Building a powerful pro-nuclear coalition
The nuclear energy enterprise is not healthy in North America and Europe, the places that discovered the science and invented the technologies. That situation needs to change with due haste into sustainable progress that is not artificially restricted by annoying, delaying, costly opposition from people who either do not understand or do not value the technology’s capability to empower our society into a more prosperous, equitable, clean and free condition.
Compared to its promise, nuclear energy is a seriously underachieving technology.
In order for our atomic energy enterprise to make progress towards fulfilling its potential, it is important to reconsider our selection of friends and enemies. We need to understand both allies and enemies so that we better comprehend their motives, their strengths and weaknesses, and the ways that they can either harm us or help us achieve common goals.
In my view, there is a lot of confusion among players involved in making energy-related decisions; many powerful participants apparently do not understand how their actions make it difficult to achieve the goals they say they want to achieve.
Energy supply decision making is a geopolitical endeavor. There are going to be some relative winners and relative losers, but it is possible to chart a course that will produce a better world that understands more about nuclear energy, fears it less, and engages a growing number of responsible, creative people to devise new ways to use it to improve the human condition.
Energy Abundance
Unlocking the vast energy potential that is naturally stored inside the nuclei of the actinide series of elements including thorium, uranium and transuranics like plutonium and americium was one of the most important advances of the 20th century. It opened up the prospect that all people would have access to controllable power without limits caused by falling inventories of accessible fossil fuels or by concerns about waste issues associated with burning ever larger amounts of material each year.
Unfortunately, the timing of Chadwick’s discovery of neutrons and the discoveries by Fermi, Curie, Joliot, Hahn, Meitner, Frisch, Szilard and Strassman of the way that neutrons could enter and change atomic nuclei without the enormous expense of particle accelerators came at an unfortunate time. Not only were the 1930s a time of rapid advances in our understanding of atomic structure and behavior, but they were also a time of massive political disruption caused by the growth of a particularly obnoxious form of tyranny.
Though at least some of the pioneers — especially Leo Szilard and the Joliot-Curies — immediately recognized that nuclear energy had huge commercial potential as a vast new supply of reliable power, they also recognized that it might be able to be released quickly enough to produce a violent explosion.
At least some of the sponsors of the weapons development program also recognized the potential for abundant energy. Some were enthusiastic about that, but many were not so happy about the prospect of empowering the planet’s population with energy sources whose supply could not be profitably limited and controlled. Not everyone likes abundance because people will pay less for products that are easily available in more than adequate quantities.
One characteristic we need to understand about any potential ally or enemy is their attitude about abundance. If they want to empower people, grow the economy, and enable creativity, they should be potential allies that would be worth cultivation. If they fear people, if they believe that power should be tightly limited to only the “right kind” of people, or if they profit from scarcity, they might work hard to prevent nuclear energy development even if they profess that they are “not anti-nuclear.”
Environmentalism
A key mantra of real environmentalism is “do more with less.” One of the best ways to achieve that goal is to use the best available materials that provide strength with low weight, that increase durability to avoid disposability, and that provide the most output for the least amount of material input.
Actinide fuels are incredibly concentrated power sources that offer many orders of magnitude improvement in the amount of power that can be released from a given quantity of material. Even using our primitive, second generation nuclear plants with a wasteful, once through fuel cycle, a single pellet of uranium dioxide produces as much energy as 147 gallons of oil, or a ton of coal, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
With technological advancements, some of which have already been invented and developed through the demonstration phase, it is possible to extract 20 times as much energy from that same mass of material. Using concentrated fuel reduces mining requirements, lowers capital requirements for transportation systems, and enables more inventory to be retained using less materials for storage containers.
The waste produced when actinide energy is released from its natural storage location is similarly compact when compared to the waste produced when burning hydrocarbon fuels. Actually that is a bit of an understatement since the mass of waste from nuclear fission is no larger than the mass of the initial fuel while the mass of hydrocarbon waste increases by a factor of from 2-4 because of the addition of oxygen to the initial fuel mass.
Power sources that consume less material and produce less waste are beneficial to the environment, especially when the waste is so concentrated that it can be contained and stored rather than immediately released.
People who are concerned about the environment, who like clean air and clean water and who are worried about the long term effects of continuing to release massive quantities of hydrocarbon waste, including CO2 and other greenhouse gases, should be natural allies for the actinide power enterprise.
Security
Nations with reliable fuel sources and strong economies are more secure than those whose fuel sources are interruptible by either political or economic actions. Strong, well-balanced economies that produce and distribute material good widely to contributing members of society result in resilience in the face of natural disaster, political challenges, or outright attack.
People who have honed their skills as welders, machinists, plumbers, electricians, design engineers, manufacturing specialists, logisticians, and countless other professions that enable a prosperous economy are readily adaptable to efforts that might be required to protect their freedom and prosperity. Their economy can also more readily afford the effort that might be required. If they actively seek to increase their customer base and to improve the well being of all, they might avoid the need to engage in battle, but they will retain the ability to rapidly convert to a wartime footing — if necessary.
Actinide fuel enables a high powered economy that balances energy supply and demand by producing more instead of using less. That path empowers people by providing them more effective ways to accomplish both mandatory and voluntary tasks.
When energy is readily available and when its use makes little impact on the environment, it no longer makes much sense to spend too much effort trying to conserve. Energy efficiency will still be worthwhile in cases where the more efficient product provides a better output, but it won’t be made such a high priority that people must sacrifice performance or value.
People whose real interest in promoting “security” or “defense” is increasing sales of specialized goods and services to the defense and security establishment will most likely not be supportive of a nuclear enterprise that improves real security for everyone. Their business model requires the majority of voters to feel insecure enough to keep electing politicians who are not “soft on” the current “ism” they’re supposed to worry about – Marxism, communism, socialism, terrorism, Islamism etc.
Other Energy Fuels
One of the trickiest segments of the population to evaluate in terms of its potential position on atomic energy development is the established energy industry. That segment employs a lot of people and is run by a vast quantity of wealth and power.
It would be self-defeating and inaccurate to decide that the established energy industry only contains competitors. The reality is that most people in the energy business will be nuclear energy’s strongest, most effective allies while others will be the strongest, most dangerous foes.
My take on the alignment might surprise readers and garner some emotional commentary.
Here goes:
The energy business is full of hard-working, dedicated people who understand that they are providing a product that is vital to developed civilization. They often know on a personal basis what it is like to try to live without access to abundant, reliable power sources.
Many of them already accept the value of nuclear energy, but are cautious about its cost, dislike the onerous regulatory model, or fear radiation because they do not understand it. In some specific cases, they have been turned off from nuclear energy because of their own experiences of being rejected by nuclear employers or because they have had to deal with arrogant, self-important, spoiled nuclear professionals who do similar work for a significantly higher salary.
Aside: That last sentence above comes from my own discussions with non-nuclear trained engineers and officers in the US Navy. Until having those conversations, I admit that I might have been one of the spoiled nuclear professionals that they disliked. End Aside.
The established coal industry may be one of biggest beneficiaries of a rapidly developing nuclear industry in North America and Europe. Coal has been demonized for decades despite its enormous and continuing contribution to human development and economic prosperity. Some of the criticism may be deserved, but the rhetoric applied against the fuel source has been dramatically exaggerated by competitors seeking additional market share.
Burning raw coal in primitive furnaces is harmful to the environment, especially when the consumption rate overwhelms the air exchange capability of the discharge area. Technology has been developed that significantly reduces coal pollution, but there are several additional technologies that could be employed to produce cleaner coal or to use coal as a raw material input for producing clean burning distillate fuels that would compete directly with petroleum-based equivalents.
Some people might question why I advocate investing capital into systems that would convert coal into clean-burning liquid fuel. Please consider how much better it might be from a variety of perspectives to keep mining already open coal mines than to keep exploring ever more remote areas of the world — including the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the deep ocean — in search of petroleum resources.
Well-capitalized companies in the energy business might find it beneficial to redirect their annual capital investment programs into developing nuclear energy resources instead of investing more and more money and other resources into the diminishing returns of finding and extracting more oil.
Though the prices of individual units of energy will decrease in a world with growing abundance from actinide fuels, the overall sales of the energy business should increase as more and more people have access to the kinds of products that North Americans, Europeans and other developed nations have taken for granted. The trajectory will not be the same as it was in digital communications, digital data storage or microprocessor computing power, but those industries show that it is possible to make more money with ever cheaper, more abundant products.
Scarcity, real or perceived, is a well understood way to concentrate wealth, but widely distributed access to prosperity also provides ways for high levels of success.
Bottom Line
Building a world where people are valued and enabled to become affluent without harming their shared environment is a worthwhile endeavor that can attract a broad coalition. There will be opposition from people who believe they will be relative losers in such a world, but that should not inhibit action or prevent success.
The energy that naturally resides inside the atomic nuclei of actinide materials is available for use. It can provide the power and the prosperity for a growing population and it can enable people to live more abundant lives. Unlocking that energy will help us to achieve abundance without excessively fouling our nest and without rapid depletion of irreplaceable raw materials.
Let’s start and move forward with due haste. Our children and grandchildren will thank us.
Rod,
I feel like I have to push back a little bit on some of the points. First, I’ve never really liked the “nuclear enterprise” phrase, as it tends to conflate energy and weapons. You’ve posted about that conflation in the past.
Second, many nuclear advocates have a tendency to be “anti-renewable.” Nuclear advocates should be advocating for the cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions, not only nuclear. Currently, wind and solar are getting to the point where in some places, they are the cheapest sources of power, and in those places, wind and solar should be built. Likewise, in places where nuclear would be the cheapest source, it should be built. We will need a mix of nuclear and renewables in the future, so sometimes when nuclear advocates are anti-renewable, they tend to alienate potential allies.
Third, energy efficiency/conservation will always be useful. Energy will always have a cost and impact associated with it, so I do not think we will ever get to the point where energy efficiency/conservation “no longer makes much sense.”
I am in full agreement with this post. That has to be one of the least shocking revelations ever, I’m sure.
Aspects of this remind me of the MLK Jr. Day post from a few years back:
https://atomicinsights.com/a-day-to-think-about-atomic-dreams/
@Nicholas Thompson
Thank you for pushing back, especially the reminder that I need to clearly state that I am referring ONLY to nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons.
I modified the first sentence of the piece to try to make that more precise.
I am not anti-renewable, but I am not in favor of unreliable power sources that are only cheap when they happen to be available and are only available at the whim of the weather.
Those sources don’t provide the same product as sources that produce power that is available on demand.
For example, I love to play with boats powered by the wind, but I’d never try to use one to provide ferry service to paying customers.
Rod Adams wrote:
A key mantra of real environmentalism is “do more with less.” One of the best ways to achieve that goal is to use the best available materials that provide strength with low weight, that increase durability to avoid disposability, and that provide the most output for the least amount of material input.
This is also good engineering. One definition of engineering that I like is that it is the art and science of doing for $1 what any damned fool can do for $3.
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Third, energy efficiency/conservation will always be useful. Energy will always have a cost and impact associated with it, so I do not think we will ever get to the point where energy efficiency/conservation “no longer makes much sense.”
No disagreement. But if the cost of energy is unnecessarily high, there will be responses to that cost that are less than optimal, e.g., more expensive buildings and machinery that are indeed more energy efficient, but inefficient in their use of materials and capital had there been more reasonably priced energy available.
I would add a “FUTURE” category Rod. All expansionist visions for Humanity involve high energy and resource utilization. All distant solar system exploration, resource collection and beyond will require nuclear technology. Radiation related issues; shielding, treatments, diagnostics, etc.. are playing larger roles in day to day life even without nuclear power. Better understanding of the physical universe is and will continue to be related to better understandings of nuclear processes, better procedures and less fear and apprehension when encountering atomic issues, as a day to day working relationship with nuclear power provides.
I think the future category may actually be the most important pro-nuclear motivation, if not the deal closer. With respect to the rationality and the all certain inevitability of the science and technology. I wouldn’t leave it out of the argument as its own distinct factor, even if I don’t express it in the best way it could be.
@John T Tucker
Interesting. Futurists could be strong allies in the battle to make nuclear energy a desirable technology. So will people who care about their children, grandchildren and all other future generations.
“Renewables” have been blatant failures at reducing carbon emissions; nearly half of Denmark’s electricity still comes from coal. James Hansen didn’t mention “renewables” when speaking of decarbonization success stories, he mentions hydro and nuclear only.
There’s also the little detail that so-called “environmentalists” say that making room for wind and solar (and its backup natural gas) means nuclear has to go. As a pro-nuclear environmentalist, I am against failure to decarbonize. If “reneweables” are just a route to failure, I must oppose their promotion including subsidies.
I am for using renewables where appropriate, including minimum burden on the net primary productivity (NPP) of the earth. This means no conversion of forests to biomass plantations. I am absolutely for the use of crop residues and “green waste” to provide aviation fuels, long-term storable energy for backup and other needs that cannot be served by delivery of electrons over wires.
Typically, such claims use faulty accounting. The EIA is now using the levelized avoided cost of energy (LACE) as a superior metric to LCOE. Non-dispatchable sources may have a low LCOE, but their avoided cost is nowhere near as good.
Replacing a building or machine with one of greater efficiency can be very costly, both of money and energy. There are both economic and ecological limits to how fast such efforts can be undertaken.
This looks like it could be a good introduction to a book with a little editing. You’d need to slip in a definition of actinide for a smooth connection to nuclear.
Who are the allies of nuclear power? I’ve seen Jim Kennedy on some films about rare earth elements. I get the gist that if the rules on mining Thorium were modified that an industry could be brought back to the US. Perhaps, changing some of these rules would make building new nuclear power plants somewhat easier. There is a possible synergism that could benefit two industries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRTtwQX7N2I
It seems obvious that environmentalists concerned with global warming and ocean acidification should be allies.
Thanks for posting this. It is a message that describes a positive step in the road to a possible future.
I’m not anti renewable. I just think their usefulness is very limited, and they often serve as a distraction from more useful solution. For example solar pv in Germany is a terrible idea, and is only wasting resources that could better be spent on nuclear power. I’ll give my thoughts on the potential usefulness of various technologies.
Wind
Wind can be useful in places that have a lot of hydroelectric (i.e. dams) to balance it out. The usefulness is limited by the fact that hydro can’t always be not used or used when the wind blows or doesn’t.
Potentially wind could be used to supply power when capital costs aren’t very large. This is because things with low capital cost can afford to be run more sporadically. For example wind has often been used to pump water out of the ground which seems like a good use for it.
Hydro electric
Hydroelectric can be good, but it has scalability issues, and environmental concerns. Plus droughts and changing rain patterns can be a problem.
Solar PV
It might be useful to install solar pv close to where it’s used in places that have larger seasonal demand in summer duo to air conditioning.
Also, solar pv might be useful in places with mild winters (not Germany) near the sun belt to help deal with peak demand.
Both of these uses are limited though, and installing to much solar pv anywhere is a bad idea.
Solar Thermal
I’m not to sure about these technologies since they are very undeveloped still. It seems like solar thermal with molten salt energy storage might be useful in certain deserts in the sun belt, but there are various issues that would need to be addressed. For example water for cooling towers and for cleaning the mirrors. I’m guessing it would have to be piped in from some place else which would reduce the already marginal EROEI. Also, transporting the power to large a distance would also likely push the EROEI down too far. Also, I don’t like the idea of destroying desert habitats.
Geothermal
It can be good in some places that have large temperature difference (like Iceland). Has serious scalability issues though.
None of these things are half as good as nuclear power though, and I doubt whether all of them put together are good enough to maintain modern society by themselves.
Re: thorium:
I looked around for scientific suppliers or other brokers who might be able to sell me a sample of thorium suitable for display during lectures and other presentations. I couldn’t find one, despite thorium being more or less an unwanted byproduct of rare-earth refining. I looked deeper, and I found that the NRC requires a license to POSSESS thorium even for academic purposes and that license is far from cheap.
It may be that NRC regulations on the thorium yield from rare earth ores are so onerous that they create a major disincentive to bringing REE production back from China.
The only really good use of solar that I have seen is passive solar. Why put in a hellishly expensive and unreliable PV system on your roof to provide just enough electricity to operating lighting when a set of skylights would do as well? Why pay for PV to operate fans if you can use screened doors and windows, roof overhangs or attic venting?
@E-P
It may be that NRC regulations on the thorium yield from rare earth ores are so onerous that they create a major disincentive to bringing REE production back from China.
That is a fact, not speculation. It might be interesting to know that several of the more active thorium advocates have been specifically motivated by a desire to make thorium a useful product so that they can mine REE in the US without being saddled with the burden of getting rid of the thorium as waste material.
@Wayne SW
Most passive solar design is simply reapplying the good, common sense designs that were common in tropical and sub-tropical regions in the days before air conditioning was available.
I have nothing against using such features; I just think it is nonsense to believe they will replace the need for supplementary power consumption when the weather is not cooperating.
Rod,
Thank you for putting this detailed article together. You have described many of the desirable technical and environmental benefits of nuclear power but if the market has been manipulated to exclude you then your business is doomed. Your article largely dodges the key benefit of nuclear energy which will ensure its ultimate resurgence, that of global warming mitigation.
I am one of those whose research tells me that the market itself has failed and I quote Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank who stated in 2006 that:
“Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay”
Our failed free markets are gamed by energy producers. The gas industry loves the game because their cost of entry is low. They install low cost gas turbines which they operate at peak times to maximise profit. They use marketing spin by pretending to use an environmentally beneficial fuel even though with the unburned gas losses their greenhouse gas impact is comparable to that of coal.
The renewable energy producers love the market because the compulsory purchase of their unreliable supply is mandated. Therefore, after they have covered their costs by the compulsorily purchased energy they can then bid negative into the market and play merry hell with the base load suppliers.
The coal and gas energy producers love the market because few societies have asked them to pay for their pollution or compensate for its impacts.
James Hansen has exposed the effects of the tragic underperformance of nuclear energy most effectively in his excellent article: “Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power and Galileo: Do Scientists Have a Duty to Expose Popular Misconceptions?” at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2014/20140221_DraftOpinion.pdf
In the United Kingdom the Conservative government is trying to fix some of the defects in the market. There are sound strategic reasons to restore energy independence as the French did in the 1970’s. This is being done within the framework of emissions reductions targets of 31% by 2025. The new reactors at Hinkley are being constructed by the proponent who is paid for the low carbon electricity on a competitive basis and it is cheaper than any of the “renewables” as the following details show.
In October 2013 the UK government announced that agreement had been reached with EDF Group on the key terms for the £16 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. These terms include a 35-year ‘Contract for Difference’ (CfD), the ‘Strike Price’ of £89.50/MWh being fully indexed to the Consumer Price Index and conditional upon Sizewell C project proceeding. If it does not for any reason, and the developer cannot share first-of-a-kind costs across both, the strike price is to be £92.50/MWh. The terms include compensation if output is curtailed by the National Grid.
Support for offshore wind stays at £155/MWh for next year and 2015/16, dropping to £150 in 2016/17 and £140 from 2017/18 onwards. Onshore wind, however, is being cut by £5/MWh from June’s figure of £100 to £95, and will fall again to £90 from 2017/18.
Other key strike prices include £155 MW/h for advanced conversion technologies (with or without CHP); £125 for dedicated biomass (with CHP); £105 for biomass conversion; £145 for geothermal; £120 for large scale solar; and £305 for both wave and tidal projects.
In this post I have given a British example of how it’s the responsibility of our democratically elected centralised governments to set the ground rules within which a market operates. Within those ground rules the market will obtain the greatest efficiency of resource use.
Over the last few decades we have let our politicians steadily abdicate their responsibility. We use catch phrases like “getting government out of the market” or “freeing up business from over regulation”. This must change if we are to achieve the types of bold and inspired advances that our forbears achieved.
We forget at our peril that the government is us and we are the government and that’s the spirit of democracy.
The expense of separating thorium is a different issue from licensing and disposal requirements for the thorium itself. I understand that a lot of US REE deposits are higher in thorium than ones elsewhere in the world and would cost more to refine even if licensing was not an issue. How much cost licensing adds is a matter I have no references on (yet).
They won’t. I’m just saying simple solar designs beat heck out of the expensive and useless PV and thermal solar schemes that are peddled simply on the basis of tax breaks. Solar energy is a prehistoric form of power. Early man used sun-warmed stones to heat his caves. I don’t advocate that, but the skylights I have put in work well in cloudy or clear weather. Nighttime? Not so much. But that is about as far as I am willing to go with solar energy. I won’t live long enough to realize any savings on anything else.
@Robert Parker
We forget at our peril that the government is us and we are the government and that’s the spirit of democracy.
What you forget at your peril is that the government in both your country and mine often does what most benefits rich and powerful contributors rather than what benefits all voters.
My intention in this post is to point out how to broaden the coalition supportive of nuclear to be large enough to overcome that challenge. There are far more energy consumers than energy producers, especially when you realize that only a small portion of the established producers will be harmed by developing nuclear energy as rapidly as prudently possible.
Governments should pay more attention to “we the people,” but if “we” don’t recognize the benefits of nuclear, we will not demand that they enable it to thrive.
Solar PV is pretty much useless most places in the world. There might be some exceptions although I’m not completely sure about it.
If there is an exception I think it would be in places that have larger energy demand during summer because of heat (people using air conditioning etc.). In such a situation a small amount of solar pv installed in the right places might actually reduce the overall cost of the system a little. Even if it’s possible I don’t really think such a cost reduction will ever actually happen though. People either seem to install too much solar pv, install it in the wrong places, or install no solar pv at all. Also, it might be useful in a few places other places if done in moderation.
http://www.seda-eg.com/content/advantages-egypts-geographical-position-global-sun-belt
For the most part I’m not a big fan of solar pv, or wind power. They aren’t real solutions to our problems. What we need is breeder reactors. Either the fast type or the thermal Thorium type or both.
Rod,
So its up to us, just as you are doing in this blog, to educate our fellow country men and women.
We have an institution over here called “Science meets Parliament” – it meets yearly and last year I was fortunate enough to go along. One of our senators, Kim Carr set scientists the mission to use our talents in advocacy for our causes – to stop complaining when things don’t go well and to get out and help lead our societies.
Your intention is well placed and admirable. What we need to do more of however is to communicate better with our elected representatives because in the vacuum the rich and powerful will triumph.
@Robert Parker
What we need to do more of however is to communicate better with our elected representatives because in the vacuum the rich and powerful will triumph.
Absolutely true. That has been well proven during the period since WWII. When people participate and communicate with each other and with their elected officials, democracy works well and mitigates the natural tendency of selfish people to take as many of the available chips off the table as possible.
That might be one of the reasons that the rich and powerful, a term that certainly encompasses the major commercial media corporations, have invested so much time in creating narratives that divide us and make us fearful of our neighbors.
One meme that seems to have developed over the past few years that really bothers me is the repeated statements by elected officials in both your country and mine to the effect that the primary purpose of government is to protect its people and provide them with security. I don’t recognize that notion from my reading of the history of democracy. I always thought that government “by the people and for the people” was created in order to allow them access to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
We don’t need government to keep us secure. We need to cooperate with each other, trust each other, and trade with each other.
@Nicholas Thompson January 19, 2015 at 4:59 PM
“First, I’ve never really liked the “nuclear enterprise” phrase, as it tends to conflate energy and weapons.”
@Rod Adams January 19, 2015 at 6:06 PM
“@Nicholas Thompson
Thank you for pushing back, especially the reminder that I need to clearly state that I am referring ONLY to nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons.
IMO, it is not possible to “un-conflate” nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. That is a fact of life. Rather it is our responsibility to separate the two by education. But denying the two are incredibly tied together is to ignore the history of how both the regulatory basis for nuclear energy and also the anti bias came about. You could about put all the key bomb developers on one school bus and that small group of people, understanding the bomb, are the same group of people who branched out into all aspects of commercial power; reactor developers, Atomic Energy Act, initial regulatory structure, AEC, etc. Just think of all the current policy decisions based on that tie, like killing fuel reprocessing and limits on technology export, also possibly even the basis for LNT. And all the anti sentiment and fear that grew straight out of cold war bomb testing. It’s pretty much the basis for very organized anti-nuclear intervention on a per-plant basis.
It is exactly that tie and fear, by the original bomb developers, that led to a strong feeling of the need to heavily regulate commercial nuclear power in the first place. Part of the problem today is that the US has never made a course correction on its original policy, based on actual nuke bomb proliferation history. Also the fact that some energy suppliers don’t want a course correction. But to deny the tie is to deny the history.
@mjd
I am not denying the tie between weapons and the nuclear enterprise that has developed so far. I am divorcing my efforts from those of people who still think that weapons development is a useful way to invest one’s limited time here on earth.
I’m also working on a revisionist view that proposes that weapons development was an historical accident and not a necessary step to lead to nuclear energy development. In my opinion, the Manhattan Project dramatically slowed commercial nuclear energy development from the very beginning. That might have been one of its purposes.
My desire is to expand human prosperity and enrich our lives; I’ve no desire to build devices that have no purpose other than threatening others. I also don’t want to encourage their development.
I think we totally agree that a revisionist view on actual US policy for commercial nuclear power is needed. And again I applaud your hard work to lead, not follow in that effort. I just feel the link between bombs and Atoms for Piece is still more heavily influenced, at a national policy level, by the pro bomb side. We agree that needs to change. But so did Ike’s warning 50 years ago. Apparently the unknown actors are still controlling the script. Hopefully, with more education, public opinion can change that.
@Nichols Thomas.
Regarding renewables and energy efficiency (and potential allies) … you don’t read the site very often, do you?
Recently, we’ve been told climate change is not that big a problem (here), and now coal is seen as a significant partner in a nuclear revival.
To make an analogy, It’s almost like the “team” that is being assembled here are the holdovers or remains from a selection process (a beaten down and covered in dirt bunch of climate skeptics, conspiracy theorists, out of favor industrialists, anti-regulatory free market libertarians, and new environmentalists that are more akin to branding specialists than those who fight daily for better rules and better environmental standards in every industry, not just those that are preferentially favored).
The “energy business” discussed in this article has moved on (and won’t be second-guessing basic outlooks and fundamental strategies). It’s a tough business with many new disruptive technologies and challenges, and tough decisions are getting made daily. To take one example, EON SE (one of the largest energy companies in Europe) broke up it’s business into two entities (a lucrative modern and responsive company it seeks to keep, and a traditional company with troubled assets it intends to sell off). And now we’re told RWE is considering the same (here). NRG and many others in the US are no different (here). Nuclear has become a stranded asset. The allies discussed in this article, it seems to me, will likely assure that it remains that way (and continues to be rather traditional and status quo in its approach and outlook). They are bailing water, not powering up for the future.
We live in a carbon constrained world. Capital is limited (not infinite). Governments have limited power and restrained capacities (especially on balance). Energy is constrained too (primarily by demand, but also by national circumstances discussed in this article). Energy abundance is a myth. Minimal standards are an unrealistic expectation from a credible and independent regulator (especially on balance). To not factor any of this (and current business, regulatory, and consumer markets) into nuclear’s resurgence is unwise. It speaks to stubborn commitments and inflexibility (perhaps even paralleling the energy resource itself, as currently utilized in many countries and as an inflexible baseload energy resource).
E-P – Gordon McDowell’s videos include several that address rare earths and thorium. Here are three:
Jim Kennedy – Nature & Loss of Wealth of Our Nation – REE, Thorium & MSR @ TEAC5
Kennedy Rare-Earth-Elements (REE) Briefing to IAEA, United Nations
John Kutsch – Thorium Bank @ TEAC6
The videos don’t talk about the cost of separating thorium out, but in one of the videos (it might not be any of these three, there’s more), Jim Kennedy says the thorium just drops out of solution like a rock. This is most likely during a solvent extraction step.
@Rod – thanks, as always, for this most excellent post. Is there any chance of having Engineer-Poet as a guest on the Atomic Show?
I’m not sure whom futurists are in this context, but I tend to think of them as largely overlapping with folks who like to read science fiction. There are three professional (omitting fanzines) periodicals that cater to science fiction fans left. One of the three, “Analog Science Fiction & Fact” includes one or two real science articles every issue. These are usually about topics at the forefront of research, or overviews of topics that might be interesting to SF fans or writers trying to do an accurate job in their stories.
I have often thought that it would be well worth writing one or more fact articles on the topics discussed here for publication in Analog. The audience isn’t terribly large, but, Rod, you might consider it as a practice exercise. I don’t know if you actually need practice, but it’s a small venue in which you could get published and would give you some practice at getting your work published beyond your blog. And you’d get paid a little bit.
Many new SF writers get their start in Analog, writing short fiction before they move on to larger works. Fact articles in Analog are a chance to influence the thinking of not just a few score thousand readers, but also the thinking of the previous (assuming they’re still reading) and the next generation of SF writers.
Too many science fiction authors (and therefore futurists?) seem to have bought the idea that wind and solar are somehow going to play a major role in powering future society. They don’t give any details. It’s just an annoying background detail in the settings. One for which the authors clearly haven’t done the math.
You could set them straight on this point. Or at least point out the pitfalls and what other technologies would need to develop for this to make any sense at all. As well as raising the pesky (to wind advocates) question of why, if one had affordable storage, one would use it with wind generation rather than nuclear generation.
I think an interesting (and frightfully believable) setting for near-future SF stories is one in which the USA is an economic backwater with an infrastructure resembling today’s third world countries, limping by on wind and solar (the nation would be competely deforested by the desperate poor), and today’s developing countries are economic power houses confidently striding forward under nuclear power. Meanwhile the US government continues to whine about how “dangerous” nuclear power is.
Anyway, one article could be about the realities of powering a reliable grid from renewables vs. nuclear. A second article might be a history of the regulation and perception of the effects of low level radiation. Basically, a summary of Calbrese’s and other’s work to get good science done in this area. Too often I read SF stories in which a small amount of radiation exposure is treated as a deadly danger.
It would be nice to see authors made aware that exposures that we consider “large” today, might be considered commonplace and acceptable and unworthy of note in the future.
To summarize, publishing one or more fact articles in Analog would give you a small venue in which to dip your toe in the publication waters and probably more importantly, an opportunity to influence the thinking of current and future authors amongst futurists.
My previous message seems to have gone into the filter again. Rod, would you please retrieve it? I don’t even care if it gets posted, but I would appreciate it if you have a few moments to read it. It contained a suggestions of a venue in which you might publish a few articles for futurists.
I have a face that’s perfect for radio, but a voice that lends itself to essays.
BTW, I don’t consider videos to be usable as references for anything. I’ve found way too much nonsense in videos, and they take far too long to watch.
@ El,
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, woo hoo (tears in the eyes) LOL!!! hu hu a whew.
Ok, just a moment, I am still catching my breath. Ok, now
” Energy abundance is a myth. Minimal standards are an unrealistic expectation from a credible and independent regulator (especially on balance).”
As usual your confidence that since decisions have been made that they will continue in the same direction. You live in a tape cassette world. No, let me correct that, you live on a Clipper ship with both solar and wind power.
I find it interesting that you totally avoided the discussion on Thorcon. Hey EL comment on Thorcon! Or is your snarky “minimal standards” comment a comment on Thorcon? What happens to the environment when Nuclear power is cheap enough to start replacing coal plants as electricity producers? Is that a good thing? What do you think EL? Is very cheap nuclear power a good thing?
Seems to me that in some places they certainly are, but I’d like to add conditions: they should be built if a) their inherently limited shares of total generation capacity are soberly accounted for, and/or b) their cheapness is such that it over-rides their inherent unreliability (in many cases).
@Rod et al,
Since the anniversary of Fukushima is coming up, why not prepare in advance for the FUD we’ll hear by preparing accurate information and sending it to scores of news outlets well ahead of time. If it does nothing more than prevent one negative news piece, perhaps it will be worth it. It might be worth sending to all the congressmen as well.
Its interesting, I wasn’t really speaking in terms of “Futurists” or science fiction but I see the importance there too now. I was mainly speaking in terms of what I see as atomic science’s inevitable importance, simply to those with a positive outlook for future with regards to resources, the terrestrial environment, the US and humanity itself. Although it may seem now not many share that sentiment.
I think also things are a bit further along than it seems sometimes, or than most people realize, when it comes to solid and concrete plans for human expansion into space. The asteroid Initiative (and redirect mission) is a go in the very near future, within the next couple of years or decade at least. ( http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/initiative/index.html#.VL9J5CxyyuR ).
The most direct and certain route to greater investments in nuclear power is a stiff carbon fee + dividend. Promoting nuclear power is not the goal of a carbon fee or tax, but it would certainly be one of the most important consequences.
If we imposed a small, revenue neutral carbon fee of 10 dollars per ton of CO2, increasing by 3 dollars per year until it equaled the (somewhat uncertain) social cost of carbon (say roughly ~$50 per ton), there would be huge interest in nuclear power. We would preserve the plants we have now, and we would start to build new ones. We would invest more in new designs and ideas.
To remove the deleterious economic effects of a carbon fee, 100% of the proceeds of the tax should be remitted pro-rata to all citizens and legal residents. Because carbon use is related to income, most people (60 to 80%) would come out ahead. A carbon tariff would need to be imposed on imports from countries that did not impose a similar fee in order to keep American manufacturing competitive. A number of people, including Climate scientist Jim Hansen, are promoting such a scheme, and economists are in universal agreement that carbon tax (and consumption taxes in general) is by far the best and most efficient way to reduce negative externalities like carbon pollution (to be fair, most economists would prefer to see the proceeds of such a tax used to cut distortionary taxes on capital gains and income, since this would spur economic growth, but this is, politically, a harder sell than a fee + dividend scheme).
Absent such a fee on carbon, I am pessimistic that nuclear will do much in the near to intermediate future, which, from the perspective of the climate, would be a tragedy.
@David
Does Thorcon have a prototype reactor?
Do they have a design certification pending with NRC?
I don’t oppose these efforts. I think my comment on the challenges and market conditions informing these efforts are pretty spot on. Rod summarized them in the Thorcon thread as well (“Today’s energy market rewards financial flexibility, predictable construction schedules, reasonably low investment, affordable operating costs, low or no emissions, and readily implemented upgrade paths”).
I’m questioning whether taking climate change off the table, and building alliances with coal, advances these efforts (or sets them back). Also lowering safety standards and regulatory requirements for current and new designs. I don’t think this approach benefits nuclear in helping it gain broader market acceptance (at the utility level, finance level, government level, or consumer level).
Isn’t that the sane perspective to take?
@EL
I’m questioning whether taking climate change off the table, and building alliances with coal, advances these efforts (or sets them back). Also lowering safety standards and regulatory requirements for current and new designs. I don’t think this approach benefits nuclear in helping it gain broader market acceptance (at the utility level, finance level, government level, or consumer level).
You often misread or purposely misunderstand what I have written.
I do not advocate taking climate change off of the table. I carefully explained why I believe it needs to be rationally and effectively addressed without being motivated by fear of catastrophe into “doing something,” even if it is going to be ineffective or far too costly to apply broadly enough to make a difference.
Building an alliance with coal producers recognizes the fact that industrial society is going to need liquid hydrocarbons from somewhere for the foreseeable future. There are geopolitical, economic and environmental advantages to investing in the capability to improve coal into a more valuable liquid hydrocarbon with the addition of nuclear heat and H2 from readily available sources like water or natural gas than to keep depending on despots or searching the remote corners of the world — including the Arctic, Antarctic and deep oceans — for various grades of crude that also have to be processed before they can be burned in aircraft, tractors, or large trucks.
It is more likely that nuclear will make friends with coal miners, coal mine equipment providers and coal mine owners than to make friends with the people whose wealth and power is tied to petroleum extraction and market dominance.
I have never advocated lowering safety standards. I advocate reducing the power of competitors and professional agitators to introduce friction into the regulatory process by inserting frivolous legal proceedings and extending comment periods. I don’t believe that “the public” has the requisite knowledge or standing to significantly influence detailed technical decision making.
I also don’t believe that many of our current standards have anything to do with safety, especially those that have been imposed in an effort to keep imaginary radiation doses to levels well below those of natural background. (My least favorite example is the 15 mrem/yr (0.15 mSv/yr) requirement over the first 10,000 years of a waste repository.) In the US, with our LWR focused prescriptive regulations, many of the rules simply do not apply to other types of technology.
Achieving such a coalition would be a significant game changer. It might even humble some of those high paid civilian nukes 😉
All I’m trying to say is that there are certain cases where solar or wind will be the cheapest ways to produce electricity, and in those places it should be used.
To expand a little: much of the electricity generation in the country is produced by natural gas. Most natural gas plants can be ramped up and down pretty quickly. We also overproduce the amount of electricity required in order to handle sudden changes in load/supply and to regulate voltage. There is also always a spinning reserve of plants, which if they need to, can be brought onto the grid extremely quickly in the case of a power plant shutting down.
Wind and solar are intermittent, but the grid can handle >20% of these intermittent sources without making any changes. On a hot, sunny day, solar could be providing up to 20% of our electricity and if the next day was hot and cloudy, natural gas plants that already exist would be brought online to produce that power.
We often talk about energy abundance and the importance of low electricity prices. Renewables are getting to the point where adding them, in places where it makes sense, will lower electricity prices, and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
Shouldn’t that be the goal?
Here is a link to the help that WIND provided GB during their recent high demand for electricity due to the cold weather.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11358770/Proof-that-the-wind-industry-cannot-be-relied-upon-for-our-electricity.html
Determine the number of Wind Turbines that provided that power and multiply it by the inverse of the percentage use to determine how many turbines are needed to keep the lights on with renewable energy.
I agree that we need a carbon tax. I doubt it can be done anytime soon at the federal leve.
However, under the Clean Power Plan, each state must put a plan together to reduce emissions, so there is a possibility of implementing carbon taxes at the state level.
@Engineer-Poet
In the link you sent, the LCOE and LACE for wind are both cheaper than nuclear.
Natural gas meters measure volume.
But other than that nuclear power plants do not increase background radiation by any appreciable amount. Do they? How does it compare with natural variance/other common power sources?
Throw a number out.
Its also interesting if not a bit ironic when you think about it that the space program and the technology for manipulation of large masses into and in orbit, involving the utilization of nuclear power, will probably also render the large super power arsenals of nuclear weapons obsolete. When it comes to big end games. I imagine thats also partially why the asteroid research program is being expedited in the US. At least I hope it also is.
Are there any circumstances where wind and solar energy is cheaper? While such a thing can be imagined hypothetically I would interest if you have any actual numbers to back it up.
I find that a lot of the time wind and solar are portrayed as cheaper then they really are because the co generation involved isn’t accounted for. I talk about it a bit with this blog post.
http://ratdog-justbecause.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-hidden-costs-of-wind-and-solar-part.html
For example the cost of wind isn’t just the wind turbines, but also the gas turbines needed to back the up. Really they need to be considered as a unit.
The 20% percent thing is wrong. The reserve exists for maintaining the integrity of the gird. It can’t both do that and back up renewable energy at the same time.
Sorry, I used the word co generation wrong in my comment above. Still it’s kind of similar to co generation. The wind and what backs up the wind are tied together. You can’t (or at least you shouldn’t) consider them separately.
By perhaps 5%, and the cost assumptions for nuclear probably do not assume any savings from factory construction, regulatory relief or loans at interest rates which reflect the 60-year lifetime we can expect from modern designs.
2 vehicles ago, I was achieving about 22-24 MPG average. Today my car claims 107.2 MPG since new, roughly 4.5 times as good. I could do better if there was broader support for charging, even just 110 VAC outlets where power is already a few feet away. That “need” can shrink radically in the near future, and ought to.
There’s also the issue of dealing with our other wastes. MSW in particular is largely landfilled, creating a problem that takes a minimum of decades to stabilize. We have alternatives, including plasma gasification which creates syngas and a stable, non-leachable slag. Syngas is a potential feedstock for producing liquid fuels. Between these two things, I doubt that abundant and cheap nuclear power will leave significant room for coal.
For these and other reasons, I doubt that coal interests can be enlisted in the push for nuclear power. They can do math as well as you and I.
I don’t think the petroleum industry particularly cares where electricity comes from. Saudi Arabia and the UAE certainly aren’t wedded to fossil-fired generators. But 90% of US coal goes directly to electric plants, and the value of a ton sold in 2025 is much smaller than a ton sold today.
And if there’s solid evidence that it cannot be relied upon and therefore should probably NOT be used, or at least required to finance itself and sell at market rates… like the UK?
That is not true. If electricity was over-generated, the grid frequency would increase until it went out of spec and lines and generators tripped. What the grid does is manage generators at less than full output and ramp them up and down (using automatic generation control, AGC) to track demand. Any generator that is on-line but not at full available output has “spinning reserve”. Non-spinning reserves are generators that are not on the grid (and maybe cold) but can be brought on-line within a specified period.
I hope to see a day soon when plug-in vehicles and other deferrable loads are able to reduce demand faster than AGC can respond in order to handle a generator or line trip. At that point spinning reserve will no longer be required, and reserves can be kept cold until needed. Maybe such a world is compatible with large fractions of non-dispatchable generation, but given that the required backup is inevitably a combustion system of some kind, I’m sure environmental goals cannot be reached that way.
@E-P
Personal vehicles are not the only applications for which liquid hydrocarbons are the best available fuel. Aircraft, many ships, and over the road trucks are unlikely to be plug-in hybrids.
What is the energy value of municipal solid waste? My experience was that it took the refuse of an entire densely populated county to fuel a small, 50 MWe waste to energy plant. The county population was close to 2 million people and the weather was sub-tropical, leading to a large quantity of plant refuse.
I agree that coal producers can do math. Should they continue fighting a losing battle in the electric power market where they sell their fuel in bulk for $2 or less per MMBTU or should they upgrade their fuel so that it can compete in more lucrative markets where they have a transportation and “home team” advantage over the competition?
A side benefit is that liquid fuel can be shipped via pipelines to break the existing railroad transportation dependence for coal miners.
Lately I’ve been thinking about something I call the seaweed cycle. We cultivate certain types seaweed in the oceans. Bring it up onto land. Dry it. Gasify it using the results of the gasification to make syn fuel and other chemicals using nuclear power. From the ashes remove uranium phosphorous and other useful chemicals.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883292708001571
Use the phosphorous to fertilize our fields. It will eventually run into the ocean again fertilizing the seaweed.
Of course for this to work we would need to take better care of our oceans. Over fishing would be a concern since the fish eat the stuff that eats the kelp.
I don’t like the idea of burning all the coal. I’m worried about climate change.
@ EL,
I believe that if a car is traveling at 10 mph and is covered with foam, the passageners are all belted in by 4 point harness with helmets and they are driving down a 4 lane highway where traffic is blocked on both sides that they are safe enough. Adding more layers of foam each mile they drive is not adding to safety. Putting 360 degree camera systems, pinpoint GPS and slowing the car to 5 mph will not make the passengers safer.
At that point, reducing “safety” will benefit the passengers by allowing them to complete their trip at speeds that are still quite safe but not “as safe as” the previous setup.
Yes, I support eliminating the As Low as Reasonably achievable regulations and replacing them with As High As Reasonably Safe. Let’s stay safe, but let’s regulate actual comparative safety and not simply regulate radiation.
I’m working on some numbers for a blog post of mine. It would be nice if someone could check it for me. Assuming that everything goes through the decay chain at roughly the same rate then I estimate all the coal burnt for electricity in the US in 2012 released between 640 and 1,900 TBq of Radon-222 into the air.
Here is my math.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-m8C6VxBdbbBJED389_XHFHKH1XRlacoJwm_FnKdrQ4/edit#gid=476669848
Aren’t you a libertarian? I would think you would have wanted the people evacuated to have had a choice in the matter.
In the past EIA’s cost numbers came with a disclaimer that they specifically did not include the cost of transmission lines and the cost of backup for intermittency. Do the new cost numbers encompass those or are those still to be added.
The old LCOE numbers were also close to nuclear, for on-shore wind, but adding backup and lengthy transmission lines, as needed in the real world, tripled the cost in the real world.
In the real world, every utility that subscribes to wind, raises their electricity rates disproportionately for all consumers, even if they have a “subscription” program, in which, presumably, only some rate payers are paying the wind price.
This is because the wind electricity may be charged to the subscribers, but the additional, “hidden” costs of putting wind on the grid are attributed to all the utility customers and for a 10% wind penetration, can cause a rate increase of 20% for all subscribers.
If the wind subscribers alone paid the real cost of putting wind on the grid it would at least three times the average cost of electricity in the USA.
I figured out what your 453. something constant was (grams per pound), but the 907185 constant doesn’t ring any bells.
It’s for converting short tons to grams.
it’s grams per ton, but 907185/238 term is in the formula for blocks F-7, 8, and 9. and also blocks G-7, 8, and 9. needs to “splain it” . i also can’t seem to break the formula shorthand into a fraction, too many brackets. i don’t want to work this hard anymore.
You are talking about worst or US impossible case scenarios, that technically were not that bad for people. No real measurable ill effects on the environment or any species. They were not standard operating conditions nor expected outcomes from any US NPP.
Sorry about that.
=(D7-(D7*pow(0.5,(1/B7))))
This part is for finding the amount of short tons of uranium that decayed in a year from all the coal that was burned. I’m assuming that the amount of uranium has stayed basically constant over the years, that none of the decay products have left the coal and that the decay products move through the chain at roughly the same speed so that the Radon produced each year equals the uranium 238 that decays each year.
The formula I used is Original Mass – (Original Mass * 0.5^(time passed/Half Life)))
*907185/238
This is for converting the short tons into grams. I divide by 238 to find out the number of moles.
=F7*E14*(ln(2)/J7)
this is for find out the number of Bq. I got the formula I’m using from this page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel
I was really unclear. Sorry again.
Who is this for? None of these organizations seem solidly endorse LNT that I can find and some seem to do just the opposite.
@Evan January 22, 2015 at 4:38 PM
dividing by 238 in each isotope line is really why the same term in each formula lost me. each conversion to moles should use the atomic weight of that isotope. so the 235 line should be dividing by 235? being PC i just said i don’t understand it. it might make sense in an “equivalent to 238” conversion, but i still don’t see why every formula has the same 238 division to get moles of different atomic weights. sorry (but i sent my college engineering degree Shift Technical Adviser out to get the OT meals)
Oh, you mean enough pro-nuclear coalitions? They are regulatory and industry entities. I dont see them as being all that “pro nuclear” john. Especially in not venturing into advocating from other perspectives.
Diving each line by 238 was a mistake on my part. I fixed it a little while ago when I noticed it.
Sorry about that. I copied the formula from Uranium 238, and forgot to change it.
correct answer; and yer welcome. BTW, how much entrapped radon gas escaped the tons of coal by mining it and then pulverizing it to the consistency of talcum powder before burning? and where did it go, it’s heavier than air.
In a way, since there is no real parallel of open procedure/criticism in other energy industry that I know of and industrial sausage making is never going to be pretty from every perspective, I think the work done by those groups, as reported in the popular press, may actually go for the most part into the slightly anti nuclear column by no fault of their own.
Complexity and details are not handled well by our media or our society at large. They require as near to a unbiased perspective as possible to properly evaluate which just doesn’t work with how we receive and process information on entertainment/social levels.
I’m not really sure where most of the radon ends up. Some of it probably escapes while the coal is mined and prepared. Some of it probably escapes when it’s burned. Some of it probably escapes from the captured fly ash which still has parts of the uranium decay chain in it. It would be really interesting to know if there are elevated levels of Radon at various places in the coal to power process.
Thanks for your help.
You can’t count every atom. Estimates are kind of unavailable. Although I imagine some estimates are much better then others.
The real question is what exactly are you trying to prove with the calc. Radon is an inert gas, so it is not chemically bound to anything. It’s physically entrapped within the coal and will be in radiological decay equilibrium concentrations (dependent on the U & Th concentrations) while the coal is still in the ground. I’d be careful trying to tie the actual total radon release from that coal directly to just the coal burning, especially at the fly-ash end. Yes, the U & Th that ends up in the fly-ash is still making more radon. But my gut tells me the greatest radon release from the activity occurs long before the coal is burned; by a lot. You can calc a number the way you are doing it, but I just don’t see what you can do with it. Seawater contains ~4 ppm U; a similar calc can be done with seawater.
I’m not really trying to prove anything with the number. I’m basically just imitating what the anti nuclear activists like to do by throwing out a large scary sounding number without any context. The point is to show that such large scary numbers are often meaningless. After I’m done throwing out some meaningless numbers I’ll then reference a study that shows that the radiation exposure from burning coal isn’t that high for people living around coal plants. Hopefully this will make people stop and think the next time the news talked about some nuclear power plant releases some small amounts of tritium into the environment.
For example:
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/jan/11/tvreports-tritium-leak-browns-ferry/282080/.
I should warn you that you’re taking the difference of two numbers which differ by a very small amount, which incurs major loss of accuracy in floating-point calculations. I did the same calculation recently, and here’s how I calculated Bequerels from a half-life in years:
=(6.023E+023/238)/(B5*8766*3600/LN(2))
A year is roughly 8766 hours, and the half-life differs from 1/e life by the factor of ln(2). There are no subtractions of nearly-identical numbers in this calculation, and no associated loss of accuracy.
@Rod Adams
These decisions aren’t made by “the public,” and yes, you do advocate lowering standards (in many areas of nuclear power). Saying you don’t is incorrect and a strange comment from you. You believe agencies such as NRC are captive to the interests of fossil fuels, other vested interests too, and a well organized anti-nuclear public interest and propaganda campaign. You believe the same about international radiation protection bodies and expert scientific committees and panels. Saying regulations are an unnecessary burden and are not needed is not news or a remarkable defense, it’s what someone says who wishes to lower such standards (be it in banking, taxation, resource extraction, home construction, employers, pension managers, doctors, pharmaceutical reps, consumer product developers, and anything else).
You weren’t careful enough. You equated climate mitigation efforts with what you perceive to be corruption in radiation protection and overzealous (and unnecessary) regulation by special interests in government. You haven’t considered a cost benefit analysis (as I suggested in the discussion), or shown much interest in climate change risks (current or in the future, the costs of inaction, especially for those on the front lines of this issue, and not just those in rich countries or global averages). Perhaps you can tell us what climate mitigation tools you think are justified (by way of a more careful explanation). Do you favor a carbon tax or carbon market, financing for home retrofits or energy efficiency (even if it’s just education), stronger CAFE standards, leadership on international agreements, smart grid deployment, scientifically informed EPA standards on air emissions and carbon pollution, nonbonding state or national emissions targets or energy standards or technology roadmaps, adaptation options (infrastructure to mitigate projected impacts), land conservation and heat sinks, funding for climate research, R&D funding and support for advanced low carbon energy technologies, new urban planning and transit development options, high speed rail, and a great deal more.
“Too costly” is a policy position (and clearly favors the status quo and making decisions through conservative intransigence and obstinacy, and primarily via inaction). By doing so, I firmly believe you are leaving money on the table, and walking away saying nuclear needs none of it. Benefits aren’t free (they all involve costs). And your go it alone approach is unlike anything in the current marketplace (everyone has mutual interests and support and allies from somewhere). Your best friends, I believe, are unlikely to come in the guise of out of favor coal developers, PR specialists, and social media enthusiasts.
There are better development opportunities out there for nuclear (more in keeping with its advantage as a low carbon alternative) than building a coal to liquid hydrocarbon infrastructure. Nuclear should be interested in sequester technologies, not the reverse (taking long sequestered carbon and re-releasing it to the environment). Batteries, grid scale energy storage, and electric vehicles (with 300 – 500 mile range) too. There are greener pastures out there for nuclear (it’s rather unfortunate you aren’t interested in pursuing any of them or building alliances around common goals and emerging values in society and today’s energy landscape and marketplace).
Lower standards (particularly with respect to investment and consumer perspectives), climate skepticism (believing no significant or important actions need to be taken), and building alliances and advancing the interests of coal (in contrast to alternatives) does little to improve the prospects for nuclear in any future or rapidly expanding and evolving energy system (beyond current ailing business climate and a shrinking share of the status quo). It’s short sighted, Rod, and I’m rather surprised to find someone so interested and active in promoting nuclear power recommending them.
@EL
These decisions aren’t made by “the public,” and yes, you do advocate lowering standards (in many areas of nuclear power). Saying you don’t is incorrect and a strange comment from you.
My inclusion of the the public was in reference to their ability to slow decision making through the hearing process and public comment periods. I did not say they made decisions, but they certainly influence the time it takes for responsible bodies to make decisions. That adds a cost and schedule burden that discourages investments because it is a large source of uncertainty in the process.
I do not advocate lower standards. I advocate better, performance-based standards that are based on protection from real harm vice prescriptive requirements that do not enhance safety.
Thanks for the tip Engineer-Poet. I was wondering what B5 is. Is it the mass of uranium 238, the half life, or something else.
I think that civil engineers are natural allies.
Coalition members should also include scientists and students in the areas of evolution and conservation biology.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/
@ Nicholas or E-P
I am confused by interpreting the meaning of EIA’s LACE and LOCE values.
“When the LACE of a particular technology exceeds its LCOE at a given time and place, that technology would generally be economically attractive to build.”
Per this statement, I view the given technology is valued if the LACE is HIGH and the LCOE unit is low. Per the tables, wind has a lower LCOE at 80.3 vs. nuclear’s LCOE of 86.1. While nuclear has a higher average LACE at 61.7 vs. wind’s LACE of 55.1. The average difference of the two technologies are equal at -24.5 making them equally economically attractive per the EIA’s methodology.
Am I understanding this correctly?
B5 is the half-life in years.
“Almost everyone believes measurements. Almost no one believes estimates.”
Don’t know if that’s true, but it got me wondering about something. How accurate is a half-life? Is there a tolerance figure on it? As EP stated above, when you take differences of small numbers, you can have problems. If the uncertainty exceeds the measurement, too bad for you.
Thank Engineer-Poet. Sorry, I’m still a bit confused about what the finally outcome of the equation represents. I don’t see anything in the equation that represents the mass of the Uranium 238 so I’m guessing it’s not Bq.
Here it is again, spaced out for clarity:
=( 6.023E+023 / 238 )/( B5 * 8766*3600/LN(2) )
Result is Bq per gram for a given half-life in years. Clear now?
Thanks again Engineer-Poet. I was thinking maybe it was for grams, but the number I got with that assumption was so huge if figured I had to be mistaken.
Low Estimate TBq
16,808,617
High Estimate TBq
50,435,853
Thanks again for your help.
I wait never mind I found the problem. Its actually 10 to 29 TBq. That makes a lot more sense. All very embarrassing for me. Sorry and thanks again.
As opposed to other clean, base load, reliable energy generation endeavors? Like ?? Coal, gas and “renewable” power plants have considerable security in operation and supply chains. Not to mention staff necessary in maintaining huge compounds, also environmental and transport and support positions.
Not that you are interested in making a reasonable or reliable assessment anyway.
Do your own homework. How bout that?
@El
Perhaps you can tell us what climate mitigation tools you think are justified (by way of a more careful explanation).
I’ll respond to your list.
Do you favor a carbon tax or carbon market” Emphatically yes on carbon tax, especially the fee and dividend approach suggested by James Hansen. No on any kind of carbon market or trading scheme.
Financing for home retrofits or energy efficiency (even if it’s just education) Not useful.
Stronger CAFE standards? No. The existing targets are going to be difficult enough to reach, especially for family-sized, multi-purpose vehicles.
Leadership on international agreements Yes. Especially those that overcome the international bans on recognizing the value of nuclear fission energy as an ultra low emission source of reliable heat and power.
Smart grid deployment No. I think “smart grid” is a marketing campaign by companies like GE and Siemens. The grid does not have to be smart to provide reliable power if the generators connected to the grid are reliable. Simple, reliable relays, frequency controllers and breakers work fine to ensure that electricity is available on demand. The last thing we need is a grid that requires constant communications and vulnerability to nefarious malcontents.
Scientifically informed EPA standards on air emissions and carbon pollution Yes to technology neutral standards, probably on a carbon intensity per kilowatt-hour basis that is not specifically selected to be reachable for natural gas and unreachable for coal.
Nonbonding state or national emissions targets Neutral, but they would be better than renewable portfolio quotas
Nonbonding state or national energy standards No. Outcome of using energy varies greatly depending on the source. People should be able to use all of the ultra low emission power they want.
Nonbonding state or national technology roadmaps Not worth the effort required. Governments are quite poor at planning technology roadmaps. The people who really understand technology are too busy implementing useful concepts to participate in a committee process.
Adaptation options (infrastructure to mitigate projected impacts) Resilient infrastructure is generally a good investment.
Land conservation and heat sinks I believe in terraforming. We should use concentrated energy sources to reduce land impacts and to create clean water from salty or dirty water. Many more heat reducing plants and trees could be growing in areas with decent soils and insufficient rain.
Funding for climate research? Not opposed to continuing existing funding programs. Not a huge fan of large increases unless you provide more specifics on the cost and potential value of the research.
R&D funding and support for advanced low carbon energy technologies? Not a fan of government development of any specific technology. Not opposed to basic research. Do not believe we need a lot more options since we have many nuclear fission advances that could be implemented at low cost without additional research other than that which would be funded by the product developers because of known added value.
New urban planning and transit development options? Neutral
High speed rail? Would prefer investing in electric rail. Higher speeds would be good in some areas and enabled by simply improving the tracks with better designs that have fewer bumps and better shaped curves. I like to travel in trains instead of airplanes. I think a lot more of our over the road cargo should be carried on intermodal trains over the long haul portions of the journey.
Last Monday, 19 Jan 2015, between 5:00pm and 5:30pm British electricity reached peak demand for the year: 52.54 gigawatts. Only 1.1% of it came from wind: 0.573 gigawatts. This despite us having 11GWe of nominal wind capacity. None of it came from solar.
No matter how much wind and solar we install, at peak electrical demand we’ll still need to run off fossil fuel. To avoid blackouts at the neediest time of year, we’ll need to pay the capital cost and annual salaries for all that fossil fuel plant, whether it’s used on not. Just on the off-chance that the wind might be still.
In contrast, if we had 55GWe of nuclear power, we’d need no solar and wind, with little coal and/or gas plant. We need only to pay capital cost and annual salaries for reserve capacity, which is about 15% of peak demand.
The only pro-nuclear power organisations I’d include in that list are the ones advocating radiation hormesis. None of them.
The NE is seeing huge electric rate increases this winter. Double in some places. Vermont has been able to cook the books selling renewable energy credits to other states and keep their increases lower. That isnt playing so well anymore.
N.H. Electricity Rate Increases Shock Residents
Vermont Yankee and Salem Harbor Coal Plant in Massachusetts both closed within the last year, which, PSNH spokesperson Lauren Collins said, “added to the anxiety about what would happen this winter.”
Shore emphasized that Liberty Utilities is merely passing along the increased cost of power and is not making any additional profit. ( http://www.vnews.com/home/15055646-95/nh-electricityrate-increases-shock-residents )
State Under Pressure To Revise Renewable Energy Policy, Avoid Hit To Ratepayers
“If we were to completely lose our ability to sell into the regional market … that would be roughly a 6 percent rate impact. For some utilities, it would be more like a 20-percent impact,” ( http://digital.vpr.net/post/state-under-pressure-revise-renewable-energy-policy-avoid-hit-ratepayers )
I wonder what will happen during this storm to electricity availability and prices.
J.T. Tucker: “I wonder what will happen during this storm to electricity availability and prices.”
If it’s as bad as they’re saying, it will probably kill some people. I wonder if the media will then blame Vermont Yankee for the deaths, because, you know, they shut down when they shouldn’t have and all. I’m sure Shumlin will go in front of cameras and claim he did everything possible to keep them operating.
Here is another opinion/article on the matter from back in November. I still cant believe the VY closing happened AND they had the nerve to make cost and those kooky, EL style, “distributed grid” and “renewable” arguments for it.
Limited Gas, Closing Plants Squeeze Electricity
To make matters worse, older coal and oil-fired power plants and the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant together comprising 10 percent of our electricity supplies are about to retire. As a result, in Maine, the typical mid-sized business will see its electric bill jump from $870 per month to $2,000 in January. We, too, will eventually get hit with higher bills in Connecticut.
The political pressure by the Vermont statehouse to arm-twist the owner-operator into shutting down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant late this year was particularly unwise. Vermont Yankee supplies about 75 percent of Vermont’s electricity needs. More important, it anchors northwestern New England by providing a reliable base load of power, operating over 90 percent of the time. ( http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-dube-new-england-electirc-power-1108-20141107-story.html )
I notice India didn’t see so interested in PR “renewable” scams and our wondrous “green economy” in making important energy deals with the US on occasion of a presidential visit, they got the important stuff out of the way first:
India and US seal nuclear deal as Modi hosts Obama ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30930581 )
@John T Tucker
Your article is out of date.
Maine PUC announced their standard rate structure a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=puc-pressreleases&id=635415&v=article08
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=puc-pressreleases&id=635473&v=article08
In CMP territory, residential and small businesses will see a 13.4% decrease in rates to 6.64 cents/kWh. Medium business customers will see a 17.3% decrease compared to same ten-month period last year. Large businesses are indexed to market. Similarly, Emera – Bangor Hydro District will see prices drop as well (14 – 17%).
You can read more here:
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/01/13/business/standard-offer-electricity-rates-to-dip-13-percent-for-central-maine-power-customers/
@John T. Tucker
Huh? Did you check on such a thing before posting.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-25/modi-shifts-on-climate-change-with-india-renewables-goal.html
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-01-26/india-gets-obama-s-backing-for-160-billion-solar-push
Did you read them?
LOL – Grants? A HANDOUT!!!! ?? You mean they want and will take Free Money ??? Yeah EL. Ok.
So Obama basically wants to subsidize/facilitate Chinese built solar in India for political purposes too. Marvelous news EL. Thank you for pointing that out.
@John T. Tucker
What they heck are you spewing about?
PM Modi is a HUGE supporter of renewables! The deal on nuclear is a concession to US to deal with liability issues regarding equipment providers and liability for accidents. It makes financing nuclear in India more difficult (not less). Financial obligations are being made on renewables, and commitments are being made on climate action in international agreements. This is great news. Your claim that “India didn’t see [sic.] so interest in PR ‘renewables” … is clearly false and ignorant of the news.
The fact that you seem rather proud of this is entirely lost on me.
Beyond the reliability issues; the infrastructure and back up requirements of solar power this is a invitation to PRIVATE US and foreign firms to invest in nuclear power in India. There is already a huge government investment and commitment to Nuclear there.
There is no such thing as a free standing solar power electric grid.
No country of any sizable population gets a meaningful portion of their energy from solar.
So yea. You can drop the inane renewable PR. Modi’s party is facing assembly elections feb 7th. Modi’s party’s opposition main line accuses them of ignoring the poor. If you have no electricity, rural subsidized/free intermittent rooftop solar with battery back up probably seems great. And with no other options it probably is. Thats almost one third of India. But its not viable, proven, large scale clean energy. Its not going to be their future or not one at least that is desirable long term.
@John T. Tucker
SunEdison To Build $4 Billion Solar Manufacturing Plant in India. They are based in Maryland Heights, Missouri.
Washington Post has a number of doubts about the nuclear deal (as well as US nuclear firms). “India is still far from having non-partisan support for nuclear power” (here), and public protests are often met with violence by the government. India hasn’t met it’s ambitious targets in the past, and lacks a fully independent regulator (here). There is a reason why advances in nuclear, renewables, investments in the grid, etc., are so challenging and have been so slow to develop in India.
I see the announcement as a great first step in the right direction (particularly regarding important commitments on climate change at the international level). Kudos to Obama! The dam has broken. Distributed power is advancing quickly in India, continuing to import coal is proving expensive (and sometimes unreliable), and greater international participation and attention (after some three decades of isolation on nuclear matters related to weapons proliferation) should bring much needed reform and perhaps a more effective and up to date approach to regulatory issues and safety concerns (as well as a better approach to dealing with anti-nuclear protests).
If you’re seeing nuclear as some kind of magic bullet to all of India’s challenges … economic, social, environmental, political, resource availability and reliability, etc. … you’re still not fully appreciating the situation (and are looking at it with one eye, and perhaps many of your other senses, closed as well). But glad you have given a more moderate and thoughtful comment (and one that actually has something to say about recent developments, and not just evasion and contention at it’s root).
There appear to be several other comments caught in the moderation queue (and Rod is away). This post (because of the numerous links) may likely get hung up as well. Regardless, India will be an interesting case to watch. And an important one as well.
But as I did seem to ignore the solar thing even after seeing a blurb about it; I am wondering if I may discount it off hand just because its so ineffective at significantly aiding the environment or producing reliable energy. Its certainly expensive and its required back up, when its FFs, is destructive. So it does do something big.
So ill hand you the olive branch if you can tell me what solid plan and commitments / progress was made specifically, in this visit, towards solar power in India that compares with the announcement on nuclear power.
Just the concrete facts EL.
I think part of maintaining and strengthening that coalition involves pointing out unreasonable, unscientific and ultimately un-American outside anti nuclear influences. I also think the case for Russia’s role in such is looking a bit more real:
Russia in secret plot against fracking, Nato chief says ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/fracking/10911942/Russia-in-secret-plot-against-fracking-Nato-chief-says.html )
Greenpeace went on immediate defensive, but this was not the first such story indicating a Russian link.
Wonderful EL – but
1. The article doesn’t discus financing or specifics of the project.
2. The article is before this visit and noting I can find addresses solar in any but the most general of PR terms during Obama’s visit. Nothing at all.
I suppose if I want to know any relevance or context this project has I will have to do the research. As always.
For instance :
Feds Accuse Three of Being Russian Spies in New York City
Evgeny Buryakov, 39, stands accused of gathering field intelligence on topics ranging from U.S. sanctions against Russia to developments in the alternative energy sector. ( http://time.com/3683120/russian-spy-ring-new-york/ )
Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company
a company called Klein Ltd. No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups ( http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/ )
@John T. Tucker
All I have to say … I’m glad I don’t have your ideological blindness regarding these matters. It must be a strange condition to have to disregard and dismiss so much of the news that meets us in our daily lives and on a routine basis.
Heads of state typically announce broad frameworks and general agreements on such occasions (and leave it to the executive and department staffs and civil servants to flesh out the finer details). This is the case with the nuclear deal (which lacks many specifics) and on the clean energy initiatives (some of which are already being implemented). You can read about the visit, and specific agreements (and confirmation of on-going commitments) here.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/25/us-india-joint-statement-shared-effort-progress-all
Regarding clean energy, energy efficiency, solar, etc.:
Along with higher education, science and technology initiatives, bilateral trade and manufacturing, information and communication technologies, national defense initiatives, water and sanitation programs, climate impact research, and much more.
===
If you don’t mind my asking, what form will this olive branch be taking?
Nuclear Power Needs to Double to Curb Global Warming
To accomplish the needed CO2 emissions cuts to keep warming no greater than 2°C, the IEA says global nuclear power generation capacity needs to increase to 930 gigawatts from 396 gigawatts by 2050. ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-needs-to-double-to-curb-global-warming/ )
You realize none of that was new or all that specific I hope. Can I vomit their entire recent nuclear plan and progress and attribute it to this meeting. Would I even want to?
The report’s recommendations on SMRs looks good, and something the US should have already done – From page 25 :
To open up the market for small modular reactors (SMRs), governments and
industry should work together to accelerate the development of SMR prototypes
and the launch of construction projects (about 5 projects per design) needed to
demonstrate the benefits of modular design and factory assembly.( http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/TechnologyRoadmapNuclearEnergy.pdf )
Coalition note:
Tea Party Support for Cutting Greenhouse Gases?
Most people understandably have spent relatively little time thinking about the issue, and their beliefs are driven much more by what they’re heard recently about the subject, and more specifically by views among their reference group. For that reason, they can be subject to sudden shifts if people sense that others are also shifting their views. ( http://legal-planet.org/2015/02/02/tea-party-support-for-cutting-greenhouse-gases-surprising-poll-results/ )
We are seeing that now with the anti vax movement, I think it can also be said for the anti nuke movement. Once discussion opens up to real science, perspective and real risk assessment.
For you engineer and heavy science types there is a good breakdown of sources and reasoning in the recent climate picture at carbonbrief ( http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/how-the-deep-oceans-have-continued-to-warm-over-the-past-decade/ ). Some heavy stuff too. Especially when considering the southern oceans.
Forget the acidification slam dunk. Dont get so mixed up in the no warming/slowed warming positions now. Its looking like it could be a very foolish position with respect to the whole picture.
The Deep ARGO mission brief/proposal is really interesting too and quick to glance through. It makes a sound argument some very significant changes are occurring in the deep ocean ( http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Deep_Argo_AST15.pdf )
One reason that I support development of nuclear power is that I don’t think that the earth can support 7 Billion people for very long (let alone an increase in population) without it. We have appearently have already reached peak conventional oil. Peak other types of other types of non-nuclear energy can’t be far behind. Without use of hydrocarbons the population probably would have stayed below 1 Billion.
Sometimes government meddling forces the use of more expensive technology that doesn’t work as well. Digital is not always superior to analog. Analog thermostats often have an adjustable heat anticipator which prevent hugh swings in the air temperature between the time that the heating or cooling unit switches on and when it switches off. Since thermostats are mounted against the wall and the wall serves as a heat sink thermostats are often slow to respond to changes in the air temperature.
@John T Tucker
Why not? It would be informative, and the comments on it are rather succinct.
“43. Noting that the Contact Group set up in September 2014 to advance implementation of bilateral civil nuclear cooperation has met three times in December and January, the Leaders welcomed the understandings reached on the issues of civil nuclear liability and administrative arrangements for civil nuclear cooperation, and looked forward to U.S.-built nuclear reactors contributing to India’s energy security at the earliest.”
Along with various other announcements related to nuclear weapons, proliferation, security and verification programs, high energy physics, etc.
Do we have any funding commitments from US nuclear companies (please report on them when we do)? US solar companies (FSLR and SUNE) are “expected to invest $6 billion in India in the fiscal year to March 31 and $14 billion in the next fiscal year” (according to Fortune). $8 billion stands at the ready from World Bank, IFC, kfW, ADB and US-Exim (here). Good for US trade, good for the climate, and good for economic development of India.