Atomic Insights

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

Editorials

Nature and Nuclear Power, the hills and valleys will be thankful and every creature rejoice!

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By Wade Allison

Emeritus Professor of Physics at Keble College, Oxford 

A canary, alive and singing in the coal mine, gave miners confidence that the air was safe to breathe. But today our problem is not carbon monoxide in a mine but carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans. The Industrial Revolution was built on fossil fuel, its high energy density and reliability. Now, faced with climate change, we should give it up! But what should we use instead? And where is the guidance, as unequivocal as that of the canary, that should give everybody confidence in its safety?

It is a curious reaction to suppose that our problems can be solved by going back to pre-industrial-revolution sources like wood, wind and water. These were weak and unreliable then, and remain so. To harvest enough energy today their plants have to be built on a huge scale and the environmental damage they do is plain for all to see. How can vast flooded rivers, hillsides and meadows plastered with solar panels and the destruction of virgin forest be described as “green”? But the unreliability of “renewables” is an even greater failure and one that will not be bridged by an advance in energy storage on the scale needed. Secondary energy sources such as hydrogen or batteries are not “pre-charged” and have to be filled from a primary energy source.

The only other available pre-filled source known to physical science is nuclear. Fission using uranium or thorium has an energy density a million times that of coal, so little fuel is needed and little waste generated. As a result power plants can be made compact and robust with a negligible impact on the environment.

The only snag has been that nuclear frightens people, delaying construction and deterring investors. But does the evidence justify their concern? In the light of the official radiation safety regulations many tens of thousands were expected to die from the Chernobyl accident. The surrounding area was expected to be uninhabitable for a very long time and was left deserted except for wild animals roaming at will in the radioactive environment. Like a canary left in a gas-filled mine many were expected to die. But over the years many reports have told that the area has become a wildlife park in all but name. Pictures taken by BBC, National Geographic and others show animals thriving unmolested by humans.

So what went wrong? Do the animals know something that we don’t? “But they know nothing!” Dr Watson might say, to which Sherlock Holmes might reply “Quite so. But may be something that we think we know is not in fact the case.”

That radioactivity and its radiation are relatively harmless was confirmed by the human casualty figures from radiation at Chernobyl. Instead of thousands the list comprises 28 early firefighters and 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer. The story was repeated at Fukushima. Of course the tsunami was very exciting – that kind of news sells – and I watched in fascinated horror like everybody else. But the nuclear accident was quite different. Although it was labeled a disaster in the highest category, nobody at all was affected by the radiation. Just as at Chernobyl the serious damage was social and economic. In particular, alarmed authorities in Japan, Germany, USA and around the world turned off nuclear power stations and burnt fossil fuels instead. This disaster continues at the expense of the environment.

The popular worry about nuclear technology is simply mistaken. It is about a thousand times safer than regulations suggest. Many benefit from the use of quite high doses of radiation in clinical medicine as pioneered by Marie Curie to diagnose and cure cancer. The draconian regulations were introduced to appease popular concerns about radiation, inflamed by the nuclear arms race at the time of the cold war. How that happened is another story. Today it is important that young people learn the truth about nuclear science and what it can do to benefit the economy and the environment. 

The only realistic mitigation of climate change is the deployment of nuclear power on a grand scale. Running steadily it can provide waste heat and, at times of reduced demand, make hydrogen for chemicals, transport and domestic gas. We cannot do it? Of course we can! We should build modular power stations on a production-line basis, as US shipyards built Liberty ships in WWII. Many designs for such modular power stations are already in competition to come to market. Those investors who choose nuclear will be running the new industrial revolution. Better still, the curse of the renewables will be lifted from the fish in the rivers, the birds in the air and the grass in the meadows. 

25 January 2019

Wade Allison, MA DPhil wade.allison@physics.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Physics and Fellow of Keble College, University of Oxford, UK 
Hon. Sec.  Supporters Of Nuclear Energy (SONE) http://www.radiationandreason.comhttps://www.nuclear4life.com
“Nuclear is for Life” 2015 “Radiation and Reason” 2009 
“Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging”  2006 OUP

Giving thanks for both actinides and hydrocarbons

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Neutrons are key provided to unlock energy stored in actinides
Credit: UVA Nuclear Reactions

There is a pervasive myth claiming that energy is difficult to store. The objective fact is that our creator – or nature if you prefer – figured out how to store massive quantities of useable energy at the very beginning.

Aside: Refined electricity storage doesn’t appear to be difficult from a consumer’s point of view. Charging small batteries seems like such a simple task. The parts of the system that are hidden from users, however, is material intensive, consumes energy, and costs a lot of money compared to simply using electricity as soon it is generated. End Aside.

At the time of the Big Bang – the cause of which can be debated forever – a spectrum of elements formed.

Some of those elements – collectively known as actinides – were formed by pushing a large quantity of protons and neutrons tightly together. The process created atoms that were almost stable because they were held together with an almost unimaginable amount of binding energy.

Forming those actinide elements, the longest lived of which were isotopes of uranium and thorium, “consumed” a portion of the vast quantity of energy released by the Bang.

Actually, “consumed” isn’t the right word because the energy did not disappear.

For several billion years, the binding energy remained securely locked in the nuclei of nearly stable isotopes. The creator – again, nature if you prefer – gifted the key to that massive stockpile of the capacity to do work. The key was well-hidden; only creatures with curiosity, ability to document and communicate discoveries, motivation for the search, and sufficient provisions for basic survival to invest in the search would be able to discover it.

In 1932, humans found the key. James Chadwick was the person credited with taking the conclusive step in a multi-decade search when he designed and conducted a replicable experiment showing that there were particles inside nuclei that were as heavy as protons, but carried no electrical charge. Those particles, named neutrons, almost immediately became a tool of intense interest among the scientists who specialized in uncovering and describing atomic structure.

Once the key was located, it opened up an immense treasure trove whose contents are still being cataloged. We have no way of knowing how many new sections remain to be found. The trove includes rare or previously non-existent materials with unique physical properties and it included an effectively unlimited source of power to perform both constructive and destructive work.

For many good reasons – and some nefarious, selfish reasons – humans have been alternatively excited, cautious, methodical and halting during the lengthy and ongoing discovery process. We’ve learned a great deal and continue to make progress. At the same time, we’ve collectively forgotten many early lessons, ignored some useful discoveries, misused some of the knowledge, and misled even ourselves about the potential value of the information we’ve uncovered.

Fortunately, we’ve managed to avoid most potentially catastrophic results even while we have so far failed to take full advantage of the stockpile of value we’ve inherited.

It’s time to give thanks for both the gift and the progress that has been made so far in developing effective uses for the gift. It’s also time to dedicate ourselves to continued efforts to take better advantage of the gift in service to mankind.

But Don’t Forget The Value Of Stored Hydrocarbons

Nature – or our creator, if you will – provided plenty of alternative sources of power to enable the development of creatures capable of unlocking and understanding the energy stored inside atomic nuclei. Like other stars, our nearby sun used another type of power made available by the Big Bang. It was a massive enough gathering of lighter elements to enable them to be pushed together at extremely high temperatures and pressures.

When two light elements have nuclei that are mashed together, a tiny amount of their mass turns into released energy in the form of heat and a spectrum of waves ranging from low frequency thermal energy to ultra high frequency x- and gamma rays. At its distance of 93 million miles from our Earth, the portion of the Sun’s energy bathing our planet acted as a gentle stimulant for life to develop and flourish.

Some forms of life could directly convert the sun’s energy into nourishment, other forms of life developed to obtain their energy indirectly by consuming parts of the life that directly used the sun. Bits and pieces of both forms were left over and ended up being stored for future use.

There is even a reasonable theoretical probability that some forms of hydrocarbons or hydrocarbon precursors were deposited in the primordial materials that compose our home planet.

Over time, the creatures that eventually became homo sapiens learned to take advantage of chemical reactions that released heat and light from a wide variety of natural materials. They began to understand the advantages and limitations of various potential sources of combustion fuel and gradually improved the safety and utility of those forms of stored energy.

Energy stored in material gradually enabled humans to spend less time in scratching out subsistence. it enabled travel, discovery, a move away from human bondage, less dependence on animal muscle, greater comforts, improvements in heath and sanitation, better ability to store food safely and countless other components of modern living that are often taken for granted.

Even though there are some known downsides to the ways that we currently consume hydrocarbons, we should remember and give thanks for their existence and their utility. We can continue improving our methods of putting their value to work in service of mankind and we can gradually incorporate replacements in situations where those replacements provide better overall value.

It is entirely feasible to move towards a world where there is less pressure to open up new stores of hydrocarbons, but it is needlessly polarizing to talk of eliminating their use by fiat or even by propagandistic campaigns designed to use fear, guilt and demonization as tools of persuasion.

While it would be good to properly price the damage that can be done by hydrocarbon byproducts, attempting to achieve zero use is about as illogical and counterproductive as seeking to ban fire.

Aside: It’s become clear to me that coal has been demonized by people interested in seeking to capture a larger market share for methane (aka natural gas). There are benefits and disadvantages of each of those closely related fuels, but methane speculators and producers know they’ll make more money if a growing share of customers can be turned away from coal. Despite the pervasive propaganda to the contrary coal can be the best fuel choice in a given situation. End Aside.

If we are really and truly focused on quickly reducing mankind’s contribution to the ever-increasing quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere, effective action needs to include the willing participation of people that are unlikely to be convinced by fear, uncertainty and doubt. If we want major sources of capital to invest a growing share of their resources into developing and deploying fission power systems, we need them to see beneficial results from revising their investment habits.

We need to convincingly prove that fission can be even more profitable than combustion, even if the profits must be more evenly distributed to make the transition work. Though we have good reasons to be thankful for the opportunities that dense stores of energy provide, we must accept responsibility for turning potential into reality.

1000 Times Too Large – Evacuation Assumption at Indian Point

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by M. Herschel Specter, former AEC Licensing Manager for Indian Point 3 On November 16, 2015 Jim Malatras, New York State’s Director of Operations, wrote to the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners arguing that the applications for extending the licenses of the two operating nuclear plants at Indian Point should be denied. His central reasoning was “Indian […]

Cheap, emission-free way to boil water

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For the majority of human history, people used their own muscles to provide almost all of the work required for survival and development. A thin slice of humanity achieved a moderate amount of personal comfort and leisure because they were able, often through an accident of birth, to control a portion of the daily work […]

99% of mankind should love nuclear energy

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Please be patient with me on this post – it might take a while before I clearly demonstrate why it belongs on Atomic Insights. First I want to share a couple of entertaining, but informative videos that you’ll probably never see in the commercial media. This is another version of the same song, performed with […]

Deadliest adversary of antinuclear movement – guiltless men and women proudly sharing nuclear knowledge

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For the past few months, I have been rereading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Though the book was first published more than 50 years ago, it is remarkably prescient about some of the risks that society can face when too many people forget how to produce items of real value and quality. It is a book […]

Flush With Cash – Where Did Climate Activists Get So Much Money?

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The Economist recently published a column titled Climate politics: Flush with cash. So what? that described the results of a recent study by Matthew Nisbet, an researcher at American University in Washington, DC. According to Nisbet, groups classified in the environmental category spent almost $400 million on climate change and energy issues in 2009. The […]