Atomic Insights

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

Climate change

Enough with “renewables!”

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The American Nuclear Society posted an article entitled How a nuclear victory at COP27 started with a teen and a text reporting on the wonderful story of Ia Aanstoot. This is the 17-year old Swedish highschool student who effectively saved the day for nuclear at COP27 by alerting a WhatsApp chat group with the right people in it, that the final language being used by the COP27 negotiating team for its agreement used the term “renewables” rather than “clean energy” and so excluded consideration of nuclear. 

Through a chain of texts and resulting prompt action by senior US officials which were relayed back to the negotiating room, a potential clean energy disaster was averted. Given that there was a quick fix, it seems that the whole threatened exclusion problem arose less because of some deliberately nefarious effort by negotiators to exclude nuclear but rather was due to misguided if casual usage of the word “renewables.” The good news is that, as far as COP27 showed, nuclear energy is sitting at the clean energy table again.

The bad news is that many people, including top negotiators, don’t think about the implications of their use of the this word. If nothing else, this story highlights the confusion and potential pitfalls caused by using “renewable,” which is a form of jargon, rather than what is really meant. Some folks use this particular term to cause confusion and some use it because they are confused. In the COP27 case, the use appears to have been inadvertent. Still it seems wise to point out how use of this particular word causes confusion, problems and contributes to our inability to make good climate decisions.

We need “Clean” energy to address Climate Change

When it comes to choosing which types of energy technology to prioritize and build in order to address climate, we need to stay focused on low-carbon sources, or what we now call “clean” energy. Many people may not realize that all of what is “renewable” is not “clean.”

Renewable energy is defined to focus on types of energy that come from “sources that cannot be depleted or which naturally replenish,” an appealing concept but actually a red herring with respect to carbon emissions. Clearly, some types of renewables are low and non-carbon-emitting energy sources, such as wind and solar. But some renewables are highly emitting sources of energy, namely bioenergy, which includes burning ancient forests, also called biomass energy.

Technically, under the proper conditions and given hundreds of years, forests will grow back. But this is not going to happen in the timeframe which matters to humanity. We have an urgent problem and need to halve global emissions by 2030 and eliminate emissions entirely by 2050. We can’t afford to either lose more forests or wait for trees to grow. Thus, what really matters is knowing whether or not there are carbon emissions that come a source of energy and not whether it might eventually be replenished, even if too late to matter.

We can get this information by looking at the carbon-intensity of energy. We consider low-carbon-intensity “clean” and high-carbon-intensity “dirty.” Unfortunately, many simply assume that all renewables are “clean” but that’s not the case. Bioenergy emits as much carbon as fossil fuels. People applaud our progress when they hear that the percentage of renewables is growing. Yet, according to Bioenergy International, bioenergy produced more than 2/3rds of the energy labelled “renewable.” And that generates high levels of emissions, so this is actually not progress towards emissions reductions.

Lately, the large and growing bioenergy industry has been seen as contributing massively to deforestation. Yet, bioenergy has the burnish of appearing to be “green” because it’s made the political cut and is included as “renewable.” This means that companies cutting down trees have benefitted from the subsidies and incentives intended to increase clean energy. Fortunately, many are starting to be more discerning and are specifically excluding ecologically-damaging types of bioenergy as unsustainable and not worthy of prioritization with climate-focused subsidies.

Politics, lobbying and powerful ideologic preferences are what have brought the term “renewable” into vogue in the first place. This also means that what’s included as renewable differs from place to place. California specifically excludes large hydro power but includes small hydropower stations. Not because large hydro emits more carbon or doesn’t rely on the renewing resource of rain but rather because California policymakers decided dams posed too great an ecologic impact and didn’t want to prioritize building more large dams. In other places, renewables includes large hydro. The fact that the definition of what’s renewable varies from place to place, contributes to confusion and lack of clarity. When folks in California hear that there are Canadian provinces running almost entirely on renewable energy, they may think that means they’ve succeeded in building out lots of wind and solar. In fact, it’s predominantly large hydro—which isn’t counted as “renewable” in California.

Nuclear’s Contributions to Clean Energy are Sidelined

The biggest problem by far with using the term renewable, however, is that it is invariably defined to exclude nuclear power. This causes the entire nuclear industry—which for decades has produced more clean energy than all other low-carbon sources combined—to be discounted and even sometimes excluded. Not surprising since nuclear has long been maligned and even demonized. Even so, the omission of nuclear as a renewable energy source, whether intentional or not, causes significant problems for those trying to use good data to address climate change.

We cannot make good decisions about how to invest in new energy generation if we don’t get good information about where our clean energy is coming from. Most energy agencies now include reports on levels of Renewables, because they are politically potent. They don’t create reports based on carbon intensity (such as by grouping the low-carbon energy technologies and the high-carbon energy technologies). Thus, people are not shown that their nuclear power plants are contributing to the clean energy being produced. This may induce them to think that nuclear is carbon-emitting—which it isn’t. They will think biofuels are a good thing for the climate—they aren’t. They will also think we have less clean energy than we actually do and agree to pay for more renewables. In certain areas, nuclear power plants are not even credited with producing carbon-free energy that counts towards the region’s clean energy goals! Which explains why folks (like in Downstate New York) are willing to allow craven politicians (like former Governor Cuomo) to shut down perfectly good nuclear power plants (like Indian Point). In short, the focus on “renewables” also produces misleading data.

New York is a perfect example. New York’s Independent System Operator, NYISO (whose stated vision is “Working together with stakeholders to build the cleanest, most reliable electric system in the nation”) provides stakeholders with two types of pie charts on its Real-Time Energy Dashboard: “All Fuels” and “Renewables.” You can see all of the types of energy that contribute to the fuel mix powering the state in the sample chart on the left but the chart doesn’t reflect carbon intensity, so you won’t be able to see which types of energy are contributing to climate change and which aren’t. (Click charts to enlarge.)

NYISO’s second chart, Renewables, also doesn’t show carbon intensity or provide information about what’s “clean” or not. This subset includes hydro, wind and “other renewables” (shown to include solar, methane, refuse and wood). In this example, hydro appears to be the largest source of clean energy for the state. Anyone could easily interpret these two charts to think that the first shows all types of energy and second shows those that are “green” (i.e. “clean”‘.) This of course is wrong and misleading. All the types of energy shown in the green color are not “green,” low-carbon sources. Additionally, the second chart omits showing the largest source of New York’s clean energy generation. Shame on you, NYISO. Rate-payers deserve to be shown all of New York’s low-carbon energy. Your job is to deliver less jargon and more facts! Such a chart would make it very clear that nuclear energy was producing the majority of New York’s clean energy, like the below mock up created by the Climate Coalition (and explored in an article called “NYISO’s Deceptive Reports“):

The Climate Coalition’s mock-up of the type of chart not provided by NYISO

New York is not alone in producing deceptive reports that mislead viewers and also serve to undermine support for nuclear energy. Most state system operators follow this same pattern. These professionals are all aware of the climate crisis and the importance of educating people about sources of clean energy—but they are under political constraints. It seems oblivious, if your goal is “building the cleanest and most reliable grids” then what people need are reports which show “Emitting/DIrty” energy vs “Non-Emitting/Clean” energy types. These agencies know that Petroleum, Natural Gas, Coal and Bioenergy (biofuels/biowaste/biomass, etc) emit carbon at very high levels. They also know that Nuclear, Large Hydro, Small Hydro, Wind, Solar and Geothermal have significantly lower emissions attributed to them and so do not substantially contribute to climate change, regardless of your politics. Yet even the US Energy Information Agency fails to provide data in a useful format that avoids jargon and provides an accurate picture of how well we are doing addressing climate change. Take this chart for example:

The EIA helpfully groups Fossil Fuels and Renewables together but doesn’t show what’s actually clean energy, so we know how well we are doing reducing emissions. Again, a more useful presentation would be one centered around carbon emissions rather than jargon. Here’s the same exact data organized by Nucleation Capital in a way that reflects CO2 emissions. It’s much easier to see the decarbonization achieved in these 12 years:

When I contacted the EIA and asked whether they had any reports that just show energy generation based upon relative impact on climate, I was told “we do not categorize energy sources subjectively as clean or dirty.” Hmm, why not?

This problem reflects persistant nuclear prejudice and the political popularity of renewables, despite their increasingly obvious poor performance at reducing emissions. This was the gist of a study that was published by Atte Harjanne and Janne M. Korhonen in 2018 entitled “Abandoning the concept of renewable energy.” They write: “In politics, business and academica, renewable energy is often framed as the key solution to the global climate challenge. We, however, argue that the concept of renewable energy is problematic and should be abandoned in favor of more unambiguous conceptualization . . . [as] the key problems the concept of renewable energy has in terms of sustainability, incoherence, policy impacts, bait-and-switch tactics and generally misleading nature.”

Again, it is important to distinguish between those who don’t like the types of energy labelled as “renewable,” and what we are suggesting here. We find that use of the term “renewable” is misleading with respect to the metrics that matter the most to the public and policymakers. The debate about whether or not we should be using solar, wind or biofuels is not what we are concerned with here. Those are worthy debates which endeavor to look at whether or not the amount of land, mined materials, manufacturing, installation, ecosystem impacts, and all-in firming and transmission costs are worthwhile investments achieving both our decarbonization and grid reliability goals. We are not even questioning the merit of considering certain technologies as “renewable” when forests are being cut down with no guarantees of being replanted. We are only questioning the merit of grouping a limited set of technologies into a catch-all term that is used as a proxy for “clean energy,” when it’s not. Confusing jargon that elevates some technologies, excludes others without true reference to emissions is not helping us make good decisions towards our carbon-reduction goals.

We need clear and accurate information on climate impacts as we make increasingly large investments in transitioning our energy systems, commiting us to energy projects that will have 20, 30, 50-year and longer life-spans. For this, we definitely should avoid anything that hints at ambiguity and stick with what we mean: clean energy. So, in 2023, let’s work to reject use of the word “renewable” and demand that we focus on the distinction that does matter: carbon intensity. Without clear language and understanding, neither the public nor those negotiating our future world agreements can be expected to make good decisions.
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Citations

1. “How a Nuclear Victory at COP27 Started with a Teen and a Text,” by Amelia Tiemann, published by NuclearNewswire, December 15. 2022.

2. “Renewable Energy Explained: Overview and Types” by EnergySage.

3. “Drax: UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada” by Joe Crowley and Tim Robinson, published in BBC News, October 3, 2022

4. “Under dinosaurs reign, bioenergy the largest renewable energy source,” by Bioenergy International, December 10, 2020.

5. “Australia rejects forest biomass in first blow to wood pellet industry,” by Justin Catanoso, published by Mongabay, December 21, 2022.

6. New York Independent System Operator “Real-Time Dashboard.”

7. ResearchGate: “Abandoning the concept of renewable energy”, by Atte Harjanne and Janne M. Korhonen, December 2018.

How Hot is Cold Fusion?

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Matt Trevithick of DCVC moderates a panel with Dr. David Nagel, Prof. Robert Duncan and Dr. Thomas Schenkel

The 24th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF24) was held at the lovely and spacious Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA over four days in late July. As a venture investor looking at evaluating and investing in a wide range of advanced nuclear ventures, I was invited to participate and/or sponsor the event. While I wasn’t initially convinced that cold fusion was the best use of four days, the appeal of sharing my perspective on investing in next-gen nuclear as well as having the opportunity to talk wtih attendees about the work Rod and I are doing building advanced nuclear portfolios for investors with Nucleation Capital, our non-traditional venture fund, was more than I could resist.

To our delight, ICCF24 was a surprisingly fun, well-organized and interesting event, hosted by the Anthropocene Institute. Four full days of expert sessions were capped with a hosted outdoor banquet with comic food-prep performance, gifts and dinner prepared by television celebrity Chef Martin Yan; the inspiring award of a lifetime-achievement gold medal; musical and multimedia entertainment with original rap performances about cold fusion derived from conference sessions by science impresario Baba Brinkman and much more. For those curious about where things stand with what is no longer being called “cold fusion,” I am pleased to share the following report.

First, some background

The concept of cold fusion was announced 1/3 century ago by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.1 Their sensational revelation? The release of excess heat in a lab setting explainable only as a type of nuclear event occurring in the presence of certain metals and gases. Their claims engendered tremendous scientific interest and initial fanfare but lack of replicability or an acceptable theory to explain the effect undermined confidence and the concept quickly went from hotly debated to thoroughly debunked.

The onerous stigma of discredited science has since followed work on cold fusion yet a number of scientists had become intrigued and  begun to explore the phenomenon. Researchers began to meet up periodically to discuss their work and results, forming the ICCF (International Conference on Cold Fusion) in 1990. Despite a serious lack of funding, many independent researchers and labs persisted in testing materials and produced yet more suggestive data using different combinations of metals, configurations, temperatures and pressure conditions.

Fast forward

In 2015, with the threat of climate change helping to convince Google to leave no energy stone unturned, a group of scientists, academics and technologists secured Google funding for a multi-year investigation into cold fusion. After three years and an investigation that tested dozens of approaches, the team published their findings in the journal Nature, acknowledging their failure to observe any transformative excess heat yet also an inability to either confirm or disprove cold fusion from their efforts. They found that better test techniques and measurement calorimetry would be helpful to go further and encouraged others to keep exploring. They concluded:

“A reasonable criticism of our effort may be ‘Why pursue cold fusion when it has not been proven to exist?’. One response is that evaluating cold fusion led our programme to study materials and phenomena that we otherwise might not have considered. We set out looking for cold fusion, and instead benefited contemporary research topics in unexpected ways.

A more direct response to this question, and the underlying motivation of our effort, is that our society is in urgent need of a clean energy breakthrough. Finding breakthroughs requires risk taking, and we contend that revisiting cold fusion is a risk worth taking.

We hope our journey will inspire others to produce and contribute data in this intriguing parameter space. This is not an all-or-nothing endeavour. Even if we do not find a transformative energy source, this exploration of matter far from equilibrium is likely to have a substantial impact on future energy technologies. It is our perspective that the search for a reference experiment for cold fusion remains a worthy pursuit because the quest to understand and control unusual states of matter is both interesting and important.“

(Click this image to go to a free copy of this report of the Google-funded study.)

Back to the present

The ICCF held its 24th session in northern California last week, following a three year hiatus. Those representing current ongoing research projects largely sported grey, white or no hair. The community engaged in lively debates on a whole range of issues, including what to call this type of energy. With “cold fusion” being tainted, “LENR” (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and “Solid-State Fusion Energy” were broadly used interchangeably, even as certain organizers urged caution about selecting any name before the underlying physics were actually fully understood.

Continued poor repeatability underpinned by the lack of a supportive predictive atomic theory that explained the heat generation effect was acknowledged. Nevertheless, there was definite progress being made in a range of areas, not least of which was a far broader appreciation of the complexity of the dynamics underlying the atomic transmutations, particularly with respect to the numbers of affected and active bodies. Unlike fusion and fission, which are nuclear events that happen as a result of direct interactions of two distinct bodies (such as between deuterium and tritium for fusion, and between uranium and a neutron in fission), research had shown that LENR involved complex mult-body interactions, which could occur with a variety of metals such as nickel, steel, or palladium in the presence of deuterium or tritium but which may also include quarks, photons, protons, neutrons or pomerons. To further complicate the matter, it is clear that those dynamics were impacted by conditions such as temperature and pressure affecting the energy of the bonds within the metallic lattices.

While the exact set of phenomena that unfold to release energy remains unclear, what was not debated at all was whether the potential to release heat was real. It clearly is, despite the extended difficulty scientists have had pinning down theory and practice. This issue seems entirely settled. Decades of work by hundreds of researchers reporting on their experiments and experiences of heat release “anomalies” have begun to provide a far more nuanced picture of the dynamics and the parametric guideposts that will eventually enable those studying them to narrow in on the controlling aspects.

According to Dr. Florian Metzler of MIT, the revelation of data points around these phenomena closely mirrors the progression of reporting around anomalies for other deeply complex physical effects, such as the work that preceded the development of the transistor, the solid state amplifier or that which is continuing on superconductors. At some point, the data generated will provide sufficient guidance to enable patterns to emerge that may result in a profound shift in our understandings as well as tranformative technologies, just as Bell Labs did, despite widespread skepticism, to finally figure out how to make reliable transistors, which innovation revolutionized electronics.

In the meantime, there are researchers pursuing the bigger picture on the theoretical side, and making strides towards creating a true “proof of principle” design, starting with known mechanisms which include a better understanding of how host lattice metals absorb energy, get excited and emit an alpha particle. Increasingly, those seeking to deploy LENR systems will move from uncontrolled behaviors to deliberately engineered systems that produce useful amounts of energy. Once that happens, LENR may well emerge as a readily deployable type of consumer-facing nuclear, where a wide range of low-cost materials could be combined at nearly any size or configuration to generate electrons or heat for use in homes, schools, stores, boats, planes and other places where both electricity and heat are used but in smaller amounts.

Two Big Announcements

$10 Million from ARPA-e. Though there were no technological breakthroughs announced, there were some very exciting funding announcements. During his presentation, ARPA-e fusion program director, Scott Hsu, announced a new $10 million funding solicitation round that will select a number of LENR project teams to fund. This funding decision came out of ARPA-e’s Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Workshop, held in October of 2021, which solicited input from experts on the best approach for breaking the stalemate that has long existed between lack of funding and lack of results in cold fusion. In anticipation, most likely, of the urgency with which any breakthrough will need to be commercialized, this program requires that applicants form into full business teams that bring a variety and balance of skills, blending technical with marketing and finance.

Eyeing a $100M XPrize.  Although organizers were not ready to announce the competition or the specific requirements, work has begun to raise the capital necessary to offer a $100 million XPrize to the first team to produce a replicable, accepted, on-demand LENR system.  Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPrize, addressed the assembled group and revealed info about the behind-the-scenes efforts, decisions and negotiations that must be completed in order for the XPrize organization to officially offer the prize and start the competition. The news and prospect of there being a very large XPrize that might be offered was very well received. It was also clear that, much like with other XPrizes, news of a prize being in the works can shake loose investment capital for promising ventures sooner rather than later.

LENR Lessons and Learning

According to the Anthropocene Institute, there may be 150 or more initiatives or ventures currently working on LENR research or development. ICCF24 organizers opted not to host a huge expo but instead invited the community to submit posters or abstracts for the conference. One had to become a sponsor in order to secure space to showcase one’s efforts at the event. As a result, only a few LENR ventures displayed LENR demos and, of those on display, only one actually demonstrated an effect. Nevertheless, there were a few ventures in attendance claiming to have working systems that generate excess energy and endeavoring to raise venture funding to get to the next stage.

For those of us interested in the investment opportunities, ICCF24 provided ample opportunities for mingling with and meeting those gathered at ICCF24. People were happy to share their opinions on the state-of-the-art and these conversations provided a gauge on community sentiments. Not surprisingly, many were wary of existing energy production claims. Such caution is prudent for anyone prone to giving credence to any claim until repeatable energy production is demonstrated without question. This has yet to be achieved. But, to complicate matters, lack of demonstrable evidence doesn’t fully refute claims either. There are, in fact, few good means of measuring small amounts of incremental heat produced in a system that is already hot or has another source of energy adding power. There are tabulation methods that have been proposed but lack of suitable measurement equipment or agreed upon verification methods is yet another challenge for the successful emergence of this technology. Thus, the race to the finish line for understanding and controlling these reactions continues both on the theoretical side as well as on the practical application side with no clear winner or timeline in sight, making early-stage investment decisions little more than a bet on a team and a dream.

Whichever group manages to overcome these obstacles and develop a securely working system—whether or not they have figured out the underlying theoretic basis—would, however, have a significant strategic and financial advantage. Not only would they find capital resources, they would have a clear lead in getting a viable product to market in what would clearly be a huge market. Sadly, given cold fusion’s still lingering stigma, LENR developers face extra jeopardy in any overstatements that could reverberate to set back the entire field. For now, this makes fundraising a particular challenge for all developers, even among those investors quite aware that LENR may one day compete in the vast energy market.

Given the potential value of this technology, it is no wonder that dozens of cash-strapped researchers and venture teams have soldiered on for decades. Now that ARPA-e has chosen to continue the work initiated by Google to identify a proof-of-concept design, there is new-found scientific integrity and rebranding to be done. There is also a greater awareness that what set cold fusion back and derailed early efforts was not scientific fraud but rather its far more complex sub-atomic transmutations, its multibody interactions combined with environmental factors such as temperature, pressure and light that varied by selection of component materials. These complexities still need to be sorted out but could potentially provide many viable options for sourcing and construction of systems and thus help to reduce manufacturing costs.

Not surprising then, was the participation at ICCF24 of several of the most respected and active venture funders in the nuclear space, including Matt Trevithick, who recently left Google and joined the venture fund, DCVC; Carly Anderson from Prime Movers Lab; Kota Fuchigami from Mitsubishi; and Shally Shanker of Aiim Partners. How and where these firms choose to invest in LENR will not be known for some time. Still, if nothing else, this conference established that informed investors do recognize that LENR exists and they are watching its progress. If the work progresses as anticipated by the community, LENR will eventually become a ubiquitous source of safe, low-cost, readily-manufacturable, clean, popular and broadly applicable commercial nuclear energy that provides abundant energy. For those still pondering “how hot is cold fusion?,” there is discernable warming, so it may be time to start paying attention.

Valerie Gardner, Nucleation Capital managing partner, and Grant Mills, Nucleation’s summer associate, tabling at ICCF24

[NOTE:  Nucleation Capital is the only venture fund focused on investing in the advanced nuclear ventures which enables both large institutional funders and accredited individual angel investors to participate at the level that works for them. For ICCF24, Nucleation trialed a special promotional rate that remains available to Atomic Insights readers through August. If you’d like to learn more about why investing in venture capital can improve your overall portfolio performance, click here.]

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Footnotes
1. “Bridging the Gaps: An Athhology on Nuclear Cold Fusion,” compiled and edited by Randolph R. Davis, published by WestBow Press, 2021.

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