Stories tagged with "Michael Dittmar"

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

Posted by Francois Cellier on November 10, 2009 - 10:51am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: fast breeder reactors, fossil fuel depletion, michael dittmar, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, thorium, uranium [list all tags]

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)

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The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part III: How (un)reliable are the Red Book Uranium Resource Data?

Posted by Francois Cellier on September 8, 2009 - 10:25am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: fossil fuel depletion, michael dittmar, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, uranium [list all tags]

This is the third 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.

For more than 40 years, the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations have published a bi-annual document with the title "Uranium Resources, Production and Demand." This book, known as the IAEA/NEA 2007 Red Book, summarizes data about the actual and near future nuclear energy situation and presents the accumulated world-wide knowledge about the existing and expected uranium resources. These data are widely believed to provide an accurate and solid basis for future decisions about nuclear energy. Unfortunately, as it is demonstrated in this article, they do not.

The conventional world-wide uranium resources are estimated by the authors of the Red Book as 5.5 million tons. Out of these, 3.3 million tons are assigned to the reasonably assured category, and 2.2 million tons are associated with the not yet discovered but assumed to exist inferred resources. Our analysis shows that neither the 3.3 million tons of "assured" resources nor the 2.2 million tons of inferred resources are justified by the Red Book data and that the actual known exploitable resources are probably much smaller.

Despite many shortcomings of the uranium resource data, some interesting and valu­able information can be extracted from the Red Book. Perhaps most importantly, the Red Book resource data can be used to test the "economic-geological hypothesis," which claims that a doubling of uranium price will increase the amount of exploitable uranium resources by an even larger factor. The relations between the uranium resources claimed for the different resource categories and their associated cost estimates are found to be in clear contradiction with this hypothesis.

(Links to 1st and 2nd parts)

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The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part II: What is known about Secondary Uranium Resources?

Posted by Francois Cellier on August 19, 2009 - 10:28am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: fossil fuel depletion, michael dittmar, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, secondary uranium resources, uranium [list all tags]

This is the second 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.

During 2009, nuclear power plants, with a capacity of 370 GWe, will produce roughly 14% of the world-wide electric energy. About 65,000 tons of natural uranium equivalent are required to operate these reactors. For the last 15 years, only 2/3 of this fuel has on average been provided by uranium mines, whereas 1/3 has come from secondary resources. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the secondary uranium resources will be essentially exhausted during the next 5-10 years. In this paper, the situation concerning the secondary resources at the beginning of the year 2009 is presented. The data used are from the IAEA/NEA 2007 Red Book, "Uranium Resources, Production and Demand," and from the World Nuclear Association (WNA).

Our analysis shows that, at the beginning of 2009, the remaining world-wide civilian uranium stocks amount to roughly 50,000 tons. With the almost inevitable yearly draw-down of 10,000 tons, these civilian stocks will be essentially exhausted within the next 5 years. This coincides roughly with the year 2013, when the annual delivery of 10,000 tons of natural uranium equivalent from Russian military stocks to the USA will end. As the majority of the remaining civilian stocks, about 30,000 tons, are believed to be under the control of the US government and American companies, it seems rather unlikely that the USA will share their own strategic uranium reserves with other large nuclear energy users. In summary, all data indicate that a uranium supply shortage in many OECD countries can only be avoided, if the remaining military uranium stocks from Russia and the USA, estimated to be roughly 500,000 tons, are made available to the other countries.

(Link to 1st part)

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The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part I: Nuclear Fission Energy Today

Posted by Francois Cellier on August 5, 2009 - 10:16am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: fossil fuel depletion, michael dittmar, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, uranium [list all tags]

This is a 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.

Nuclear fission energy is considered anywhere between the holy grail, that can solve all energy worries of the human industrialized civilization, and a fast path di­rectly to hell. Discussions about future energy sources and the possible contribution from nuclear energy are often tainted and dominated by irrational expectations and fears. As a consequence, very little actual knowledge is available to the general public and even to decision makers about the contribution of nuclear energy today, about uranium supplies, uranium resources, and current and future technological challenges and limitations.

This analysis about nuclear energy and its future contribution attempts to shed some light on the nuclear reality and its limitations. The report, presented in four parts, is based on data provided in documents made available by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the NEA (Nuclear Energy Agency of OECD countries), the WNA (World Nuclear Association), and the IEA (International Energy Agency).

Part I summarizes the state of the world wide nuclear fission energy today and its perspectives for the next 10 years; Part II presents the situation concerning secondary uranium and plutonium resources; Part III analyses the "known" uranium resource data as presented within the past editions of the IAEA/NEA Red Book; Part IV finally outlines the plans and prospects for the long term future of nuclear fission and fusion.

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