when the two easy, cheap and fast roads, enrichment and plutonium production, are always available, even if the world forgoes commercial nuclear power?

sure, as I wrote you only need a little nuclear energy infrastructure and you can do the cheap way.

6… What is the world’s uranium supply, in tons, at 1 cent / kWh, ($200 / pound)?

I have no idea! not much more than it is today!

As I wrote in the articles (probably more than once)

energy independence is the claimed goal of many countries
why has the production in the USA gone from 19000 tons (or so) to now less than 2000 tons per year
while the needs are roughly 20000 tons per year?

why have essentially all OECD countries with a large nuclear power fraction stopped their uranium mines?

But as you know it all please explain this contradiction to me and others!

7… Where is the discussion about the well proven next generation (generation III) reactors, the designs that will actually be built in the next decade or so?

What is so special about Gen III reactors? a factor of 10 more safety? a factor of 2-3 more expensive.
and after all what was wrong with Gen II (or I). According to you and others they were and are more or less perfect.

For me the principle of fissioning uranium 235 and Pu239 is essentially identical.

But as you know it all .. out of the 52(?) reactors under construction how many are Gen I, Gen II and Genn III
and how many are the wonder secret small reactors

8… What is your better solution and what does it cost?

As far as I know my papers were not about a solution.

I wrote about a claimed hypothetical solution and demonstrated that it is not a solution.
This is how science is supposed to work

Hypothesis testing and if shown to be "wrong" change the hypothesis.

thus to conclude

We have not nuclear energy solution to our problems

michael

" A large fraction of the population in these OECD countries is opposing nuclear energy "

59% of Americans support nuclear power.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/117025/Support-Nuclear-Energy-Inches-New-High...

84% of Americans living near nuclear power plants favor nuclear energy!

http://www.cleanenergyinsight.org/tag/poll/

" (the crowd following blindly the nuclear energy establishment)
who never oppose anything coming from the coal and fossil fuel establishment) "

A nonsensical statement. Nothing can replace coal and gas faster or cheaper than nuclear power. This is why they never mention nuclear in their tv adds, only wind and solar. They know wind and solar will not hurt the fossil fuel industry.

" (by the way are you an activist against "mountain to removal coal mining" like saying stop coal mining go nuclear? "

That should be obvious.

" You finally(?) acknowledge that we may run out of uranium for a price tag of 130 dollar/kg and in 50 years great! So my papers achieved something! 50 years times 65000 tons/ year = 3.3 million tons! the number from the Red Book! "

So what! Uranium is still cheap at $500/kg, but you never address that seriously.

" I said PWR's are probably the most safe of all types like: "

Actually you wrote; “every new system has a learning curve of many many years if it took 30 years to construct safe Gen II PWR's and we have a long learning curve for an EPR”

So, you imply 30 years of unsafe Gen II reactors, PWR's and BWR’s.

1… Name the unsafe reactors.

2… How many people did they kill?

" Just wait for another "human" error which will result in a nuclear meltdown in one of the old reactors. "

Before TMI some people claimed that once a meltdown begins it is unstoppable and will kill huge numbers of people. But, at TMI the meltdown began and was stopped. New reactors have core catchers to re-solidify melted cores.

3… If one airliner crashed every 30 years and killed no one, would that be grounds to shutdown the airlines?

" What is the world’s uranium supply, in tons, at 1 cent / kWh, ($200 / pound)?
I have no idea! not much more than it is today! "

Interesting, you have no idea, and then you have an idea.

4… What is it based on? Are uranium atoms like marbles in a box? The available number is independent of the price offered?

5… Do you think every atom of uranium on earth is available at $130/kg?

6…What other minerals have a supply that is independent of price?

" why has the production in the USA gone from 19000 tons (or so) to now less than 2000 tons per year… why have essentially all OECD countries with a large nuclear power fraction stopped their uranium mines? "

Because other countries have abundant supplies of uranium and people willing to work hard for a modest wage. Also because the energy of uranium is so dense that shipping costs are negligible.

" What is so special about Gen III reactors? a factor of 10 more safety? a factor of 2-3 more expensive. and after all what was wrong with Gen II (or I). According to you and others they were and are more or less perfect. "

Fewer safety related components, passive safety features, better instrumentation and control systems, easier to construct, less material, longer life, higher fuel burnup, higher capacity factors.

" thus to conclude
We have not nuclear energy solution to our problems
"

A conclusion that floats in a vacuum, like a rogue asteroid, doomed to self destruction.

1) a large fraction does not mean the majority. please read more carefully what I wrote!

2) you are an activist against mountain top removal in the USA? any proof?
did you sign campaign, write letters etc?
can i find some comment from you on a related oil drum article perhaps
thanks for pointing this out to me!

3) > So what! Uranium is still cheap at $500/kg, but you never address that seriously.
just look at the oildrum article on gold mining and the diagrams in the discussion about ore grade and energy costs
comment there! it says it all!

Energy independence is a goal you agree so why has the US uranium mining industry almost stopped?

1… Name the unsafe reactors.

well some in Germany Brunsbuettel, Kruemmel do not have impressive safety records.

Japanese reactors constructed in an earthquake region

UK and Russian graphit reactors (Gen I or II or what they are called political correct?)

EPR just got a strong hit in the face from the French/British and Finish security authority known to be not very critical
about a safety design error and AREVA said right away .. we will change this.
Strange before this it was considered to be a factor of 10 safer than the older reactors.

``I have no idea! not much more than it is today! "

>Interesting, you have no idea, and then you have an idea.

ok you asked me for a statement so i answered
a my guess .. not much more mining than today

in case in my view you can compare with the oil extraction from oil sands and its limits
if you want!

but in any case as our exchange is coming to an end now.

Let the data of the next 5-10 years decide!

michael

" 1) a large fraction does not mean the majority. please read more carefully what I wrote! "

I never said it did. Please read more carefully what I wrote!

" you are an activist against mountain top removal in the USA? any proof? "

Nuclear power offers the fastest way to shutdown coal. Being anti nuclear is pro coal. I have mentioned coal several times in these comments, for example;

"I cannot think of an accident that would kill more people than the routine operation of a coal plant”

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006-02-15-02.asp

Please read more carefully what I wrote!

" So what! Uranium is still cheap at $500/kg, but you never address that seriously.
just look at the oildrum article on gold "

A clever way to avoid addressing the point, which is, that uranium is very cheap. Gold production has peaked many times.

http://www.dani2989.com/gold/productiondorcyclesgb26072004.htm

I will bet you $200 that gold production peaks higher in the next 40 years.

" why has the US uranium mining industry almost stopped? "

I answered this in my last post. “Because other countries have abundant supplies of uranium and people willing to work hard for a modest wage. Also because the energy of uranium is so dense that shipping costs are negligible.”

Please read what I wrote!

" Name the unsafe reactors.well some in Germany Brunsbuettel, Kruemmel do not have impressive safety records. "

1…How many people have they killed.

" Japanese reactors constructed in an earthquake region "

Yes, they sloshed some slightly radioactive water.

2…How many people have they killed.

" UK and Russian graphite reactors (Gen I or II or what they are called political correct?) "

Not correct, you wrote “it took 30 years to construct safe Gen II PWR's”

Graphite reactors are not included. Please read more carefully what YOU wrote!

[ “EPR just got a strong hit in the face from the French/British and Finish security authority known to be not very critical about a safety design error and AREVA said right away .. we will change this. Strange before this it was considered to be a factor of 10 safer than the older reactors. "

The EPR is under construction. Changes are not unusual. Reactors are continuoually upgraded during the course of their life.

4…What would the probably of a large radioactive release have been without the changes, and what will it be with the modifications. The EPR has a core catcher in the design.

5… Do you know for a fact that without the changes it would have been more likely to harm the public than an older design? Show us the data.

6… By what scenario would the public be injured by the EPR.

ok,

you are not an activist against mountain top removal.
You are just pretending!

Ever heard the slogan "no coal, no nuclear and lets powerdown"

>name unsafe reactors

i did!

that something is not safe does not mean that the worst case will happen!

I added the graphite moderated reactors (should i have said stronger that these are not PWR's, I thought that this was obvious
but sorry for the misunderstanding anyway they are now considered as Gen I or II and making about 20 GWe worldwide 5% of the total cake).
anyway

do you agree that the british and russian graphite one are not perfectly safe?
Thus we better close them soon.

For what it matters .. sodium cooled fast reactors

are they safe? do you want to have one in your backyard?

I do not know many pro nuclear people who like sodium cooled FR's (even if they call them FBR) nearby.

michael

" Ever heard the slogan "no coal, no nuclear and lets powerdown" "

Bravo, finally you have come out of the closet and revealed your true agenda. Of course many of us knew it from reading your first post, but now there is no doubt. I am just posting this so you cannot change it. You are a very cruel man.

true agenda?

or just concluding according to hard facts?

but I was never hiding that Power Down is unavoidable.
(perhaps I could add a tiny convincing bit in this
with discussing the real situation with nuclear energy and its future.)

yes, fossil fuels will start declining
nuclear will follow the same.
If we like it or not. This is not cruel just unavoidable.
Like the fact that winter will be colder than summer.

What we are leaving behind us for future generations will be very ugly indeed.
(and rosting nuclear submarines are just one ugly example in the entire nuclear chain
I did not have time to discuss this.)

And all this thanks to the people who still think the earth is infinite!

and to put the quote again

"Science promised us truth, or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or happiness"
Gustave Le Bon

the one from Einstein is also relevant here

``The problems of today can not be solved with the same methods that created the problems"

regards

and lets see how things evolve.

michael

Please watch the video 'Is Nuclear Power a Climate Fix or Folly?': http://www.rmi.org/rmi/

Look at the diagrams in Amory's presentation, listen to what a leading spokesman from the nuclear industry has to say about it and listen to what a power company CEO says. They all conclude: Per dollar nuclear is one of the least efficient ways of replacing coal and lowering CO2 emissions. Even new coal plant designs with lower CO2 emissions are more efficient per dollar. Wind and solar are at least a factor 1x more efficient and energy savings 'off the chart' more efficient.

Now how about that when you claim: Nothing can replace coal cheaper or faster then nuclear ?

According to the nuclear spokesman the most important argument in favor of US nuclear is: 'having nuclear power yourself allows you to say to other countries that they cannot have nuclear power. If you don't have nuclear power you cannot...'. Now, that statement dropped my jaw on the floor... Because you have nuclear power you can tell others they cannot? Wtf? And that's the most important argument he could make?

Lovins may well be the greatest snake oil salesman of our time. The best snake oil has some active ingredients. Many of the things Lovins says are true, but his logic and conclusions are deeply flawed.

He is a master at using a hand calculator. For example, he says we can eliminate most coal burning simply be running existing gas plants wide open, especially at night, at a lower cost than building nuclear plants. He does not discuss what that would do to the cost of gas, or how the emissions would compare.

It would take many hours to assemble a full rebuttal to this presentation and I am not going to do that, but if you have a specific issue that you think is rock solid bring it up.

For example, Lovins mentions that nuclear carbon emissions are higher than wind and solar and references Dr. Sovacool’s paper which claims 66 gms CO2/kWh. But under cross examination Sovacool acknowledges that his results do not apply to future plants.

Question. “Is you goal to produce a paper on; (A) The world’s historical emissions of CO2 from nuclear power plants, or (B) CO2 emissions from future Gen III reactors built in the U.S.?”

Sovacool. “Point well taken. Really the paper was not meant to be either A or B—I just wanted to see what the literature said about GHG emissions from nuclear plants—but in the end I suppose it ended mixing A and B up.”

Question. “If the U.S. ramped up to 80% nuclear and 20% wind/solar, the fossil CO2/kWh from nuclear power would be a small fraction of the paper’s estimate.”

Sovacool. “If the US ramped up to 80% nuclear and 20% renewable, GHG emissions would greatly drop and society would improve. No argument there.”

See the comments below this document.

http://www.scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idThem...

Many of the flaws in Lovins analysis have been documented.

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2009/11/amory-lovins-vs-stewart-bran...

http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/search?q=lovins

http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/search?q=lovins

My recommendation is to push every technology as fast and far as possible. The goal is to make energy that is cheaper than fossil fuel.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4961#comment-459021

I do not see Lovins calling for this approach.

I feel like I've been misunderstood. I don't romanticize about horses and buggies. I do research related to solar cells and the like. What guides my research is finding a way to harness energy will LITTLE EMBEDDED COST; these nuclear ideas are all fine and well, but they require MASSIVE INVESTMENTS, and the last I checked, WE'RE BROKE! How much longer will we continue to steal from the future (and the other residents of this Earth) in some vain hope of getting ourselves out of this mess?

This is why I support research like Polywell fusion, because it's simple and cheap and safe (you can practically build a Polywell reactor in your garage); it's still speculative, but it's worth pursuing because it's low complexity, and so has a shot at making it through our current transition. The time for enormous government led efforts has come and gone; we need to think about what we can develop more locally and in smaller efforts. "Doing everything" is not an option; if fact, it seems a bit desperate.

More complexity is not going to solve our problem. Simplification doesn't mean horses and buggies; but it doesn't mean business as usual either. Burning up resources at a frantic pace in the efforts of getting yourself out of a pickle is a very bad idea. Remember, the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is STOP DIGGING.

What guides my research is finding a way to harness energy will with LITTLE EMBEDDED COST; these nuclear ideas are all fine and well, but they require MASSIVE INVESTMENTS, and the last I checked, WE'RE BROKE!

Actually, you've just articulated the reason that I'm strongly in favor of nuclear power. Because contrary to your belief, it has by far the lowest embedded energy cost of any non-fossil energy resource*. A factor of ten lower than the runner-up, which would be large wind turbines.

Don't confuse embedded energy cost and financial cost. The high financial cost of nuclear plants (in the US and the EU) is due to the overhead of a zero-tolerance process that is supposed to guarantee absolute safety. It has only the most tenuous connection to the actual embedded energy costs of the steel, concrete, and other components that go into building a nuclear power plant.

In his book, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air, David MacKay points out that the energy cost of the concrete, steel, and other alloys in a large nuclear plant is about one tenth what it is in a large wind turbine, on the basis of kilowatt-hours delivered per year. The only thing that prevents the cost of nuclear power from dropping to better reflect its embedded energy costs is experience and learning curve, plus entrenched interests and politics. (Did I say "only"?)

It appears that China, at least, is making good progress toward achieving that drop. They keep revising upward the number of reactors that they plan to build in the next two decades. One report that I recall reading said that their cost for Chinese-built AP-1000 reactors was already lower than new coal plants in this country. I don't know if that's true and didn't save a link to the source, but it's entirely plausible.

----
* (with the exception of large hydroelectric dams -- which have their own problems and are in any case largely maxed out).

Don't confuse embedded energy cost and financial cost. The high financial cost of nuclear plants (in the US and the EU) is due to the overhead of a zero-tolerance process that is supposed to guarantee absolute safety. It has only the most tenuous connection to the actual embedded energy costs of the steel, concrete, and other components that go into building a nuclear power plant.

My concept of embedded energy cost derives from Jeff Vail's analysis of EROEI:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5580

If you haven't had a chance to read through this series I would highly recommend it; it really changed my views of how to calculate the real embedded energy cost of a project. Vail starts by noting that the embedded energy cost has a "fat tail" distribution as you expand the "boundary" of your project; in this case, all those "non-energy" costs you cite are social costs which themselves represent some kind of embedded energy (education for plant workers, tooling, safety, etc.). His basic conclusion is that financial cost is the best available proxy for total invested energy.

This method is not perfect, but I think it provides a very good starting point for evaluating the true costs of energy endeavors; it is effectively a measure of the "complexity" of the project. My basic argument against commercial fission is that this complexity cost is very high, and thus it is not bound to serve us well in our immediate future.

Of course, this is the last thing a nuclear engineer wants to hear! I think there are fantastic future uses for fission power, especially in shipping and maybe even space travel: uranium/plutonium are unique, highly concentrated fuel sources which we have largely mastered. I think these resources have much better uses than in sedentary electricity plants; this mad scramble to "save civilization" using any and all available resources is the very definition of catabolic collapse.

One way the U.S. could drastically cut it's financial + embedded energy costs while still ramping up Gen-III or IV nuclear is to do what France did: standardize plant design and construction. That and limit the NIMBY drawn out legal challenges that usually halts new construction here.

Nuclear power may never be "too cheap to meter", but it sure doesn't *have* to be as expensive as it currently is here.

???? I am getting confused. Usually one hears that nuclear fission energy in PWR's is the cheapest.

no I presume that you are an advocate of more nuclear power you say it is not?

Michael
ps.. AREVA from France is currently going through a difficult period with their new wonder Gen III reactor
which was just declared as having a ``flawed safety system".

do what France did: standardize plant design and construction.

That's been done.  The new licensing regime is a combined construction and operating license.  Designs are now certified once, not for every plant.

That and limit the NIMBY drawn out legal challenges that usually halts new construction here.

The combined construction and operating license did that.  This is why there has been an explosion in applications for new reactor licenses in the USA.

More details coming in the rebuttal essay that's been in the pipeline since early October. :/

A factor of ten lower than the runner-up, which would be large wind turbines.

Why are you lying?

According to the EIA the costs for nuclear power are higher than for wind:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/ieo06/pdf/elec_boxtbl.pdf

Needless to say that the costs for new nuclear power plants have been rising considerably and nuclear power plants have long construction times, require water, depend on uranium imports, have high decommissioning costs and require an ulitmate repository.

http://www.thestar.com/article/665644

AECL's $26 billion bid was based on the construction of two 1,200-megawatt Advanced Candu Reactors, working out to $10,800 per kilowatt of power capacity.

The bid from France's Areva NP also blew past expectations, sources said. Areva's bid came in at $23.6 billion, with two 1,600-megawatt reactors costing $7.8 billion and the rest of the plant costing $15.8 billion. It works out to $7,375 per kilowatt, and was based on a similar cost estimate Areva had submitted for a plant proposed in Maryland.

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=55119

Exelon estimates that it would require more than $1.1 billion (in 2007 dollars) to decommission the plant .

David MacKay points out that the energy cost of the concrete, steel, and other alloys in a large nuclear plant is about one tenth what it is in a large wind turbine.

Even if that were true. A Vestas 3 MW wind turbine including steel tower weighs approx. 100 tonnes per MW. This relates to steel costs of about $80 per kW or approx. 1% of the capital costs of a new nuclear power plant:
http://www.vestas.com/Files/Filer/EN/Brochures/Vestas_V_90LOW.PDF
http://www.steelonthenet.com/commodity_prices.html
Besides a wind turbine tower can also be build out of wood which is not an option with nuclear power plants:
http://www.timbertower.de/index.php?id=1&L=1

So your friend David McKay is obviously not the brightest bulb and perfidiously disclaims wind energy at any opportunity.

These things are so complicated. PMike is comparing embedded cost, which he defines as only the cost of concrete and raw steel materials. His point is that most of the cost of a nuke is other costs, such as engineering and manufacturing the special equipment.

The $100/KW cost of the wind tower you mention comes from the rated power; the capacity factor will be approximately 30% for wind compared with 90% for nuclear so the comparison cost has to be ~$300/KW. So PMike is estimating $30/KW for concrete and raw steel, or $30 million for a 1 GW plant, but not including any of the manufacturing or construction costs, or land, or infrastructure, etc.

A professor at UC Berkeley has worked out the numbers and they are not much different from PMike's rough estimate. You can see the results at http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/per-peterson-information-on-steel-and.html. Please don't accuse people of lying; there's enough hostility on this page already.

So PMike is estimating $30/KW for concrete and raw steel, or $30 million for a 1 GW plant, but not including any of the manufacturing or construction costs, or land, or infrastructure, etc.

Which is like saying: This Rolex must be really cheap, because there's only a few dollars of metal in it.
Do you agree that this statement is ridiculous?

Please don't accuse people of lying; there's enough hostility on this page already.

I'm sorry, but fact is that he was lying about wind power and was purposely badmouthing it and you actually did confirm that he was lying as you didn't show anything remotely that confirmed his ludicrous statement that new nuclear power is 10 times cheaper than new wind power.

Yes, the Rolex statement is ridiculous. It isn't the statement PMike made about nuclear vs wind. He was only addressing the cost of raw materials. It only is pertinent to the comparison of the raw materials required for energy alternatives. He did not say that new nuclear power is 10 times cheaper than new wind power, only that the raw materials are an order of magnitude lower, or roughly 10 times cheaper.

You can visualize this if you like. Consider a 1.5 MW wind turbine, which may be considered typical, although larger ones are also being manufactured. It is a very large structure with a rotor-tip height of 450 feet. To get the same energy as a 1 GW nuke would take some 2000 such turbines spread over 130 square miles, connected with maintenance roads and underground power lines, plus inverters, transformers, etc. To say that this strikingly large project would take 10 times the materials as a nuclear power plant is quite reasonable.

On the other hand, the manufacturing and construction costs of nuclear plants are much higher than the corresponding costs for wind farms. The combined costs for the two energy sources are competitive; we can expect to see nuclear plants cost out cheaper in some locations and wind farms cheaper in others.

He wasn't lying. Please read the comments before reacting to them.

Any info on which type plant spreads the wealth (construction and maintenance costs) to a broader base of people? In our economy this is no small consideration, of course it can't be the only consideration either

So why are you being dishonest about my Rolex statement, even though it is the same: The Rolex has very low material costs as apparently nuclear power plant does according to your own statement:
PMike is estimating $30/KW for concrete and raw steel, or $30 million for a 1 GW plant
Apparently less than 0.3% of the nuclear power plant are material costs: http://www.thestar.com/article/665644

So obviously material costs are not relevant. If you wanted to discuss costs, why don't you compare decommissioning costs between wind and nuclear power? After all nuclear power plants are apparently at $1000 per kW and not just at $30 per kW? Wouldn't it be more pertinent to discuss the higher and thus more relevant costs?
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=55119
And can the scrap metal of a nuclear power plant also be sold with a profit like the scrap metal from a windturbine can?

To say that this strikingly large project would take 10 times the materials as a nuclear power plant is quite reasonable.

Besides the fact that the material needs are compared to the other costs obviously not relevant and can be recycled and there's obviously no steel shortage. It's still not reasonable because you purposely ignore the rest that comes with a nuclear power plant:
Or do nuclear power plants not need any uranium mines?
Or do nuclear power plants not need any power distribution?
Or do nuclear power plants not need any enrichment facilities?
Or do nuclear power plants not need any chemical processing plants?
Or do nuclear power plants not need any ultimate repositories?
Or do nuclear power plants not need any water?

And without the tower a modern wind turbine is actually at 30 t per MW: http://www.vestas.com/Files/Filer/EN/Brochures/Vestas_V_90LOW.PDF

The tower can also be built out of wood and store carbon, which is obviously not an option with nuclear power plants:
http://www.timbertower.de/index.php?id=1&L=1

I can't tell what's going on here. For some reason you've decided to pick a completely unnecessary fight.

There are many things PMike could have chosen to discuss. He was addressing only one of many aspects of this subject. That's all he was claiming to address. To satisfy you he'd have to write a manuscript longer than the original four-part article, covering every aspect of energy cost, even the recycling of dismantled equipment. Failing to write such a manuscript, he shouldn't comment at all.

Your objection is way beyond unreasonable. Material costs certainly are relevant, as are all the topics you mentioned. What makes material costs relevant is their relatively high costs for alternatives such as wind and solar.

Limiting oneself to one topic at a time isn't lying.

I am not being dishonest about your Rolex statement. I did not say Rolexes only cost as much as the metal and jewels that go into them, nor did I say or imply that nuclear plants only cost as much as concrete and raw steel. I very clearly said the opposite. Not taking the trouble to read what people say does not give you the right to call them liars.

I think you are expected to say that
the Rolex statement (or the argument about it)
is a very nice clear argument and thank you for pointing this out!
followed by
``I will use it in the future or similar! "

In case I like the argument, it is a clever one!

thanks!

michael

Material costs certainly are relevant.

No, a cost share of 0.3% can clearly not be considered relevant and you know it.

Limiting oneself to one topic at a time isn't lying.

Actually, it is called lying by omission.

One lies by omission by omitting an important fact, deliberately leaving another person with a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions. An example is when the seller of a car declares it has been serviced regularly but does not tell that a fault was reported at the last service.

Not taking the trouble to read what people say does not give you the right to call them liars.

Actually besides the lie by omission you did indeed fail to proof that the material costs of a wind turbine are 10 times higher than of a nuclear power plant since you left out the material costs of uranium, the costs of materials for uranium mines, enrichment plants, chemical processing plants, ultimate repositories and gigantic water needs.

I give up. Dialoging with you is exactly the same as talking to a stump. You didn't read what I said before and repeating it won't do any good.

I'm not surprised. When people start to run out of arguments, they always come up with insults.

Don't forget the truss towers like they use in India which use far less steel then a conventional cones shaped tube tower which we use (because it has a lower nimby factor).

The USA tends toward pylon towers because they eliminate roosting spots for birds with the consequent bird kills.

Time to back up here a bit. First, a minor accounting point; that was me, not PMike, who pointed out the result (cited by David MacKay in his book) that the concrete, steel, and other material components in a nuclear plant are only about one tenth as much, on the basis of annual kilowatt-hours, of a modern wind turbine. I had prefaced that by saying one should not confuse "financial cost" with "energy cost".

PMike responded by pointing out Jeff Vail's analysis of EROEI, suggesting that financial cost was actually a good proxy for energy cost. I happen to disagree with that conclusion, but that's really a side issues that I didn't want to get into.

'anyone' read my statement as if I had said that nuclear plants were cheaper than wind turbines, and called me a liar. No problem, a lot of blog respondents are challenged in the area of reading comprehension skills. Completely spurious charges bother me not the least. (It's the ocassional ones that hit close to target that are painful.)

The example of the Rolex watch that he brings up is actually quite apt. However, it cuts directly opposite to the sense he had intended.

Nuclear opponents look at the cost of a rolex watch, and want to conclude that watches are totally impractical devices. They're toys for the idle rich, and the rest of us should just learn to make do with sundials. Others, including myself, look closely at what goes into making a Rolex and see the possibility of a Timex! There's nothing inherent in making a watch that says they have to cost several thousand dollars. A $10 watch that is perfectly servicable ought to be possible. By the same token, nuclear plants that are at least several times cheaper than the current norms ought to be possible. (And, oh, BTW, the Chinese seem well on their way to leaning to build them.)

Now, as to 'nobody's list of bright rhetorical questions:

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any uranium mines?"
Of course they do. Processing about one one-thousandth as much material as needed to support a coal-fired power plant.

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any power distribution?"
About the same as gas-fired power plants, less than for coal-fired plants, and much less than required for wind farms. (Nuclear plants, like gas-fired power plants, are ammenable to distributed siting close to load centers. Coal plants less so. Wind farms are normally far from load centers, and their intermittency makes the problem worse.

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any enrichment facilities?"
Down in the noise. A single plant has the capacity to supply all the needs of the US, and the energy to operate it is around 0.1% of the power its output will generate.

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any chemical processing plants?"
Are you talking about fuel reprocessing? We don't do that, but we should.

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any ultimate repositories?"
Not really. Dry cask storage until we build the fast reactors that can run on all that good "waste" material. (And eliminate the need for most uranium mining for the next two hundred years.)

"Or do nuclear power plants not need any water?"
About as much as coal-fired plants, for current designs. Future high temperature reactors will need substantially less, and can be adapted and modest cost to air-based cooling.

I'm not sure what this list of questions was supposed to establish. If it's that the high cost of nuclear plants (far above what their "bill of materials" sets as a bottom line) is somehow intrinsic, it failed. There are reasons for the high cost, but they lie more in the political arena and the workings of "Parkinson's law".

Others, including myself, look closely at what goes into making a Rolex and see the possibility of a Timex!

With the difference that the watch industry has developed a Timex in the last 50 years and the nuclear power industry failed to do so.
But nobody stops you. Go ahead and build your Timex-nuclear power plant.

I'm not sure what this list of questions was supposed to establish.

You need to compare all material costs if you compare wind with nuclear, if you really want to compare material costs even though they have little relevance. An empty nuclear power plant without uranium doesn't produce any electricity and is thus worthless. But apparently your friend isn't aware of this simple fact.

The difference is that Timex did not have legislative roadblocks to its R&D and sales thrown up by the Rolex lobby.

Dear EP,

may be you could try to take up a job
working in a little regulated nuclear radiation military lab
(from 30 years back) or
in some post Soviet Union places working with radioactive material.

Or better, in the clean up of the Harrisburg TMI reactor core.
Or perhaps clean up the Nevada testsites.
(i guess you are old enough .. so you will not suffer too much from
soft radiation damage causing cancer 20-30 years later. )

michael

" these nuclear ideas are all fine and well, but they require MASSIVE INVESTMENTS, and the last I checked, WE'RE BROKE! "

The U.S. spends 1,000,000,000,000 per year on energy alone. The world spends several times that. The money required to R&D every possibility is peanuts compared to the savings we will enjoy if we get the best solution.

yes the money put into research is "peanuts" compared to all the other expenses.

However, now the money is gone and not many objected against the spending for useless stuff

someone (you? and your dreams(?) ) have to pay for this now.

For what concerns me.. so far I am payed out of the research budget.
For how long? Until the state runs out of money I guess..

this could be sooner than I wish..

Michael

Your attitude is refreshing.

I only wish that much much more money, time, and rsources were spent pursuing 'foolish scientific pursuits'.

99% perspiration, 1% inspiration...finding 10,00 ways NOT to male a light bulb filament, in order to find the first way that works, and all that.

I am a huge proponent of evolving humanity to a lower level of stable population, and understanding and living within resource limits.

That does NOT mean I am anti-science or anti-technology development.

Being anti-growth and pro-technology development and pro knowledge-seeking are not contradictory desires.

We could eventually have a small enough population to fit within the World's resource sources and sinks constraints, and still pursue knowledge and love, and happiness pursuits which fail any EROEI analysis, and there are those of us who do not care a bit.

So the main objection to Shippingport is that the initial fuel was 98% U233, not the mix that's produced in the breeding cycle; to verify that you actually have a complete commercial cycle (with >1 breeding ratio), you need to start with bred fuel, and that, it appears, has not been demonstrated.

I fear you've fallen prey to Dittmar's misdirection.  Nuclear power is quite feasible TODAY with no breeders, period.  The cost of uranium is far too low to make breeding worthwhile for economic reasons.  The supply of thorium is sufficient to use in LWRs in a once-through cycle [1] for several times as long as the uranium supply lasts [2].

The failure of nuclear power to live up to its initial promises is not due to lack of funding or prowess on the part of engineers and physicists; it has to do with the inherent complexity in such endeavors.

The bulk of it has to do with politics.  Nothing required commercial nuclear R&D to stand still for 3 decades in the USA, it just became politically impossible for government to do it and economically impossible for industry to do it given that new markets were blocked by political interests.

It's not to say that nuclear engineering doesn't have a future; just not one powering society.

I think you're quite wrong about that.  Dr. David LeBlanc, who should have been given the honor of writing for TOD instead of Dittmar, has noted that the LFTR has the potential to turn thorium into electricity at the rate of about 0.8 tons per GW-yr.  The USA buried over 8000 tons of thorium nitrate (about 4000 tons of metallic Th) as waste, because the people in charge didn't know what else to do with it (the ORNL MSR teams having been silenced politically [4]).  At 0.8T/GW-yr, those 4000 tons of Th could replace more than 20 years of US electric generation from coal.

[1] A once-through cycle eliminates the cost and radiological hazard of recovering uranium containing U-232 [3] and fabricating new fuel rods from it.
[2] The abundance of thorium in earth's crust (~10 ppm) is about 4 times that of uranium (~2.5 ppm).
[3] Uranium could be removed from spent thorium fuel rods and the thorium re-used, if desired.  The uranium could be saved for a future generation of reactors requiring no fuel-rod fabrication, such as MSRs.
[4] Molten-salt reactors eliminate many issues of PWRs, including xenon poisoning and temperature coefficients.  The inherent safety threatened the PWR interests, including the reactor-operator jobs held by ex-Navy submarine crew and most of the nuclear services industry.  The ORNL people were told to shut up (relevant information on the Navy-derived management of the AEC and the effect it had on ORNL is here).

>Dr. David LeBlanc, who should have been given the honor of writing for TOD instead of Dittmar,

dear EP,

it will be my pleasure to read the replies from Dr. David LeBlanc.
It would be useful if more substantiated with hard facts from experiments
than this one for example.
http://www.slideshare.net/guestcee6b0/liquid-fluoride-reactors-a-new-beg...

but nevertheless, when you look at the "conclusions outlook" you find a list which agrees well with what
i wrote!

But, let me tell you something basics in science.

Science lives from confronting different views on topics not solved and critical thinking
on the proposed arguments.

What you are asking for, suppression of one view is anti science and anti freedom of speech!

But good that you express your worldview so nicely!

thanks for that.

michael

What I'm asking for (have been asking for for years, AAMOF) is the beginnings of peer-review to improve the quality of posts on TOD.  It would also prevent propaganda from being presented as fact, but I didn't think that needed special attention until your series showed up.

It is very interesting that you adjure me to look at LeBlanc's talk, when I have given his slideshow to an audience.  I'll just give you the conclusions from slide 68:

Conclusions
  • Molten Salt designs have inherent features that favor overall safety, waste reduction, low cost and rapid deployment
  • They also have great flexibility to match varying priorities
    • Can attain much higher levels of proliferation resistance compared to current offerings
    • Can run on minute amounts of thorium or modest amounts of uranium for the utmost in simplicity

FYI, the ore deposit at Lemhi Pass has a probable reserve of 1.8 million tons.  If this thorium was used to supply 70% of US electricity plus enough extra to replace petroleum transport fuel (roughly 4 trillion kWH/yr total) at 0.8 t/GW-yr, the thorium consumption would be about 370 tons/year and the Lemhi Pass deposit would run the country's grid and vehicles for ~4800 years.  The Egyptian pyramids are less than 4700 years old, so we are talking about the energy to run an industrial civilization continuously for roughly the length of time that civilization has existed on earth.

I'd say that's enough.  Three more generations should be able to take that and improve on it further.

yes right that was page 68!

but why did you fail to look at page 69-72?

(this says what is missing ..
like 15 years without hope of money return .. and this for something you claim to be perfectly understood!)

another proof that you are incapable to read documents to the very end!

and in fact your biased view
trying to hide this ..

thanks for documenting it so well!

michael

ps.. try to go for censorship
I hope you fail.

but why did you fail to look at page 69-72?

(this says what is missing ..
like 15 years without hope of money return .. and this for something you claim to be perfectly understood!)

Nuclear power was developed without any near-term hope of monetary return (it took more than 20 years).  So was grid-connected wind power.  If the industrial world is facing an electric power crisis, we are going to either take shortcuts around the elements of BAU which create such delays (the MSRE was built in just 5 years) or we will accept a long payback for the long-term benefits.

another proof that you are incapable to read documents to the very end!

I have been over the whole thing several times; those slides are simply not relevant.  I have noted the issue of "rice-bowl breaking" in this very discussion thread; the bulk of the nuclear-services industry would lose its ongoing revenue stream if either MSR or IFR technology became dominant, and this has political implications for R&D funding.  It takes a propagandist like you to take politics and create a resource shortage ex nihilo, though.

ps.. try to go for censorship

You are only censored in your delusions of adequacy; refusing to lend TOD's reputation to your propaganda is not an attack on you, it would have protected TOD (now damaged by association with your drivel).  This opinion is not confined to a few of your opponents.  Here are some appraisals from people who appear to be well-established readers (at least 2 years membership) who have read your "work", in this thread alone:

"These conclusions read more like opinion being sold rather than conclusions flowing logically from carefully crafted arguments based on hard science and engineering. This is an anti-nuclear propaganda hit piece..."

"Not sure why you 'admire' Dittmar's work (I would not add the 'Dr' bit, there is no way scholarship this poor would ever get a PHD), since he is plainly working to a presupposed agenda and refusing to take correction."

BTW, your comments about Fermilab have received a certain amount of negative press.  It looks like you can dish out criticism, but you can't take it.

Maybe this is trolling, but how can the industry call generation III safe if there is a need for a core catcher? And how can they be sure that a core melt down will successfully be catched, or that no significant amounts of reactor fuel will be released into the environment?

Also, are generation III reactors like the French PWR really generation III or are they more like a generation II+? They sound like they are generation II+ anyway as they have so much in common with just a few modifications (like the core catcher). And what does that say about the safety of the 300+ generation II installations, even if today they have a few thousand major-accident-free running years combined?

While the so called III generation is not the main topic of my article (it was more for the other 3).

But in case it might be interesting to know that the safety commissions
from France/ Finland and the UK just made a strong statement last week saying essentially that

the french EPR safety concept is flawed and unacceptable.

this is especially important as the French one so far never ever had any problems with French "know how".

AREVA answered right away that they will modify.
But it seems that they lost a big amount on the stock market and
that the project in Finland is so much behind that might almost kill the company.

In any case the missing uranium fuel problem can not be solved with the EPR and alike

thus any company and country must be kind of cheated about uranium resources
(like potential buyers of big cars about peak oil).

michael

If I have understood the critique right were the problem insufficient separation between computerized control systems that need to be independant of each other to provide redundancy.

It sounds like the common mistake of making computereized systems overly complex and feature rich.

" While the so called III generation is not the main topic of my article (it was more for the other 3). "

Why is that? Your uranium piece claimed there will be problems in the very short term. Your reactor piece claims long term problems with Gen IV reactors, but the next reactors actually built will be Gen III. Why have you skipped them? They are the ones under consideration for construction now.

I didn't skip Gen III reactors!

I wrote on the EPR and other "new" old types.

The project in Finland turns out to be a disaster for AREVA Siemens (Siemens left the sinking Titanic)
and latest news say that the EPR system is flawed.

The only one looking "good" and for an acceptable price right now seems to be the Russian version!

but do you think that everything what the Russians say is true?

Didn't they have the safest reactors before 1986?

By the way the british reactors are of very similar Chernobyl type
now all old and soon to be retired

very few people with a little expertise in nuclear energy consider them as ``safe"

but for what it matters

lets accept the Chinese and Indian scientists will finally come up with the wonder reactors!
when.. after 2020

michael

The lesson EPR gives me is that building nuclear powerplants has a learning curve.
You can only build them fast when the suppliers and workforce is fully trained and
the design is compete.

AREVA and Siemens obviously sold the project with the expectation of being able
to deliver as they did with their earlier reactors. But those were the last ones
of a continous build and the competence witherd during the hiatus.

Its good that the EPR is being built in Finland where they take nuclear security
very seriously. The smart next step after these problems and cost overruns is to
take care about learning lessons on every level and then build more EPR:s version
1.1 with a better building process and get lower building costs.

There is nothing scary about the modern Russian PWR:s.
But I would verifie ever single step of the design and production process if I
were a reactor customer, but that is a good idea for a multi billion affair
regardless if it is nuclear and who the supplier is.

I disagree. From a business politics point of view it is much more likely that they *had* to knowingly sell the reactor way below expected real cost because they finally had a chance to make an end on 20 years no reactor building and could not afford to loose the opportunity. It happens all the time that businesses sell a first project below real price expecting to gain profits later on because of 'opened doors'. TVO/Finnish politicians/Finnish public would not have bought one if the contract would note a more realistic price, which is probably also why the Finns wanted a fixed price contract in the first place.

The part I find stupid is promising a build time about as short as the best they had a generation ago. I agree with the logic of giving your first customer a large rebate and a fixed price contract but why set a short deadline?

The deadline must be short because otherwise cost would get higher. It's not like it's very easy to slow down construction, be thoughtful of it, train your employees better, and not see an huge increase in price. I think this is why they started a race towards the finish (haha) only to discover they didn't enter a 100m sprint, but 400 m hurdles race.

I agree every new system has a learning curve of many many years

if it took 30 years to construct safe Gen II PWR's and we have a long learning curve for an EPR and similar ahead of us
it confirms what I wrote in Chapter I ..

the old reactors will be terminated before we have learned to rebuild Gen III reactors.

This means at least 30 years for designing a prototype Gen IV and with another 20 year learning curve
well in 50 years from now we start to compensate for the missing oil, gas and coal?

convincing indeed!

michael

Areva is well into the learning curve for building EPR:s. The next one should be significantly faster and then they can continue to scale up. I expect it to take a decade, not decades and we are will into the decade.

Large parts of the future nuclear industry is learing the trade by renewing the old generation 2 plants, those projects are good for transfering knowledge to a new generation of workers.

30 years is way to long for designing a generation four prototype. They need to be done in parallell in mutibpel types and fast enough for new projects to learn from the succeses and failures. Think five year projects and flexible reserach reactors where you set up experiments on a monthly schedule.

The is exactly the same kind of thinking as the one we need for other power sources and ideas for attaining better efficiency. No 30 year projects to design the ultimate car! Do it in a parallell process.

The only one looking "good" and for an acceptable price right now seems to be the Russian version!

Really?

The consortium offered 21.16 (Euro) cents kWh for the construction and management of nuclear power plant.

http://www.turkeyfinancial.com/news/2009/01/19/russian-turkish-consortiu...

Pretty costly for a plant that doesn't do load following and as opposed to a PV system on ones roof has to compete with wholesale electricity prices.

ok,

i guess I should have said

not even the russian ..

(but may be I was ironic enough no?)

michael

The name of the game is engineered safety. Any system can fail, even with ridiculously small probability, so you integrate three independent systems, and then add something to prevent radioactive release even if all the 3 systems fail simultaneously.

In principle you could call Gen III as Gen II+, and I guess the Gen III+ would be Gen II++ :)

However the terminology in use evolved differently. Gen III designs are evolutions of proven Gen II designs:
• Enhanced safety & reliability:
• Simplified design
• Lower core melt probability
• Less off-site impact in severe accident scenarios
• Competative:
• Standardised design
• High burn-up
• High availability
• Long design life
• Short erection time
Gen III reactors are already built or ready to be built.

Characteristics Gen III+
• Gen III+ designs are evolutions of Gen III designs
• Generally with some innovative safety features
• More inherent and/or passive safety features
• No off-site impact in severe accident scenarios

http://www.nrg.eu/docs/kivi/2008/20080523/20080523-presentation-jan.van....

Dr. Dittmar (and others), at Brave New Climate, a reputable science blog by Australian climate scientist Barry Brook, there are a lot of (convincing IMO)pieces on GenIV nuclear reactors and especially the Integral Fast Reactor: http://bravenewclimate.com/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-power/

One excerpt:

"It seems like something that only a crazed conspiracy theorist would come up with. A source of carbon-free energy that holds the potential to provide base load power for the planet for thousands of years hence, and which could be built along the existing transmission grid and even be housed within retrofitted coal-fired power stations. A process that could eat existing nuclear waste instead of needing to store it in highly secure vaults such as Yucca Mountain for hundreds of millennia. A technology that enjoyed large investments in R&D by government, only to have the funding zeroed for political reasons when close to large-scale demonstration — and then the scientists involved told not to publicise this fact. Well that, in caricature, is the basic story of Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear power."

http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/13/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-...

Does this technology hold any merit?

Yes,indeed, Neven. We have several proven technologies which can get coal out of the picture fairly quickly if the resources are devoted to that end.

Those technologies in descending order of base load capability are nuclear,geothermal,solar thermal,Solar PV and wind.

Let's just get on with it and quit arguing about the old "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" thing - Time is running out.

But the argument isn't about 'Angels on the head of a pin', Thirra.

Clear objections to Fission's future are being offered.. so a handwave of irritation doesn't really take them on.

Seems like thirra isn't far off base. There are issues with nuclear fission in the more distant future (>60 years). It's not that those issues don't exist. It's just that there are much more pressing problems. It is clear that there is plenty of Uranium to last until after we need to be mostly off fossil fuels which is what, maybe 10-50 years? At the moment, the solution has to be to build nuclear power plants and at the same time invest in as much renewable power as we can. If we had started with taxes on fossil fuels a decade or three ago, this could have worked pretty well. At the moment, we have to hope that we can adjust quickly. I don't see how to get off fossil fuels while not starting wars that send us back to the dark ages without fission as a significant part of the short term solution. In the longer term we'll see whether breeder reactors or recovery or Uranium from the ocean or new geologic discoveries keep nuclear competative. It is just impossible to predict technology many decades into the future. Worrying about whether breeder reactors are going to allow us to keep using nuclear power in 2070 seems like arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin to me when peak oil and global climate change are staring us in the face.

ganv, this may well be the most intelligent and reasonable comment on this page. Thanks for making it.

And even more stupid is the refusal to follow up on the Molten Salt Thorium reactor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

It worked, has many advantage over solid core pressurized reactors, like no Xenon poisoning, higher temps for higher efficiency, can much more rapidly adjust power since there are no thick walled sections of metal to avoid fatigue, it burns up waste from other reactors, Thorium is more abundant than Uranium, etc.

Politics!

I'm guessing the big boiler/turbine companies were/are managed by people who understand water and steam, and went "huh?" when told about molten salt and high temperature gas turbines.

I think fission could play a bigger role, but the industry is so insane with politics that it's choking on itself.
Case in point is Three Mile Island - IIRC (my copy of the accident report is in storage), the instrument air (used to control valves and sensors) was cross connected from shop air (used for tools and in this case to "fluff" water treating beads that were packed too tight into the water treatment tanks). The utility was too cheap to buy another instrument air compressor - a couple thousand dollars. The industry's lawyers had cowed the regulators into accepting as limited a definition of "safety critical system" as possible. So, the original report notes that on several occasions water got into the shop air system and thence into the instrument air system and had caused problems. Since they were doing some bead fluffing and water transfer with shop air just prior to the start of the accident, it is most likely that the valve in the secondary loop (air operated) that failed, causing the condensate pumps to fail and the condenser vacuum to be lost, causing the turbine to trip offline (and the reactor to shutdown), causing a high heat load in the reactor, exacerbated by the closing of some valves isolating auxiliary cooling pumps (a violation of NRC regulations), causing high pressures, which activated the pilot operated relief valve, which did not close properly (and the manufacturer failed to notify reactor operators of the known potential problem), which resulted in loss of primary coolant loop water, which uncovered the core, which led to a partial meltdown, which led to hydrogen evolution from too hot zirconium alloys, which led to a hydrogen explosion that came very close to the design level of the containment building - was all caused by the utility being too cheap to buy another instrument air compressor.

It seems to me that the nuclear industry (and many other incumbents: GM and coal burning power come to mind), would rather justify and rationalize than be rationally safe.
They knew they had water issues in their instrument air, yet management did not take a cheap and effective action: buy more instrument air compressor and ban the practice of cross connection.
Even though most people probably don't get the technical gist of this, I think they "smell a rat" and don't trust the nuclear industry, and that lack of trust in not undeserved.
Suspicion and victimism is bred on both sides, and little constructive is getting done.
I wonder if I could get anybody in the nuclear industry to agree that spending a couple of thousand dollars on squeaky clean instrument air would have been a good investment (defense in depth) vs. the billion dollars it cost to clean up Three Mile Island.

I wonder if I could get anybody in the nuclear industry to agree that spending a couple of thousand dollars on squeaky clean instrument air would have been a good investment (defense in depth) vs. the billion dollars it cost to clean up Three Mile Island.

In hindsight: ofcourse you would. But unfortunately they cannot predict which defence-in-depth-investments would be needed as they don't know which accidents will happen. So they will rationalize these investments away for the benefit of higher profit (or even sales of a reactor to a commercial energy business). Spending in a commercial nuclear power setting will be largely driven by commercial thinking, not pure science. Maybe that's one of the reasons it might not be such a good idea.

Long time TOD reader, very first post here tho :)
Hopefully that article about EIA's admitting stuff will make at least some ripples through MSM. However, even most of the supposed-to-be-more-knowledgeable people at financial blogs, like Zerohedge - come right after that with "abiotic oil, man" or "10,5 trillion $ of additional investment? Nothing but the oil lobby at work!"
Back to the topic, anyone heard about "THE AXISYMMETRIC TANDEM MIRROR" design? An extract from
"Thoughts on Fusion Energy Development After a Six-Decades-Long Love Affair by Richard F. Post" :

"A Better Bet: The Fusion ATM
Are there better, faster-to-develop, approaches to magnetic fusion than the tokamak? Yes, there are! As an example, I
would cite the recent findings of a Department of Energysponsored committee that is taking a new look at open-ended
systems, in particular at new forms of the tandem mirror that we call ATMs (for Axisymmetric Tandem Mirror, not for
machines for getting money—yet). The committee is chaired by a former Lab employee and mirror group leader Tom Simonen
(who is doing a great job). Its members include several Lab employees and retirees, plus researchers from other labs,
including MIT, Princeton, the University of Texas, and Los Alamos. We are now writing the final report. It concludes that the open-ended ATM represents a simpler, and easier-to-engineer, approach to magnetic fusion than ITER, since it is modular in nature and, being axisymmetric, it employs only simple circular coils to create its confining magnetic fields"

Full article here:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2009/Summer-2009/Thoughts...

For the link about a fast track fusion reactor

I would say "nice pictures" do not compensate for missing facts.

neither the real problems with ITER and other plasma devices are mentioned
nor are there any serious references given!

anyway here is an article about this already from 1979 (30 years back) and nothing
absolutely nothing came out of it!

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v43/i18/p1318_1

brings me back to the fusion emperor has no clothes story!

michael

And for how long did men dream of flying and build non-viable contraptions before the Wright Brothers finally took flight? I don't think we're close to viable fusion power, either, and there are much better currently viable bridging technologies we should aggressive pursue. But does this mean we should abandon all research forever?

As others have already noted, there are far *worse* activities we could be (and are) "wasting" our money and resources on.

FWIW, you can color me as skeptical as Dr. Dittmar regarding the prospects for the mainstream approaches to magnetic confinement fusion. That includes the old work on the mirror configuration, though I don't know anything about "new forms of the tandem mirror" that Tom Simonen is reportedly proposing.

In my senior year of a physics and math curriculum, in 1966 - 67, I was casting about for what to study in graduate school. I thought fusion energy would be an interesting field, so I did some independent study in that area. I fairly quickly concluded that there was no prospect that the schemes being studied at that time could ever provide a comercially viable way to generate power. Too many really fundamental problems, too many conflicting requirements on the design and materials. I didn't know whether "scientific breakeven" would be achieved; I presumed that it likely would. But I was fairly certain that the machines that achieved it could never be the basis for practical power plants.

It isn't quite right to say that the challenges seemed "hard"; "hard" implies something that has a solution, albeit difficult. For the mainstream approaches to fusion, I didn't see any path -- hard or otherwise -- to reconciling the conflicting requirements in a practical system. In the 40+ years since then, nothing has come along to change my mind about that.

That's not to say that there might not be other approaches to fusion that could be viable. There are several intriguing possibilities that non-mainstream groups are investigating. One or more of those could pay off, but I'm not placing bets on any of them.

An excellent, generally accurate, article that is surprisingly sober about the prospects for future fission and fusion power. However, as one would expect from a nuclear (i.e. not theoretical) physicist, there was the usual uninformed summary dismissal of cold fusion:

It follows from first principles that the sometimes discussed "cold fusion" reaction is in contradiction with well established knowledge of subatomic physics. As the repulsive force increases with the number of protons involved, the conditions to achieve fusion with atoms heavier than hy­drogen and its isotopes become more and more difficult. It follows that fusion reactions based for example on the "proton-boron" reaction and many others are only possible using accelerators.

This is demonstrably untrue. Cellier is obviously unaware of the loophole pointed out in
http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1878

Quantum physics holds many surprises for those who persist in seeing the world in quasi-mechanical 19th century terms.

thanks for the nice words!

concerning "cold fusion" and other miracles and the linked article

here is the title:

>Enhanced low energy fusion rate in palladium (Pd) due to vibrational deuteron dipole-dipole interactions and associated resonant tunneling that over-cancels >the Jastrow factor between deuteron pair wavefunctions
>
>J.S.Brown

sorry to say so but a title like that does not indicate anything serious.

Or as Einstein said

"everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler"

Thus cold fusion is in contradiction with first physics principles about nuclear physics!

one should not mix quantum mechanical tunneling effect (like alpha decay)
which in classical physics is forbidden as well with ``cold fusion".

for what it matters sometimes and with very very low probability
alpha decays of heavy nuclei happen true

the opposite however, e.g. an alpha being absorbed by another nucleus
as far as I know has never ever been observed!
(it could happen ones or twice perhaps if one tries a few billion times)

but what one looks for commercial energy production is
on the order of 10**21 fusion reactions/ sec for a 1 GWe power reactor!
and 10**20 fission reactions/second for a comparable fission reactor!

michael

This is demonstrably untrue. Cellier is obviously unaware of the loophole pointed out in
http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1878

Don't shoot the messenger.

Dr. Dittmar supports what Liquid fluoride Thorium Reactor advocates like Kirk Sorensen and myself have been saying. Breeding thorium is our best long term nuclear option. Dr. Dittmar points to some, but not all of the advantages of a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor approach. In fact Thorium Molten Salt Reactor/LFTR would solve the thorium fuel fabrication problem, the U-232 problem, And problems associated with recycling thorium. Thus we are left with a single problem: "Much development work is still required, before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialized, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. In this respect, recent international moves to bring India into the ambit of international trade might result in the country ceasing to persist with the thorium cycle, as it now has ready access to traded uranium and conventional reactor designs."

This statement requires multiple answers:
1. The expression "much development" work is extremely ambiguous. ORNL researchers in the 1974 analyzed the developmental tasks required to for the development of a Molten Salt Thorium Breeder (ORNL-5018, Program Plan for the Development of Molten-Salt Breeder Reactors). The cost would have been somewhere around 2.5 billion 2009 dollars, to prototype stage. To date the United States has spent about $25 billion on the development of the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor without a product. Even if the development cost were several times higher that $2.5 billion, it would still be cheap, even in terms of what the United States spends researching renewables. A mini-Manhatten Project approach would vastly shorten the development time frame. With an investment of $15 billion, less than the United States spends on its space program every year, the United States could have a viable commercial LFRTR prototype in 5 years.

2. There is a strong motive for LFTR/TMSR development. Namely low cost rapid substitution of nuclear energy for fossil fuels. The LFTR is significantly simpler than the LWR, and it can be built with less materials, fewer parts and less labor. LFTRs that produce between 100 MWe and 400 MWe will be small and light enough to transport by truck, rail or barge. Factory ass production of LFTRs would greatly increase labor productivity. Because of its small size, and high level of safety, LFTR site construction would be less expensive. Thus dramatic savings in nuclear construction costs could be realized by switching from LWR to LFTR technology. Finally factory production would dramatically increase the scaleability of nuclear power, making the replacement of 80% of fossil fuel energy sources by 2050

3 Indian efforts to develop the thorium cycle are likely to presist for some time for several reasons:
A.The international imbargo on uranium sals to India, will not be forgotten quickly, and a determination to make India independent of international uranium sources will remain fixed for some time to come.
B. India has at least a low cost thousand year fuel supply in surface thorium deposits, that beg to be used.
C. Building locally designed thorium breeding reactors will be cheaper for India than buying uranium fueled reactors from Russia, France, Japan, and the United States.

What he said. :-)

> Dr. Dittmar supports what Liquid fluoride Thorium Reactor advocates like Kirk Sorensen and myself have been saying.

Well, first of all thanks for spreading the word about my articles!

This aside, may be you should read again what I wrote and what the WNA document had to say.

in case it might be useful to consider the following (from my text)
****************************************************************************************************************
4.3. Ideas about using thorium as a reactor fuel

During the past years, a large number of articles and books, websites and blogs propose the use of thorium as the breeder material for future nuclear reactors [29]. The promoters advocate many interesting possibilities, indicating that the Th232 cycle might have lots of advantages compared to the U238 breeder cycles in FBR's.

The main problem with these "great" new insights into the use of nuclear fission energy seems to be that nobody from the nuclear energy establishment is interested.

As a result, little or no private and public research money is invested into the question of how to develop a thorium breeder reactor. Ignoring the possibility that past investigations into the thorium fuel cycle have revealed several important problems, one needs to speculate about other reasons.

that the established nuclear energy experts do not like to see competition from outsiders, or
that the nuclear fusion community has managed to dominate the entire nuclear energy research domain, and that the available research budgets are already allocated to the ITER plasma research project.
If either of these two possibilities contains some truth, those in favor of developing a thorium breeder re actor should start taking a strong position against the current nuclear energy establishment. They should point out that (i) the current use of nuclear energy has no perspective because of the limited amount of available uranium resources, (ii) the Th232 breeder cycle is by orders of magnitude better than the ideas about U238 breeder cycles with FBR's, and (iii) nuclear fusion is at least 50-100 years away.

********************************************************************************************************************

this is also relevant

``For example it is often argued that U233 produced in a future Th232 breeding cycle will be useless for nuclear weapons. This argument is certainly flawed as countries who want to have nuclear weapon capability will most likely choose the simpler way to make a bomb using Pu239 or U235. Yet, those who know how to breed and separate hundreds of kg's of U233 can easily replace Th232 with U238 and produce a few tens(should stand for a few 10 kg) of kg's of Pu239, sufficient to construct a few nuclear bombs."

and

Assuming that such a reactor is supposed to eventually produce the U233 starting fuel for another reactor, it will take a long time before the second package of initial reactor core has been produced. Significant technological breakthroughs are required before this chain can be called feasible on a large scale.

The documents do not say much about the contamination of the 507.5 kg of U233 with fission products and its usefulness for further studies after this five year experiment. The fact that no subsequent reactor experiment has been performed might provide a partial answer to this question.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large. It can be estimated that this amount, placed in a standard PWR, could have produced at least 5 times more electric energy than it had during the actual experiment.

In contrast to the experiments performed at the Shippingport reactor, where the initial core was already U233, a realistic Th232 reactor cycle must be started with an initial U235 or Pu239 core. Consequently, the experience gained with the Shippingport reactor experiment cannot be considered as a proof that the envisaged system can function. It follows that many more tests are needed, before a functioning large-scale prototype Th232 breeder reactor can be constructed.

It follows that many more tests are needed, before a functioning large-scale prototype Th232 breeder reactor can be constructed.

Lets do all of them ASAP!

fine, but make sure to say loudly:

one has to define clearly and in a uncensored debate the existing problems,
the needed tests, their price tag and so on!

and also
make it public that the nuclear establishment, the policy makers as well as existing public funded research groups
are blocking the information about Peak Oil and its consequences.

and that the research money should not go to useless projects!

michael

We dont have a "peak oil" research blockade over here.
But we have had a nuclear research blockade, its a breath
of fresh air to get rid of stupidity such as political
decisions about hindering knowledge.

DR. Dittmar, No one knew about the existence of the Thorium option two years ago, and only a few scientists were aware of Molten Salt Reactor Technology. This is not the case today, the Manchester Report, which will be presented at the Copenhagen conference will include the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor among the 10 most promising AGW mitigation technologies
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/MIF/ManchesterReport2009.pdf

LFTR technology is far better known today, than it was two years ago when I started my blog, Nuclear Green That is due to the work of one man, Kirk Sorensen, a NASA Engineer. The Manchester Report panel stated, "Although the panel are not in a position to assess the feasibility of liquid- fluoride thorium reactors, Sorensen’s articulate and knowledgeable advocacy made a persuasive case that this electricity generation technology deserves renewed investigation. Other ways of extracting energy from thorium should also be explored – both to reduce emissions and to help limit the production of the most dangerous nuclear waste. "

There is a point to making the potential of Thorium and of LFTR technology better known, and that is to bring that potential to key decision makers. That would be a requirement before private and public research money are invested into the question of how to develop a thorium breeder reactor. Is it your claim that "past investigations into the thorium fuel cycle have revealed several important problems? The blog Energy form Thorium has links to hundreds of research documents related to thorium breeding. I have reviewed many of them. I find no evidence of insurmountable obstacles to thorium breeding in the documents I have reviewed. I would like to call your attention to the work of the Reactor Physics Group of the University of Grenoble, Contrary tp your claim that "no private and public research money is invested into the question of how to develop a thorium breeder reactor. " that group has been investigating thorium breeding with Molten Salt Reactors. I must say I am shocked at your ignorance of what is happening in Grenoble a city that is practically in your back yard. A recent paper by the Reactor Physics group found "The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) thus defined is studied in the Th-233U cycle in various configurations obtained by modulating the amount of graphite in core to obtain a thermal, an epithermal, or a fast spectrum. In particular, configurations of a fast spectrum TMSR have been identified with outstanding safety characteristics and minimal fuel-reprocessing requirements."
http://democrite.in2p3.fr/view_by_stamp.php?&halsid=7frnu4kp7plsak32dd62...
That does not strike me as indicating that the obstacles to thorium breeding are insurmountable in Grenoble. Why then would it be seen as insurmountable at CERN?
.
You raise some interesting issues, but the use of LFTRs as proliferation tools is simply implausible, as you source states, "This argument is certainly flawed as countries who want to have nuclear weapon capability will most likely choose the simpler way to make a bomb using Pu239 or U235." It is not impossible for a technologically advanced state to produce bomb grade material using a LFTR, but it is very unlikely that it would do so. Thus the existence and spread of LFTR technology to nuclear capable countries would not increase the likelihood of nuclear proliferation. The LFTR would not make the world a more dangerous place. Given the improbability that the development of thorium breeding technology would increase world wide the proliferation risk, how is the question of nuclear proliferation important to our discussion?

Dr Barton and others, speaking of proliferation, I just realized something hilarious, demonstrating futility of an attempt to control proliferation via technological (as opposed to political/military) means. The head of House Intelligence Committee published detailed design blueprints and instructions how to build nuclear weapons (and also chemical agents sarin and tabun) in Arabic *on-line* back in 2006. Starting at 2:05: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33872445

With friends like this ...

loiz, Your observation is well taken. The design for the North Korean plutonium producing reactor was that of a UK weapons grade plutonium reactor which the UK thoughtfully declassified during the 1960's. While I am flattered by the title Doctor, I do not in fact hold a doctorate.

two years only?

In Germany one talked about a wonder thorium reactor 30 years ago
(see in my article).
it didn't work out as promised and was a huge money loss

later early in 1994 or so people at CERN under Rubbia started to talk a lot about
accelerator driven wonder machine
after a few experiments with U238 not Thorium he claimed that everything was fantastic and a proof of principle
most people admired our noble ex DG about doing something great here
a few years later (after some silent years) he said accelerators would be great to destroy nuclear waste
he just needed 50 million or so research money. silence afterwards
next round he became a great propagator of solar power in the desert ..

thus in short I have heard since 30 years wonderful things about thorium reactors
but nothing came out of it.

For sure this gives confidence that this time the computer simulations are right!

try to get the funding from the ITER people and next we see!

michael

Dr. Dittmar, i will go you one much better than that, Eugene Wigner, who was one of the two greatest reactor scientists of the 20th century identified fluid core thorium breeders as the the route to low cost nuclear power, in the 1940. He was seconded by Alvin Weinberg whp was the only reactor scientist who equaled Wigner. Oak Ridge scientists under Weinberg, including my father, develop the concept of the thorium breeding MSR. Despite their combined eminence of Wigner and Weinberg, the AEC preferred the LMFRR, because it was a more useful tool in making weapon grade plutonium. . Eventually the AEC fired Weinberg and shut down ORNL MSBR research, not because there was anything wrong with the project, but because Weinberg challenged politically powerful people over nuclear safety. Weinberg proved to be right about nuclear safety as Three Mile Island proved. But Oak Ridge scientists like my father left tens of thousands of pages of reports documenting their progress in developing a Thorium Breeding reactor. If you have any doubts about what they accomplished talk to the reactor physicist at the University of Grenoble/ They know a whole lot more about breeding thorium than you do.

I remember that I read through a few papers from the grenoble guys
linked on your(?) forum probably.

It didn't impress me.

But, as I said, if you think it is so great and PA neutron absorption is not a problem
try to get money for the real experiments (from the fusion people)

if you or other are successful i can reconsider my doubts!

In my article I have collected the running experience and the WNA statements about Thorium
argue with the WNA establishment about this, get the money and do the experiments.

but for now lets agree that only after the relevant experiments have been performed one can
discuss the pro/contra points in detail.

michael

Dr. Dittmar, you appear to be entangled in a contradiction. First you assert that little or no public or private money is involved in the investigation of thorium breeding, and now you acknowledge being aware of a considerable effort to investigate thorium breeding at the University of Grenoble. That does not favorably impress me.

come on,

the "software" eefforts of the few people in Grenoble do not cost anything compared to doing serious experimental tests.

it is you who is in contradiction with yourself!

michael

Dr. D, the Experimental work was done at Oak Ridge. My father, like many ORNL scientists, put in 20 years of experimental research on MSRs. At Grenoble is still evaluating what the ORNL experimentalists found.

I am confused.

Are you saying now that the Grenoble people are doing nothing else than confirming what your father and his group did
20 years ago?

if yes it confirms my view that there is not much new in the papers from this ``nearby group" and that i do not need to
study them in detail!

michael

I must say I am shocked at your ignorance of what is happening in Grenoble

If that shocks you, I suggest you take an extra dose of heart medicine before you read the rebuttal essay which combines contributions from Brian Wang, loiz, Bill Hannahan and myself.

" They should point out that (i) the current use of nuclear energy has no perspective because of the limited amount of available uranium resources, "

That would be lying. How much uranium is available at a price of one cent per kWh ($200 / pound)? You never answer this question.

" Yet, those who know how to breed and separate hundreds of kg's of U233 can easily replace Th232 with U238 and produce a few tens(should stand for a few 10 kg) of kg's of Pu239, sufficient to construct a few nuclear bombs." "

It is fascinating to me to see how you keep repeating false statements over and over and over despite the evidence presented.

The uranium 238 – plutonium cycle does not work in a thermal spectrum. If it did the fuel processing system would have to be designed for plutonium extraction instead of uranium and this would be obvious to inspectors. The presence of plutonium would be easily detected, even in very small concentrations.

First generation MSR's should use a once through cycle. Actinides would be recycled once at end of life. They would have no processing capability during normal operation.

Commercial nuclear power plants are more difficult, expensive and time consuming to produce than nuclear bombs. Most nations that do not have nuclear weapons do not want them. Giving up the benefits of fission will not reduce the risk of nuclear weapons.

" Assuming that such a reactor is supposed to eventually produce the U233 starting fuel for another reactor, it will take a long time before the second package of initial reactor core has been produced. Significant technological breakthroughs are required before this chain can be called feasible on a large scale. "

Totally irrelevant assumption. How long does it take a coal plant to breed enough coal to start up a second coal plant? The cost of uranium 235 to manufacture a startup core for a breeder reactor with a 1.0 breeding ratio is a tiny fraction of the total plant cost, even at $200 / pound.

" Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large. It can be estimated that this amount, placed in a standard PWR, could have produced at least 5 times more electric energy than it had during the actual experiment. "

This was a small low cost demonstration experiment using a small retired PWR. The fact that it worked at all is impressive. The reactor was started with 501 kg of uranium 233 and 42,260 kg of Th232, so only 1.1% fissile vs. 4-5% fissile in a conventional LWR.

A large solid fuel thorium reactor designed from the ground up for thorium would have better performance numbers. And since thorium is even cheaper than uranium the mass of the core has little impact on the cost of kWh's.

I think the liquid core MSR will have better economics but both should be built as experimental demonstration reactors to verify predictions.

>" They should point out that (i) the current use of nuclear energy has no perspective because of the limited amount of available uranium resources, "
>
>That would be lying. How much uranium is available at a price of one cent per kWh ($200 / pound)? You never answer this question.

yes I did! I said no matter what the price is .. if there is not enough uranium not every reactor can run at full power
like the Indian reactors demonstrated!

I also said everything depends on the conversion of military stocks which are still huge.

but this is real politics and will not help Europe/Japan

it would help USA and Russia yes.

happy with the answer?

for
>The uranium 238 – plutonium cycle does not work in a thermal spectrum. If it did the fuel processing system would have to be designed for plutonium >extraction instead of uranium and this would be obvious to inspectors. The presence of plutonium would be easily detected, even in very small >concentrations.

please read basic textbooks once again!

30% of the energy in a PWR comes from Pu239

an excess neutron flux can always be used in a U238 blanket to extract Pu239
to make bombs! well known

so whatever process you have making large number of neutrons
it can be used for this.

A reactor / energy making breeder is a different story
but it is all written in chapter IV .. may be you should take time to read what I wrote.

it is not all "stupid" as you seem to think!

michael

ps..

forgot the energy production from fission counts not the amount of state sponsored money
just calculate how many kwh you could make with 500 kg of fissile material and compare with
what was done.

and please tell me what happened with the 507 kg of u233 after the experiment was completed
was it contaminated and useless?

" no matter what the price is .. if there is not enough uranium not every reactor can run at full power "

So, if there is not enough uranium, than there is not enough uranium. You got me there, I cannot argue with that logic.

But your paper tried to prove that there would not be enough uranium at $130/kg. Now I am asking for the evidence to support your claim that there will not be enough uranium at $500/kg.

" like the Indian reactors demonstrated! "

Wow, you are still using the nuclear sanctions against India as evidence of a worldwide uranium shortage! That was debunked repeatedly in response to your earlier paper.

At 1 cent/kWh a billion tons or so becomes available from sea water.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4558#comment-413193

" an excess neutron flux can always be used in a U238 blanket to extract Pu239
to make bombs! well known "

If the blanket is subjected to a high flux much of the plutonium 239 will be fissioned in the blanket and it will be contaminated with plutonium 240. If the flux is low very little plutonium will be produced, it will not be available for a long time and inspectors will detect it when the reflector is removed.

If it is a secret reactor, a dirt simple unpressurized plutonium production reactor would be the fast cheap compact way to make weapons grade plutonium.

" forgot the energy production from fission counts not the amount of state sponsored money "

Yes, I would apply a similar principle to windmills and solar cells etc.

" and please tell me what happened with the 507 kg of u233 after the experiment was completed was it contaminated and useless? "

given the half life of uranium 233 it must be sitting somewhere waiting to be recycled into another reactor where it can be converted into short lived fission products and a great deal of energy. Not useless at all.

look Bill,

make you own estimate on how much uranium will come out of mines
and how much out of secondary resources

and for the next 10-20 years!

I have done it
please do the same

assume whatever price you can imagine .. and tell us this price tag.

michael

The uranium 238 – plutonium cycle does not work in a thermal spectrum. If it did the fuel processing system would have to be designed for plutonium extraction instead of uranium and this would be obvious to inspectors. The presence of plutonium would be easily detected, even in very small concentrations.

please read basic textbooks once again!

30% of the energy in a PWR comes from Pu239

A thermal-spectrum reactor can form plutonium, but can neither breed up to unity nor burn it completely.  That is what "does not work in a thermal spectrum" means.

You knew this, because you have been harping on the failure of breeders (even those which were successful) all along.  You're not stupid enough to make such a statement in error, so ergo you are lying.  You have been lying through your teeth for perhaps 50,000 words plus comments.  You, sir, are despicable.

What did I write in contrary to what you say about the forming and burning of Pu239 in PWR's?

roughly 30% of the energy in a u235 fueled PWR comes from Pu239

the unproven claim that Gen III PWR reactors will increase this to perhaps
50% is what means more fuel efficient
(the higher operating temperatures are also helping).

but, you are not interested in a detailed analysis of my paper(s) i guess.

michael

Since stating things once in English does not get them through to you, I'll state it again:

A thermal-spectrum reactor can form plutonium, but can neither breed up to unity nor burn it completely. That is what "does not work in a thermal spectrum" means.

You have raised the issue of LWR waste, and the long-lived isotopes such as the leftover actinides which LWRs cannot burn.  For you to now ignore this and talk about the improved breeding ratio of Gen III reactors (which increases the actinide level in the SNF) just shows how thoroughly dishonest you are.

PEACEFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS, A PRACTICAL ROUTE TO FUSION POWER
By: Abraham Szöke and Ralph W. Moir
Magazine: Technology Review. July 1991

Small underground fusion explosions could supply the world's electricity for centuries to come.
Unlike other forms of fusion, this technology is feasible and affordable now.
Startling as it might seem, the most practical and economical course is to detonate small fusion
blasts a few times an hour in underground chambers and extract the energy that's released. Jets of molten salt would carry the heat of the explosion through a heat exchanger to create steam, which would drive conventional turbines to generate electricity.

1) A nuclear explosive is lowered into the chamber, and the hatch sealed.
2) Jets of molten salt start flowing down through the chamber.
3) Detonation: a chemical explosive or a high-speed impact unleashes a fission blast, which sets off the fusion explosive. The salt jets absorb heat from the fireball and dampen the shock to the cavity walls.
4) Heat from the molten salt generates steam for electricity. Some of the salt is pumped to a waste recovery facility. Tritium and other gases are pumped away from the chamber.

PNE = Peaceful Nuclear Explosives
Peaceful Nuclear Explosives compares favourably with other nuclear energy options. Because the technology is similar to that used in weapons, far less R&D would be required than for "pure" fusion using magnetic or inertial confinement.
The economic comparison assumes a cost per blast of US$ 1000.- which includes fabricating the explosive and recycling the unburned fuel. Thanks to continual on-site recycling, PNE would yield far less radioactive material for disposal than a fission reactor.
[In the comparison provided, the cost of electricity generated by the PNE technology proposed is the same as conventional fission reactors]

Dr. Michael Dittmar, what do you think about it ?

Somehow I think that I have heard many years back about this idea.

I thought at that time .. oh boy

today I think the same thing.

Just try to put some numbers together to see how many big bombs one needs and
yes watch the movies i referenced
about the zar Bomb
and Dr. Strangelove

mIchael

The idea isn't as crazy as it first seems. It might actually work. The key would be to have a rather large underground cavern -- a kilometer would be nice -- pumped down to a relatively hard vacuum.

If you ever have ocassion to calculate the effects of nuclear weapons in space, you'll probably be shocked to learn how limited their effectiveness is. "All flash and no blast". Lots of energy in hard x-rays, very little momentum in the blast plasma for smashing anything any distance away.

A ball shaped airtight cavern a kilometer across underground? With the pressures in the rock a kilometer down? The pressure difference between 1 bar and 0 is nothing compared to the compressive forces at such depths. But just thinking about creating such a cavern seems crazy to me tbh.

This so-called put-put reactor- dropping H bombs into a hole and getting steam out, is a very old idea, proposed by, was it Dyson, or Taylor? Anyhow, people who knew about bombs.

I thought it was a pretty cute idea at the time, but worried about the fatigue failure of the hole. You know, a H-bomb flex every few minutes- or hours- has gotta be kind of wearying.

Also might make nearby people/animals a bit gun-shy- or bang shy, or big thump shy.

And then there's that little fart of radioactivity now and then.

Sunlight is thermonuclear power. Right here on the ground, and trivially simple to get. So simple it's boring. And as for cost, what costs more than a ruined planet?

" I thought it was a pretty cute idea at the time, but worried about the fatigue failure of the hole. You know, a H-bomb flex every few minutes- or hours- has gotta be kind of wearying. "

This idea came about as a result of brainstorming ways to hide a nuclear bomb test. High pressure steam is far more dense than what comes out of a tea kettle. With a large chamber the fission products, radiation and most of the energy is absorbed in the steam with little energy (shock wave) or material transferred to the wall, making it undetectable seismically. The chamber would be deep enough that the walls were loaded in compression.

The fission products would be extracted from the steam for disposal and the uranium trigger material would be extracted and recycled.

The bombs were designed to get a very high percentage of their energy from fusion to minimize the quantity of fission products. They claimed the steam would be less radioactive than some natural gas routinely pumped into homes, so some leakage would not be a big deal.

Aside from the political incorrectness it would probably work.

Yep. I now remember all that. So. Idea been around a long time, Relatively simple, might work. Not worked on. Why?

wimbi - Why? It is not allowed under CTBT, which started to be pursued since early 1990s, which is why the last paper is the 1991 one above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_Treaty

Also bombs are not cheap, neither something you want utilities to play with. I think the idea was little nutty to begin with anyway.

Any one who believes such a scheme would work must also believe that money, man power, and materials are available in unlimited supply.

Just shoring up such a hole in the ground a mile underground would probably use more steel than the world produces annually.

And if we stop to consider how badly the anti nukes get thier undies in a bunch over simply storing spent fuel,well....

The stage would be set for some real political theatre indeed.

OK, I agree with all that. So now we have a little puzzle.

1) We are in a world of hurt on energy sources
2) Fusion would be great if we could get it to work
3) A lot of very smart people have worked on it a long time and haven't got it to work ( that's the DEFINITION of a hard problem, please notice.)
4) the bomb in the hole "might work". Fusion power!
5) But, but, but, there are some other little problems, like we don't want mere mortals getting to play around with lots and lots of hydrogen bombs. NO! Not to mention it's against the law.
6) So? What do we mean by "might work"???
7) And if this one "might work" but won't, same with a ton of other things that "might work", for similar reasons.

One of them is solar thermal power ( you knew I would get to that!),
A) solar thermal will, does! work
B) it is "easy", that is to say, we know all about how to do it many many ways.
C) All the but but buts re solar thermal are readily understood by primitive 19th century engineers like me. Most of them are in the class of "can we divert enough stuff from frivolities like SUV,s and soda pop to just doing it".
D) the answer seems to be NO!

So to hell with it. I am canceling my membership in H sapiens, and going into storage to wait for the next version, if there is one.

Wimbi,

If you have a viable storage system in mind please post the details immediately.

Also I would like to obtain the local franchise. ;)

Seriously I have posted my opinion several times in various drumbeats that we could still safely make a transition to a more of less sustainable society but only if we get some sort of wake up event of such a magnitude that it cannot be ignored.

You are absolutely correct-we waste enough money on absolutely frivolous things to build out a viable renewable energy system that combined with a reasonably serious conservation and efficieny sea change would enable us to live quite well twenty or thirty years down the road-probably as well as we do today, excepting the easy air travel, the energy hog air conditioners in poorly insulated houses,etc.

I don't expect it to happen but I personally cannot rule out the possibility that the collapse will come on slowly enough for some serious remedial action to be taken not as strategic precautions (by which I mean mandating change now, whether or not it makes sense in terms of present day costs) but simply as day to day good tactics on the business and personal level.

Lookin at this from my personal pov, I cannot afford an adequate pv system-I simply have to have a certain amount of juice to air condition a sick room , run an energy hog air bead flotation bed, and a few more absolutely essential (for now)items.

But if the govt were to make the subsidies currently in effect into refundable credits(we are semiretired and pay very little income tax) and the price of a system declines another forty to fifty percent we will be in the market if our electricity rate keeps rising as it has over the last five years.

That decline might come within the next four or five years and solar pv systems might start popping up as fast as mushrooms after a warm spring rain as they will be cheaper to own than not.

It is not inconcieveable that the conventional economists might just turn out to be more or less right about substitues, etc.

Unfortunately the odds are against them-and us.

If anyone can think of a viable wake up event -one that would is serious enough to get us moving but not so serious as to prevent us from being able to move after experienceing it, I would like to hear about it.

Farmer. "if you have a viable storage system, etc". Well, that shows me. I have commented too many times on this. Seems to be a perfect impedance mismatch. But --once again, with spirit:

People know how to, and have done, megawatt storage by the simple stupidly obvious method of just pumping water from a low place to a high place, and then running it back down. Been done for hundreds of years.

Don't have a hill? No problem. Make a hole. (Say! how about making that hole real fast and easy with a h----!)

I won't bore you with detail. Look it up and find that not only is hydro storage common practice, but also it is efficient and cost-effective.

So, to once again repeat my little one-note song:

Solar thermal in the desert
HVDC transmission to points of need
hydro storage both ends of the HVDC to smooth out the lumps and bumps.

So we are saved! Now all those huge intellects presently straining the last quantum of their brainpower on the fusion knot, can go back to inventing "products" for sale on wall st. Ha.

Wimbi, I guess you missed MY smiley face -I want the franchise on storing people-you made the first joke about putting yourself in storage.

I have a great deal of faith in the ability of inventors and engineers being able to create and build alternative energy systems but not much in our leaders convincing us we must get busy yesterday in the changeover.

Dang! I often cuss at people who obviously misread any attempt at humor, and so here I go making a super-obvious example of it myself.

Let THAT be a lesson to all you early morning speed readers.

(See? I was just trying to be, as my thermo prof used to call me, his best bad example)

And, Right, we all know that leaders don't lead. Now what?

So we are saved! Now all those huge intellects presently straining the last quantum of their brainpower on the fusion knot, can go back to inventing "products" for sale on wall st. Ha.

I think that is a bit unfair. We need to pursue low carbon energy in many forms, including nuclear, and wind and solar, and what is being called blue power (like osmosis in reverse, to exploit the energy released when fresh water mixes with saltwater). There will be regional differences in what is available. I bet there will always be some areas that don't have good wind or solar, and are too far from the grid. So having a diversity of solutions to choose from will be important.

And solar thermal is proceeding, although not as fast as any of us here would like. It is even being held back in some places by environmentalists. But there are know several gigawatts on the drawing board, some of these projects probably won't make it, but I think enough will to develop the tech.

Well I would not despair as of yet :)

There are much more workable, and experimentally proved routes, in particular molten salt reactors, which the author glances over.

Here are Google tech talks on the topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKfS74hVvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8

" Just shoring up such a hole in the ground a mile underground would probably use more steel than the world produces annually. "

Mac, the last time I was in Carlsbad Caverns I did not notice any steel except in the elevator. Underground nuclear bomb tests produce large chambers in a few milliseconds. Of course the ones in Nevada collapse eventually, but with deeper hole and better geology a suitable chamber could be obtained quickly.

Drill very deep hole, detonate explosion, drill into chamber, inject water, repeat.

The active parts of nuclear bombs (other than fusing and safety interlocks for military applications) are far less complicated than the inside of your PC. If a PC appeared on the surface of the earth several decades ago it would be proof of extraterrestrial life advanced thousands of years beyond humans. What would it cost to manufacture a few PCs starting from raw materials with no tooling?

The bomb components could be mass produced cheaply at various locations; they would come together for final assembly deep underground.

So what is the expensive or dangerous or difficult part?

Bill,

We must part ways here-this scheme seems so unreasonably fraught with danger and difficulty I can't even compose a coherent answer.

Have you been reading Heading Out's posts on drilling oil wells?

Even if the cavern did not collapse I can't imagine being able to run any sort of plumbing to inject the water and extract the steam that could withstand the environment-repeated high energy explosions.

A bomb might not produce much blast effect in a near vacuum or high up in the atmosphere but in such a cavern there will be plenty of gases to become superheated and the blast effect will be very substantial-the explosions won't just produce heat.The surface layers of the carvern walls would also be vaporized more than likely, further adding to the pressures.

Of course I could be wrong but I don't think any of even the most optimistic of engineers will sign onto this-unless they think they can retire before any actual sequential blasting is done.

Thank you, Mac.
I've been debating whether those proposing and promoting this idea were just tossing in something completely outlandish to the discussion.

It brings to mind the old cartoon standard of a character sawing a circle in the floor at his own feet.

what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Bob Fiske

The floor might fall down around him as he removes the support from the pillar below his feet?

I do not like this idea much, but I wanted to hear comments about it.
I think much R&D should be dedicated to:
-Energy Storage (cheaper vanadium batteries, etc.)
-High altitude wind power: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5538 it seems that it requires much less embodied energy and materials than the normal wind turbines.
-Cheaper Solar Thermal Power

And much investment should be dedicated to:
-Railroad infrastructure
-Energy conservation
-Electric bicycles

" We must part ways here-this scheme seems so unreasonably fraught with danger and difficulty I can't even compose a coherent answer.
Have you been reading Heading Out's posts on drilling oil wells? "

Mac, guiding a syringe into an oil deposit 20,000 feet below the sea bed in 7,000 feet of water from a floating platform and extracting the oil without spilling any seems much more difficult to me.

Humans have exploded numerous nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, most of which were more powerful than the ones considered here. We have all received a tiny increase in radiation exposure from that, and if LNT is valid, some lives have been shortened as a result.

The inventory of radioactive material on site would be small, consisting mostly of atoms with relatively short half lives. The radioactive material would be thousands of feet underground. The bombs would be assembled thousands of feet undergrounds.

I cannot think of an accident that would kill more people than the routine operation of a coal plant.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006-02-15-02.asp

If you have one in mind lets here it.

Regarding the connections, you are visualizing a very powerful bomb in a relatively small chamber, try the reverse.

I recognize that this is not going to happen because it involves the words “nuclear bomb”.

Every time you set off a shot you would have to drill a new injection and extraction well-and in order to keep the energy release mostly in the form of heat you would have to pull a vacuum in the cavern.
Otherwise you would blast your cavern to smithereens because the water vapor would when superheated in the explosion would hit the walls like a nuclear sledge hammer-which is exactly what it would be.

Actually I doubt if there even exists a roch strata strong enough to withstand the second or third shot-if the cavern doesn't collapse simply from the woeght of the overburden after the first shot.

Its been so long since I was in physics class that I cannot remember the proper technical explaination but suffice it to sat that the strength requirements of roofing beams increase exponentially as the span of a roof increases.

I won't try to go any farther with this-maybe one of the engineers will try to explain the difficulties involved.

Anyway , it WILL NEVER be attempted -it's a political non starter.

" Every time you set off a shot you would have to drill a new injection and extraction well-and in order to keep the energy release mostly in the form of heat you would have to pull a vacuum in the cavern. Otherwise you would blast your cavern to smithereens because the water vapor would when superheated in the explosion would hit the walls like a nuclear sledge hammer-which is exactly what it would be. "

Mac, your description would be accurate if the chamber was filled with solid water. The point of using steam was to hide a nuclear explosion by absorbing the energy in the steam and avoid hammering the walls, it would not be evacuated. The steam is dense but compressable.

Out of curiosity I ran some numbers. Consider a chamber 1000 ft in diameter and 4000 feet high filled with saturated steam at 2,500 psi. It would hold 12 million tons of steam. If we extracted 1% of that steam per 24 hours it would produce 1.2 GW. If we exploded one bomb every 12 hours the yield would be 31kt, or 62kt every 24 hrs. You can increase the explosion rate and extraction rate to produce any power level you like.

The largest underground explosion I know of was about 4,700 kt, way beyond reasonable limits for something like this.

Sorry, I am loosing patience with some of you!

are you claiming that "we" do not know how to fission u235 in a reactor efficiently
and that a bomb does better?

If you have not understood that reactors do work to some extend and you still consider "bombs"
as an efficient alternative to nuclear energy production.

you are really nuts!

go back to basics of

the first and second laws of thermodynamics
the energy conservation law and the law that describes energy transformations!

michael

just found this article.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-radiation-nevada13-...

I hope that this reality will stop those ignorants about civil use of nuclear bombs
arguing and forever!

but of course this will never happen!

michael

Also bombs are not cheap, neither something you want utilities to play with.

I suspect there is a huge cost difference between a bomb and an explosive. The former is designed for long shelf life, and to be delivered under very challenging conditions. The later can be much more flimsily built, it will always be handled with care. I don't know how big the cost difference would be, but I'd bet it would be considerable.

I still think the idea was nuts.

Dittmar uses ITER as a punching bag. Those who believe that near term commercial success with nuclear fusion can occur are not expecting this to occur with ITER.

Tri-alpha energy has been funded for over $40 million. They are targetting pre-2020 for commercial reactors
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/06/tri-alpha-energy-raises-40-million-in.html

TriAlpha is the brainchild of Norman Rostoker, a senior fusion researcher. He had previously collaborated with another researcher, Maglitch, on the MIGMA approach to advanced fuels. This approach involved shooting two counter-circulating beams of ions at each other in a confining magnetic field. It was not very workable, as the ion densities would always be very low. Rostoker combined this idea with another device, the Field Reversed Configuration, sending the beams into the FRC.

The FRC is essentially a large-scale plasmoid centimeters rather microns across, with much lower densities and magnetic fields than with the DPF. It does not benefit from the magnetic field effect as its field are far too low. Scientifically, TriAlpha’s results so far are very modest compared with focus fusion’s. The average ion energy, a measure of plasma temperature is a few 10’s of eV. This is a factor of 10,000 short of what is required for pB11 fusion. Of course, we have already achieved the needed ion energies (100keV) with focus fusion, so in this sense are way ahead. In addition, it is by no means guaranteed that their confinement will remain stable if they can reach higher temperatures.

General fusion has been funded for over $20 million and has a promising magnetized target fusion variant which they believe can be commercialized by 2018.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/general-fusion-will-leverage-computer.html

General Fusion is using the MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) approach but with a new, patent pending and cost-effective compression system to collapse the plasma. They describe the injectors at the top and bottom of the above image in the new research paper. The goal is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The company claims plants would cost around US$50 million, allowing them to generate electricity at about four cents per kilowatt hour.

In 2010-2011 for completion of the tests and work for an almost full scale version (2 meters instead of 3 meter diameter).

The third phase for General Fusion was to raise $50 million for a net energy gain device with a target date of 2013 if the second/third phase are roughly on schedule. [The canadian government funding and private funding could take General Fusion all the way through the third phase]

$300-500 million for commercialization, the first commercial scale unit could be 2016-2018.

Dense Plasma Focus fusion has $1.2 million for experiments in 2009 and 2010 to prove viability
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/eight-objectives-of-lawrenceville.html

Japan continues work on Muon catalyzed fusion
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/japan-working-on-muon-catalyzed-fusion....

IEC should have proven commercialization by 2011. From an interview on my website with the project lead of IEC which has over $8 million in funding.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/dr-richard-nebel-we-will-know-if-iec.html

18-24 months : Verification if this approach is commercially viable [boom or bust for Polywell]
6 years: a full-scale demo of IEC fusion
By 2020: A first commercial IEC Fusion plant, with an estimated cost of 2-5 cents per kilowatt hour.

As noted the hybrid fusion-fission systems would enable fusion to make fission into a closed fuel cycle
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/non-electric-uses-for-nuclear-fusion.html

Fast Breeders are not the only funded path to deep fission fuel burn.
Dittmar as usual has a biased picture. China has bought two of the Russion BN-800 (880 MWe) reactors. China is still proceeding with its own fast breeder. Russia has other fast breeder technology funded. A 100 MWe reactor that is to be factory mass produced has been covered on the Oildrum.

Pebble bed TRISO fuel has been developed with 16% burnup and is heading higher and could achieve 65% burnup.

Plenty of research and work to achieve nuclear fuel transitions
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/08/nuclear-fuel-transitions-higher-burnup....

I am perfectly happy with ITER as a plasma physics and material research project even if it would end up being of no more practical use then flying to the moon.

OK, I've read all four parts. What they amount to is the usual anti-nuke propaganda but much more prolix and opaque than we're used to.

What are the points? The same as in all anti-nuke polemics.

1. /Nuclear energy = nuclear weapons./ This is demonstrably false, as numerous nations have made nuclear weapons without nuclear energy. The promise that nuclear weapons can be eliminated by avoiding nuclear energy is a cruel hoax because it understates the challenge of minimizing this grave threat.

2. /Nuclear energy is dangerous./ Since nuclear energy has the best safety record (and the best environmental record) of all our energy sources, this lie is the easiest to disprove. The author gets around this obstacle by detailing the qualities of the safety concerns without quantifying them.

3. /Nuclear energy isn't developing rapidly./ This is obvious; the author attributes it to technological failure, when even a casual observer can see that it's due to public policies that encourage cheap energy by condoning mass poisoning by fossil-burning utilities. The author reinforces his case by pointing to experimental facilities that didn't perform to commercial standards, a totally unreasonable requirement. What he neglects to mention is that no alternatives are growing any faster, and what growth they see is bought at huge cost through subsidies and legislated mandates.

4. /Nuclear energy has a limited fuel supply./ The author's argument consists of a two very long, tendentious critiques of the Red Book data and makes no reference whatever to the size of the fuel supply. This is argument by diversion.

5. /Nuclear energy is expensive./ In this argument, as in the other arguments, the author makes no comparison with alternatives. In fact, all the alternatives are at least as expensive but this salient consideration is entirely absent.

In summary, what we have been given is an extremely long polemic decorated with a lot of technical discussions anyone could glean from popular web sites such as Wikipedia. What we haven't been given is information useful to making long-term energy decisions.

In summary, what we have been given is an extremely long polemic decorated with a lot of technical discussions anyone could glean from popular web sites such as Wikipedia. What we haven't been given is information useful to making long-term energy decisions.

So did you actually read the article(s)?

I'm not sure how you can say what you say unless you come at this from a blinded pro-nuke position. I think the author has provided a highly detailed overview of the industry, science and challenges.

By the way, Wikipedia is user-compiled so it is highly probable that the information contained in it is provided by experts such as the author of this article. So using that as a throw away line to disparage the author is counter intuitive.

Yes, as I said, all four. I tried to explain how I could say what I said. The articles are, indeed, highly detailed. What they aren't is accurate or useful or comprehensive. As is the case with many political subjects, the arguments given here are only convincing to those who are convinced and wish to be validated. The many details in the articles are selected to persuade the reader away from the truth by overwhelming him with factoids and obscuring the important and clear information that relates to this subject.

Am I blind? I gave the reasons for dismissing the article as an information source. Show me where I'm wrong. Is it possible you're reacting blindly to criticism of anti-nuke orthodoxy?

By the way, Wikipedia is user-compiled so it is highly probable that the information contained in it is provided by true believers such as the author of this article.

Ok, well all I seek is the truth so I will await you detailed rebuttal to the series of articles with anticipation. Also, as I always say, if one has such scathing critisicm of an expert opinion (and I hope you will agree that the author is clearly an expert) then I would expect that person to not only offer a rebuttal but also reveal his identity and experience. Otherwise it is he that gives the polemic!

And for the record, I am certainly not anti nuclear. Thank God that the UK government has finally gotten around to authorizing 10 new reactors. It won't be enough, but better than nothing. What I am though is a realist; the issue of energy security is too darn serious to allow oneself to be cuddled by any biased industry - be it nuclear or wind. The technicalties and science of nuclear power are way, way beyond the man in the street and even most politicos too. So it would be easy to swallow the 'good news' without giving it pause for thought. That is what the author of these articles has provided.

Oh. I misunderstood. Your reaction seemed to be identical to the reaction dedicated anti-nukes have when you tell them the nonsense they've been hearing from political groups is wrong.

I don't actually know what the author is an expert in. He covers so many different issues it seems unlikely that he's a expert in all of them. If you're inviting me to rebut every single point in this prodigious manuscript, that won't happen. However, I have written a paper (which might be termed a polemic by some but not by me) to put forth The Case for Nuclear Energy. Since the author of the article covers the same subjects as anti-nukes always do, you can find general rebuttals there.

I can't believe that any proverbial man in the street will wade through all this material, and I can't believe the author intended to write for that person. Rather, it seems to be targeted at opponents of nuclear energy who are seeking more ammunition and who aren't too fussy about how accurate it is, as long as it seems technical.

>> I hope you will agree that the author is clearly an expert

The author is clearly not an expert. The author does not have a background in nuclear energy or engineering, but high energy particle physics. This fact was already demonstrated in the earlier parts, when the author failed to recognize the importance of SWU in short term uranium supply, to give an obvious example.

A striking example in this series is the claim about lack of breeding, a 56 years old experimentally known fact, and the lack of understanding of the fast reactor design evolution, in particular the political shift away from breeders to burners since 2-3 decades ago. The lack of breding potential of some of the reactors is a design feature, not a deficiency.

Anyone who is actually an expert in the field is aware of these facts. However author is clearly a good writer passionate about his power-down agenda.

I do not agree that Dittmar is an expert [and dittmar has agreed in a comment above that he is not an expert] and a rebuttal article is being finalized by Engineer Poet, which I and others have contributed to. the rebuttal does not include this latest artice, because we had not seen it yet.

However, I have already noted the dismissal of nuclear fusion when several privately funded projects were ignored. Some of the efforts also have US Navy and Canadian governmetn funding.

Also, ignored were several funded efforts to increase the burn rate and make other significant improvements to future nuclear reactors.

121 pages on advanced fuel transition scenarios and many funded research and development programs:
http://www.nea.fr/html/science/reports/2009/nea6194_transition_scenario_...

Dittmar will tries to make biased technical attacks on certain aspects of funded programs, which are often managable issues but which take longer to demonstrate the technical flaws in Dittmars effort to confuse the issues.

Or Dittmar ignores other funded projects and solutions or solutions which appear technically strong but which have not yet acquired funding.

Clearly Dittmars biases and unwillingness to examine or seek out all of the facts shows how unscientific he is and why these articles have not been remotely competent or comprehensive. It is also why his predictions will be wrong and are often already wrong and his statements are and declarations are wrong.

Fine, as I said elsewhere ``I am not an expert". What is an expert anyway?

great that you are writing a document showing that all the ``facts" coming from the
nuclear energy establishment, collected in my four chapters are wrong!

I am looking forward to this!

good luck

Michael

1. Ditmar did not say that energy=weapons, only that the presence of energy makes it much easier to make the weapons. And by numerous you mean the 9 countries that have weapons of which at least Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea developed their weapons utilising a research reactor? Built for peaceful purposes ofcourse, so this point is demonstratively true as proven by history.

2. It depend on what you call a safety record, but if you browse the articles that list all incidents, why they took place and how the energy company management reacted on it, then it shows that the industry is not that much concerned about safety and also tries to cover up any 'harmless' leakage or other incident. The characteristics of the materials involved, the fact that it is a controlled chain reaction make it an unsafe by definition technology. There is no 100% passive safe reactor in existence to date. That doesn't mean that out other means of producing energy are any better, burning fossil fuels has it's well know problems, some hydro dams burst and in rare occasions a turbine blade breaks off or a solar panel blows off a building. Does that mean that nuclear is safer?

3. Every form of development in electricity production requires subsidies and legislated mandates, be it CSS, wind, solar or nuclear. What's your point? The fact is that nuclear industry has failed to deliver any answer to the known anti-nuke polemics which are around since the early days and desperately holds on to business as usual. Maybe that's why there is reluctance to give nuclear the green light.

4. You did not read the other articles close enough. The author points out that the world does not have enough mining/processing capability to support a nuclear renaissance, that it takes a long time to bring new resources online and that fuel shortages might happen if the industry does not act quickly enough. Besides that, he points out that there are worrying changes in the reported RAR and other numbers which might lead to the conclusion that the Red Book, on which the major decisions are based, appears to be merely a political reflection on reality. Not a good starting point to invest billions on.

5. Nuclear energy is cheap because the burden of risk (commercially, technically, environmentally) is paid by the tax payer. The newly build plants in Finland and France are not going to produce the electricity at a cost that was deemed commercially viable at the time the contracts were signed:

The other EPR being built in Flamanville, France, was approved in 2005 on the basis of a 8 Euro c/kWh cost estimate, which was increased by EDF in December 2008 to 5.4 Euro c/kWh, although EDF itself estimated that it should be below 4.6 Euro c/kWh to guarantee profitability.

So how are the operators going to earn the additional money that is needed to ultimately store the waste produced by those plants for milennia to come? They won't, we will. Most of the nuclear plants in the US need permission to operate longer then originally planned because their operators do not have the money to pay for the site cleanup after the plant is decommissioned, let alone that they would have to pay for long term storage as well...

And from which other popular website do you get the detailed information about the inner wall material requirements, tritium breeding rates and other 'challenges' that need to be solved before commercial, ITER like, fusion is possible?
For instance: the ITER wikipedia page states: 'there is abundant fuel'. Now I read in this article that a kilo of tritium will cost 200 million Dollar and that about 55 kg is needed for a commercial plant at startup and that tritium breeding with a ratio > 1 will be problematic. Now where do you find such information?

Your post is just another pro-nuke propaganda that tries to downplay well researched critique on the reality of yesterday's nuclear industry as well as today and tomorrow.

No commercial nuclear reactors in North Korea or Isreal.
Pakistan and India used secret centrifuges to make their nuclear bomb material.
There is no significant incremental risk from more commercial nuclear power and increased risk of nuclear war and deaths from nuclear weapons.

There were 30,000 nuclear bombs in 1960 and less than ten commercial nuclear reactors.
France made over 50 commercial nuclear reactors mainly in the 1980s but 99.8% of the nuclear bombs were made in USSR and USA.
Commercial nuclear reactors come after nuclear bombs.

75% of the expected new nuclear reactors until 2030 will be built in China, India, Russia, South Korea and Japan. How will those reactors change the nuclear weapon risk ?

Iran, North Korea are getting or have gotten their nuclear weapons irregardless of whether new nuclear reactors are built. Especially new nuclear reactors in China, USA, S Korea, Japan and where they are being built. There were only completion of some nuclear reactors in the USA since mid-1990 and yet N Korea and Iran still got or are getting nuclear weapons.

The correlation between more nuclear weapons and more deaths from warfare is not proved. Nuclear bombs have killed less than 200,000 people ever. No nuclear weapons from proliferation have killed anyone. 200 million people have died since 1945 from conventional weapon warfare. Many of the chemical bombs are oil based or powered weapons. Napalm and incendiary bombs were used to firebomb Tokyo and other Japanese and German cities in WW2 and killed more people than the nuclear bombs.

Over 200 million people have died from air pollution since 1956 (when the first commercial nuclear reactor became operational).
Nuclear power has displaced 16% of the electricity for energy generation, which would have been fossil fuel based otherwise. Air pollution and carbon emissions were reduced.

don't want to go into the details now.

But it seems you believe that it would be great and possible if 190 nations and 6.7 billion people
growing by 70 million each year will all live happily and wasteful as Europeans and other rich nations
and all this with nuclear energy and weapon know how.

And you claim that this does not increase the risk of nuclear weapon accidents?
While at the same time you are horrified by terrorism already today?

How many people were killed by terrorism and how many by the war on terrorism?

Just to repeat watch the movie ``Dr. Strangelove"!

michael

I didn't realise Dr. Stranglove was a documentary? Perhaps you should watch "Deep Impact" and realise this is all futile as we're going to be hit by a huge asteroid.

i never said it is a documentary!

just watch it and enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls

michael

But it seems you believe that it would be great and possible if 190 nations and 6.7 billion people growing by 70 million each year will all live happily and wasteful as Europeans and other rich nations and all this with nuclear energy and weapon know how.

You have built in an assumption that less energy per capita will be good and that having and using more energy is unethical and unsustainable. I disagree. I believe that with advanced technology humanity can have and use 100 times or more of the energy per person in a sustainable way. I think that trying to go to a low power route in a forced system would fail and lead to war and more death.

This has nothing to do with you trying to prove your claims (which again you fail to try to do)
* You have not proven commercial reactors increase the risk of proliferation
* you have not proven that getting weapons grade nuclear material via a path through commercial reactors is easier than getting it via a direct route via centrifuges and other enrichment or dedicated non-commercial reactors
* you have not proven that more commercial nuclear reactors in nuclear weapon capable (or countries like canada that already have commercial reactors and could easily make weapons if wanted) increases nuclear war risks

Various elements in whole chain of dominos from more commercial reactors to increased deaths from war versus the status quo are not connected.

In regards to your tangent (which shows your motivation and bias against nuclear energy technology) : prove a depowered world can be peacefully accepted. Site some real life model cases. I say that human history shows that the vast majority of people want more wealth and more per capita energy and that trying to force people not to have this has not been done successfully or peacefully.

I believe that more passively safe commercial nuclear reactors is a manageable problem which can be done safely and that enhanced clean and secure energy can make the world a richer and safer place and reduced air pollution will save lives. The net benefits to safety and wealth and lives saved can be achieved.

I am not "horrified by terrorism". It is a problem, but a problem that I would rate lower (causing less death) than air pollution and conventional war. It is on the level of organized crime and narco-states (and overlaps with those issues). I would manage these issues differently but the domestic politics and world geo-politics are driving the current situation. But again this is irrelevant to commercial nuclear power.

Also, terrorist would not need a nuclear bomb to cause many deaths or to cause economic disruption on the scale of a nuclear bomb.

A dirty fertilizer bomb on a ship
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/01/if-terrorists-attack-our-ports-it.html

The world is filled with risks. Constraining commercial nuclear power does not make the world safer. The nuclear weapons and other weapons would still exist and the deaths from air pollution would still exist.

Basing your political worldview on Dr Strangelove shows that you are a buffoon.

> You have built in an assumption that less energy per capita will be good

where did I write such a thing?

good for what? For the climate stability? perhaps

What I am saying is that

(1) fossil fuels and especially fossil fuels/capita are soon declining and forever (it doesn't matter if we want or not).

(2) that nuclear energy with its tiny contribution today (14% of the worlds electric energy which makes 16% of all other energy uses)
in its current form with PWR type U235 use is unsustainable by principle and that the current nuclear infrastructure
is declining.

(3) that neither commercial Breeder Reactors nor thorium using Reactors are ready to compensate even for the loss of nuclear produced kWh
coming soon. And according to the French such wonder reactors are at least 30 years away!

(4) that we know enough today .. commerical nuclear fusion energy is out of question and forever!

(5) I agree with those who say that the ``renewables" other than hydropower are even smaller than nuclear today and that
they will never reach the 2601 TWhe produced last year from nuclear.

(6) we better find a way to accept these 6 points or we go for useless wars and other ugly things

Michael
ps
don't ask me for a proof of point 5 right now .. it has been done by others already but it is not the point of the debate.

(5) I agree with those who say that the ``renewables" other than hydropower are even smaller than nuclear today and that
they will never reach the 2601 TWhe produced last year from nuclear.

This of course will be proofed wrong by time - and not that far away - no matter what anybody suggests - the solar-constant is on average 1367W/m²! In Germany "renewables" will soon reach 10% of primary energy use and surpas nuclear-ernery by far in the long run. On the equator it will be much easier for shure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#Solar_constant
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prim%C3%A4renergieverbrauch

to clarify

wind power should "soon" do 10% of the electric energy in Germany not of the primary energy which is
a factor of at least 4 larger!

currently (2008) windpower in Germany makes 6.9% of the electric energy with 23.9 GW installed power
(growth at best 10% per year)

compare with 20.3 GWe power of nuclear with 141 TWhe in 2008

now if you assume that gas and coal power plants will be closed because of Russia for example
well yes you might reach 10% of the electric energy.

Michael

The Guardian reported a few days ago that Spain has recently been producing 53% of its overall electricity need by wind power. This is highly encouraging, and I wished that more countries would pursue alternate energy sources as aggressively as Spain does.

Yes, apparently for a single night. What about the other nights? As one would expect, natural gas takes up the slack.
http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-exposed.html

Let me remind you, in particular the peak oilers around here, that there is less energy in recoverable reserves of natgas than there is energy in oil left.

I wish the same!

but i will check the numbers 53% by wind sounds too high..

michael

sorry, i missed the over the couple of hours in the first place.

Still impressive!

michael

wind power should "soon" do 10% of the electric energy in Germany not of the primary energy which is
a factor of at least 4 larger!

A factor of 4 beetween electric-power generation and primary energy use? Which country are you talking of, the normal factor is much lower, this works only if you do not include the energy-efficiency-ratios (wind power directly produces electricity with high exergy, which can be used directly, a coal power plant only uses around 40% for electricity generation). The link i have given shows clear that the "renewables" have reached around 7% of primary energy in germany in 2007 - compared to around 11% for nuclear power - worlwide 7% would be enough to surpass nuclear power. Germany will reach 20% for renewables in 2020 (of primary energy use)! Even if this goal isen't reached 15% will also be by far more than nuclear power. And i suggest that the future gains will come mostly of PV - worldwide!

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erneuerbare_Energie

You misunderstood. A factor of 4, because electricity in most countries makes up roughly 25% of total energy use.

No need to prove it, but why will renewables never exceed 2601 TWhe yearly production? Just look at the renewable energy source that has the smallest market share today: PV.

In a moderate climate 1 kWp installed power can produce 1000 kWh per year. In a sunny climate this will easily be 2000 kWh. But lets assume the 1kW/Wp, then 1GWp installed will produce 1 TWhe.

Prices are dropping fast, in Germany 30% reduction is a fact this year. In a number of countries grid parity is already a fact without subsidy. Especially thin film roll to roll will further reduce costs so that grid parity will be met almost everywhere, so even the people who hate 'going green' will install solar because it's cheaper then leeching the net. This is the point in which an avalanche of demand and production of solar power will happen I expect.

As a sidenote: It will probably change the electric landscape completely because production will move largely from central to decentral, forcing the big energy companies to review their position.

Solar cell global yearly production was 2.3GWp in 2005, in 2009 it was already at 17GWp with forecasts for 42GWp in 2013 (There are already several solar panel producers today that produce at least 1GWp per year). So not even including production before 2013 and without considering growth beyond 2013, solar power alone will equal current global nuclear electricity production in 30 years.

So all renewable energy sources (wind, PV, CSP, biogas, geothermal) will be able to easily match current yearly nuclear production in a few years. Even without taking hydro into account.

Germany alone is expected to install about 3.6GWp PV this year.

are you perhaps mixing installed power and
produced number of kwhe over the year.

I think we should really stay with the topic
and leave this discussion for another paper series
about renewable energy projects.
Sometime in the future perhaps?

Michael

I agree it's offtopic, but I said: "In a moderate climate 1 kWp installed power can produce 1000 kWh per year.". So yes, I'm converting installed power to produced kWhe, based on measured data from NorthWest Europe, arguably not the best place for solar but still nearing grid-parity fast.

> You said it and you are saying it again in your 6 points "live happily and wasteful as Europeans and other rich nations" combined with "there will be less fossil fuel" and "renewables and nuclear cannot supply the power" Therefore less energy power overall and thus less per person.

Perhaps the aspect you are not saying is that less energy will be good, but that it is inevitable and increasing available energy for socity is impossible.

1. Your four papers are not addressing this.

I do not think the conventional fossil fuels will drop off in a catastrophic way before 2020. Growing natural gas. More Oil from Iraq (4-6 million barrels/day)by 2020, more deep water oil, more oil from oilsands particularly with THAI/Capri and other tech, more oil from multifrac drilling and other enhanced oil recovery tech, more coal (although I do not prefer it) from coal gasification

2. I already disagreed with your first paper on conventional nuclaer power. I have already indicated that annual uranium will be increasing and predicted the new reactors built by China and other countries will be running without uranium shortages. I have made a prediction on this already and I am willing to put money on the line in an official long bet (longbets.org) against you on uranium and nuclear power generation predictions.

* Minimum period of Predictions and Bets is 2 years.
* subject of the Prediction or Bet must be societally or scientifically important
* Predictors and Bettors must provide an argument explaining why the subject of their prediction is important and why they think they will be proved right.
* The fee to publish a Prediction is $50.

3. There will be no loss of kwh from nuclear, so there is no rush to build breeders or rush to Thorium. Thorium Power, Inc (now Lightbridge) is making thorium fuel rods and is testing them in a Russian reactor. They are planning for commercialization in about 2024.
http://www.thoriumpower.com/files/Investor_Presentation.pdf

There will be more and more fast neutron reactors (2-3 in China, 2-3 in Russia and 5 in India by 2020) and there will be deeper burn reactors of many kinds including advanced pebble beds. Full breeders are in the plans for China and other nations around 2030-2050.

4. I already listed the fusion projects that I think at least one will delivery commercial fusion by 2020 or worse case 2025. General Fusion [Magnetized Target Fusion], IEC Fusion by EMC2, Focus Fusion from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Tri-alpha Energy, Helion Energy, Muon Fusion Japan.

You ignored or were unaware of these projects in your 4th article and ignored them when I mentioned them in a comment in this thread. Again I am willing to make a long bet commercial fusion.

5. I did not say that solar and wind will never reach 2601 TWhe. I am indicating that increasing to those levels and beyond will take longer and should still happen. But that nuclear can move up as well and increasing nuclear does not mean that wind and solar will not also grow a lot. Nuclear will provide more power for the money spent, but there is no true shortage of money or ability to develop energy. Priorities will be set and energy will be developed as well as other necessary things.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5677#comment-531003

My predictions again
2014 471 GWe, 2858 billion kwh
2017 560 GWe, 3900 billion kwh
2020 660 GWe, 4626 billion kwh

In the meantime there will also be more wind than now and more solar and geothermal and more hydro (mostly in China).

thanks for making a prediction.

I am impressed with it.

by 2014 you imagine to have 471 GWe? making 2858 TWhe? thus 257 TWhe more than in 2008?

100 GWe more than in 2009? (but only about 50 GWe are under construction right now and it takes at least 5 years to have them all ready?)

now your new reactors seem to be kind of badly designed.

You might find from my papers (if you would bother to read them) that a "good functioning" 1 GWe PWR makes roughly
7.5 TWhe per year. But your do only 1/3 of that strange.

are you sure that you didn't mix up oranges and apples?

michael
ps..
I gave my "simple minded" prediction in paper 2
for many years to come.

add your numbers (corrected for stupid mistakes)

and we put them together with other predictions on the oil drum on Monday next week.

this will stay for a long time and many people can check ..
by 2015 we make a chi2 check on who was more wrong
and the looser offers a bottle of good wine to the oil drum team

I pulled the wrong number from my table on the 2014. That should read 410 GWe. I pulled the total number of reactors (471) but the power generation is 410 GWe and still generating 2858 TWhe. There are 436 reactors now.

China will be starting construction of ten more reactors this year and more reactors next year. The site prep for those reactors has already started. The build phase I am expecting to be about 4 years and some of them will be done.

I also am expecting power uprates to add about 4 GWe to overall power production.

2017 604 reactors generating 561 GWe and 3916 TWh
2020 698 reactors generating 662 and 4626 TWh

The reactor numbers are variable as places like Canada can choose to uprate several existing reactors instead of building new reactors. Also, the number of reactors could be greatly effected by development of Hyperion Power Generation or China Pebble Bed reactors. In which case the number of small reactors will be high but the power generation numbers will not move as much until the small units are up into the hundreds or thousands. Unlikely to effect overall generation numbers by more than 5-10% in 2020.

The relevant part of the predictions are the TWh. Utilities charge by the KWh. We use KWH of electricity. This is also why GW of wind and solar are not as relevant as TWh.

For TWh, I am expecting Ukraine, Japan and some other countries with lower operating efficiency to be able to make some improvements to higher capacity factors.

I want the bet to be on the forum of longbets.org. It is where other accountable long bets are made. It is where a more precise prediction can be made and neutral third party can make the determination of who is right.

For instance right now you have made one prediction with low TWH and I have made another with higher TWH. The bet would need to be if TWH are below something in between our numbers then you win and if the TWH are above then I would win. We would have to specify which statistics to use on TWH. We would to specify the precise day, month and year. Dec 31, 2014 or Dec 31, 2017 say the nuclear generation numbers published by the IAEA. (Redbook probably since that is your obsession).

The "who was more wrong" is to vague and open to debate and not clearly judgeable by an impartial third party.

fine lets make one number for the TWHe produced in 2014...
should be available by WNA at around may 2015..

but actually i prefer for every year from now on...

i gave my numbers already

just add yours and we take the average to judge!

and like this every year we can check ..
would be nice if others join.

I don't know about official bets ..

just lets do it here!!!

michael

What do you have against official bets ? Are you not sure of your predictions ?

2009 2600 TWh
2010 2630 TWh (Full year of Japan's reactor operating and India's reactors fueled up), some completions and restart of Monju
2011 2650 TWh
2012 2700 TWh
2013 2750 TWh
2014 2800 TWh (Since this is a bet taking a slightly more conservative number)
2015 2900 TWh
2016 3200 TWh
2017 3500 TWh (Since this is a bet taking a slightly more conservative number)
2018 3800 TWh
2019 4000 TWh
2020 4300 TWh (Since this is a bet taking a slightly more conservative number)

I am 75% sure that the numbers will come in higher than what I am projecting here. But I am 98% sure that the numbers will in higher than the mid-point of my numbers and your numbers. (starting from 2011 onwards, when random events like earthquakes cannot cause a fluke). I am still confident in my 2009, 2010 numbers, because it takes a pretty big event to screw things up significantly and I think the run of bad luck is over and the gains from operational improvement payoff. I am 100% sure from 2014 onwards, when you drop to 2250 and when I believe things will really start to payoff.

many thanks for the numbers

for me our bet on the oil drum is as official as you want it!

one bottle of wine each year to be given to oil drum editors up to 2020 if you wish and if
we are all bothering (lets have more people participating in this!)

but perhaps 2015 is already a good reality check

michael

I do not want the bet to be one bottle of wine given to oil drum.

The bet should be $20 paid via paypal to the other person and a written and published recognition that the other person was right in the prediction. Also I think if there is a near shutout (8 out of 10 years, 9 out of 10 or 10 out of ten, can kick in at 8 out of 8 or 8 out of 9) over the ten years than there needs to be public statement that their thesis is wrong.

Each year: Loser must say: I lost $20 to ___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation.

Winner gets to add 200 words on why they were right that gets included with the loser statement.

The shutout or near shutout situation:

Loser must say: I lost X out of Y to ___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation.

Winner gets to add 1000 words on why they were right and why they shutout or nearly shutout the loser.

        Dittmar              Brian                  Midpoint

2009   2575 TWhe            2600 TWhe               2587.5
2010   2550 TWhe            2630                    2590
2011   2550                 2650                    2600
2012   2550                 2700                    2625
2013   2525                 2750                    2637.5
2014   2250                 2800                    2525
2015   2250                 2900                    2575
2016   2250                 3200                    2725
2017   2250                 3500                    2875
2018   2250                 3800                    3025

The figure of judgement against the midpoint is the World Nuclear Assocation published generation figure for the world nuclear generation for the specific year. The figure for each year should be published in the following year. Above the midpoint Brian (advancednano is right and the winner.) below the midpoint Dittmar is right and the winner for that year. The figure is the TWH level of generation of commercial nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.

2009 will be close. France down due labor strikes and outages. Plus electricity demand is down for the whole world because of the economy. UK nuclear is up, India nuclear is up. Russia could be down. Germany could be down. Japan should be up. US should be up a little. China up slightly.

Hi Brian,

I do not like the money thing but the wine bottle to the oil drum people
each year is fine with me (will be the same price tag anyway)

for the rest fine more or less fine with me. Too formal somehow, but I have no problem in saying to the oil drum forum I was wrong,
especially if, in contrary to what I fear, the military secondary resources will be opened and fill the gap.

I would be surprised if the mining will ever go up above 60 000 tons
and if 2009 it will reach the promised 49000 tons. But perhaps first half year Kazakhstan numbers are true I have some doubts but
it is not totally impossible.

Anyway, what is most important we have our predictions now which can be checked.
why not adding the WNA and IAEA numbers (multiplying their GWe by an average availability factor 82% or what it was in 2008?)
would also be nice if others from our discussion participate.

By the way your 40% increase by 2018 how does it compare with your estimated decline from oil by that year?

michael

If you want the times when I lose I will send $20 to the Oildrum ok. They can buy wine or whatever. I am not going to ship, too much of a hassle.

The times when I win I want $20 to go either to me or to this charity in my name. Same price tag, winner chooses how loser pays.
http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=mj_donations_donate

Multiplying GWe is inaccurate.

I am not predicting a decline in world oil production by 2018.

We are only talking US$ not euros. US$ probably staying weak.

You had said the bet on oildrum can be as official as I want it. I want to nail down the details.

It would make no sense if win or lose, all probabilities converge into your choice of sending a bottle of wine to the oildrum staff. Clearly I want the probabilities where I win to have a result of my choosing.

So we need to make the terms official as well as the agreement on the details of the declaration of each years winner and then exchanging necessary contact information and agreeing on the details of how we publish each years winner with the loser and winner statement and agreeing to the details of money/wine.

This could be as simple as you saying that you fully agree accept the bet and to the terms that hae been set forth and the publishing of the winner/loser statement at oildrum and my site.

i think we made our positions clear
and have now some clear predictions.

If I will loose, I send a bottle or 20 dollars to the oil drum editors (they will tell me how to do)
and I declare to them "why I was wrong" (and for the next 10 years!) perhaps the editors agree

You can do the same, or as you wish.
(of course you can declare any time that you changed your view and give up)

michael
ps.. for 2009 you might start to put money aside!

IEA numbers up to July for 2009 in OECD countries are down by 0.7% compared to last year already
and if you can read french .. it looks like the french system will have trouble if this winter gets too cold
thanks to the reliability of nuclear power plants

http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2009/11/13/la-baisse-de-regime-de...

So you have agreed to the terms of the bets and will pay the $20 to the oildrum editors who will then send the money to me if I win. I will send money to them if I lose any bet.

Have the editors agreed to publish the winning statements for each year ? I will publish on my site of course.

If I wanted to be absolutely certain of always winning I would start from 2011 onwards when the margin is so clear that random events like strikes and some extra fluke outages would not change things either way.

Giving up should involve the side that gives up to capitulate and we would activate the shutout -victory statement by the winner.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/world-nuclear-power-in-2009.html

http://www.iea.org/stats/surveys/mes.pdf
France was already down 11 TWHe by the end of July. This was mostly offset by other countries so OECD overall was down 1.2 TWHe (0.7%)

From my analysis of stated TWhe we look to be tracking to 2600 TWhe.

France is heading to 390 TWhe down 28 TWhe from 2008. Down another 18 TWHe versus 2008 since July.
UK looks to be up 10-20 TWHe for 2009. Probably 63 TWHe. +16 TWHe.
British Energy alone (nine reactors) - now part of EDF looks to be 56TWHe for 2009 (42TWHe up to Q3). The other ten reactors are still running.

Japan's capacity factor has increased and appears on track 255 TWHe. +15TWHe

Between Japan and the UK, the down year in France is offset.

US track to up +5-7 TWHe.
Ukraine down 1-3 TWHe.
Russia up or down 1 THWe.
Canada could be up or down 3-4 TWHe.
India should be up 3 TWHe. (non OECD)
China should be up 3-5 TWHe. (non OECD)
I believe S Korea is tracking even.

Germany
Although IEA survey indicates they were down 9.3% in the first half they still generated
73 TWHe in the first seven month. So they need 67 TWHe in the last five months to equal 2008. They would get 58 TWHe if they did as well as 2008 in the last five months.
Germany is looking to be down up to 15 TWHe.
http://www.iea.org/stats/surveys/mes.pdf

I have 13.5 TWHe to give from 2008 numbers to get to the midpoint for 2009 predictions.

I think down 3 to 8 TWHe is where it is going. This would still put me in for a win in 2009. But any further unexpected shutdowns slides it below.

My forecasted numbers in the outyears do not include the ten new UK reactors which are looking solid and should have at least half built and generating by 2015 and perhaps all by 2020.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/britain-planning-to-have-ten-new.html

Funny that you say that nuclear will be much cheaper then solar. I have a different view on that:
Nuclear is by definition a centralized system while solar has the option to become decentralized by majority. By decentralized I mean mainly on roofs of consumers, businesses, factories etc. This will allow everyone to become an energy supplier.

Yes, those people will have net backup ofcourse unless batteries get cheaper then the connection fees (For instance a 3x25A connection in the Netherlands costs Eur 670 (!) per year). Now, with average prices of about 24 ct/kWh solar becomes quickly on par, also known as grid parity. Lets assume that in the future when we generate all our electricity with super cheap nuclear 2-3 ct/kWh less then current average production cost then solar is still near grid parity, rendering solar equally costly or cheaper then nuclear for the consumer. Purely as the result of the fundamental difference between centralized and decentralized.

If grid parity is surpassed with some margin then you can expect ever more people putting solar on their homes because it's cheaper then leeching the net. Not including the discussion if this would cause network stability problems or not, this will reduce centralized electricity production needs greatly.

Knowing that nuclear plants are built for about 40 years (or longer) and that the financing is based on this number also, nuclear price will be more or less fixed for that period.

Solar prices dropped 30% this year alone and production of thin film is already about $0.70/kWp (First Solar). Solar is still a technology in it's infancy, so further major price reductions and energy conversion rates are easily possible. How much will solar cost in 20 years? How is nuclear going to compete with that, and more importantly, how will the multinationals choose knowing that those technologies require billions on investment up front? They risk to loose it all.

Now how will the business as usual energy multinationals react when demand lowers and they have invested heavily in plants that need their investment largely upfront? It should be truly interesting to see how the energy landscape changes when grid parity impacts the balance of energy production.
- Will they demanding solar irradiation taxes?
- Will they demand taxing surplus renewable consumer solar energy?
- Will they demand penalties for surplus renewable consumer solar energy?
- Increases in connection costs (driving more people off the grid, lowering demand further)? The process of increasing connection costs has already begun here.
- Will they demand backup from taxpayer money to get their investments back?
- Will they go bankrupt leaving their glorious nuclear plants for us to cleanup (the latter they will probably anyway)?
- Will they demand directly subsidizing nuclear production?
- ?

It is already interesting to see how the big energy multinationals are lobbying the politicians in Germany and European union, release bogus reports etc. in an attempt to stop the movement towards renewable development. Energy production is rapidly going to be democratized and it's not the big companies who can adapt quickest to such big changes.

I recommend reading "Energy Autonomy" from Hermann Scheer. His views on the whole nuclear vs wind vs solar vs fossile etc are refreshing.

> Funny that you say that nuclear will be much cheaper then solar.

i am not sure to who you address this ..

not to me ..
I rarely talk on unknown "price" tags
especially for things following generation have to pay.

michael

How do your theory fit with what is being done in Sweden?

There are massive investments in uprating and life lenght extensions of nuclear powerplants, renewal of hydro power, lots of new biomass fueld combined heat and electricity plants, a fair ammount of wind power and plans for very large scale investments in wind power.

The susidized part is the CHP and wind powerplants and a tiny ammount of new hydro power.

All the players seems to be more intent on producing electricity then hindering each other via lobbying etc. It is as if they actually are taking the climate and resource problems seriously...

And the rules for micro generation are being changed to make them easier to connect.

But my real beef is that this "democratization" of electricity production is bullshit. The real difference is that new production introduces competition and makes the market better. We get a better market if industries or individuals can build their own powerplants or pool their resources and build new efficient large scale powerplants. This has very little to do with democracy other then that we need the democracy to keep the legal system honest and to solve conflicts about the new power lines that are needed and some other marginal problems.

A good market with a strong grid can absorb and utilize both 1600 MW nucler blocks and manny 1.6 kW solar panels, but the grid connection need to stay cheaper then a set of accumulators for the small home owner.

Sweden ofcourse has the unlucky position of being one of the few countries situated near a pole. Competitive solar is difficult there, as anyone knows but still you choose that country. What about France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and 150 other states that have significantly more solar irradiation then Sweden. For them, the majority, solar will be getting bigger and bigger.

But maybe there are a lot of Swedes that have pine forests in their backyards that can become their own energy supplier using wood gassification and Stirling engines to produce heat and electricity at once. Both welcome I assume. But I did not study the Swedish situation.

Anyway, democratising the energy supply is well under way in an array of countries. You may not support it, but that doesn't make reality different.

I live here, but the market argument holds everywhere. We need honest markets where everybody can enter, not "democartizcation" of power production. But a democracy is of course a good political system for keeping a market honest. I like to keep democrarcy as a political system and not a catchphrase.

And you are right, quite a lot of Swedes do own a pine forest. But it makes more sense to sell it as raw material for lumber, paper and large and medium scale CPH plants then running a micro scale and inefficient CHP system.

Well, the market argument says that if solar on household roofs will be cheaper then buying electricity from the net, then lots of people are going to put solar on their roofs. And I'm talking about the cost of solar without incentives or subsidies. Just look at the price of solar [1] and then look at the price of domestic electricity [2]. One goes down the other goes up, they will meet and then solar wins.
[1] http://www.solarbuzz.com/Photos/moduleprices09-11.jpg (The bump is caused by lack of solar grade silicon production).
[2] http://www.energie.nl/stat/images/fig74.gif (Domestic is the red line).

Alright, using trees for plain cogeneration is not viable. But micro scale doesn't have to be inefficient: Here there has been a long development of micro stirling engine powerplants that burn natural gas and provide electricity plus heat for home-owners which has just begun it's introduction phase. The balance between electricity and heat production is about 1 to 8. These microplants (about 25kw heat) are regarded as more efficient then burning the gas in a central powerplant and transport the electricity to the homes with 8% loss, and are therefore marketed as environmentally friendly. Selling the surplus electricity back to the grid and using the heat for home heating is supposed to make it cheaper then using the conventional standard high-efficiency gas heating device. Some more info about this here: http://microchp.blogspot.com/

I don't entirely follow your critique of my critique, since you seem to be demanding point-by-point rebuttals, which never would fit into this space even if I had the will to compile them. Then you make accusations of infidelity based on this highly biased and questionable source.

The facts are easy enough to verify. Nuclear energy has delivered clean, safe energy at a cost cheaper than any other source except hydro. Anti-nukes warn of dangers that have not materialized in 40 years of experience.

Truth be told, all electricity is going to cost more than we're used to paying. We use fossil fuels only because they are the cheapest source of energy. Furthermore, most power comes from plants built decades ago when construction costs were much lower, and the costs have mainly been paid off. New energy plants, of whatever sort, will raise electricity rates. Of the alternatives, only wind costs out about the same as nuclear and any efforts to overcome the intermittency of wind will raise the costs out of sight.

Life is full of risks. Saying nuclear power is unsafe is simply illogical when you look at other risks we accept without any thought.

From USA Today comes this terrible fact. "More than 76,000 Americans have been killed walking or crossing the street in the past 15 years." I don't know of any anti-walking groups who have sprung up to protest this carnage. While in all seriousness this is an outrageous number of deaths and should be addressed immediately, it does show how stupid the human species can be when it comes to perspective. We smoke, drink, drug, and eat ourselves to death in staggering numbers each year. But heaven forbid there MIGHT someday be an accident at a nuclear plant because it would be the end of the world.

There is such a thing as acceptable risk. Sounds callous, but all societies are based on it. It's time to tell the nuclear power fear mongers to shut up and work in an area where people are really dying by the thousands each year. There are dozens to choose from.

Radiation is "scary" only because it can't be seen and the public knows they have no control over when an accident might happen and how it might affect them. It feeds into our species instinctive fear of the unknown. We can see the car or bus coming that might hit us and that makes all the difference. That's why 76,000 deaths and many more serious injuries to pedestrians in the past 15 years barely makes the news while some people, politicians, and media moan, wail and thrash about over what MIGHT happen someday at a nuclear plant.

Radiation is "scary" because some of us know full well what a lethal dose will do to a person - and we don't care to suffer that particular form of dying. That doesn't mean no nukes (and I am not anti-nuke, see above), but it does mean that reasonable and prudent precautions are necessary if we are going to have them. We need reasonable and prudent precautions to protect pedestrians, too, but our failure to do so doesn't therefore mean that we are free to throw caution to the wind for everything else, too.

The reason I am anti-nuke and have seen no reason to reverse that, is that the precautions necessary are not simply 'Reasonable and Prudent'.. the precautions necessary are extreme in order to manage the enormous responsibilities and hazards of such a potent power source, and even in the best of times, which is to say in an age when we've had the bounties of Petroleum's unimaginable surplus energies, and the hegemony of American and NATO and Soviet controls on much of the world activities.. all this available to us have we been barely able to keep this tiger in its tank. *(and looking at both Weapons and Reactor proliferation, even suggesting that as a success is truly laughable..)

These are the most dangerous of the cornucopians, who feel that this genie can be controlled, and kept as an obedient slave.

Whatever you own, also owns you..

The reason why any attempts to control knowledge are futile is that knowledge is not a big shiny diamond which can be locked up down in basement safe. Even isolated and starving North Korea without any nuclear power plants was able to make bomb. The idea we or anyone could effectively control 60 years old textbook technology is absurd and was proved as flawed.

Our best hope is to lead the way with affordable (eventually cheaper than coal), sustainable, proliferation resistant, and passively safe nuclear energy applications. Such approach was recently discussed in detail, and I suggest to everyone to first see these talks before making and opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKfS74hVvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8

The related research reports and textbooks are available here: http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/

I think we can just agree that we disagree!

but let me make a point about:

>What we haven't been given is information useful to making long-term energy decisions.

you might not like the information or you do not believe it. Thats fine it took hundreds of years
to understand that the solar centered system is a simpler system.

However, if you accept for a moment the information I provided from pro Nuclear documents only

the message is:

``give up the hope that nuclear energy technology will come to rescue our ``industrial way of life"."

Once you accept that you were fooled by your elite, it is possible even for a science fiction dreamer to change direction
and to start to imagine a different future. May be you can find something interesting and challenging about this.

but for now lets agree to disagree!
michael

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

I don't think we can just agree to disagree. The reality of the climate-change threat is much too dire to let this go as a philosophical difference.

What bothers me most is that people will demand to preserve our industrial way of life. I think the anti-nuke movement began long ago as an effort to disable that way of life. I also think anti-nukes had little to do with the world's failure to develop this planet-saving technology. What has happened is that we have been burning fossil fuels at a rate that will destroy the world's habitability because they are cheap.

According to recent polls, American are divided almost evenly three ways. A third believe climate change is a serious threat, another third believe it's something of a threat, and the other third believe it isn't a threat or think the whole issue is a hoax or don't care. Enthusiasm for higher energy prices or for carbon taxes is virtually nonexistent. The prospects of Americans giving up their favored lifestyles to prevent greenhouse-gas emissions are poor. The prospects of other peoples giving up theirs isn't much better.

At this point, we have to make serious choices. Writing polemics against nuclear energy to force the world into either living frugally or adapting to part-time energy sources is futile and misdirected.

I think your complaints about fission energy are at best exaggerated and at worst fabricated. Even if I'm wrong, the fact is that either we develop nuclear energy as well as we can, along with renewables and conservation, or we'll watch the planet's habitability continue to deteriorate.

What bothers me most is that people will demand to preserve our industrial way of life. I think the anti-nuke movement began long ago as an effort to disable that way of life.

Hah! A true compatriot in thought! I heartily agree!

There's an important point here that I fear will slip by unnoticed. It's a little too far outside the box of thoughts we're exposed to for most people to be able to hear it.

There are very excellent reasons to be unhappy about "our industrial way of life". Not that I really care for that term; it's too glib and is used as a token for too many different specific issues. But let's not deal with that just now.

Anyway, I was a staunch environmentalist in the '60s and watched the genesis of the anti-nuclear movement. I became very disillusioned with it as a result of reading some of the things its leaders had to say among themselves, in small-circulation magazines and newsletters that were intended for and read by "the faithful".

They hated "the consumer society", the rampant materialism and money worship of the "establishment", its dedication to growth, and the consequent destruction of wilderness and loss of wildlife habitat. So far so good; I was all with them on that. But they harbored this vision of an idealized peaceful village from a century ago that I knew was fantasy. Worse, they had the villians of their story of the world all picked out: it was those nasty, greedy "central power companies". They felt that if we could roll back the scourge of central power, life would magically return to the way it was when we "lived close to nature". They saw nuclear power as the heart and soul of everything they despised about their parents' world.

The early leaders of the anti-nuclear movement didn't give a f**k about nuclear accidents. They didn't worry about its safety, they worried about its success. They felt that if it were successful, it would cement in place everything they hated about the world. They didn't want cheap clean power that would lull the population into complacency. They wanted filth-spewing smokestacks and horrible open-pit coal mines that they could feature in flyers to rouse the population. And they were canny enough to know that they could exploit the association between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and the fears of nuclear armageddon that nuclear end of WW II and the advent of the cold war had stoked. So they did, shamelessly.

I'd wager that the large majority of those who are strongly anti-nuclear are still motivated much more by opposition to the current socio-economic order than they are to actual fears about the safety of nuclear power -- much less actual concerns about its economic viability. I say "large majority", not everyone; there are bound to be exceptions. But I suspect that most ANs see nuclear power as the "the establishment's" attempt to somehow hold on, and keep this nasty "industrial way of life" rolling.

Well, get this: IT'S NOT. The socio-economic system that you object to is done for, one way or another. Its impending demise is a matter of many factors, of which oil depletion is a minor one. Nuclear power is not something that will allow that order to survive, but it's THE MOST REASONABLE AND REALISTIC HOPE WE HAVE FOR STAVING OFF DISASTER in the transition to whatever follows. You can take your pick of disaster: climate change, over-population, mineral depletion, clean water shortages, and above all, resource wars. That's what we have to look forward to, if we can't build up alternative energy resources fast enough.

Could it be that at best you care for your own "good" life and "apres nous le deluge"
(in case please define what you mean by your "good" life?)

What I am saying is that "we" were all fooled by hundred(s) years of no limits and now
we are going to pay the price. Some might hope that it is only the next generation to pay the price
and pray for a short sighted gap for another couple of years. Why should you care for others?

Yes, I agree its likely too late.

How did we come into this situation in the first place?

Read the "emperors new suit" its all written there.

michael

>> What I am saying is that "we" [..] are now going to pay the price.

Indeed - this is the conclusion to be made, for which you the argument is crafted and "evidence" is selected. Very sad approach, in particular due to seriousness of the consequences. As was already pointed out, to agree to disagree does not cut it.

I'm glad we're discussing this because it's at the heart of the issue.

Your vision of the future won't work. People who live the low-impact lifestyle you espouse are working hard to get away from it. Only a very few want to grow their own food, weave their own cloth, and get around by bicycle and donkey cart. If people can't get the energy they need from clean sources they'll take it from fossil fuels.

Try a different vision. Imagine a world where every person has a roof over his head, enough to eat, clean water, education, health care, and even a chance to travel. Nuclear energy won't make that happen by itself, of course, but it's a necessary part of the future.

Nice rhetorical flourish, conflating bicycles with donkey carts.

Nuclear is a necessary part of a future where you're stuck paying for subscription energy ad-infinitum, even when reasonable alternatives were easily available.

It isn't meant to be rhetorical, but literal.

The problem we face is that reasonable alternatives won't provide all the energy people need. We won't make people stay home in their dark, cold houses when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. People will insist on going to work and on having power for lighting and equipment.

I've done some arithmetic to check the common but false claim that workarounds can solve the intermittency problem, which you can find here. It only applies to the US, as I don't have data for other countries. If you see some way to improve the analysis I'd be very glad to know of it.

I'll try to have a look at your numbers, but no guarantees.

I read your page on energy storage. The monthly supply and demand curves were informative, and your calculations should open a few eyes. Long term seasonal variations don't get the attention they deserve. However, you've overlooked a few possibilities that make the picture less bleak.

One is that the Hundorf plant is a poor model for what can be done with CAES. Using 5000 psi (instead of 1000) coupled with adiabatic compression and heat storage, the energy stored per cubic meter would be more than 10x what you figured. Still a lot of volume required -- not to mention a high cost -- but not entirely beyond reason for deep excavations.

More fundamentally, the amount of storage required can be substantially reduced by the simple expedient of installing excess capacity, and throwing the surplus away. The surplus capacity of course adds to the cost of the system, but it may be cheaper than the avoided storage.

Of course, it isn't necessary to actually waste the surplus capacity; it's possible to drive "opportunistic loads" with it. In particular, producton of hydrogen for making ammonia (fertilizer) and synthetic fuels can soak up just about any surplus that the system might generate. The capital cost of mass-produed electrolysis cells is low enough that using them on a 25% duty cycle is not prohibitive.

Yet another possibility is "fill in" generation, not from fossil fuels, but from stored biomass.

Intermittency of wind and solar resources can be overcome; it's just that the cost of doing so (in the absence of substantial fossil-fueled generation) is a lot higher than renewable energy advocates are generally willing to admit.

Note that chemistry invented for other purposes might work for this.  Excess wind power could be used to electrolyze potassium bicarbonate, releasing CO2 and hydrogen and regenerating potassium carbonate; the K2CO3 solution can then be used to capture more CO2 from the atmosphere.  The CO2 and H2 could be reacted to make methanol or ethylene, or handled separately (e.g. sequestration of the CO2 for atmospheric amelioration).

There appears to be no limit in principle to the amount of power which could be productively diverted to such a system, though the economics would depend on the capital cost of the carbon-capture and electrolysis portion and the value placed on captured CO2.

the message is:

``give up the hope that nuclear energy technology will come to rescue our ``industrial way of life"."

Yes, if you select your facts and use the right non-sequiturs, you can get there.  But that's about as reasonable a conclusion as the creationists' take on the fossil record.

Once you accept that you were fooled by your elite, it is possible even for a science fiction dreamer to change direction and to start to imagine a different future.

The US elites acted to kill the Integral Fast Reactor and the Molten Salt Reactor.  Both of these hold great promise, but also threatened established interests.  We don't have to look to science fiction to see what they would almost certainly have led to had we carried on with efforts now as much as 40 years old.

May be you can find something interesting and challenging about this.

Some of us have already done so, though you refuse to recognize it.

I agree, the author is too dismissive of fast breeders and fuel reprocessing. While much is made of the supposedly negative breeding coefficient of the BN-600 and 800 reactors nothing is mentioned about the well developed pyro-reprocessing technology in Russia (cf http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jnst/41/10/41_1018/_article). The negative coefficient reflects the fact that these plants are geared to burning plutonium from warhead decommissioning and not some fundamental barrier to their use as breeders. Also, the BN-1800 is more than just a paper reactor and deserves at least some mention.

I also do not see the merit of lumping fusion with fission as these reactor designs have completely different technical challenges.

I am not anti-nuke, but I am anti-poorly sited/built/maintained-nukes. This stuff is dangerous, we MUST be careful with it. It is possible to be careful enough with siting, building, and maintaining these things, but not if we throw caution to the wind and try to cut corners and costs in a mad dash to get as many nukes up and running as we can in a "crash" program. If we are going to have nukes at all, we have got to do them right, and that means taking enough time to do our due dilligence, and spending enough money to make sure that they get done right.

Unfortunately, doing it right imposes real limits on how many nukes our various national economies can actually bring on line over any given time frame. Combine that with the growing numbers of existing plants nearing the end of their lives and soon needing to be decommissioned, and it starts to become doubtful whether we can really ramp up nuclear fission power to supply a very much greater percentage of energy than it already is. A little more, eventually, perhaps. It is just really doubtful, though, that nuclear fission is going to be the silver bullet that will enable advanced economies to continue their progress onwards and upwards as they have up to now. At best, nukes might be considered as being a little bit of a safety net, allowing a slow decline rather than a fast crash. Safety nets only work, though, if they are well made and deployed correctly. A safety net with holes and deployed incompetently is arguably worse than no safety net at all, for it encourages complacency and miscalculation.

I'm not anti-nuke, in fact I say the more the better. But I think the chances of us solving the political problems needed to cause that to happen are nil. Oh, we might pass sort of statement of intent. But we really need to completely streamline the whole review process, so that plants can be made affordable, and planned and built in a reasonable length of time. That was possible in say 1960, but it is not now or in the concievable future. Our society is so hung up with bureaucratic control, and concern for every concievable what-if. Essentially any activist or nutcase (they are usually the same) can create huge legal headaches and force massive delays. So anyone building a plant runs a major risk that he could suffer years of delay, possible re-work, or possibly having to abandon an partially complete plant. With those uncertainties we just won't manage to build more than a handful of them.

I think the chances of us solving the political problems needed to cause that to happen are nil.

If it were only the US and western block nations involved, you might well be right. But China marches to its own drummer, and it would not surprise me at all to see China embrace nuclear power as it reasserts its natural ascendency over a barbaric West.

China and miracles?

lets see for how long this 10% /year growth can continue in general
and for nuclear energy in particular.

Have a look at the WNA article about China's plans and compare with reality.

Unfortunately the WNA documents are updated in the 1984 Orwell way.

It is hard to compare with statements from a few years ago.
Looking at older online versions of the IAEA Red Book helps to some extend.

in other words since commercial nuclear power started its (small absolute) rise in the 70ies
i remember fantastic numbers for nuclear power coming up all around "me".

Reality today is far from that as you know very well.

Michael

No miracles. Say, perhaps, a triumph of reason?

If you look at the materials and components involved, there is a wide gulf between what building a new nuclear power plant is estimated to cost in the West, vs. what it should cost, if built in quantities from well-tested designs by experienced engineers and workers.

That type of gulf, in business, is known as "opportunity". That's assuming the way isn't barred by political obstacles. China, at this time, seems remarkably free of that type of political obstacle. The government seems genuinely concerned about pollution from coal-fired plants, and is placing a high priority on development of clean alternatives -- including nuclear.

It's not such a stretch to assume that they just might succeed.

China had plans to build its nuclear fleet up to a total of 60 reactors (up from about 9 GW of capacity today).

Note, I say "had plans".  Current plans are now to build 132 reactors.  That's more than the entire US fleet, though if we get on the ball we may still hold the lead in 2020.

Dr Michael,

thank you very much for all four articles. Much, much appreciated!

So I guess the 10 new nuclear reactors which will now be built in the UK will be generation 2 type and no chance of them being breeders then?

Thanks again.

thanks for the nice words!

For what concerns the 10 reactors to be built in the UK

as far as I understood the news it said that 10 sites have been selected or identified
(essentially the ones where one has already a reactor).

It was not said that the reactors will be constructed and even less what type and when.

But at least AREVA/EDF who are trying hard to get a contract the latest news about the EPR problems
are a big blow!

Michael

" sufficient energy to ensure the survival of our highly industrialized civilization cannot come from a rapid growth of nuclear fission energy of this sort. "

Assumes a business as usual approach. Not realistic when real shortages and price increases become the norm.

In the ten years before WWII the progress of nuclear and aircraft technology was moving at a snails pace. In the ten years after the start of WWII those technologies made huge progress that would have taken several decades under business as usual.

We can accelerate the development of new energy technology in the same way.

" The problem with the limited amount of economically producible uranium resources can theoretically be addressed with the mastering of the technology of nuclear fission breeder reactors. "

A straw man argument as shown repeatedly in a previous discussion. Today the uranium cost is about ¼ cent per kWh. The uranium price can increase a great deal without getting close to fossil fuel cost, and fossil fuel cost is likely to continue rising long term unless we dramatically reduce the demand for fossil fuel by expanding nuclear power.

The author refused to discuss the room for uranium price increases and the impact of that on supply.

" In contrast, large breeder reactors, based on a large amount of initial fissile material and the transformation of U238 and Th232 for breeding new reactor fuel, have so far not even successfully passed a prototype phase. "

The author implies that reactors have to be large. Small factory mass produced reactors that can be operated individually or in groups may be a better option.

Since uranium is abundant and cheap our first order of business should be to get large numbers of Gen III reactors under construction and develop simple modular reactors that can be mass produced on any scale at a low cost per kWh.

Despite the often repeated claims that the technology for fast reactors is well understood, one finds that no evidence exists to back up such claims...Indeed, no evidence has been presented so far that the original goal of nuclear fuel breeding has been achieved. The designs and running plans for the two FBR's, currently under construction in India and in Russia, do not indicate that successful breeding can even in principle be achieved.

Wow, so the entire nuclear establishment, including the American Nuclear Society that formally endorses the fast-spectrum reactor as the path forward, is perpetrating a conspiracy to lie because closed fuel cycles / fast-neutron reactors can't work! Who knew? That is an incredible claim that needs incredible evidence, which hasn't been provided.

From INL Factsheet:

Less than a year after EBR-I generated its first electricity, Argonne scientists calculated that their reactor could indeed breed fuel. Then, early in 1953, a painstaking laboratory analysis showed that EBR-I was creating one new atom of nuclear fuel for each atom it burned. The hoped for result was a reality. With that kind of encouragement, Argonne scientists began to design cores that would increase the breeding ratio so the reactor could not only sustain its own operation but also produce a
little bit more to fuel other reactors. Three such improved cores were developed over the next 10 years. The last of them — called Mark IV — produced 1.27 new atoms of fuel for each
atom consumed. EBR-I was used for research purposes until 1964, when the reactor was decommissioned.

This was 50 years ago! If they are not commercial... commercial relative to WHAT? Coal plants that don't have to pay for their externalities? If fossil fuels had to pay for their emissions, that equation would surely change dramatically.

It should be noted that a breeding ratio greater than one is not a necessary metric of success. A ratio of 1 would mean one original fuel charge could be sustained indefinitely by the reactor, so wouldn't that be a huge step to sustainability of nuclear on a large scale? A ratio of 0.9 means your original fuel will get 10 times the mileage. We don't need breeders, per se, to make huge gains in sustainability of nuclear from 50-100 years out to millennia.

These conclusions read more like opinion being sold rather than conclusions flowing logically from carefully crafted arguments based on hard science and engineering. This is an anti-nuclear propaganda hit piece, which is a shame because there was a lot of good material in there too but nothing that supported the final closing statements.

It is very true that a high but sub-unity breeding ratio can stretch the original supply of fissionables.  If we have 50 years of NU for an expanded fleet of LWRs running on LEU, putting the U-235 into Th-U reactors with a breeding ratio of 0.9 would stretch that supply to 500 years.

These conclusions read more like opinion being sold rather than conclusions flowing logically from carefully crafted arguments based on hard science and engineering. This is an anti-nuclear propaganda hit piece

I am happy to see others arrive at this conclusion also.  I am trying to get a rebuttal piece to Chapters I-III past the editors of TOD.

...produce a few tenths of kg's of Pu239, sufficient to construct a few nuclear bombs.

The first time, I assumed this was just a typo, but then he said it again.

Michael will have to answer this for himself, but I suspect it is not a typo. Michael had written: "a few tenth." I added the "s" at the end. Thus, is it "a few tens" (multiples of ten) or "a few tenths" (multiples of one tenth)?

I suspect it is the latter, because Michael thinks in German. "A few hundreds" translates easily into German (ein paar hundert). "A few tenths" also translates easily (ein paar Zehntel). Yet, there is no German translation for "a few tens". We only have "a few dozens" (ein paar Duzent).

I actually had in mind to ask him when I edited the article, but then I forgot.

Well, if he meant "a few tenths" he would be very wrong. Wikipedia lists the critical mass for U235 as 52 kg, while for Pu239 (weapons grade) it's 10 kg. I believe those are correct numbers for the pure and uncompressed spheres. Smaller cores can be used for weapons by incorporation of neutron reflectors and high compression. But I think the feasible limit for Pu239 is at least 4 kg.

Not that I really know. "Everything I need to know about nuclear weapons I learned on the internet". It's chilling how much detail is out there in the public domain.

Completely fissioning 0.1 kg of U or Pu would produce ~25 GW·h = ~2 kilotons of energy. But of course you can't fission such a small amount by itself, and you couldn't fission it all at once.

But I think the feasible limit for Pu239 is at least 4 kg.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq4-1.html#Nfaq4.1.7.1
says, for an uncompressed sphere with a reflector, critical mass takes ~5 kg of weapons grade Pu, or ~10 kg of the isotopic mix in a power reactor.

Although
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq4-2.html#Nfaq4.2.3
says "Using an advanced flying plate design it is possible to compress a 1 kg plutonium mass sufficiently to produce a yield in the 100 ton range."

sorry if this created a confusion

yes critical mass for a pu239 bomb is about 10 kg!

what I wanted to say a few times 10 kg ...

but may be it was and is clear from the context no?

Michael

OK. So I should indeed have asked ...

I meanwhile fixed the two typos in the article. Thanks for pointing this out.

Although I am against the construction of any more fission or fusion plants, I have been a big fan of the Solar Unmanned Nuclear facility ever since I found out about it several years ago.

Dr. David MacKay, Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, has a book called "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" that he has made available for free download. It's much better than the controversial unScientific American article and a good reference to this post.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair

I'm going to ignore all of the preceding comments, for the moment, to make a few "high level" comments of my own. From a quick scan, I don't think I'll be duplicating anything.

First I want to say thanks, Michael, for the effort you've put into this series. I don't agree with most of your conclusions, but it's evident that you've gone to some effort to gather facts and statistics, and I do appreciate that. It's also evident in this part, in particular, that you've made an effort to remain objective and present "just the facts" despite your actual biases. That's not to say that you've been entirely successful, but in today's world, a decent effort is worth at least half an "attaboy". And we all pretty much live in glass houses around here, when it comes to objectivity.

(I don't know if "living in glass houses" translates in German, but it comes from the proverb that "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.")

A couple of general editorial points, in case you ever rewrite this material for publication elsewhere. You can take these for what they're worth or ignore them. It's up to you, since I'm obviously not your actual editor.

The thing that I noticed most in this article was that in a number of places, you succumbed to the temptation to speculate as to what some fact or set of facts might mean, without having anything to back it up. I won't try to enumerate examples; you're quite capable of finding them. In all cases, your speculation is in the direction that reflects least favorably on the technology in question.

Now if you're only interested in preaching to an anti-nuclear choir, that's fine; they won't call you on it, and may well come away thinking you're proved something. But I think you have more of the scientific spirit than that. We both know that speculation proves nothing. It just suggests one possibility among many, and is at best only a starting point for further investigation. Rather than waving red flags in faces of those with different views and furnishing grist for attacks, it's better to stop with the facts. Your readers will be quite capable of seeing possibilities as to what those facts could mean.

The other general editorial comment I have is that I wish you had not lumped Gen IV and advanced fission reactors into the same article with fusion energy prospects. Perhaps you think of them in the same category as "high-tech-fantasies-that-need-to-have-stakes-driven-through-their-hearts-because-they-distract-us-from-getting-on-with-the-job-of-powering-down". But they are very different, with very different associated issues and prospects. Putting them into the same article defocuses the responses and makes the article less useful.

Now on to content. The biggest technical flaw that I see is that you confuse the concept of the "fast breeder reactor", as it was originally formulated, with the current concept of the "fast burner reactor". (In this case, I'm using "confuse" in the active sense of "creating confusion", rather than the more common sense of "to be confused about". IOW, I'm accusing you of creating rhetorical confusion -- a charge against which you will probably want to defend yourself. En garde'!)

The original concept of the breeder reactor is that it would produce excess plutonium that could then be processed and used to fuel older conventional reactors. That concept was abandoned years ago, for a variety of reasons, yet you use the slightly negative breeding gains of new designs to try to discredit the whole class of fast reactors. Sorry, but a near-unity to slightly negative breeding gain "is a feature, not a bug". That's how they're supposed to work.

Think about it. The initial load of enriched uranium is like the kindling used to start a fire. Once the fire is started, you just keep feeding it wood -- the "wood" being depleted uranium and wastes from once-through reactors. So what if your fire is not producing kindling for other fires? It doesn't need to, because there are adequate kindling supplies available from conventional sources.

I'll leave it at that, for now. Other flaws will probably be cited in other comments above. I'll start reading them, and add my two cents if and where I think they're needed.

Thanks, Roger. I agree with much of what you wrote.

In particular, I was contemplating whether I should split part IV into two separate parts, one on fast breeders and the other on nuclear fusion and publish both articles simultaneously. Part IV is very long, and splitting the article in two would have helped structure the subsequent debate, as fast breeders and fusion reactors are indeed two quite different animals, i.e., having them together is less of a problem with the article itself than with the debate that is to follow.

However, I decided against it in the end, because we had "promised" four parts (long before part IV was written), and changing the structure on the fly would have been unsatisfactory also.

Hi Roger,

thanks for the comments.

I also agree that the fusion and the fission are different animals yes and that it would have been better to split it.
My original article on ``fusion illusions" is longer and published in the book "the final energy crisis"
But as Francois has written somehow we came up with the 4 part scheme.

This one is on the long term future and the fusion part belongs to it.
There are other points to bring it together.
For example material aging from a neutron flux is already a problem for fast reactors as you know.

Now comparing just hard numbers
to produce a thermal fission power of 3.2 GW (about 1 GWe) you need about 10**20 fission reactions per second
and thus 2-3 neutrons with 1 MeV per reaction

a hypothetical fusion reactor needs 10 times more fusion reactions
(18 MeV / reaction compared to 200 MeV/ fission reaction)
the liberated energy is carried by 14 MeV neutrons

thus "destructive effects" from neutrons are roughly a factor of 100 larger!

second point in comparison

the energy flow .. relatively easy from fission products to water or similar

but even theoretically difficult to transfer the energy from the neutrons to "water".
There is more like that.

We also have the aspect of research funding

If the money is given to Fusion it will not be given to fission research!

Thus nuclear fission enthusiast need to take a stand against the fusion community

likewise for thorium reactors versus Fast Reactors

take a stand against the old fashioned fission establishment if you think it is
better and more useful than the Pu239 cycle.

For "speculations" well when we talk about the future
what can we do otherwise?

At the end we will find out who is more wrong!

During the past exchanges only 1 or 2 nuclear fission writers made their own
prediction for the coming years and less for the coming decades.

but again thanks for your comment

regards
Michael

Hi, Michael

I find myself agreeing a lot with what I read in the above statement. The money spent on Fusion would be better spent at accelerating fast fission R&D, and Thorium/Molten Salt deserves to have a fair share of R&D money.

However, I think it is imprudent to dismiss the expertise accumulated by the "old fashion" U/Pu Na-cooled establishment.

The latter has been severely wounded politically (much more than technically) in the beginning of the 90s (SuperPhenix in France and IFR in the US), when energy prices subsided from the 70's scare and spoiled baby boomers came to grab the levers of power. The "old fission establishment" understood the lesson, and vowed to come back in front of public opinion, only with validated and cross-validated designs, from mining cradle to nuclear waste grave.

When energy crisis strikes, we will have to fight shortages not with the technology that we want(in terms of safety requirements and cost), but the technology that we have (with a mix of lower safety requirement and higher costs). The sooner it happens, as oil drummers assume, the more the technological mix will favor existing solutions. In that context, Sodium-Cooled breeders have a clear advance as far as the maturity of industrial development is concerned : many components have been industrialy qualified during the last three decades. In essence, most of the mistakes have been already done ! MSR technology will need to work hard to match that. It may be an infortunate outcome from past decisions (I personally think that MSR is disliked by the industry because it doesn't generate juicy long term nuclear fuel contracts), but this is the deck of cards we have been dealt with.

I understand that you are pessimistic on the feasibility of deploying ANY sustainable high density /EROI energy solution. I do not share that opinion. If nothing better is found (revolutionary compact & cheap energy storage technology, surprisingly easy Thorium MSR industrial development, or longer shots like Uranium from seawater, or Polywell fusion), Na cooled Pu Breeder will form the core of what will be implemented past 2020-2025.

In the end we are all dead, but in 30 years time, I think it likelier to have a lot of operational breeders producing electricity or heat in the world (more in China than Switzerland of course...), rather than to have to drastically tighten our belts as far as energy intensity is concerned.

" The existing nuclear power plants are claimed to be very safe, and risks are small compared to many other dangers of modern life. Yet, when their favorite future nuclear energy system is being introduced, it is always pointed out that it further reduces the remaining risks by a large factor. "

On this issue we agree. In fact if we took the emotion out of the equation we would find that nuclear plants are beyond the optimum level of safety.

http://www.grist.org/article/im-reason-youre-emotion-bounces-off-me-and-...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5380#comment-500546

" countries who want to have nuclear weapon capability will most likely choose the simpler way to make a bomb using Pu239 or U235. Yet, those who know how to breed and separate hundreds of kg's of U233 can easily replace Th232 with U238 and produce a few tenths of kg's of Pu239, sufficient to construct a few nuclear bombs. "

To make weapons grade plutonium, uranium 238 must be exposed to reactor neutrons for a short time to avoid the buildup of plutonium 240. It would be foolish to use an expensive commercial power plant that is not designed for on line refueling to make plutonium 239 because frequent shutdowns would dramatically reduce capacity factor and cost the owner millions of dollars in lost electricity production.

The logical course would be to build a dirt simple unpressurized plutonium production reactor in a small fraction of the time it takes to build a power plant at a small fraction of the cost. The U.S. built the first one in about 18 months with no prior experience and very limited knowledge of the relevant reaction cross sections. Now that information is available in great precision on the internet.

Why would anybody take the most difficult, expensive and time consuming road to nuclear weapons when the two easy, cheap and fast roads, enrichment and plutonium production, are always available, even if the world forgoes commercial nuclear power?

" A careful reading of the treaty [15] reveals that Iran, at least so far, is in agreement with the NPT obligations. "

Iran was required by the treaty to inform the IAEA of its intention to build its enrichment facility at the beginning of the design process. Keeping it secret is a violation.

In contrast to the experiments performed at the Shippingport reactor, where the initial core was already U233, a realistic Th232 reactor cycle must be started with an initial U235 or Pu239 core. Consequently, the experience gained with the Shippingport reactor experiment cannot be considered as a proof that the envisaged system can function.

Sure it is. Suppose the reactor running on U235 had a conversion ratio of only 0.5. That simply means it would take two loads of U235 to produce the first load of U233. But once you've got that, you can burn thorium till the sun goes cold.

can you back up your number of 0.5?
What was the real number for making that U233 and what has happened afterwards with the 507 kg of U233?
(i am perhaps right that it was to much contaminated to be used again?)

just to remind you a norma PWR has a conversion ratio of roughly 30% for U238 to Pu239
and this is fissioned directly again.

Michael

can you back up your number of 0.5?

I just made it up. (Although "Current commercial power reactors have achieved breeding ratios of roughly 0.55, and next-generation designs like the AP1000 and EPR should have breeding ratios of 0.7 to 0.8, ..." [wikipedia/Breeder_reactor])

just to remind you a normal PWR has a conversion ratio of roughly 30% for U238 to Pu239

Fine. My point stands:

"Suppose the reactor running on U235 had a conversion ratio of only [0.3]. That simply means it would take [3.3] loads of U235 to produce the first load of U233. But once you've got that, you can burn thorium till the sun goes cold."

Not that LWRs are the right way to burn thorium; Molten Salt Reactors have significant advantages — unpressurized core, immediate xenon removal, easy fuel processing, reduced loss of Pa-233, usw.

The author is mistaken about the possibilities of net breeding, or rather keeps his eyes shut and his ears closed to the evidence.

The breeding gain analysis is a complex, time consuming, and expensive enterprise, which explains why such analysis is not performed very often. Few people consider that necessary anyway, as most of the core performance is much cheaply calculated. The experiments needed to confirm validity of the calculations are much easier than full analysis of a breeding gain, and allow more precise tuning of the models describing the behavior of the isotopic core composition development.

I am surprised that someone from CERN, or rather from the field of high energy physics, which these days relies completely on mathematical and Monte-Carlo description of interactions of radiation with matter for any of its results, would have such a dismissive attitude towards nuclear transport codes. In particular given their success in describing and operational aiding to real systems such as existing nuclear power plants.

However, if the author remains skeptical about these codes, there were pioneering measurements performed already in 1953 which proved that breeding in a fast spectrum reactor does indeed work, as was pointed by a speaker above.
French did their own measurements with Phenix. There were breding gain measurements done at EBR-II. I am surprised that the author claims ignorance about all this. My personal impression is that the author is possessed by selective vision.

>I am surprised that someone from CERN, or rather from the field of high energy physics, which these days relies completely on mathematical and Monte-Carlo >description of interactions of radiation with matter for any of its results, would have such a dismissive attitude towards nuclear transport codes.

May be it is because the author is working on lots of simulations and has experienced how often bad simulations
are presented. Just to "fool" others as long as the results are what everyone is praying for! Systematic errors are also an interesting subject!

But for what it matters

the statements in the Gen IV roadmap about missing knowledge for some nuclear cross sections tells a lot!

michael

This dismissive attitude only shows your lack of depth of understanding. Cross-sections needed for reactor analysis and breeding calculations are very well known, and have been validated in real large scale systems for decades. The cross-section in questions in GenIV roadmap concern some isotopes of minor actinides. These MA contribute insignificantly in a fuel cycle focused on high breeding, consequently there used to be little motivation to improve their precision.

However these MA constitute a much larger part of the fuel in recently popular burner cycles, which aim to get rid of the TRU waste from the contemporary plants, without creating any more fissile materials. In the case of a burner the knowledge of MA cross sections, etas etc., needs to be much more precise to obtain sufficiently precise description of long term core behavior. (Other reason for the need of precise cross section measurements are DHS funds for nuclear smuggling detector technology. A different story entirely.)

What is more, there are actual measurements of breeding gain in fast spectrum reactors, described in most reactor design textbooks, which you doggedly ignore.

I wish you would understand the depth of knowledge you are missing, and actually learned in detail about this important subject, instead of dismissing criticism by shallow flawed analogies.

We disagree about this!

you believe in what the seller of whatever tells you

and I don't!

Why don't you read the fairy tail i suggest and lets talk about this again in a few years from now.

just in case here are some recent news about ``the nuclear power renaissance"

The cost escalation of a new nuclear project is the subject of an investigation by Texas utility CPS Energy
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Utility_warning_on_nuclear_cost_0511...
Areva has come under pressure after a joint statement from safety regulators urged it to revise control systems for its EPR design.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Focus_on_EPRs_systems_0311091.html

France's nuclear regulator has suspended decommissioning and castigated a plant operator after discovering that plutonium inventory was much higher than thought.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-French_plutonium_plant_cleanup_susp...

and on and on like
France has trouble this winter by the way Nukes are not working as usual!

you need more?

yes 2 years now without a new nuclear power plant connection to the grid!
(last was August 2007!)

Whats your prediction for the next years?

michael

MD,

More pretty pictures of the most powerful laser on Earth.
500 TW is an incredible amount of power considering the combined electricity nameplate generation of the USA is 1 TW. The NIF facility is operational and fusion tests will begin next year.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/

Here's a technical article by Ed Moses, the NIF director.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0029-5515/49/10/104022/nf9_10_104022.pdf?r...

OTH, CERN has a 4 MW main beam linac(it has some smaller ones also).

http://srf2009.bessy.de/papers/frobau04.pdf

Are you jealous?

You should be.

This is going to be the biggest thing in nuclear physics since 1945.

>This is going to be the biggest thing in nuclear physics since 1945.

good for you, enjoy it!

and I had thought the biggest thing so far was the Zar bomb!

otherwise, thinking in more of physics instead of things

the most beautiful discovery perhaps was

the homogenous microwave background radiation?

Michael

'thinking in more of physics instead of things'

I find this to be quite ironic.

Everything about modern physics is in constructing these gigantic apparatuses and you work at one of them.

Is it all a giant con job (or you rebelling against your craft/career)?

I think some geologists like Peak Oil because they come to hate geology.

Tsar Bomba actually did the world a service in making the USSR agree to the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

Think of all the poor people who could get fed for the price of the Very Large Array which came from Penzias/Wilson?

http://www.vla.nrao.edu/
http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy/faq

>> We disagree about this!
We cannot disagree about facts, such as whether breeding works. It does, and the reference was already posted above. How many proofs that something is possible do you need? Your assertion that the whole nuclear engineering community are snake oil sellers is not funny.

Given the gravity of the issue at hand, I am not amused by your avoidance of the topic by poor theatrics, followed by throwing irrelevant crap around and looking if it sticks, in a poorly disguised attempt to shift the topic elsewhere.

no, indeed it is not funny!

just read the reference from the IAEA Fast Reactor data base I provided.

and reflect on the situation about Fast Reactors

and otherwise complain to your nuclear Energy establishment
I am only quoting from their documents.

Otherwise I read some years ago the statement from Bertrand Russell
when he was asked what he would do if after his death he will meet god.

He said roughly

``I will ask him why he didn't provide more evidence for his existence"

I hope you understand the similarity and good luck with your campaign
to keep the Vatican at the center of the world!

michael

There is plenty of evidence, please take a time to read a nuclear engineering textbook.
However I've already lost any hope that you will alter opinion due to evidence. It is all Vatican's conspiracy, right!

"Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon."
-- Alexander Pope

>"Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon."
>-- Alexander Pope

good quote!

When did you understand nuclear energy?

" just in case here are some recent news about ``the nuclear power renaissance "

It is ironic that you wrote 15,000 words about breeder and fusion reactors which we do not need for many decades to hundreds of years because the uranium cost is ¼ cent per kWh and the supply is abundant at modestly higher cost. But when the questions get too difficult you change the subject to next generation reactors, which is what this post should really be about.

Why did you not make this post about next generation reactors, the ones that will be built next to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel?

The issues you raised above are the sort of thing that comes up in any big engineering project and they will be solved. The U.S. and France have shown that it is possible to build nuclear power plants in large numbers even when fossil fuel was cheap and abundant, so we know it can be done again when the incentives are much stronger.

The discussion should also include small reactors using proven technology that could be developed quickly enough to help make the transition off fossil fuel.

http://pepei.pennnet.com/display_article/368713/140/ARTCL/none/none/1/Sm...

The most promising new design that could be developed quickly is a dirt simple Molten Salt Reactor using a once through fuel cycle that uses 1/3 the amount of uranium that conventional reactors require, as explained near the end of David LeBlanc’s talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So

Only 20 pounds of mined uranium per 80 year lifetime at the U.S. level, vs. 58 pounds for conventional reactors or 6 ounces for full breeder reactor. The actinides can be recycled at end of life to reduce waste volume and decay time.

These are the issues we should be discussing now, the short term transition off of fossil fuel, future generations can take care of long term energy sources.

I can only say that I am a great admirer of the work Dr. Dittmar has presented here. Telltale are the difficulties he has getting his work discussed in certain forums.

Added later: My complaint against nuclear is that it is highly dependent on the entire infrastructure of industrialism and on the below ground resources that support it. We will be bequeathing the next generations a mess they will be unable to deal with as industrialism declines, just as much of the Roman infrastructure became unsupportable (but not highly dangerous) in the Middle Ages.

thanks for the comment!

for

>My complaint against nuclear is that it is highly dependent on the entire infrastructure of industrialism and on the below ground resources that support it. We >will be bequeathing the next generations a mess they will be unable to deal with as industrialism declines

unfortunately I can only agree with this view!
well said

michael

ps.. for what it matters
I do not pretend to be an expert! ``Experts" who claim to be experts are frightening me! They brought us into the mess we are in right now.
And ``we" still have trouble to realize that we are in this mess now!

However, I like to analyze data, reports and so on and to find flaws in the logic or
if there is .. enjoy the beauty of the logic. Nuclear energy claims are far away from the beauty of nuclear and particle physics
yes true I admit there is after all lots of beauty in nuclear and particle physics achieved during the last century.

And with all the work it was to prepare these 4 chapters, I am happy that some like you got the ``virus"
and that may be, I achieve a little what I learned from another person:

"one should try to make people who are uncomfortable more comfortable
and people who are comfortable uncomfortable"

>> I like to analyze data, reports and so on and to find flaws in the logic or
if there is .. enjoy the beauty of the logic.

In another words, you enjoy trolling by cheery picking evidence to "reason" how doomed we all are, to show that the whole technological civilization is a mistake, and how much of a smartass you are. Also, you possibly could not be bothered to accept any facts that show gaping holes in your argument. This is disgraceful in my opinion, in particular because the energy issue is not a joke.

"one should try to make people who are uncomfortable more comfortable and people who are comfortable uncomfortable"

Hm. You may have also made some people who are already uncomfortable even more uncomfortable! :)

sorry nobody is perfect!

Let us imagine a world of declining energy availability.

Every tree is fuel.
Every Animal is food.
Every square meter of land must produce.

If you get what you appear to want, then believe me there will be nothing left. Why you would worry about a small number of radioactive sites when the entire natural world has been stripped bare and humans are leading a bare agricultural existance shows how little you really understand..

Not sure why you 'admire' Dittmar's work (I would not add the 'Dr' bit, there is no way scholarship this poor would ever get a PHD), since he is plainly working to a presupposed agenda and refusing to take correction.

>Let us imagine a world of declining energy availability.
>
>Every tree is fuel.
>Every Animal is food.
>Every square meter of land must produce.

It seems that you understood why the oildrum and similar sites have started to inform about.

Just think about it to the end and
or start reading some literature about this subject
(like the Overshoot book).

michael

OK, now I'm puzzled. I had thought, Michael, that you were simply naive, and believed that renewable solar and wind would lead us into a bright new world where everyone would live in peace and harmony. But if you see as much as the above comment indicates, then how do you justify such opposition to the course that has the best chance of avoiding the dieoff scenario?

Roger perhaps you judged me wrongly about something you had no idea?

this aside

what if I am right with the fusion and fission emperors
who have no or little clothes?

yes right the path down from the top of a mountain is steep and without security ropes
and it is dark .. lets finally face reality!

michael

Dylan Thomas to / for his dying father:

..
Go not gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"People! I explain clearly that the world is overpopulated, yet they refuse to take these nice suicide pills I'm kind enough to offer. So strange.."

Not sure why you 'admire' Dittmar's work (I would not add the 'Dr' bit, there is no way scholarship this poor would ever get a PHD)

Be careful!  When I noted this several chapters ago, I was accused of attacking the poor physicist/propagandist.

Without going into details, it is known today that the energy source of the sun and other stars is nuclear fusion.

I have been very interested to learn the extent of the contrary evidence here, largely due to the writings that were left behind by the late Dewey B. Larson (The subject of Richard Heinberg's essay "The Smartest Person I've Met," July 2007). I hope to be able to return to the subject here, particularly regarding Larson's contention "that there is a mass of astronomical evidence demonstrating conclusively that this hydrogen conversion process cannot be the means by which the stellar energy is generated." But for now I leave interested readers with the following juicy food for thought, from Larson's 1988 book, Basic Properties of Matter (pp. 275-277):

The currently accepted hypothesis is that the raw material from which the elements are formed is hydrogen, and that mass is added to hydrogen by means of the addition processes. It is recognized that (with certain exceptions that will be considered later) the addition mechanisms are high energy processes. Atoms approaching each other at low or moderate speeds normally rebound, and take up positions at equilibrium distances. The additions take place only where the speeds are high enough to overcome the resistance, and these speeds generally involve disruption of the structure of the target atoms, followed by some recombination.

The only place now known in our galaxy where the energy concentration is at the level required for operation of these processes on a major scale is in the interiors of the stars. The accepted hypothesis therefore is that the atom building takes place in the stellar interiors, and that the products are subsequently scattered into the environment by supernova explosions. It has been demonstrated by laboratory experiments, and more dramatically in the explosion of the hydrogen bomb, that the mass 2 and mass 3 isotopes of hydrogen can be stimulated to combine into the mass 4 isotope of helium, with the release of large quantities of energy. This hydrogen conversion process is currently the most powerful source of energy known to science (aside from some highly speculative ideas that involve carrying gravitational attraction to hypothetical extremes). The attitude of the professional physicists has always been that the most energetic process known to them must necessarily be the process by which energy is generated in the stars (even though they have had to revise their concept of the nature of this process twice already, the last time under very embarrassing circumstances). The current belief of both the physicists and the astronomers therefore is that the hydrogen conversion process is unquestionably the primary stellar energy source. It is further assumed that there are other addition processes operating in the stars by which atom building beyond the helium level is accomplished.

It will be shown in Volume III that there is a mass of astronomical evidence demonstrating conclusively that this hydrogen conversion process cannot be the means by which the stellar energy is generated. But even without this evidence that demolishes the currently accepted assumption, any critical examination of the fundamentals of atom building will make it clear that high energy processes—inherently destructive—are not the answer to the problem. It is true that the formation of helium from isotopes of hydrogen proceeds in the right direction, but the fact is that the increase in atomic mass that results from the hydrogen conversion reaction is an incidental effect of a process that operates toward a different end. The primary objective of that process, the objective that supplies the probability difference that powers the process, is the conversion of unstable isotopes into stable isotopes.

The fuel for the known hydrogen conversion process, that of the hydrogen bomb and the experiments aimed at developing fusion power, is a mixture of these unstable hydrogen isotopes. The operating principle is merely a matter of speeding up the conversion, causing the reactants to do rapidly what they will do slowly, of their own accord, if not subjected to stimulation. It is freely asserted that this is the same process as that by which energy is generated in the stars, and that the fusion experiments are designed to duplicate the stellar conditions. But the hydrogen in the stars is mainly in the form of the stable mass one isotope, and there is no justification for assuming that this stable atomic structure can be induced to undergo the kind of a reaction to which the unstable isotopes are subject by reason of their instability. The mere fact that the conversion process would be exothermic, if it occurred, does not necessarily mean that it will take place spontaneously. The controlling factor is the relative probability, not the energy balance, and so far as we know, the mass one isotope of hydrogen is just as probable a structure as the helium atom under any physical conditions, other than those, to be discussed in Chapter 26, that lead to atom building.

At high temperatures the chances of atomic break-up are improved, but this does not necessarily increase the proportion of helium in the final product. On the contrary, as noted earlier, a greater kinetic energy results in more fragmentation, and it therefore favors the smaller unit rather than the larger. A certain amount of recombination of the fragments produced under these high temperature conditions can be expected, particularly where the extreme conditions are only temporary, as in the explosion of the hydrogen bomb, but the relative amounts of the various possible products of recombination are determined by probability considerations. Inasmuch as stable isotopes are more probable than unstable isotopes (that is what makes them stable), formation of the stable helium isotope from the atomic and sub-atomic fragments takes precedence over recombination of the unstable isotopes of hydrogen. But the mass one hydrogen isotope that is the principal constituent of the stars is just as stable as helium, and it has the advantage, in a high energy environment, of being the smaller unit, which makes it less susceptible to fragmentation, and more capable of recombination if disrupted. Thus it cannot be expected that recombination of fragments into helium, under high energy conditions, will occur on a large enough scale to constitute a major source of stellar energy.

In this connection, it should be noted that the general tendency of high energy reactions in the material sector of the universe is to break down existing structures rather than build larger ones. The reason for this should be evident. The material sector is the low speed sector, and the lower the speed of matter the more pronounced its material character becomes; that is, the more it deviates from the speeds of the cosmic sector. It follows that, in general, the lower the speed the greater the tendency to form combinations of the material type. Conversely, higher speeds lessen the material character of the matter, and not only inhibit further combination, but tend to disrupt the combinations already existing. Furthermore, this increase in the amount of negative displacement (thermal or translational motion) is not conducive to building up positive displacement in the form of mass. Thus the net result of the reactions in the high speed environment of the stellar interiors can be expected to decrease, rather than increase, the average atomic weight of the matter participating in these reactions.

An analogous process in a more familiar energy range is the pyrolysis of petroleum. Cracking of a paraffinic oil, for instance, yields products that, among other things, include substantial quantities of complex aromatic compounds. For example, one of those that makes it appearance is anthracene, a 24-atom molecule. There are few, if any, of the ring compounds, even the smaller ones, in the original material. Thus it is evident that the high temperatures of this process have not only broken down the original hydrocarbon molecules into smaller molecules or atoms, but have also allowed some recombination into larger molecular units. Nevertheless, the general result of the cracking process is a drastic reduction in the average size of the molecules, the greater part of the mass being reduced to hydrogen, methane, and carbon.

The point that needs to be recognized is that this is what high energy processes do to combinations such as atoms, regardless of whether those atoms are combinations of particles, as contended by conventional physics, or combinations of different forms of motion, as deduced from the postulates of the theory of the universe of motion. Such processes disrupt some or all of the original combinations. In the chaotic conditions generated by the application of powerful forces there is a certain amount of recombination going on alongside the disintegration. This may result in the appearance of some new combinations (isotopes), which may suggest that atom building is occurring. But, in fact, these constructive events are merely incidental results of a destructive process.

Source:http://library.rstheory.org/books/bpom/25.html

Personally I have always found the Electric Universe theory explains stellar phenomena far better than the accepted fusion hypothesis.

Although the quoted passage alludes in a few places to Larson's own theoretical ideas, Larson was at pains to emphasize than his negative verdict on the stellar fusion hypothesis was based on face-value interpretations of numerous observed facts. Alternative ideas on the nature of stellar energy generation, including those put forward under the banner of the Electric Universe, will therefore be entitled to careful consideration.

In the context of this site, if stars can be shown not to be fusion generators, that would further underscore the need for greater accountability for claims on behalf of fusion research funding, to say the least.

I haven't yet explored EU ideas in any detail myself - I'm curious, but haven't got there yet. Do they propose an alternative theory of stellar evolution - correlating the various observed types of stars with an evolutionary sequence?

BTW, Heinberg's article, which I mentioned above, can be found archived here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070819051401/http://www.richardheinberg.com...

Any crank can publish a book, and many do.  There is nothing unstable about the hydrogen nucleus, to give just one fatal error in the hypothesis.  While the theory is nonsense, it does provide an example of crank-ish writing to contrast with the post at the top.

I am reminded of a statement by Xunzi, a 3d or 4th century BC disciple of Confucius:

'This is like trying to lick the sky lying face down on the ground, or saving a hung man by pulling on his legs.'

Some things just cannot be done. And for some of those things, trying will cause a lot of trouble.

" In contrast, the neutron escape rate in smaller reactors and in unmoderated fast reactors is much higher. Therefore, a chain reaction in FBR's with comparable reactor power is more difficult to control, "

Weapons contain fast reactors a few inches in diameter that work very well although briefly. A well designed fast reactor with a well designed control system will be easier to control and safer than a poorly designed thermal reactor with a poorly designed control system such as the Chernobyl design. Of the many variables that determine the desirability of a reactor design, fast or thermal spectrum is not a big factor.

" One consequence is that the required technology to make such highly enriched nuclear fuel will always be faced with the problem of its dual use for bomb making. "

Actually IFRs can be fueled with commercial reactor grade plutonium from spent fuel and depleted uranium 238. There is no need to produce or handle weapons grade material, except to destroy existing plutonium from weapons.

>Weapons contain fast reactors a few inches in diameter that work very well although briefly.

indeed very briefly and little U238 or TH232.

Have you ever thought about why bombs need 90% or more U235 enrichment?

michael

" somehow one performs experiments to learn something from it if experiments fail and are orders of magnitudes away from what is required and if even the most optimistic and unrealistic experimental simulations fail and if the promoters fail to tell the tax payers what the real situation is at some point one can give up to walk in a certain direction "

" The best operation experience comes from the Russian BN-600 FBR reactor with a rated power of 0.56 GWe. This reactor has been operated commercially for 28 years and is scheduled to close in 2010 [8]. Its average energy availability is given as 73.79%. "

"Since 1997, it (Phenix) is rated with 0.13 GWe only, and an energy availability factor of 60.23% is given for 2008. "

You identify first of a kind breeder reactors that produced capacity factors better than the best windmills and solar farms, compare their performance with mature commercial power plant performance, and declare the technology to be totally impractical. The U.S. reactors that are achieving 90% capacity factors now started out their career with capacity factors around 50%.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec9_5.pdf

These are not “orders of magnitude” away from what is required yet you dismiss them because they are not as reliable as mature 60 year old reactor technology. What is your better option and what does it cost?

Bill and others,

if you would be honestly interested in a dialog

you would have noticed that the

"orders of magnitude away statement" is related to commercial fusion energy.

but your are not! So what is the point in arguing?

michael

Michael,
Thanks for your many reasonable responses to some very provocative comments. It's a tough issue.

I really look forward to one day (soon?!) hearing a well-mediated debate on this topic. The trick, it would seem is the Moderator, who must be knowledgable enough in the science to help the Productive parts of the discussion along, but still be able to keep any personal bias from salting the contest.

Regards,
Bob Fiske

I see so much chaff in scientifically valid information that is not central to the argument, tossed in to give a gloss of credibility, but then jumps to conclusions that aren't rationally supported by the volumes of preceding material. Then there is the implicit conflation of fission breeders (which have been PROVEN over the decades beginning in the 1950s) with fusion, for which there are very legitimate questions on feasibility. This implies to the reader that fission breeding is in the same category, and the arguments against are as credible as they are against fusion. This is flat-out, ugly sophistry and clearly not worthy of the Oil Drum. I think the credibility of this site has taken a big hit with this screed.

woh,

one had to wait till comment ``168" (what a remarkable number please remember for the future!) before
censorship is asked for.

thanks!

michael

Micheal,

I was and remain skeptical of your analysis of uranium supplies,but you have convinced me that the future of breeder type reactors is far less certain than I had hoped.

I had already looked into the future of fusion reactors and found several sources that not only back up your general conclusions but actually go a lot farther than you do in making a case against thier feasibility.

I cannot find the link again but on video of a Caltech chemistry professor giving a lecture on the future of energy supplies is a particularly good backup of your work here on fusion.

On behalf of myself and the other regulars here who have learned so much about nuclear issues both pro and con I thank you.

thanks for your message

for the uranium supply .. lets see how reality will show how wrong I am

michael

Well, it already has once, and in the longer term Uranium is relatively abundant. So the only way you could be correct would for short term economic factors to come into play.

please make your uranium mining and secondary resource predictions
as well!

not such general untestable statements

michael

" orders of magnitude away statement" is related to commercial fusion energy. "

Then what is your basis for declaring breeder reactor technology impractical forever after a prototype achieved over 60% capacity factor?

the basis is what I wrote in the article

if you would bother to read it!

michael

Fascinating all the responses. While there is the usual anti-nuclear crowd (which I call the 'useful idiots' of the coal companies, they salute you for all your good work over the decades) and utopianism, the reactions to breeder reactors and fusion surprised me.

Leaving breeder reactors aside (the far larger and vastly greater funded nuclear weapons fraternity disagrees with you) the arguments about fusion, particularly ITER, seem to fall into several camps:

(1) It will never work.
(2) If it works it will take decades
(3) It steals away money from something else I favour, such as laser confinement or thorium plants.
(4) Renewables will do everything.
(5) Its too expensive.

These points I find terribly disheartening. And I reply thus.

(1) Fusion has been the victim of insufficient and stop/start funding. This has hampered research and development and probably delayed progress by 30 years or so. The ITER (plus materials and DEMO) is designed to put a long term commitment to bring to working prototype stage. It will take out that stop/start, competing with other projects, etc, nonsense that has plagued fusion research.

There appears no fundamental ‘killers’ to fusion. Tricky engineering yes, but this will be overcome by continuous R&D = continuous spending.

(2) Yes, so? If all goes to plan then fusion will start to become available as uranium sources dry up (though thorium will of course extend that time if developed).

I continually find it sad that long term R&D projects seem to have no place in our short term return focussed World. Once upon a time 20-30 more year projects were normal. Where do you think nuclear fission reactors came from? It took long and massive continuous funding and R&D to bring them to fruition and commercial reality. It took 24 years from the first pile to the first ‘real’ commercial fission reactor. And the funding dwarfed what we are spending now on fusion (with a lot of thanks to all the nuclear weapons money of course).

(3) Blame Govts for that. It is sad to see scientists shouting at each other and trying to kill other projects so their favoured project can get funding. Some arguments presented here more resemble politicians shouting at each to get funding for their favourite pork. Example, this ad hominem:

• that the established nuclear energy experts do not like to see competition from outsiders, or
• that the nuclear fusion community has managed to dominate the entire nuclear energy research domain, and that the available research budgets are already allocated to the ITER plasma research project

This is an unconsidered (and in my view unreasonable) opinion. It is actually far more probable that with the limited R&D funding available, going with what works is the only option and less developed, though promising, approaches are being ignored.

Fight for more funding overall so that it is not a win-lose situation as money is available for more alternatives. Yes confinement fusion should comparably funded. Yes Thorium reactors R&D should be funded. The amounts are paltry by economic standards (see point 5).

(4) Sadly not. Though there is a lot of luck involved in this. Sad little fact about renewables is that geography is everything.. If you are in the right place great, if not, at best, you are going to have a limited contribution.

If you are in Australia we are blessed by options (though our Govt will never fund them in my lifetime), we could easily power all our daytime power from a mixture of renewables. But if you are in Finland your options are extremely limited, which is why they are building fission plants. Take the UK, what is the maximum theoretical amount of energy you could get from renewables (40%, 50%)? Before long you are into such diminishing returns (e.g. redundant wind generators) that the cost dwarves alternative spending on fission reactors.

Unless of course you imagine a vast Worldwide energy grid which is even more costly (by orders of magnitude) and would also require significant undeveloped technology and R&D, plus huge political and security issues to overcome. Look at the furore (and near wars) over the current and planned (and far smaller) oil and gas pipeline networks as an example.

The huge and growing demand for high density energy and the replacement of gas and coal burning for electricity is not going be achieved on a Worldwide basis by any conceivable mix of renewables, ever. Some lucky regions may achieve it and a useful overall contribution will be made (20%, 30% maybe even 40% Worldwide, though some areas will be virtually 0%), but when the oil, gas, coal and uranium runs out we return to an 18th century, or lower, energy level.

Moreover the demand for electricity is going to increase at an ever faster rate as we will need even more for all those things now powered by fossil fuels. Plus materials recycling is not exactly energy free.

We have to do the development now while we have the spare resources available.

(5) 10B Euros over 30 years for ITER is nothing. If the World can pony up several trillion to bail out some banks, then this is small change. Heck it is less than 5 B-2 bombers, half Goldman Sach's bonus pool for one year or a fifth of the US's spending on nuclear weapons last year. It is a less than a tenth of 1 year’s spending by the US on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Me? I’m happy pay my fraction of cent to a project that might just save high tech civilisation for the grand children.

dear "old" sceptic

>There appears no fundamental ‘killers’ to fusion.

it is certainly good to be sceptic but did you read my paper?

anyway

how do you think science works if not by the
scientific method?

you prefer the science fiction method
like from the movie "back to the future".

fine with me.

regards

michael

Dr. Dittmar, I was fascinated by your arguments concerning the roles (or non-roles) that you expect nuclear fission and fusion to play in feeding energy into the power grids of the future. I found your arguments regarding nuclear fusion to be very persuasive. However, those that you developed, concerning nuclear fission, left me totally unconvinced. In particular, you appear to have overlooked the energy implications of the work that is currently being done in the Russian Federation and in Italy in the area designing and building heavy-metal nuclear power plants.

Basically, the old, traditional model of how nuclear power plants should be built and operated envisioned the use of a few large sodium-cooled breeder reactors being operated to breed supplies of plutonium that would then be burned (on a once-through basis) in pressurized water reactors.

I would argue that that old model of what types of nuclear reactors should be constructed should simply be abandoned, for reasons of safely, cost, waste product storage, and the possible plutonium diversion into nuclear weapons.

The new model of how nuclear power plants should be built and operated is radically different. In the case of that new model only heavy-metal (lead or lead-bismuth) plants would be constructed which would then operate on a new, steady state, breed/burn principle. The neutron spectrum developed in the cores of heavy metal reactors is remarkable for its ability to burn plutonium and actinides, as well as its ability to breed new fuel from U-238.

A most concise statement of that new approach was given in the paper “Vision of Nuclear Power Options for XXI Century” by Adamov, Muraviev, and Orlov. “The new generation of FRs (Fast Reactors) will operate on fuel of equilibrium composition that does not require any addition or extraction of fissile ingredients during reprocessing. Only fission products will be extracted and depleted or natural uranium added, while the most dangerous long-living actinides left with U-Pu mixture in the regenerated fuel to be “burnt” in the reactor.

A convincing high level description of how the scientists and engineers in the Russian Federation will implement the new approach is given in the Sokolov and Rachkov paper “Approaches to the Creation of a Closed Nuclear Cycle in the Russian Federation”.

For the nuclear power plant system being developed, only fast reactors (FRs) would be built and operated. Because of the inherent safety characteristics of the heavy metal reactors, accidents would have consequences limited to the facilities in which those reactor were located.

In the case of the breed/burn fast reactors the costs of the initial fuel loading are almost irrelevant to the costs of the nuclear electricity, since subsequent loading require only the addition of small amounts of U-238.

Most of the plutonium found in today’s waste stream from pressurized water reactors would undoubtedly be extracted for use in the first fuel loadings of tomorrow’s FRs.

The most efficient use of the heavy reactors will require the development of various types of nitride fuels. Work on some of the key elements in that aspect of heavy metal reactors is reported in the A.V. Vatulin et. al. article “Mononitride Urnaium-Plutonium Fuel of Fast Lead-Cooled Reactors”

Very interesting work on the Italian ELSY reactor is reported in the transactions reports published in connection with the European Nuclear Conference 2007 (16-20- September 2007). The ELSY work groups headed by Enrico Mainardi at Ansaldo Nucleare are of particular importance to the fast reactor programs being pursued by scientists in Europe.

However, it is highly probable that the fundamental practical importance of the heavy-metal reactor initiatives will be appreciated only after the price of oil has reached very high levels and the consequences of the global warming processes have reached an intensity that really scares large numbers of people.

>I found your arguments regarding nuclear fusion to be very persuasive.

thanks, so please help to distribute them!

by the way just to make sure
the tritium supply problem is fundamental
for any hypothetical device no matter if it is imagined to be started by a laser an accelerator
or just by bomb explosions.

>However, those that you developed, concerning nuclear fission, left me totally
>unconvinced. In particular, you appear to have overlooked the energy implications of the work that is currently being done in the Russian Federation and in Italy >in the area designing and building heavy-metal nuclear power plants.

Well, it is very difficult to discuss such projects as they are not based on anything concrete.
But I can assure you once detailed projects are being proposed and experiments will be performed
and the data are public .. I will discuss them.

regards

michael

Dear Chris Babb,

I have had a look at the documents you mention in the European Nuclear Conference 2007 (16-20- September 2007).

Particularly they are reported at http://www.euronuclear.org/events/enc/enc2007/transactions.htm and the proceedings can be found in
http://www.euronuclear.org/events/enc/enc2007/transactions/transactions-....

There I found  two articles related to the ELSY project

1) ELSY : NEUTRONIC DESIGN APPROACH  (page 59)
2) The ELSY Project  ( page 98)

Article 1) is the report about " the preliminary neutronic design approach of ELSY"
while article 2) " is principally a status report that reports summaries.
The preliminary neutronics design is based on a simulated core as no prototype for the FR exists.
Now even in the simulated case (so without amy experimental confirmation) some points have actually struck my interest and they go along what Michael reports in his article about the LFR.

A combination of the two makes an interesting reading.
Article 2 states that " Neutronic modeling followed by thermohydraulic and thermomechanical calculations has to be
performed to estimate the key performances of this core."

For the scheme that they use they state that (page 67)
"The main aim of this first approach is to verify the Control Rods (CR) worth, the Conversion Factor (CF) and the Minor Actinide burning or build-up attitude. "

It is interesting to notice that one is talking about conversion factor and no more about breeding gain.The reason becomes clear at page 70 where the BR (breeding ratio) is actually shown to be 0.99 i.e smaller than 1.It is not clear what uncertainty one has on such a number (ether statistical and particularly systematic) soit is hard to understand the value of such expectation. If the number is to be taken at face value the preliminary configuration does not achieve breeding.

One can try to have a better idea of the expected peformance in fuel economy by using the burn-up information at page 71 in the statement and plot about the mass balance
4.5 Mass balances 
"The total core inventory is 37 ton of fuel, 30 ton of depleted U and 7 ton of Pu. The sustainabilty target is quite well reached: in fact the Pu mass does not change significantly (-3.14 kg/Twhth), while the large part of the energy is coming, both directly and indirectly, from the fission of the U (-40.96  kg/TWhth)."

Effectively it would seem that even if it is small the plutonium content decreases (as BR<1) and in fact the final value after 3 years is expected to be diminished by 2%.
As the assumption about overall efficiency of the reactor is not fully transparent I tried a simple, "naive ", ideal calculation which should give us a ballpark figure: the reactor has a power of 1500Mw so in one day at 100% efficiency of running, the expected delivered energy is 1500MW*24h=36000MWh=36GWh. This means that , ideally, 1TWh is produced in 27 days of continuous operation. So if I use the statement in the mass balance: every 27 days the Pu mass decreases by 3.14 Kg.
In one year of continuous smooth operation about 36 Kg are lost, in 3 years about 108 Kg are lost (with the naive approximation that all conditions stay the same).
Now 108Kg/7000 Kg ~1.5% that is roughly consistent with the 2% quoted by the plot: this makes me wonder about what assumptions are there behind the operation of the reactor.
Now let's couple this info with the fact that Keff (effeective multiplication factor) goes down with increasing time (figure 9 page 70) by about 1000 pcm (per cent milli=10^-5) a year, starting from about 1.037. No statement are given about statistical and systematic uncertainties on these numbers.
This means that , again bytaking these numbers at face value, one can extrapolate that the reactivity goes to about 1 in 4 years  so around the beginning of the 5th year the extrapolation tellz us that the reactivity is below 1 and the reactor is sub-critical: I would conclude that the neutron flux will go down and new fuel needs to be added to go back to an acceptable criticality.
In order to go back to initial status (and run the detector for 4 more years..) one ideally needs about 150 Kg of plutonium and about 30x6.6%=198Kg of Uranium: where would these be coming from?

In addition if we consider the statement at page 61

"In order to assure a high efficiency of the reactor operation and the requirements of non-proliferation, a long fuel life-time in the core should be aimed. In ELSY, where liquid lead is used as coolant, the corrosion of the pin cladding will play a major role. The existing laboratory studies on compatibility of different structure materials with molten lead show that some of them can resist a corrosion attack of the liquid metal flow with a velocity of 1.8-2.0 m/s and temperature of 560 °C during 12000 hours under oxygen control conditions. A small thickness of the formed corrosion layer (4-5 microns) allows
making a prognosis that their operation time at this temperature can be extended to 50 000 hours
(more than 5 years) [1]. However, there is no similar experience under in-pile conditions. New
advancements in the development of the corrosion resistant steels and protective layers (i.e. GESA treatment) indicate that longer operation periods can be envisaged in a near future [2].
Thus a fuel life-time in the core can be assumed to be 5 years as a realistic option and, tentatively, 10 years as a futuristic option.
Of course the residence time of the fuel in core is ruled even by the allowed fuel burnup and allowed cladding damage."

So it would seem that there is no material that is able to resist more than 5 years for the pin cladding (given that 10 is a futuristic option).

The picture that comes out is about a preliminary design that, on paper,
a) does not achieve breeding gain =1
b) goes subcritical after about 5 years and needs new plutonium and uranium if one wants to restore the initial inventory
(If I take the statement in article 2) at page 60:

"Minor Actinides burning is a key point. The ELSY should be an “adiabatic reactor” in the sense that it produces its own new fuel (Conversion Factor = 1+ reprocessing losses) and burns its own self- produced MA, without any material exchange with the environment, except loading natural or
depleted Uranium and unloading fission products."
The adiabatic reactor seems to need more work to get there.
)

c) has a hard time to be operated after the 5th year anyhow as the cladding succumbs to corrosion (this is a statement with some experimental evidence).

The uncertainties about these numbers are not really given or quantified in the paper both from a statistical and a systematic point of view.
(As an aside it seems clear that with these parameters a breeding operation of the reactor to fuel new reactors is clearly not feasible: the time to produce fuel for another reactor is prohibitively large ; it seems that this is not something even intended in the original design though.) 

It seems that the statement found at the gen4 site (http://www.gen-4.org/Technology/systems/lfr.htm) is still really valid as far as corrosion.

"Most challenges have been positively addressed by the conceptual ELSY design configuration as of the end of 2008, but the challenge remains of the follow-on design of a very high temperature reactor, operating beyond 550°C, the design of which has not yet been addressed, mainly because of outstanding information about corrosion resistant, high-temperature materials."

I would tend to add that the paper is not really convincing about the sustainability aspect either.

Maybe people on the list can clarify things for me and correct my statements. Am I missing something?

Cheers,
Francesco Spanò

Minor Actinides burning is a key point. The ELSY should be an “adiabatic reactor” in the sense that it produces its own new fuel (Conversion Factor = 1+ reprocessing losses) and burns its own self-produced MA, without any material exchange with the environment, except loading natural or depleted Uranium and unloading fission products. Nevertheless to cope with the MA legacy it will be able to burn in addition even MA coming from other nuclear plants.

They're figuring the design can run off 'spent' LWR fuel, of which there is an ample supply. Also, a "unitary Conversion Factor" is a design goal for this project, in pursuit of "proliferation resistance". No surplus fissile material is to be produced, which means there's no way to make a bomb without shutting down the reactor.

Quite interesting is the capability of reaching the unitary Conversion Factor without using neither radial blankets nor axial (at least in the wrapperless square variant), that increases essentially the proliferation resistance.

I.e. the design deliberately loses neutrons that could be producing more Pu-239.

Greetings Dr. Spano ?
The issue of the core breeding ratio of heavy metal reactors is clearly important for the long-term viability of fission energy reactors. However, a core breeding ratio (CBR) of 0.99 is fairly close to the desired ratio of 1.0, so that the even without reaching break-even, the amount of energy extracted from a pound of uranium will go up dramatically in relation to the energy extraction achieved by the once through approach used by pressurized water reactors.

However, calculations by Georgy Toshinsky (See IAEA Research Contract No. 13093) indicate that with mixed nitride fuels a CBR of 1.13 can be expected. These figures relate to calculations carried out with respect to the Russian SVBR-100. I am assuming that similar performance characteristics would obtain with the the ELSY and BREST lead cooled reactors.

Even with the EP-823 steels in Russia, the fuel rods in the lead cooled reactors will have to be replaced somewhere in the range of 5 to 8 years after each fuel loading due to neutronic damage to the fuel rod cladding steels.

What is not clear from my limited reading of the literature on the lead cooled reactors is the degree to which control rods might be used to maintain a CBR of approximately 1.0 over the course of a single fuel loading. It would appear that a CBR of 1.13 would certainly provide room for maintaining an effective CBR of around 1.0 over a period of several years.

On another point, the use of super-critical carbon dioxide as the fluid being used to extract heat from the reactor's lead coolant could make it unnecessary to push the coolant temperatures above the current upper design limit of 480 degrees centigrade.

To go much beyond these tentative observations will require real-world data collected from the actual operation of prototype lead cooled test reactors.

Greetings Dr Babb(?)
(from Dr to Dr, I suppose:-) ), thanks a lot for your reply!
Unfortunately I am now experiencing a bout of influenza that is preventing me from checking your interesting comments with the detail that they deserve (just got sick today) and share my comments with everyone.
If the time for comments ends today I think we can both at least agree on your final sentence: "To go much beyond these tentative observations will require real-world data collected from the actual operation of prototype lead cooled test reactors.".
Till the next time,
Francesco Spano'

P.S. if I fel better and time allows I'll get back to them though..

It is interesting to notice that one is talking about conversion factor and no more about breeding gain.The reason becomes clear at page 70 where the BR (breeding ratio) is actually shown to be 0.99 i.e smaller than 1

Please note that a fast-spectrum reactor using NU fuel and operated so as to produce no excess fissionables would have a conversion ratio of 0.993, and could not go any higher.  This is due to the 0.7% abundance of U-235 in the NU.

If the number is to be taken at face value the preliminary configuration does not achieve breeding.

Which was the design goal. Net breeders are frowned upon, at least in the West, due to the proliferation paranoia.

I am amazed that Dittmar managed to present this as a "proof" that net breeding is some kind of elaborate lie of the "nuclear Vatican". The fact that he didn't back off and adjusted his conclusions after this was demonstrated (several times) in the discussion, is rather telling.

Michael I read your paper carefully, I simply disagree with it. I'm not alone of course. Large numbers of fusion researchers disagree with you. There is a tipping point when scepticism becomes just plain pessimism. Your argument, summarised is that in about a century (max) the lights go out, except in those lucky countries with abundant renewables.

Yes there are issues, but just because you or I cannot see solutions, this certainly doesn't mean that someone else won't. There's probably some young nuclear scientist, without our aged and stale brains, who has some great ideas and the drive and ability to achieve them. The solutions will almost certainly not be what we imagine, but if they work what the heck.

This is a true scientific experiment, now that ITER has stable and contineous funding and the ability to hire and retain bright minds, then if they fail, then we can say that fusion is impossible, then we start learning to basket weave again.

The Tritium issue is even, very worst case, not a game changer. The issue then becomes how can we create enough of it to power intial fusion stations until we can, later of course, develope D-D ones. Small specialised fission reactors, as an adjunct to medical isotope production perhaps? Amazingly getting enough enough tritium in for all those 10s of thousands of boosted nuclear weapons that were created was a problem that was quite simply solved.

But since we create Tritium by combarding Lithium 6 with neutrons, which fusion reactors have in abundance, then it might be difficult, it might be tricky, but it certainly is within the realms of reasonable probability

I'm sure we can quite easily do something similar for something as important as 'the last energy resource'. If we really need it then we will do it (unless you really like basket weaving of course).

PS, as a tip, it always appears bad to say "you haven't read it" when someone disagrees with you. Your article is pretty good but it is not the 10 Commandments. Plus I'm always reminded of another Clark's Law "When an eminent scientist (ie past their prime) says something is impossible, then it is just about to happen". Remember space travel?

Dear Oldsceptic,

let me start with your remark
> it always appears bad to say "you haven't read it" when someone disagrees with you.

well, what else can I say otherwise concerning the amount of tritium required and the ignorance
about the tritium problem. You know the amount required for a fusion bomb is small compared to what is needed
for a 1 GWe hypothetical fusion reactor running day and night.

Just have a look at what Prof. Abdou has to say about it
(quoted in my paper(s) and the talks and papers he has written about it).
I just made this and other facts, usually hidden, available to you and others.

If you need further proof and 10 billion dollars at least to learn that ITER will provide the result
we know already from JET and similar projects, fine with me.

concerning the D-D fusion, well you know not only is the cross section and the required temperature
far beyond the one for what is needed for D-T fusion
this reaction has another fundamental problem. How can the produced energy be transferred outside of the
core? At least theoretically the neutron does it in the D-T case.

If people working on plasma physics would be honest about that they would not hide all these details.

Thus the comparison with the fairy tail
the emperors new suit..

just read it to your children/grandchildren and explain the story to them.

regards

michael

actually in case you have time

have a look at the ITER website and the videos
and compare with the real problems..

doesn't this remind you of some fairy tails?

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

michael

Good grief, Michael! If you ever had any credibility regarding fusion energy, you just blew it!

concerning the D-D fusion, well you know not only is the cross section and the required temperature far beyond the one for what is needed for D-T fusion this reaction has another fundamental problem. How can the produced energy be transferred outside of the
core? At least theoretically the neutron does it in the D-T case.

Getting energy "out of the core" is not the problem. The problem (one of many) is keeping enough of it in to sustain the reaction. The confined plasma will be radiating energy like mad, through bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation from plasma electrons and from gamma radiation from fusion events. About the only energy retained in the plasma to offset the bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation is the recoil energy in the He4 nuclei. That's a pretty tiny fraction of the energy in each fusion event.

In fact, the only thing that makes a sustained D-T fusion reaction theoretically feasible is that there's a good deal of D-D fusion going on as well! It's vastly easier to ignite fusion in a D-T mix than it is to ignite straight deuterium, but once the D-T plasma has ignited, the temperature is high enough to sustain a fair rate of D-D fusions.

In 50% of D-D fusion events, the products are a tritium nucleus, a proton, and a gamma. In the other 50%, it's a He3 nucleus, a neutron, and a gamma. In both cases, the nucleus produced soon undergoes fusion with another deuterium -- either D-T yielding He4 and a neutron, or D-He3 yielding He4 and a proton. It's the protons from half the D-D reactions and from the D-He3 that couple most strongly with the plasma, sustaining the fusion burn.

In your exposition of the tritium "problem", you ignored the additional neutrons from the D-D fusions, as well as the effects of neutron amplification that can be built into the tritium breeding blanket. In fact, supply of tritium would not be a fundamental problem for fusion energy.

All this is basic stuff I learned 43 years ago. I commented elsewhere that I concluded then that fusion in magetically confined plasmas would never be a comercially viable power source. What I didn't explain were my reasons for that conclusion.

It's not that I thought that type of fusion was technically impossible. In fact I rather expected "scientific breakeven" to have been achieved decades ago. But in comparison to the stark simplicity of a fission reactor, it just seemed impossible that the complexity and design compromises needed for fusion would ever be justified. Kind of like expecting that an advanced military fighter airplane would one day be more economical than a piper cub.

The only reason to pursue fusion power would be in case uranium and thorium were to somehow run out. But even 43 years ago, I knew that that would not happen within the million years or so that are likely the upper limits on humanity's tenure on earth.

Dear Roger,

may be you should update your 43 year old "knowledge".
Just read the articles/papers from Prof. Abdou for example.

just a few comments

>The confined plasma will be radiating energy like mad, through bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation from plasma electrons and from gamma radiation from >fusion events.

indeed, resulting in what is often called explosion! not what you like in a multi billion magnet structure!

> there's a good deal of D-D fusion going on as well!

how much 1% perhaps?

just have a look at the cross section diagrams to convince yourself that you are not up-to-date

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fusion_rxnrate.svg

>About the only energy retained in the plasma to offset the bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation is the recoil energy in the He4 nuclei. That's a pretty tiny >fraction of the energy in each fusion event.
here are the numbers again
18 MeV in total 4 MeV to the alpha 14 MeV to the neutron!
in D-T

>In your exposition of the tritium "problem", you ignored the additional neutrons from the D-D fusions, as well as the effects of neutron amplification that can >be built into the tritium breeding blanket.

no I did not!
I quoted the literature about it. Have a look at the simulation publication I linked Abdou et al.

the results are embarrassing for the breeding blanket (and the small experiments performed so far even more!)

Thus, please up date your knowledge.. we have learned something during the past 43 years.
And this is what I have summarized in the section.

Fusion Illusions

michael

I have to quote this back-and-forth, both to extract the example and to prevent the above from being edited to remove the evidence:

The confined plasma will be radiating energy like mad, through bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation from plasma electrons and from gamma radiation from fusion events.

indeed, resulting in what is often called explosion! not what you like in a multi billion magnet structure!

It is impossible that a German speaker could mis-understand "bremsstrahlung" to mean an explosion.  The conclusion regarding Dittmar's honesty (or lack thereof) is left to the reader.

> there's a good deal of D-D fusion going on as well!

how much 1% perhaps? just have a look at the cross section diagrams to convince yourself that you are not up-to-date

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fusion_rxnrate.svg

That's a nice chart, but it doesn't show anything that wasn't known when I studied fusion. Yes, the cross section for D-D fusion is much lower than for D-T fusion until you reach plasma temperature of 10 billion K. But the expectation back in '66 was that a commercial fusion reactor would operate in the vicinity of 1 billion K, where the difference in cross sections is only about 1.5 OOM (a factor of 30). The plasma feed would be about 90% D, 10% T, making D-D collisions 10x more frequent than D-T. So the frequency of D-D fusions would be about one third the frequency of D-T fusions. But each D-D fusion carried a "bonus" of an added T or He3 nucleus, plus one fast neutron to suport tritium breeding. So 25% D-T fusions was considered a reasonable operating point.

Of course, this was all very hypothetical. Nobody knew what the actual operating parameters for a commercial fusion reactor would eventually turn out to be. Back then everyone was focused on the issue of plasma instabilities, which would have to be overcome before they could even begin to think about practical results. AFAIK, operating parameters are still very much conjectural. One can talk about what's planned for ITER, but nobody pretends that ITER will be anything close to a practical fusion reactor.

All this is beside the point, however. The point is that you were blatently wrong about D-D fusion having a "fundamental problem" of getting energy "out of the core". You were also either wrong in your own right, or guilty of presenting somebody else's conclusions about tritium breeding in a misleading manner, when you wrote that tritum supply was a "fundamental problem" that would make fusion reactors forever unworkable.

The point is that you were blatently wrong about D-D fusion having a "fundamental problem" of getting energy "out of the core"

It's actually worse than that.  If the energy didn't come out of the core as neutrons, the technical problems of the first wall would be radically simpler.  If most of the fusion energy was retained as charged particles, much of the energy could be converted directly to electricity via MHD at much higher efficiency than heat engines (MHD would be the topping cycle).

In other words, Dittmar takes an advantage and paints it as a liability.

sound like another great
hypothetical idea for a far future d-d reactor
and a great way to get the energy out...

did you make it up on the back of an envelope or you have a backup
from hard experimental facts?

michael

Come on Roger,

your statement of 1 billion K is really out of question and demonstrates that your "learning" is still 43 years behind!
like your statement that
> nobody pretends that ITER will be anything close to a practical fusion reactor.

just look at the ITER website and watch the video in the middle of their page
(I linked it already )

> Back then everyone was focused on the issue of plasma instabilities

like today and nothing has been solved here .. at best a few seconds before things go wrong
and yes for ITER if everything works as perfect as possible it might be a few minutes.
They are very worried about plasma contaminations as well!

>You were also either wrong in your own right, or guilty of presenting somebody else's conclusions about tritium breeding in a misleading manner, when you >wrote that tritum supply was a "fundamental problem" that would make fusion reactors forever unworkable.

why? Abdou has made the point very clear of where we stand
and that ``this is a go no go issue"

I acknowledged him very much about his honesty.

That he didn't speak out and put the different small other elements together
(yes he could have done it) is his problem.

I am not pretending that I discovered it all myself,
but, yes I pointed it out and did the ``crime" to publish it!

Fact is that the fusion / plasma physics community tries as much as possible to hide this problem
it seems successfully to some extend.

But as they have already so many other problems with huge cost overruns and so on
it looks like they are efficient in killing their own money source well before they even start solid
construction work.

concerning getting the energy from the D-D fusion out of the reactor core in a hypothetical reactor
by synchrotron radiation.

just show me a calculation that this (and how) can function from 43 years ago
or newer if you like. If you do not find such calculation it doesn't demonstrate that this does not exist
but read a little about the arguments given by D-T people about the greatness of the neutron
taking out the energy and how easy it is to transfer this energy to a cooling medium.
How do you transfer the x-rays to a cooling medium by the way?

yes EP as you entered with your ``clever" comment I understand the difference between synchrotron radiation and
an explosion.

but EP do you understand the reason for plasma instabilities?
and plasma eruptions .. what are these eruptions if not some kind of "explosions"
which easily destroy the first wall...

michael

First, you said

indeed, resulting in what is often called explosion!

And when called on it, you said:

plasma eruptions .. what are these eruptions if not some kind of "explosions"
which easily destroy the first wall...

They are not "explosions" in the sense you (carelessly or deliberately?) allowed people to think from the first remark.  Damage to the first wall is not damage to the magnet structure, which is a very long way from a "nuclear explosion" which is the mental image most people would have when reading your words.

If you cannot write clearly and accurately in English, you should probably have refused the offer to write for TOD.

haha

>If you cannot write clearly and accurately in English, you should probably have refused the offer to write for TOD.

if you could not understand that I was not talking about huge zar bomb like explosions bad luck.
I think other could get the meaning and you seem to confirm

these little explosions just destroy the first wall .. tell this to the plasma people
and they will tell you that you are nuts!

michael

Plasma instabilities would not ordinarily destroy the first wall. But contact with the first wall instantly quenches the plasma and puts a halt to any fusion going on. The problem with the first wall is standing up to the intense neutron flux from the burning plasma.

concerning getting the energy from the D-D fusion out of the reactor core in a hypothetical reactor by synchrotron radiation.
<..>
yes EP <..> I understand the difference between synchrotron radiation and an explosion.

Hmmm. I had used the precise terms "cyclotron radiation" and "bremsstrahlung" for the radiative losses from a hot, magnetically confined plasma. Now you're talking about "synchrotron radiation". Do you really not know the differences?

Cyclotron radiation is emitted by hot electrons orbiting in a magnetic field. Bremsstrahlung is emitted by the electrostatic deflection of an electron by a charged nucleus when the electron's energy is too great to allow capture. Synchrotron radiation is emitted by ultra-relativistic particles passing through spatially varying magnetic fields that induce a "wiggling" motion on the particles. It is emitted in a highly focused beam parallel to the direction that the particle is traveling.

And it doesn't occur within the magnetically confined plasma of a fusion machine.

I'm explaining this to someone who is supposed to be a particle physicist??? Is it really only a language barrier that we're dealing with here?

I've said elsewhere that I share your opinion about the ultimate viability of magnetic confinement fusion (on the ITER model). But you're using phony arguments against it, while showing no evidence of understanding the real issues. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in your technical knowledge and credentials.

Large numbers of climate researchers are saying that climate change is real and that humans are causing it. Many of the critics claim that the climate researchers are paid by governments that need the greehouse taxes income and are therefore not telling the truth or standing up against their fellow researchers.

Can we now say to those climate change deniers: you are wrong because most climate researchers say you are? Or are all fusion researchers, dependent as they are on government funding, not telling what they really think?

just try to make a critical analysis of the ITER webpage and related stuff
and compare it with the remaining problems
summarized and explained in my article.

but judge yourself,
stop just accepting blindly what "experts" of all types are trying to tell you.
don't believe me, analyze my papers in detail and compare with reality.

It is you who has to pay the bill
from the lies we were being told about never ending oil
about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
about the nice financial system etc ..

michael
ps..
have a look at the latest IEA data on electric energy in August 2009
and see how nuclear evolved in OECD countries.
and check the data .. it is easy now to find many data about mining etc
do it while you still can.

I won't be able to critically analyze the fundamental physics or engineering difficulties, like most people do. And I have a degree in applied physics so I should be able to get further in understanding then the average layman. What I can do is try to filter the real arguments between from the plain bullshit, insults, propaganda and unfounded opinions.

I've come to the conclusion some time ago that I'm not going to be on futuristic super high tech solutions. It's not that I don't think that commercially successful, safe and reliant liquid thorium reactors aren't near future or not. One of the reasons is that there are also social implications with super giant energy monopolies and the way they manipulate politics and influence the price to pay for electricity for their profit.

So I'm going to conserve, be more self reliant without having a less comfortable life. In fact, for instance, using better insulation improves comfort levels, cycling to work improves health, eating home grown food get's me out of the house more and it tastes better. My self made manual transfer switch allows me to ride out a blackout using my solarpanels, and the food in the fridge stays frozen. I can even make a cup of coffee in the evenings. The savings in avoided cost in buying ever more expensive electricity and natural gas is easily earned back.

I understand solarpanels, electronics, wind, storage and can build/use/influence/repair them. I see the long term final cost for me and notice it's cheaper then unproven future monopolized and centralized tech. With this in mind and since there are many concerns about the nuclear chain, why would I be enthusiastic about it?

" cycling to work improves health, eating home grown food get's me out of the house more and it tastes better. My self made manual transfer switch allows me to ride out a blackout using my solarpanels, and the food in the fridge stays frozen… "

Only 1/3 of our electricity is consumed in our homes. When people take their homes off the grid they say “I am off he grid”, but really they are still 2/3 on the grid.

" With this in mind and since there are many concerns about the nuclear chain, why would I be enthusiastic about it? "

Because, if the grid fails you will have no job to go to, there will be no spare parts for your bicycle, or fresh batteries for your solar array, and no medicine if you get sick.

People with guns will come and take your solar panels, and your freezer full of food after they kill you.

uh..
> People with guns will come and take your solar panels, and your freezer full of food after they kill you.
and such people should control nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons?

may be one should start eliminating rifles as well.
Did you try to explain this to your riffle association ..

michael

ps.. actually the same people go already all around and take the oil and other valuable resources
claiming to be superior to the rest of the world.

you just gave a great argument why nuclear energy wouldn't solve any problems
it is supposed to solve!

thanks for such a great "final word" in this exchange!

" may be one should start eliminating rifles as well.
Did you try to explain this to your riffle association .. "

Ah, so when you power down you will have no weapons? Do you really want everybody to know that?

Michael that is a bit disingeneous. And frankly I dont have the time right now to go through all the 'mistakes' you made in your analysis. But here are some:

Firstly knowledge is cumulative. The skills we develope to master D-T will give insights into D-D and hopefully the ability to master that too.

Again I repeat, just because you or I cannot imagine it now, means nothing. Major breakthroughs (ah la fusion bombs) or cumulative developments (e.g. jet engines or fission reactors) will definitely happen.

Secondly, production of tritium from just fission is a known. Thus we are just talking about engineering scale. And that is only if we cannot crack Tritium production from fusion neutron bombardment. Again compromises (in the short/medium term) is quite possible. Example scenario: some, but not enough initially, is produced from the fusion reactor. The remainder is produced the 'old fashioned' way. It is not hard to imagine continual improvements in both sides of the equation, thus rendering any 'tritium gap' obsolete. Plus I'd add, count up the number of boosted nuclear weapons (before small scale lithium based fusion bombs dominated) that were produced all over the World. That was a LOT of tritium.

To do this you have to think of an overall system. With large overlaps between large scale fission (and I totally agree with you that Thorium will be part of the equation) and emerging fusion. The ratios change over time as (a) uranium and eventually (poorly understood) thorium resources decline and are husbanded for essential (e.g. for medical/industrial isotopes and thorium production) (b) Fusion technology matures and moves into the 'mass production and standardisation' phase, probably the 2nd generation after DEMO.

From another angle these are medium/long term investments. Now what will happen is more than you or I can predict, there will definitely be good/bad surprises.

But when someone says that 'it is impossible' then I just remember the famous astronomer that said space travel was impossible, a couple of years before Sputnik.

As for the hyperbole "don't trust experts". Well isn't that what you what us to do for you?

Might as well trust me, after all I'm an 'expert' or 'non- expert' depending on your point of view.

Rhetorical point I know (read too much Stafford Beer in the past).

But here is some hard facts. In the 1920's Monash brought back German technology into Victoria in Australia and created the SECV burning brown coal and turning it into electricity. In 1970 I was taken around Hunterston AGR fission station by my uncle, a nuclear engineer.

Just 50 years seperated them, from a nacent poor coal technolgy to a full production nuclear technology. Now If I had gone to scientists in 1920 and asked them if that could happen? Perhaps a few visionaries would have predicted that, and at least some would have said 'it is impossible' and would have given some very good sounding reasons why that was so.

What's that old saying 'science progresses one funeral at a time' as the old die off and give way to the younger and more creative ones? We have a difference, I know some young turks are coming up behind me and they are better than I am, just as I was, when I was a young turk railing against the old fuddies.

Imagine fusion in 20 years. It takes a brave man to predict that it 'is impossible'.

I'd recommend that you do the analysis in more far more detail and get it published in Nature.

Hi,

knowledge is cumulative. yes, but what does this mean
it grows exponentially? Logarithmically? or converges till we know the answer?

there is the saying

science starts as heresy, becomes common knowledge and ends as a dogma.

I think we can see this "dogma" has been reached unfortunately in many areas.

bad luck.

Well, lets go ahead and perhaps you remember some of the things I wrote
and can check eventually with reality.

lets see.

It took a long time to bring the ``peak oil problem and its consequences" to the mind of many.
Lets see how how long it will take with ``peak uranium and nuclear energy".

michael

OldSkeptic, I fear you are wasting your time.  You will not receive any direct, honest responses from Dittmar (except perhaps that his agenda is to promote de-nuclearization followed by a power-down).

I direct your attention to this subthread, where Dittmar deliberately misconstrues the meaning of a German (his native language) word.  I have been an advocate for fact-checking all posts on TOD before publication as a way to raise the reputation of TOD as a trustworthy source (long before I ever heard of Dittmar), but I never thought it could get this bad.

Micheal Dittmar hasn't translated a German word. Bremsstrahlung is a scientific definition of a radiation produced by the acceleration of a charged particle. Sometimes English speaking people don't come up with their own word and just use what somebody else came up with:
Like with the word robot:

The word robot was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920

Und im Uebrigen ist es auffallend, dass Sie Dr. Michael Dittmar hauptsaechlich Beleidigungen und Verleumdungen entgegenzusetzen haben.
Offensichtlich sind Ihnen die Fakten ausgegangen.
Insofern beneide ich seine Geduld.

I have to note here that while Dittmar has been screaming that peer review to ensure accuracy would be "censorship", I have been threatened with actual censorship in this discussion.  So far as I can tell that has not yet happened; this comment is still visible to me.

Well, maybe it's about time that you start showing some manners then. You are constantly using insulting one person using nitwit, liar, clown, neuroticism, ignorant, dumb, despicable, stupid, dishonest. Even in a heated discussion, that does no good to the points you make. To be frank, if anyone is bringing down the reputation of TOD it's you, even if you are a so called well-established member. Try to win a discussion with proof and facts and by pointing out errors, not calling your opponent names and then complain about possible censorship.

But I know how these things go, it happens to me too, so in an attempt to lighten things up a bit:
http://xkcd.com/386/

I'm going to address the challenge from here in a subthread which can't disappear if the editors get censorious.  Dittmar won't do the calculations, so I am doing them for public information.

Just do the simple calculation how much energy a PWR could have produced with 500 kg of fissile material

This is not overly difficult.  The prompt and delayed non-neutrino energy release from U-233 is within about 1% of the figure for U-235, so I will assume them to be equal for the sake of argument.

The typical burnup of 4%-enriched fuel in an LWR is about 40 GW-d/ton.  It burns down to about 1% U-235, so the energy production is about 1000 GW-d per ton of U-235 loaded and 1300 GW-d per ton of U-235 consumed (a substantial amount of that energy production is from U-238 bred to Pu-239).  Shippingport extracted about 6.5 GW-d/ton from the Th-U core, but it began with 1.17% U-233 and finished with about 1.18%.  This is about 560 GW-d per ton U-233 originally loaded, but a negative overall "consumption" of fissionables.

The core was nowhere close to being exhausted; the reactor was shut down in order to perform analysis, not from any need to refuel.  Had Shippingport continued to operate (say, by replacing a few sections of core for analysis and restarting to see how far the rest could be burned), it appears likely that the overall burnup could have equalled or exceeded that of a typical LEU core.  I do not know if the overall concentration of U-233 was past peak or was still increasing at the time of shutdown, and this would be very valuable to know.

(lets ignore for now that this U233 was produced in a rather inefficient way in the first place from U235/Pu239 fueled reactor)

The typical PWR needs burnable poisons to manage reactivity anyway.  Capturing neutrons in thorium to breed U-233 just avoids wasting them in cadmium, erbium or boron.

instead of throwing these 507 kg away afterwards. (which was done more or less either because it was too expensive to use or because it was contaminated and could not be cleaned .. I am missing the relevant document. If you have it please mail it to me!)

Re-use of the U-233 in an LWR is impractical because of the gamma emissions from Tl-208.  This uranium could be used in a LFTR or other MSR.

you misunderstood the question!

500 kg of u233 could have made xx TWh in a PWR type reactor
the same energy as one could have extracted from 500 kg of U235.

actually I gave all these numbers.

500kg u235/0.0071 roughly 70 tons of natural uranium equivalent right
thus almost half a year fuel for a 1 GWe reactor.

or 3.5 TWhe compared to the 5 year shippingport reactor (roughly 60 MWe?) with (29,047 effective full hours, or about 66% of the time).

or as I wrote:
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large. It can be estimated that this amount, placed in a standard PWR, could have produced at least 5 times more electric energy than it had during the actual experiment.

bad luck that the original U233 was not usable afterwards as you wrote!
>Re-use of the U-233 in an LWR is impractical because of the gamma emissions from Tl-208. This uranium could be used in a LFTR or other MSR.

you are just confirming what I wrote in my paper thanks!
regards Michael

If your skills in English are not sufficient to state a coherent and unambiguous question....

I also dispute your claims.

  1. Again you claim "the initial concentration of fissile material in a reactor with only 0.237 GW (therm) energy was very large."  The amount was quite SMALL, both absolutely and as a fraction of the total fuel load.  A PWR loaded with 120 tons of LEU at 4% would have 4.8 tons of U-235 in the fuel, compared to 1.17% comprising 0.5 tons of U-233 for Shippingport.  This cannot be considered "large" in any sense, so you are either deluded or deliberately pushing falsehoods.
  2. Shippingport WAS a standard PWR, albeit a small and early model.  The facts that it was small, early and had low thermal efficiency were the reasons it was available for the Th/U experiment.
  3. The Th/U core could have run much longer than the experimental budget allowed, so the low cumulative output cannot be compared to commercial PWR figures.
  4. It is both true and irrelevant that the U-233 from Shippingport was unusable in a new LWR core.  Current LWR practice with NU-derived fuel is also once-through.
  5. The uranium budget, which you harp on, must be considered.  Fuel elements which can operate for 10 years by breeding more fuel from thorium would slash the amount of uranium required even if nothing is recycled.
  6. Fuel elements which use recycled Pu as the initial fissionable load would eliminate the need to feed LEU for as long as the recycle stream lasted.
  7. Reclaimed Th and recycled U-233 (with its U-232 component) would be perfectly suitable fuel for a generation of LFTRs, turning the "waste" from e.g. Lightbridge's uranium-stretching fuel scheme into a resource and eliminating the need for disposal of entire fuel elements.

You have a tendency to take every attribute of something you don't like as a negative, regardless of the actual merits.  If you wonder why people have been questioning your honesty since Chapter I, look no further.

uh..
you pretend not to understand what I wrote?
And now you make a seven point answer? Very Strange!

leaving the insults aside!

let me ask you if you write:
> 4. It is both true and irrelevant that the U-233 from Shippingport was unusable in a new LWR core.

How comes that you know that this is true? I have not found a document saying this. Can you please provide this.

For me it was kind of a "logical" guess but from now on I can reference you that indeed the 507 kg
became useless after the experiment.

>Fuel elements which can operate for 10 years by breeding more fuel from thorium would slash the amount of uranium required even if nothing is recycled.
yes if true. Do you have any experimental evidence for that statement (a publication?).

I guess you made it up like other unsubstantiated statements.

>Fuel elements which use recycled Pu as the initial fissionable load would eliminate the need to feed LEU for as long as the recycle stream lasted.
another great job for you.. start working in a recycling environment!

Why don't you mention that for whatever reasons "fuel recycling plans" in the USA are on hold right now.
give an example on how to report correctly!

For

>Reclaimed Th and recycled U-233 (with its U-232 component) would be perfectly suitable fuel for a generation of LFTRs, turning the "waste" from e.g. >Lightbridge's uranium-stretching fuel scheme into a resource and eliminating the need for disposal of entire fuel elements.

just tell the innocent reader how many LFTR's and with what power are operating now, are under construction and
under serious planning.

michael

Since since the fluoride salt option is not really addressed in this article, and Google Talks has already had multiple lectures on this option -- which until the arguments are addressed appears to be the most viable of nearterm baseload energy options -- I can only conclude that any editors responsible for selecting this author's writing should be restricted to areas in which they have at least a passing knowledge.

Excellent point James. There is another way to ramp up large scale nuclear power with well proven technology. That is to build multiple facilities to mass produce floating nuclear power plants using the Gen III designs.

Such a facility was build but tragically failed due to a downturn in the economy.

http://www.atomicinsights.com/aug96/Offshore.html

This series appears to have been sponsored by François Cellier alone; I don't know if the editors of TOD:E have taken any interest in the accuracy.

It's safe to say that if this series had been subjected to peer review, most of the claims would never have made it to publication.  Given the number of people willing to perform fact-checking in the comments, it also appears likely that there are enough potential reviewers that such is not impossible.  This is a huge opportunity missed, and I hope it isn't also a reputation tragically blown.  (TOD's, that is.)

Dear EP,

It was interesting to read your "bistro/bar" like argumentation during the past few months.
But it was not much more. Why did I try answer even to your insults?

I guess because I felt obliged as an author, to fulfill the rules that an authors of oildrum articles
should be available for the question/answer section.

In any case don't blame others for these articles.
Accept simply that the wonderful principle of "the right of free speech and write"
without insults is hold up on a few remaining places.
If you like it or not.

Unfortunately, your attitude is somehow frightening.
Good that it is "software" only! But it is certainly not a good sign for the future.

In any case as Prof. Cellier has written

EP, shoot the message not the messenger
and learn to behave. The time
``shoot first ask later" is over for now!

For how long this remains true,
unfortunately I do not not know.
But ``signs" on the horizon are not good.

Michael