Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Atomic history

Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear” – An optimistic look at a powerful tool for addressing climate change and energy security

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Nuclear
an Oliver Stone film

By early 2019, Oliver Stone, a successful filmmaker who has created a long list of popular works of art, had become increasingly concerned and even depressed about what he had learned about the risk climate change posed to humanity. He’d watched Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and paid attention to dire warnings coming from credible scientific groups like the International Panel on Climate Change.

He noted that the solutions at the top of almost everyone’s list were ineffective in reducing fossil fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions produced when they are burned. He did not dislike renewables, but he realized they could not do all of the tasks that fossil fuels do for society.

Then he discovered and read “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow” by Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist. That excellent, accessible book taught him that nuclear energy had proven to be capable of replacing fossil fuels on a large, country-sized scale. That knowledge inspired him to do something to change our current trajectory related to using nuclear energy.

He also learned that many of the fears associated with nuclear energy were either related to confusion between nuclear weapons and nuclear power or to skillful public relations efforts by competitive energy sources to discourage the nuclear energy growth that would inevitably threaten their market share.

As a talented filmmaker and storyteller, he realized that he could and should use his talents to help overcome fears associated with nuclear energy and to convince decision makers that it is time to take a fresh look at nuclear energy.

Stone and Goldstein decided to collaborate on a script for a fact-filled documentary after realizing that was the most appropriate format a film designed to overcome fears with information. Using archival footage, contemporary interviews with nuclear experts and visits to nuclear research and development facilities in the US, France and Russia they tell a complex story spanning more than half a century in a relatively brief period of time.

But, as Blaise Pascal famously implied with his pithy quote “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” it takes time to create a concise story. Stone and Goldstein invested two years in their creation, an effort that Stone said nearly “took the life” out of him.

The award-winning film’s full title is “Nuclear.”

Here is the IMDB’s current plot summary:

As fossil fuels continue to cook the planet, the world is finally becoming forced to confront the influence of large oil companies and tactics that have enriched a small group of corporations and individuals for generations. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy. Science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th century, first for bombs and then to power submarines, and the United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet in the mid-20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in large part by oil interests. This campaign would sow fear about harmless low-level radiation and create confusion between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, director Oliver Stone explores the possibility for the global community to overcome challenges like climate change and reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy.

I have a built-in bias about the film. Joshua Goldstein is a friend and a respected colleague in the “club” of pronuclear writers and researchers. He convinced Oliver Stone that I would be a good interviewee, especially given my experiences as an operating engineer on nuclear submarines and my long term interest in the efforts by fossil fuel interests to teach the public to fear and distrust nuclear energy.

In July of 2021, Stone and his production team invited me to visit them in Los Angeles for a sit down interview at Stone’s comfortably impressive home. The night before we talked, Stone invited Joshua and me to share a home-cooked meal and to get to know each other. I’ll always remember having an after-dinner glass of wine while relaxing in his poolside sitting area and discussing the differences between California and Florida pools. (Caged pools are unheard of in virtually bug-free CA, they are de rigueur in buggy FL.) He was shocked to hear about the alligator that lives in the pond behind my home and couldn’t believe I liked living with a “dinosaur” in my back yard.

Of course, we also talked about nuclear energy and its importance in clean energy production.

Ashley Finan describes NRIC to Oliver Stone

“Nuclear” also includes extensive interviews with Ashley Finan, Director of DOE’s Nuclear Reactor Innovation Center; Shannon Bragg-Sitton, Director for the Integrated Energy & Storage Systems Division at INL; Isabelle Boemke, the famous Tik-Toc and Twitter nuclear influencer; Jake Dewitt and Caroline Cochran, co-founders of Oklo, and Joshua Goldstein, author of “A Bright Future” and the script for “Nuclear.”

“Nuclear” isn’t playing in theaters. It might go directly to streaming services, even though it looks good on a big screen. It’s the kind of film that is designed to inform and convince. It should make a useful contribution to helping the public better understand nuclear energy and the immense capacity it has for helping address some of humanity’s most wicked challenges.

Film reviews:

Interviews with Stone and Goldstein at Venice Film Festival

China’s high temperature reactor – pebble bed modular (HTR-PM) achieves its first criticality

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On the morning of September 12, 2021, reactor number 1 of the eagerly awaited HTR-PM project was taken critical for the first time. Initial criticality for any new reactor is a big deal for the people involved in the project; this one is a big deal for the future of nuclear energy. It might also become a big deal for humanity’s ability to effectively reduce CO2 emissions enough to slow climate change.

HTR-PM is a demonstration reactor that uses two identical gas-cooled high temperature modular reactors to produce the heat for a modern, subcritical, 200 MWe steam turbine. The steam system operates at the same temperature and pressure as many recently constructed coal heated steam plants that China has been mass producing for more than a decade as it rapidly industrialized and became one of the world’s leaders in manufacturing, metals production and chemicals.

The press release from China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) includes the following statement.

They [HTRs) have broad commercial application prospects in nuclear power generation, combined heat, power and cooling, and high-temperature process heat. They are my country’s optimization of energy structure and guarantee of energy supply. An important path to safety and to achieve the “dual carbon” goal.

China National Nuclear Corporation press release dated 09-13-21 (https://www.cnnc.com.cn/cnnc/xwzx65/ttyw01/1112318/index.html) Note: Original in Chinese simplified, translated by Google Translate

Though the announcement does not specifically include coal furnace replacement, producing steam at the same temperature and pressure as used by modern coal plants qualifies as “high-temperature process heat.”

HTR-PM criticality is the most recent step in a long process of commercializing high temperature gas cooled reactors. Though they have a long history, proponents (like me) believe they are an advanced type of commercial atomic fission power technology. (See the high temperature gas reactor history description below.)

China has been purposefully working on high temperature gas reactor technology development for the past 30 years. They have absorbed lessons from HTR experience in Japan, the United States, the UK, and South Africa while also building their own domestic intellectual property and manufacturing capability. According to the China Huangeng Group Co. LTD (CHGC) press release, the project’s direction includes a strong emphasis on building indigenous capacity to build HTR without outside assistance.

As the world’s first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, the demonstration project used more than 2,000 sets of equipment for the first time, and more than 600 sets of innovative equipment, including the world’s first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor spiral-coil once-through steam generator. The first high-power, high-temperature thermal magnetic bearing structure main helium fan, the world’s largest and heaviest reactor pressure vessel, etc., are of great significance to promote my country to seize the world’s leading advantage in the fourth-generation advanced nuclear energy technology.

China Huangeng Group Co. LTD press release dated 09/12/21 (https://www.chng.com.cn/detail_jtyw/-/article/ccgb60va5Gwc/v/962479.html) Note: Original in Chinese simplified, translated by Google Translate

Aside: The above includes a statement that helps explain why HTRs have not been universally popular and why they still face headwinds, even from nuclear energy advocates. Each reactor module produces about 250 MWth, which compares to about 3300 MWth in a 1000 MWe PWR or BWR. Even with higher temperatures and higher efficiency, each core can produce 1/10th of the electricity of light water reactors, but the first HTR pressure vessel is described as “the world’s largest and heaviest pressure vessel.” Pressurized gas has a far lower capacity to move heat than pressurized water.

But there are more factors to be considered in atomic fission power plant economics than the size and weight of the pressure vessel. End Aside.

China is rightfully proud of its accomplishment in achieving HTR-PM initial criticality. There are many more steps in the journey, but this step is important. It marks one more milestone in the process of creating nuclear fission power stations that can take full advantage of the world’s vast coal fired power station infrastructure.

Brief high temperature reactor history

Arguably, the basic idea for HTRs was initially proposed during the earliest days of nuclear power development – immediately following WWII. Dr. Farrington Daniels proposed a high temperature gas reactor as the heat source for what was then a modern steam system. The Daniels Pile project was initially funded by the Manhattan Commission and gathered some momentum before being abruptly cancelled by the nascent Atomic Energy Commission in early 1947.

In the late 1950s Germany’s Rudolf Schulten followed through on the idea and led the project to build the world’f first high temperature pebble bed reactor, the AVR. That small (46 MWth, 15 MWe) prototype operated for about 20 years. Its construction began in 1960, it was connected to the grid in 1967 and it was shut down in 1988.

The US and the UK built their own version of high temperature reactor prototypes, the US at Peach Bottom and the UK’s Dragon reactor at Winfrith in Dorset.

General Atomics, the US company that designed and built the successful prototype at Peach Bottom built a scaled up, significantly different design at Ft. St. Vrain (330 MWe). That reactor had a dismal operating history due to several FOAK system design problems. By the time the defects were corrected, the designer had lost all of the follow on orders. The plant owners had lost patience, didn’t want to own and operate an orphan plant design and shut the system down.

Germany built a larger, 300 MWe pebble bed reactor (THTR) but that reactor had unfortunate timing. It began operating in 1985 with a 1000 day temporary operating license. Before THTR had operated long enough to complete testing and rise to full power operation, the Chernobyl reactor exploded. Reports claimed that the graphite moderator was a primary contributor to the accident and there was a widespread, durable misinterpretation that the graphite actually caught fire.

THTR was a graphite moderated reactor. Owners could not convince the public or the regulators that there are fundamental differences between graphite moderated, helium cooled reactors and graphite moderated, water cooled reactors. THTR was shut down in September 1989 when its initial license expired and that license was not extended.

In the 1990s, South Africa invested several billion dollars and a lot of engineering effort in developing the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR). A primary reason that effort did not achieve success is that it started with the notion that it was reasonable to build a 200 MWe turbine generator with high pressure helium as the working fluid and then to mount that large machine vertically inside a pressure vessel. That concept works on paper, but executing it proved to be extremely difficult and expensive. Before the project ended, designers had decided to mount the helium turbomachine in a more conventional, horizontal alignment, but the South African government had lost patience by that time.

Chinese technologists, led by Prof. Zhang Zuoyi, learned from PBMR’s experience. They chose to step back to what had worked well for the AVR and to gradually make improvements. They built the HTR-10, a 10 MWe prototype system with a helium to water steam generator that helped them learn on an affordable scale while planning for the next iteration.

HTR-10 has operated well as a prototype. Its capacity factor has been modest, but it wasn’t conceived as a steady state, commercial electricity producer. It has been used to test fuels, test materials, test equipment, train operators and refine operating procedures. In other words, it has done what prototypes are supposed to do.

Construction on HTR-PM began in 2012. It has taken a bit longer than initially planned, but part of the delay rests with the fact that some of the necessary components – like the unique, spiral-coil once-through steam generator – were difficult to design and refine into something that could be efficiently replicated.

The Shidaowan site is planned to eventually host 16 more HTR-PMs. There are already plans underway to design and build an HTR-PM600. That system will use pebble bed reactor models – each the same as the reactor modules used for the HTR-PM) to provide the required heat for a 600 MWe steam turbine power station.

A Path from Coal to Nuclear is Being Blazed in Wyoming

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Many of those who care about finding solutions to the physical distress that our climate is experiencing, as reported on this week in a landmark 1,300 page report by the IPCC‘s Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 (Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis), are not looking at Wyoming. But based upon the announcement made in […]

Kenneth Pitzer blamed AEC advisors for slow power reactor development

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During the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) earliest years, the General Advisory Committee was sometimes viewed as a source of discouraging, delaying advice. Made up of selected members of the scientific establishment, the group habitually sought more studies and inserted costly delays aimed at making the perfect next step instead of taking steps that were good […]

Why did the US Atomic Energy Commission kill Daniels Pile in 1947?

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In January 1947, after more than a year of focused public attention and debate, the civilian U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took control of all atomic energy matters from the Manhattan District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This takeover was a major victory for the atomic scientists and others who worked diligently to […]

How did an oil shale investor hamstring his atomic energy competition? (Ancient but impactful smoking gun)

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During the contentious effort that resulted in passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Sen Eugene D. Milliken (R-CO) played an important role in establishing an attempted US government monopoly over all atomic energy information. During the House-Senate conference committee to resolve differences between versions of the bill passed by the two legislative bodies, […]

Atomic Show #277 – Simon Wakter, pro-nuclear engineer in an ambivalent country

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Simon Wakter is a strongly pro-nuclear engineer in a country that passed a referendum officially phasing out nuclear energy since several years before he was born. He has to round up to be called a thirty-something. Simon works in the nuclear energy branch of AFRY, a well-established 17,000 employee, all-of-the-above. engineering company that recently adopted […]

Atomic Show #266 – Seeing the Light about atomic energy potential

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Facing the immense threat of climate change, the need to power several billion more people and the continuing reluctance to use the most powerful tool available, Scott L. Montgomery and Thomas Graham Jr. realized that there was an information and perception gap about nuclear energy of roughly equivalent magnitudes. Their desire to help fill the […]

Documentary evidence that fossil fuel industry knew–by 1948–that it faced prospect that atomic energy would make it obsolete

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No industry cheerfully accepts the prospect that a newly developed technology could make it obsolete. Executives and investors earn much of their wealth by constantly evaluating potential threats to their business. They invest time, energy and resources in conceiving and implementing response or prevention plans. “Inside the Atom” is a 1948 vintage snapshot of the […]

Did the Nuclear Renaissance in the U.S. falter because people ignored lessons from the First Atomic Age?

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During the ANS Student Conference 2017 in Pittsburg, PA, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison made the effort to find me and introduce himself. Among several other topics, he wanted to exchange thoughts about an article that I first published more than 22 years ago. The student indicated his interest in becoming an atomic […]

Myth Buster: Atomic energy excitement actually pre-dates atomic bomb efforts

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There are incredible archives available to us within a few keystrokes. The following article from the October 22, 1939 edition of the New York Times might be useful to dispel the myth that interest in using atomic energy to replace coal came from a desire to domesticate the atomic bomb. This is a transcript that […]

History and promise of high temperature gas cooled reactors

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By: Diarmuid Foley A small modular nuclear reactor to replace coal plants could be on the market within 5 years. In 2014, the Generation IV international forum[1] confirmed the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) as one of 6 promising reactor technologies that should be pursued in order to develop advanced reactors suitable for deployment in […]

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