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Atomic Insights

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

Thorium

Clean and Doable Liquid Fission (LF) Energy Roadmap for Powering Our World

March 21, 2017 By Guest Author

By: Robert Hargraves and Chris Uhlik

Introduction

This essay responds to an article by Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson et al, 
100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World. Their controversial WWS roadmap has several interesting features and benefits.

  • Coal, natural gas, and petroleum energy sources are replaced by WWS.
  • Electricity from WWS becomes the universal energy source.
  • Everything is electrified, including transportation, industry, and heating.
  • Electricity demand grows from 2,400 GW in 2012 to 11,800 GW by 2050.
  • Fossil-sourced combustion heat drops to zero from 9,700 GW.
  • Clean air ends premature deaths of 3.5 million people per year.
  • CO2 emissions drop to zero.

However WWS implementation issues are controversial.

  • Solar and wind energy sources are intermittent.
  • Energy storage cost assumptions of 0.8 cents/kWh are an order of magnitude too low.
  • From 59% to 85% of energy demand must be “flexible” to adjust to supply availability.
  • New electric generation nameplate capacity needs are 49,900 GW.
  • Over 2.5 million wind turbines plus billions of rooftop solar systems must be built.
  • Capital investments are $125 trillion.
  • Electricity will cost 11 cents/kWh.
  • New global public policies are needed to force adoption of expensive WWS power.

Several authors have pointed out the impossibility of this Stanford WWS roadmap. Jesse Jenkins and Samuel Thernstrom published Deep Decarbonization of the Electric Power Sector. Mathijs Beckers wrote The Non-Solutions Project of Mark Z. Jacobson.

Misled by Jacobson, climate activists such as Bill McKibben of 350.org calls for world war-like mobilization of nations to effect the $125 trillion WWS roadmap.

This present essay describes a doable, affordable liquid fission (LF) power roadmap to solve the multiple issues of climate change, air pollution, and poverty reduction.

Liquid Fission

Advanced, demonstrated liquid fission technology provides an energy source alternative that can economically address a wide scope of global needs:

  • Reducing energy poverty and enabling prosperity in developing nations.
  • Cutting combustion-sourced air pollution causing millions of premature deaths annually.
  • Ending CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Current light water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plant technology, which generates dependable, emission-free electric power, now provides 11% of world electricity. Liquid fission (LF) power was demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the last century, then politically sidelined. LF technology uses energy-rich thorium and/or uranium fuel dissolved in molten salt. This liquid transfers fission heat energy via heat exchangers to steam turbine electric generators. In contrast to LWRs, LF power plants operate at high temperature and low pressure. LF achieves low electricity costs because of high power conversion efficiency, simplicity of handling liquid fuel, and low-pressure coolant. High safety comes from passive reactivity control and cooling, radioactive materials at low pressure, and high temperature tolerance of materials using molten fuel salt 700°C below its boiling point.

Developing Nations

Electricity from both WWS and new LWR power plants is more expensive than electricity from new coal-fired plants, which costs about 6 cents/kWh. Coal power plants generate 1400 of 2400 GW of today’s global electric power. Advised by climate scientists and international organizations, governments have unsuccessfully strived to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 in the atmosphere is now rising at the fastest rate ever recorded. Developing nations have plans to build yet another 1400 GW of coal-fired power plants by 2040. They choose coal plants because these now generate the cheapest, ample, reliable power.

Low-emission WWS sources are intermittent and more expensive electricity generators than coal-fired power plants. Liquid fission can provide energy even cheaper than coal. Simple economic self-interest will induce developing nations, then all nations, to adopt this least expensive, least environmentally harmful energy source. LF is emission-free, reducing deadly particulate air pollution and the heat-trapping atmospheric CO2 contributing to global warming.

WWS and LF Roadmap Similarities

The WWS and LF energy roadmaps agree on the future importance of electrification and conversion of industrial, commercial, residential, and transportation services to use electric energy rather than thermal energy from fossil fuels.

Jacobson’s WWS Table 1 aggregates thermal and electric power as Total, but it’s useful to distinguish them. Here BAU means business as usual.

Table 1: Electric and thermal power demand
RoadmapTotal end-use (GW) Electric (GW)Thermal (GW)
BAU 201212,1052,4009,705
BAU 205020,6044,08516,519
WWS 205011,84011,8400

The WWS 2050 roadmap table projects that (11,840 – 4,085) 7755 GW additional electric power can replace 16,519 GW of thermal power. This is consistent with LF roadmap projections in Figure 2 that converting all energy use to electricity will triple electric power consumption.

Powering Prosperity

The opportunity to improve human prosperity with electric power is immense. Developing economies typically improve their GDP by $4 per additional kWh. In this Figure 1 projection per capita power grows to about half that of US persons. Though this projection is timeless, the resulting 5000 GW is roughly consistent with Jacobson’s 4085 GW for 2050 BAU.

Figure 1. Prosperity: world wide prosperity demands 5,000 GW of electric power

Liquid Fission Roadmap

Liquid fission power is being developed by several innovative companies. The ThorCon objective is to manufacture power plants at less capital cost than coal-fired plants. Fuel costs for thorium and uranium are much less than for coal, so generated electricity will cost less. ThorCon’s web site projects capital costs of $1.2B per GW of generating capacity, leading to electricity that should cost 3 cents/kWh or less.

These plants are designed to be manufactured in 50 to 500 ton modular blocks by existing shipyards, using proven high-quality steel-fabrication technologies. Complete fitted-out blocks will be barged to excavated shore-side locations and welded together. After achieving mass production, time from firm order to operation will be 2 years. How?

Steel for such a 1-GW LF underground power plant is 36,000 tons. The world’s single largest shipyard can fabricate 2.5 million tons of steel into ships, annually; industry capacity exceeds 15 million tons/year, enough to manufacture more than 400 1-GW power plants per year. Moreover this manufacturing capacity already exists and is underutilized, so production can start soon.

ThorCon International is planning to build LF power plants starting in Indonesia. The first few rows of Table 2 reflect the plans shared with the power company and potential investors. In this extended illustration, as mass production is achieved, LF power plant deployment rates rise progressively to 10, 20, 50, 100, then 200 GW per year after 2040.

Table 2: Liquid Fission Roadmap
YearAnnual Production Rate (GW) New LF Additions (GW)Cumulative New LF Power Supply Additions (GW)
2022 11
2026334
2027559
2028-2029102029
2030-2031204069
2032-203350100169
2034-2040100700869
2041-20502002,0002,869
2051-210020010,00012,869

Electric Power Sector Decarbonization

By 2050 the LF roadmap additions of 2,869 GW could avoid adding the planned 1400 GW of coal-fired electric generation and then retiring the 1400 GW of existing coal-fired generators. This meets Jenkins’ expert consensus that “Power sector CO2 emissions must fall nearly to zero by 2050 to achieve climate policy goals.” and “There is no disagreement on the question of prioritizing the power sector in decarbonization scenarios.”

Realistically, operating fossil-fueled power plants will likely run to the end of their economic lives. The world is now building more of them at 100 GW per year. Their fires might be extinguished early if LF power costs drop below coal plant incremental operational costs. Coal fuel costs about 2.3 cents/kWh. A carbon tax might incentivize retirement of operating fossil fuel power plants.

Electrification Can End CO2 of Burning Oil, Gas, Coal

Electrify everything! Many processes and applications based on heat from burning fossil fuels can be replaced with electric-powered ones. Immediate electrification opportunities in other sectors are:

  • Transportation. Electric cars and trains can cut use of gasoline and diesel fuels.
  • Heating and cooling. Electricity can heat and cool buildings with heat pumps. Air conditioning in the mid East and Africa provides a productivity growth opportunity.
  • Desalination. Electricity used to desalinate seawater can provide fresh water to arid regions, enabling increased food production, important as climate change progresses.
  • Aluminum. Over half the valued added in manufacturing aluminum comes from electricity. Aluminum is substituting for heavier steel in trucks, for example.

By 2050 electrification of transportation and industrial sectors will be feasible. The transportation sector now depends on hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and diesel, which are as big a source of CO2 as electric power plants.

Future carbon-neutral onboard liquid fuels may be based on hydrogen from splitting water. Electrolyzing technology such as CuCl catalysis at 530°C will be able to use LF heat and LF electricity to make hydrogen at a conversion efficiency near 50%. At 3 cents/kWh for LF electricity, future hydrogen would cost 1.6 cents per megajoule — the same as energy from $2/gallon gasoline. However the fuel efficiency of a hydrogen-fuel-cell powered electric car is twice that of a gasoline-engine powered car, cutting the fuel cost per mile in half. Trucking ventures such as Nikola are already exploring hydrogen fuel.

Synfuels such as gasoline-substitute methanol (CH3OH) and diesel-substitute dimethyl ether (CH3OCH3) are compatible with today’s internal combustion engines. Their carbon might be recycled from flue gas, or derived from climate-neutral sources such as bio-waste, or CO2 from the atmosphere or dissolved in the ocean, which contains 50 times as much as the air. Future electrification opportunities arising from inexpensive LF electric power include:

  • Ammonia. Ammonia (NH3) is used for fertilizer that feeds a third of the world’s people. Today it is made from natural gas methane (CH4), releasing CO2 in the process. It is also a proven alternative vehicle fuel.
  • Synfuels. The US navy demonstrated extraction of CO2 dissolved in seawater, with hydrogen from dissociation of water, to synthesize JP-5 jet fuel at $5/gallon.
  • Hydrogen. LF-electrolyzed hydrogen itself is a possible on-board vehicle fuel, demonstrated in fuel cell cars.
  • Steel. Direct reduction process with electricity and possibly hydrogen may replace coal-fired blast furnaces.
  • Cement. Plasma-arc electric heating might reduce the huge quantities of fossil fuel burned to sinter limestone and sand to make cement.

Universal Electrification, Prosperity, and Population Growth

World population is growing, with best guess estimates of perhaps 9.5 billion people by 2100. This Electrified Growth LF roadmap projection below illustrates

  • Doubling electric consumption as developing nations achieve prosperity
  • Tripling of electric consumption to 2100 W/person as it substitutes for fossil fuel burning
  • Increasing world population to 9.5 billion people
Figure 2. Electrified Growth: an electrified, crowded planet demands 20,000 GW

This LF roadmap Electrified Growth demand of 20,000 GW exceeds the WWS 11,840 GW, which projects energy consumption of 1200 watts per person in 2050.

LF and WWS Roadmaps Compared

This LF roadmap has many advantages compared to Jacobson’s WWS roadmap.

  • Capital required for the LF roadmap to 2100 is $15 trillion rather than $125 trillion for WWS.
  • LF electricity at 3 cents/kWh is much less expensive than WWS electricity at 11 cents/kWh.
  • There is no need for most energy demand to be “flexible” to adapt to WWS availability.
  • Subsidies are not needed for LF. Economic self interest drives demand for carbon-free electricity because it’s cheaper than coal.

Jacobson’s WWS roadmap claims to achieve 100% clean energy generation of 11,840 GW by 2050, while the LF roadmap passes that mark in 2095.

Spending $125 trillion for 2.5 million wind turbines and nearly 2 billion solar plants would unnecessarily consume vast amounts of the planet’s resources — metal, concrete, precious minerals, water and energy that would be far better used to build homes, water and sewage systems, hospitals, and transportation systems for the poor of the world. The WWS scale would be massive. China is the world’s largest industrial producer at $4.5 trillion per year. WWS demands would consume the entire industrial production of China for 28 years.

Enabling Liquid Fission Power

Confidence. Many people needlessly fear nuclear power, which has been shown to be the safest energy source, by far. Liquid fission is advanced nuclear power, even safer. Jacobson’s WWS paper starts off with outrageous false claims about nuclear power, designed to exclude from consideration any advanced nuclear power such as liquid fission.

Jacobson WWS roadmap claim ThorCon LF roadmap plan
“nuclear plants require 10-19 years between planning and operation”Shipyard production enables a 2-year construction cycle.
“nuclear now costs 2.5-4 times more per unit energy than onshore wind or utility scale photovoltaics”“LF capital $15 trillion < WWS capital $125 trillion
LF energy @ 3 cents/kWh < WWS @ 11 cents/kWh”
nuclear “produces 3.4-25.4 times more carbon and pollution per unit energy than wind”EIA: lifecycle emissions for nuclear/wind/solar are 40/23/42 g-CO2/kWh. LF plants even less than LWR.
“expanding the use of nuclear to countries where it doesn’t exist will increase weapons proliferation and meltdown risks”No proliferation ever from LWR power plants; even less likely with LF technology compliant with IAEA protocols. LF can’t melt down; it’s already melted.

Proponents of fossil fuels and renewables have long spread groundless fear of possible health effects of low level radiation associated with nuclear power and successfully created excessive government protection bureaucracies, specifically to raise costs of nuclear power to make it uncompetitive.

Enabling liquid fission power is simply a matter of permitting it. Existing nuclear power regulations developed for LWRs are not applicable to LF. New regulatory rules should be implemented based on demonstrated safety testing and modern radiation biology science.

  • Money. Capital for electric power plants already exists and flows into construction of fossil-fuel-burning plants to satisfy the developing nations’ demands for 1400 GW of new power. As LF power plants prove to be cheaper than coal, that capital will divert to fund LF rather than coal and natural gas power plants.
  • Suppliers. Existing shipyard capacity exceeds 400 GW per year. It is now possible to build LF power plants at rates of 100 GW per year. That is about the rate of new fossil fuel power plant additions. Supercritical high-temperature steam turbine-generators are a major component of LF power plants. These are available from a half dozen companies already supplying such equipment for coal and natural gas power plants. Turbine-generator destinations can be diverted.
  • Fuel. Uranium fuel is ample for 20 years of building 100 GW of LF power plants. Fuel recycling will double uranium utility. Doubling prices paid will likely reveal an order of magnitude more reserves. Even resorting to extracting uranium from seawater would only add 1 cent/kWh to LF electricity costs. Thorium is ample.

Liquid Fission and Economics Can Lead Deep Decarbonization of World Energy.

  • LF electric power cheaper than coal can displace fossil fuel combustion to satisfy the world’s growing needs for electricity for human development.
  • In future, battery electric vehicles, electrification of railroads, and fuels from LF-electrolyzed hydrogen may power the transportation sector even more cheaply than petroleum.
  • Using LF power for heating and cooling, desalination, and industrial processes can complete the transition from fossil fuels.
  • Economic self-interest can motivate the transition to deep decarbonization.
  • Favorable economics will attract existing capital to create the new LF energy sources.
  • LF decarbonization is doable. Technology and manufacturing capacity already exist.
  • Permission is the only roadblock.

The above is a guest post. Though Atomic Insights generally agrees with and supports the paper’s concepts, the details are the responsibility of the authors. The authors’ work is their own and does not necessarily reprsent the opinions of their employers.

About the authors

Robert Hargraves, Director, ThorCon
AB Dartmouth, math, PhD Brown, high energy physics
Author THORIUM cheaper than coal
Discussion leader Osher@Dartmouth, energy policy
Prior roles: Vice president and CIO Boston Scientific;
Senior consultant Arthur D Little; Vice president Metropolitan Life; President DTSS, software
Assist professor of mathematics Dartmouth College

Chris Uhlik, Vice President, Engineering, ThorCon
BS, MS, PhD Stanford, EE, minors in ME, aero, CS, and math
Prior roles: Engineering Director Google, leading major projects including Gmail, Booksearch, and Streetview; Redwave Networks, internet routers; ArrayComm, cellular communications; Adept Technologies, robotics, Toyota Motor, automotive control systems, Lockheed Missiles & Space; International Power Technology, cogen gas turbines

Filed Under: Climate change, Guest Columns, Liquid Fuel Reactors, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Thorium, Thorium Reactors

Nuclear facts and feelings in pink and green by Sunniva Rose

September 4, 2015 By Rod Adams 5 Comments

Sunniva Rose is a nuclear engineer working on her PhD at the University of Oslo. She is also a talented public speaker who likes to capture her audience’s attention, partially by choosing colors like pink and green to highlight facts about nuclear energy, deaths per terawatt hour, and growth in human population.

In Nov 2013, she gave a TEDxOslo talk titled How bad is it really Nuclear technology – facts and feelings. For your convenience, I’ve embedded the YouTube video of that talk.

Ms. Rose is studying nuclear energy systems that will take advantage of thorium. She is not a fan of plutonium, but I will not hold that against her. She wryly points out that it might not be quite fair that Norway was endowed with both oil and perhaps the third largest thorium resource in the world. She is also rightfully proud of the fact that thorium was discovered in Norway and is named after the Norse god of thunder, Thor.

At the end of her talk – spoiler alert – Ms. Rose channels her inner Stuart Brand by asking a puzzling question that needs to be posed more often — especially at gatherings of liberal, pro-science critical thinkers.

How is it possible to worry about global warming and not be pro-nuclear?

I’m not sure why none of my contacts have pointed this video out before now, but I am glad I found it on a Singularity, Inc. web page titled Still Don’t Believe?

Aside: Singularity, Inc.’s story is worth retelling. That is a task for another day and time. Please remind me if you do not hear more soon. End Aside.

Sunniva Rose has a multilingual blog – sometimes English, sometimes Norwegian – titled SunnivaRose – about nuclear physics and research and stuff. I recommend a visit; you might want to be using a browser that can perform translations on the fly.

While browsing Sunniva Rose’s site, I found this thoughtful and beautifully photographed piece about contrasts, challenges and opportunities related to nuclear energy.

Sushi & Nuclear (12min) from Bulldozer Film on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Another Blogger for Nuclear Energy, Pro Nuclear Video, Thorium

Thorium Energy Alliance Conference – May 29-30

January 26, 2014 By Rod Adams

Thorium Energy Alliance Conference - 2014

The Thorium Energy Alliance recently announced the dates and agenda for its 2014 annual conference (TEAC-2014). I had the privilege of attending the first TEAC and meeting some passionate, technically astute people. I’m still in touch with some of the friends I first met there. My schedule has not allowed me to attend the last […]

Filed Under: Conferences, Thorium

Reuters Breakout series focuses on China’s interest in thorium

December 20, 2013 By Rod Adams

Reuters is running a series titled Breakout: Inside China’s Military Buildout. Installment number 6 is titled The U.S. government lab behind Beijing’s nuclear power push. The title is misleading; it is not about China’s world-leading, multibillion-dollar program. That program includes 29 large commercial nuclear plants currently under construction. Instead, the article focuses on a $350 […]

Filed Under: Breeder Reactors, Pressurized Water, Thorium, Thorium Reactors

Open letter to Ralph Nader from Timothy Maloney – Atomic energy is much better than you think

October 20, 2013 By Guest Author

By Timothy Maloney, PhD Editor’s note: Timothy Maloney has written a number of text books about electrical circuits, electricity, and industrial electronics. The below is a copy of a letter that he wrote to Ralph Nader in response to an opinion piece published by CounterPunch under the headline Why Atomic Energy Stinks Worse Than You […]

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Alternative energy, Economics, Fossil fuel competition, Guest Columns, Health Effects, Liquid Fuel Reactors, New Nuclear, Thorium

LFTR story told from the perspective of a bright 7th grader

December 19, 2012 By Rod Adams

Though I believe that Katie has received some inaccurate technical information about solid fueled reactors, I cannot argue with the effectiveness of her presentation skills. Please enjoy the below series of videos about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). It is one of many alternative ways to use the incredible energy density available in the […]

Filed Under: Liquid Fuel Reactors, Pro Nuclear Video, Thorium

Power cheaper than coal – thorium AND uranium make it possible

December 12, 2012 By Rod Adams

Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012. Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent […]

Filed Under: Alternative energy, Economics, Fossil fuel competition, Nuclear Cost Data, Pro Nuclear Video, Thorium, Thorium Reactors, Unreliables

Identifying antinuclear slants in Richard Martin’s “Superfuel”

June 26, 2012 By Rod Adams

Richard Martin’s new book titled Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future is a book that should come with a warning label. Though the author professes to be worried about climate change and fossil fuel depletion and wants to be seen as favoring new nuclear power development, that support comes with a very […]

Filed Under: Antinuclear activist, New Nuclear, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Thorium, Thorium Reactors

Kirk Sorensen – Why didn’t molten salt thorium reactors succeed the first time?

December 23, 2011 By Rod Adams

Kirk Sorensen is the founder of Flibe Energy. He has been prospecting in libraries for years to learn more about a path not taken (yet). He is convinced that the way forward for energy in the United States and around the world is the molten salt thorium reactor that can produce an almost unlimited amount […]

Filed Under: New Nuclear, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Technical History Stories, Thorium

Inspiring vision of hope for thorium powered future

October 17, 2011 By Rod Adams

Kirk Sorensen is an inspiring speaker and teacher who is motivated by an incredible vision. As he eloquently describes in the video below, he has excavated and dusted off ideas and documentation from the archives at Oak Ridge National Laboratory about using thorium in molten salt reactors. According to back of the envelope calculations by […]

Filed Under: Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Technical History Stories, Thorium

What do you do with the waste? – Kirk Sorensen’s answers

October 13, 2011 By Rod Adams 7 Comments

Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix, has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think […]

Filed Under: Fuel Recycling, Nuclear Batteries, Nuclear Waste, Plutonium, Thorium

LFTR in Five Minutes – Is thorium better than a silver bullet energy solution?

October 12, 2011 By Rod Adams

On October 10, 2011, Thorium Remix became publicly available. The video is worth watching – there is a lot more information than can actually be squeezed into five minutes, so the headline of this post is actually a bit of a tease.

Filed Under: Smaller reactors, Technical History Stories, Thorium

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