Gail the Actuary to Jacobson and Delucchi: All is for naught

Critiquing the Mark Jacobson, Mark Delucchi Scientific American article has turned into a cottage industry for internet energy sages. Gail the Actuary has at Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi in a Monday post on the Oil Drum. Gail is very bright, and though I am not nearly as pessimistic as she is about the energy future, her insights are very worth while looking at. If you enjoy a seeing a good mind at work, you will enjoy Gail's analysis. As "paal myrtvedt" observed,

Gail is jolly good here ; a well founded realist/skeptic. I'm impressed by her ability to present 'her case' without even using a small spoon of Sarcanol-

Of course Gail's conclusions would only bring joy to Parson Malthus, but that is to be expected from Gail. She observes:

There are a number of weak areas in this system:

• There are not likely to be enough rare minerals (and even not-so-rare minerals), to make all of the desired high-tech end products. Recycling will help, but it is likely that the system will run into a bottleneck in not very many years.

• The system will use a huge number of electrical transmission lines. These transmission lines are subject to all kinds of disturbances--hurricane or other windstorm destruction, forest fires, land or snow slide, malicious destruction by those not happy for some reason (perhaps those unhappy by wealth disparities). Fixing lines that need repair will be challenging. We currently use helicopters and specialized equipment. These would need to be adequately adapted to a system without fossil fuels.

• If electricity is out in an area, pretty much all activity in an area will stop (except that powered by local PV), and there will be no back-up generators. Residents will not be able to recharge vehicles, so they will quickly become useless. Even vehicles coming into an area may get stranded for lack of recharge capability. Food deliveries and water may be a problem. The current system at least offers some options--back-up generators, and cars and trucks powered by petroleum that one can drive away.

• Operating the system will require a huge amount of international co-operation, because the transmission system will cross country lines. If one country becomes unable to pay its share, or fails to make repairs, it could be a problem.

• All of the high tech manufacturing will require considerable international co-operation and trade. This could be interrupted by debt defaults by major players, or by countries hoarding raw materials, or by difficulty in producing enough ships and airplanes to handle international trade.

• The system clearly can't continue forever. It could be stopped by a lack of rare minerals, or international disputes, or lack of adequate international trade. The system doesn't provide any natural transition to a truly sustainable future. For example, food production is likely to still be done using industrial agriculture, with the food that is produced shipped to consumers a long distance away. It will be difficult to transition to a system which is truly sustainable at the point the system stops working.

Gail points out the problems of the transportation system under the Jacobson-Delucchi scheme.

Airplanes. The authors propose that airplanes be powered by hydrogen powered fuel cells (with the hydrogen be made by hydrolysis using WWS energy sources). I understand that hydrogen is three times as bulky as gasoline, explodes easily, and escapes fairly quickly from its holding tanks, making it difficult to store for very long. It seems like airplanes and helicopters would need to look more like blimps, to hold the necessary fuel. Unless the explosion issue is solved, the popularity of hydrogen fuel cells would likely be pretty low.

• Ships. The authors don't tell us how ships would be powered. Clearly sailing ships would meet the criteria, but would be quite slow. Because of their slow time for passage, we would need a lot more sailing ships than the types of ships we use now, because so many would be in transit at a given time. Barges could float down rivers, and if the current isn't too strong, could perhaps be towed back in some way (boat with fuel cell?). Ships powered by hydrogen fuel cells might also work, but they would have the same issues as for airplanes. Because of their long trips, leakage would be more of an issue than on airplanes.

Gail's post has drawn nearly 400 comments during the last couple of days, and no doubt will draw more. Some of the comments are very interesting, for example 'sampson" reported

It was the plan of the notorious Bavarian Illuminati to accomplish three goals in the overthrow of the Old World Order:

1)The emancipation of women.

2)The overthrow of all monarchies.

3)The separation of 'church' and state.

Gee that sounds familiar.Yes HAcland, America indeed has a religion; and it is not the Bible, it is Illumination via the Illuminati.It is no longer a secret order, it is out in the open; an open conspiracy if you will.
Just ask any psychotropic pill popping TV addicted brain dead American, they'll tell you.

And of course it comes with Gails favorite chat of doom:

Dr. Michael Dittmar on the Future of Nuclear Energy

CERN Dr. Michael Dittmar, a CERN Physicist, has posted Part IV of his essay on the Future of Nuclear Energy, on the Oil Drum. In many respects Dr/ Dittmar's conclusions track the conclusions of thorium advocates.

Dr. Ditmann has some interesting observations on LMFBRs. He claims that

the IAEA data base for fast reactors does not present any evidence that a positive breeding gain has been obtained with past and present FBR reactors. On the contrary, the presented data indicate at best that a more efficient nuclear fuel use than in standard PWR reactors can be achieved during normal running conditions. However, once the short and inefficient running times of FBR's, in comparison with large scale PWR's, are taken into account, even this better fuel use has not been demonstrated. In fact, the required initial fuel load in FBR's contains at least twice as much natural uranium equivalent and with a fissile material enrichment that is roughly 5 times larger than that in a comparable PWR. A fair comparison of the fuel efficiency should include the efficiency to recycle fissile material from used nuclear fuel in both reactor types.

In addition Dittmar notes that there are three areas of further concern about LMFBRs"

Fast reactors are known for their worrying safety record. For example, it might be true that serious incidents, like the one that happened with the Chernobyl graphite moderated reactor, cannot happen with modern PWR's. However, only very few nuclear experts would agree to such a statement for sodium cooled FBR's.
FBR’s are known for their huge construction costs relative to PWR's, and it might be tempting to compare some of the past FBR's to a monetary "black hole." An equivalent of 3.5 billion Euros has been invested in the construction of the SNR-300 in Germany. Because of safety concerns related to sodium leaks and other problems, this small FBR has never started operation. This amount of money corresponds to the price tag for a five times more powerful modern PWR reactor.
A third problem is related to the FBR requirements to have a large inventory of high purity fissile material. The amount of fissile material listed in Table 3 should be compared to the few tenths of kgs required for a Pu239 bomb. This problem makes even small experimental FBR reactors highly sensitive to the proliferation problem.

Indeed Dittmar's view seems to be that

* The breeding of Pu239 with fast neutrons has huge problems, and it would be great if another nuclear fuel could be found.

* Thorium breeding shows interesting potential if the remaining large number of problems can be mastered in the long term, . . .

Dittmar nots evidence for thorium breeding in the Shippingport LWBR experiment. Dittmar also noted some advantages for thorium breeding:

• The possibility of utilizing an abundantly available resource that has hitherto been of so little interest that it has never even been properly quantified.
• The production of power with few long-lived transuranic elements in the waste.
• A reduction of radioactive waste, in general.

Dittmar pointed to what he believed that the problems of thorium breeding include,

• The high cost of fuel fabrication due partly to the high radioactivity of U233 chemically sepa rated from the irradiated thorium fuel.
• Separated U233 is always contaminated with traces of U232 (69 year half-life but whose daugh ter products such as thallium-208 are strong gamma emitters with very short half-lives). Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle, it results in increased costs.
• The similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present.
• Some concern over weapons proliferation risk of U233 (if it could be separated on its own), although many designs such as the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor address this concern. The tech nical problems in reprocessing solid fuels are not yet satisfactorily solved. However with some designs, in particular the molten salt reactor (MSR), these problems are likely to largely disap pear.
• Much development work is still required, before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialized, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. In this respect, recent international moves to bring India into the ambit of international trade might result in the country ceasing to persist with the thorium cycle, as it now has ready access to traded uranium and conventional reactor designs.

Dittmar also finds that:

The well known use of nuclear fission energy in PWR's is unsustainable. The problems related to long-lived transuranic elements, e.g. plutonium and heavier elements, as well as nuclear waste in general, are unsolved. The concern with nuclear weapon proliferation cannot be dismissed either.

Of course expressing proliferation concerns is a form of shibbolith. It is a minimal requirement that demonstrates that one is a good person, even though he or she supports nuclear technology. In fact, nuclear proliferation using nuclear waste is something that is extremely difficult, would not produce a weapon that could be left sitting on a shelf in a weapons depot, and would produce a devise that would explode with the equivalent force of $150,000 worth of fertilizer. One would have to be crazy to prefer building a nuclear device from nuclear waste rather than using the fertilizer, and if you are that craze, your capacity to design and build a successful nuclear device would be very doubtful. Like most shibboliths, the word proliferation makes little rational sense as an objection to the development of nuclear technology.

I posted a comment on Dr, Dittmar's essay:

Dr. Dittmar supports what Liquid fluoride Thorium Reactor advocates like Kirk Sorensen and myself have been saying. Breeding thorium is our best long term nuclear option. Dr. Dittmar points to some, but not all of the advantages of a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor approach. In fact Thorium Molten Salt Reactor/LFTR would solve the thorium fuel fabrication problem, the U-232 problem, And problems associated with recycling thorium. Thus we are left with a single problem:

"Much development work is still required, before the thorium fuel cycle can be commercialized, and the effort required seems unlikely while (or where) abundant uranium is available. In this respect, recent international moves to bring India into the ambit of international trade might result in the country ceasing to persist with the thorium cycle, as it now has ready access to traded uranium and conventional reactor designs."

This statement requires multiple answers:
1. The expression "much development" work is extremely ambiguous. ORNL researchers in the 1974 analyzed the developmental tasks required to for the development of a Molten Salt Thorium Breeder (ORNL-5018, Program Plan for the Development of Molten-Salt Breeder Reactors). The cost would have been somewhere around 2.5 billion 2009 dollars, to prototype stage. To date the United States has spent about $25 billion on the development of the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor without a product. Even if the development cost were several times higher that $2.5 billion, it would still be cheap, even in terms of what the United States spends researching renewables. A mini-Manhatten Project approach would vastly shorten the development time frame. With an investment of $15 billion, less than the United States spends on its space program every year, the United States could have a viable commercial LFRTR prototype in 5 years.

2. There is a strong motive for LFTR/TMSR development. Namely low cost rapid substitution of nuclear energy for fossil fuels. The LFTR is significantly simpler than the LWR, and it can be built with less materials, fewer parts and less labor. LFTRs that produce between 100 MWe and 400 MWe will be small and light enough to transport by truck, rail or barge. Factory ass production of LFTRs would greatly increase labor productivity. Because of its small size, and high level of safety, LFTR site construction would be less expensive. Thus dramatic savings in nuclear construction costs could be realized by switching from LWR to LFTR technology. Finally factory production would dramatically increase the scaleability of nuclear power, making the replacement of 80% of fossil fuel energy sources by 2050

3 Indian efforts to develop the thorium cycle are likely to presist for some time for several reasons:
A.The international imbargo on uranium sals to India, will not be forgotten quickly, and a determination to make India independent of international uranium sources will remain fixed for some time to come.

B. India has at least a low cost thousand year fuel supply in surface thorium deposits, that beg to be used.

C. Building locally designed thorium breeding reactors will be cheaper for India than buying uranium fueled reactors from Russia, France, Japan, and the United States.

Dr. Dittmar thus has suggested views that are supportive of the case for thorium generally, and offers indirectly for the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. The major problems for thorium breeding molten salt reactors, which Dittmar notes have more to do with the current scale of development, than development difficulties. A much larger development effort, could vastly shorten development time.

David McKay turns on a light

David McKay is one of the brighter voices in the energy conversation. Indeed I would suspect that we would need fewer lightbulbs in any room where McKay could be found. MeKay is now the Chief Scientist for the United Kingdom, a country which sometimes listens to scientists.

Apples and Oranges? Compairing Nuclear costs with Wind

Renewable advocates often criticizr nuclear power costs, but rarely compare the costs the cost of Nuclear power with renewables. When challenged to make the comparison, renewable advocates will often resort to the apples to oranges dodge. That is when challenged to make a comparison between nuclear electrical costs, and renewable electrical costs, renewable advocates will claim that such a comparison is impossible because it is an apples to oranges comparisons. There are several ways to get around the the apples to oranges dodge. One way would be to compare the cost of generating a kW of electricity for a year (8400 kWhs). Once we do that we quickly would discover that a single nuclear plant would come close to producing the 8400 hundred hours of electricity on its own, while most renewables are going to require substantial help. Photovoltaic generators in very sunny spots, may produce 4 to 5 times their rated capacity every day. But there are 4 hours a day, so the daily electrical output of PV solar generator may only be around 20% of its rated capacity. In contrast a nuclear reactor will generate on average over 9o% of its potential output in a year. Thus one way to compare our apples and oranges is to compare how much of their name plate output actually gets delivered. This if a PV system costs $40 million is is rated at 10 million Watts, but only produces 4 times that amount in a day, then we are paying not $4.00 per 24 hour a day watt, but $4 per 5 hours a day watt. in order to find how much it costs to for for a 24 hour a day watt, we are going to have to multiply our $4.00 by around 5. Thus our watt of 24 hour a day electricity is going to costr about $20.00, Renewable advocates will objet that we don't need for all electricity o be 24 hour a day electricity, but of course the problem is that a good deal of the electricity wind produces, is generated when consumers don't want electricity, while wind does not produce electricity when consumers want it.

I believe that recently, I made a very powerful case against wind generated electricity. I demonstrated that West Texas winds are not matched to consumer demand. I pointed to the admission by a well known West TexasWind developer that the West Texas business exists because of subsidies, not profits. I pointed to arguments suggesting that wind matched to fossil fuel generation does not substantially lower the carbon emissions from wind-fossil fuel generating systems, and that investments in nuclear power would bring far more CO2 reduction, dollar to dollar than investments in wind. My conclusion was that a new West Texas wind project financed by Chinese investments and American stimulus monies, existed solely because government subsidies would be financing much of it, and that those subsidies would primarily benefir chinese workers and investors. The project did little to mitigate the energy related emissions of CO2 from the electrical generation industry, and thus was a a largely wasted investment as far as climate is concerned.

My story got posted on the energy collective, and about the same tme, the energy collective posted another essay, by David Levy, a University of Massachusetts, management professor. Levy, in effect criticized protests against the West Texas wind project on the grounds that were directed to its failure to creat American jobs. Levy suggested that such attitudes place American business related policies at a disadvantage in competition with China.

I can see Levy's point, but in one respect Levy goes off base, He claims

the proposed wind farm will generate plenty of clean power,

This, bot the jobs issue goes to the heart of my case. The words "clean power" are a sort of shibboleth. Levy seems to believe that ifthe words "clean power" can be attached to a project, it is justified. I asked Levy,

David, Do you have any answers to my argument that the proposed Texas wind farm will generate largely useless power that will not meet the needs of Texas electrical consumers, and that money spent on this project would will be far less effectively spent on a nuclear project if CO2 mitigation is the project goal. I suspect that a government subsidy of a nuclear project would create more long term American jobs.

Levy responded,

read that land-based wind power costs a long term average of 4-8c/kWh, depending on location and scale. At least we have plenty of wind online to be able to estimate the costs. True, there are problems of intermittency, but gas powered peak backup is needed for multiple reasons, including plant downtime, etc. It doesn't need to back up wind one-to-one. Intermittency only becomes a major problem when wind reaches 15-20% of grid capacity, a limit being reached in parts of Europe. But a balance of wind, solar thermal (good for the hot afternoons and with some storage potential), some long-distance transmission (esp. across time zones), and new storage technologies will address the issue. We really don't know the long term costs of nuclear, including decommisioning. In Mass., we are paying around 2c/kWh, I think, for the 'transition charge', the nuclear bailout.

Now David's comment raises several questions about wind cost. First, Davod assumes that the price of wind is its true cost. That is not the case. Last year Drew Thornley looked at hidden Texas wind costs. Thornly notes,

Cost estimates for wind-energy generation (not includ- ing costs of building and maintaining wind turbines) of- ten exclude many of wind energy’s costs, such as the following:
• Wind-energy transmission costs;
• Grid-connection and grid-management costs;
• The costs of backing up wind turbines with tradi- tional power sources;
• Lost tax revenues from federal and state subsidies and tax breaks.

Thornley notes another, little noticed. subsidy for wind in Texas:

unlike conventional-power generators, wind-energy providers do not have to pay ERCOT for generation-schedule deviations.† This is no small perk for Texas’ most intermittent energy source, and it distorts wind energy’s price, relative to conventional power prices. The result of this is that non-wind generators, and primarily customers, must bear the cost of ERCOT’s deploying regulation and other reserves when there are large deviations from their schedules.

Thus when Levy recites the "4-8c/kWh" cost for wind generated electricity, he no doubt ignores the hidden costs of wind. Levy tells us that fossil fuel back up need not be one on one. Excuse me professor, but in Texas and indeed in California as well, when summer winds stops blowing and wind capacity factors drop as low as .02, you are going to need one on one backup, if you are going to avoid rolling blackouts when air conditioners start begging the grid for electricity.

Levy's solutions to the problems of wind contained many hidden costs, Build long distance transmission lines, well according to Thornton in 2008 they cost $3,282,828.28 per mile. That does not count against Levy's "4-8c/kWh." Levy does not tell us how much it costs to build and operate a fossil fuel or solar back up system. The Royal Academy of Engineering, estimated that the cost of maintaining and operating a back up fossilfuel system increased the real cost of wind generated electricity by something close to 70%.

CSP facilities currently run to $4 billion per GW, and that gets you 5 GWh per day of electricity. Levy tells us, "Intermittency only becomes a major problem when wind reaches 15-20% of grid capacity"? Ask ERCOT, if they agree.

Professor Levy claims, "We really don't know the long term costs of nuclear." But do we know the long term cost of wind? Given Thornley's observations, we don't even know the short term cost of wind. Wind generators are suppose to last for 25 years, but the data suggest that they last about 16 years. After 16 years they windmills ware out and have to be replaced. Nuclear plants have a nominal life span of 40 years, but many are now being relicensed for 20 more years, and research has begun on extending their life to as long as 80 years. Levi mention "transition charges." How come there are no nuclear transition charges in Texas or Tennessee? Finally uses the strange term, "nuclear bailout." Wind is constantly being bailed out, at the rate of two cents per kWh, what is a nuclear bailout?

If there is an apples to oranges comparison of wind and nuclear power, It would appear that much of the problem is that many costs for renewable electricity are not accounted for when renewable advocates make comparisons.

Texas Wind Rips off Taxpayers and Rate Payers, Money to Flow to China

In 2006, the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) published a study that showed that while West Texas Wind resources were considered among the best in the United States, they were poorly matched to the needs of Texas Electrical consumers. The ERCOT staff reported:

These data indicate that the representative areas in West Texas have their highest monthly capacity factors in the spring months and in late fall. . . . None of these patterns has a high correlation with the typical ERCOT monthly energy demand pattern, with maximum electric demand occurring in July and August.

Not only did the ERCOT staff find that West Texas wind was the most productive during seasons of slack consumer demand, but that the West Texas Wind blew blew was the most productive during the hours of the day when consumer demand was low.

during the month of April, typical wind resources in West Texas have significantly higher average output in the early morning hours in April than during the afternoon. . . . for July, . . . typical wind generation in West Texas peaks in the early morning hours.

These findings pointed to an inescapable fact, West Texas wind would be least available when electricity in the ERCOT system would be most in demand, on hot summer afternoons. Other ERCoT studies showed that based on a review of historical data of actual wind turbine generation during ERCOT system peaks (from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in July and August), the average output for wind turbines was 16.8% of capacity. However, the data also showed that for any hour during these months, the output of the wind turbines could range from 0% of installed capacity to 49% of installed capacity. Because of wind's intermittency, the ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee, considered recommending a wind capacity value of 2%. This problem was by no means localized to Texas, and has been observed for New England Off shore wind, the upper Great planes, Tennessee, California, and Canada.

Last year T. Boone Pickens was interviewed by Fast Complany.com's David Case. Pickens was candid

Pickens: "I'm not going to have the windmills on my ranch. They're ugly. . . ."

Question: "So whose land is it going on?"

Pickens: "My neighbors', . . ."

Question: "What happens if Congress doesn't extend the $20-per-megawatt-hour Production Tax Credit for wind -- set to expire December 31? On a project this size, that's an $80,000 deduction every hour at full capacity."

Pickens: "Then you've got a dead duck. It would be hard to go without a subsidy."

Question: "What about when the wind doesn't blow?"

Pickens:"That's the problem with wind generation. You've got to supplement it with a gas-fired or coal-fired source so whoever buys it gets continuous 24-7 generation."

So West Texas Wind is not about meeting consumer demand, it is about subsidies. This was amply illustrated by Michael Giberson, who discovered that during the first six monthsof 2008, West Texas Wind

prices were below zero nearly 20 percent of the time. During March, when negative prices were most frequent, prices were below zero about 33 percent of the time.

Giberson observed,

ven if the market value of the power is zero or negative, the subsidies encourage wind power producers to keep churning the megawatts out.

Evidence from market data suggests that wind power producers will accept prices down to about negative $35 MWh before they shut down, since marginal operating costs are very low for wind power we can conclude that the subsidies are worth about $35 – $40 for each MWh of wind output.

Giberson in another post noted,

Unfortunately for wind power producers in the region, their output was higher during times that the price was low and their output was lower during times that the price was high.

Well of course. Wind generation is not about making money from the market, it is about subsidies as T. Boone Pickens admitted.

So do the tax payers get good value in terms of the dollars they spend on C02 mitigation by wind? Not according to Australian engineer Peter Lang, who has researched cost and benefits of wind generation. Lang found that the cost of wind generated electricity, with natural gas back up was 224% higher than the cost of natural gas generated electricity alone, Thus not only does wind electricity at the wrong time, and thus the heavy lifting of electrical production with wind has to be performed by fossil fuels, but electricity generated by wind and fossil fuels costs far more than electricity generated by fossil fuels alone. But how much CO2 does the use of wind save us? The answer is very little. Lang looked at three estimates, the first, suggested by Lang himself, suggested with a wind and gas combination CO2 savings would be in the order of 0.058 tons of CO2 per MWh id electricity generated. A second estimate from an Australian government report determined that wind without considering back up, would lower CO2 emissions by 0.5 tins of CO2 for every MWh of electricity generated. Finally Lang turned to a Royal Academy of Engineering report that found wind with fossil fuel backup lowered CO2 emissions by 0.09 tons per MWh generated.

Given this data Lang calculated that given his assumptions, using wind to mitigate CO2 emissions cost $1,149 per ton of CO2 eliminated, while using the Royal Academy of Engineering's estimate using wind backed by natural gas would cost $830 per ton. The United States Energy Information Agency estimates that the levelized cost of nuclear power will be 107 in 2016. That would yielded a cost of around $100 per ton of CO2 saved. (Lang reported a lower estimate for nuclear based on older Australian studies. Lang concludes

Only nuclear and the fossil fuel technologies with carbon capture and storage can make substantial reductions in emissions.

Well there you have it. Earlier this week, I reported on an absurd scheme to build windmills in West Texas, using wind generators made in Chinese factories and 30% paid for by U.S. stimulus funding. Electricity produced by the turbines would be heavily subsidized. Most of the jobs created by this project would go to Chinese workers, and profits created by tax payer subsidies would flow to Chinese investments. Is anyone else outraged?

Small Reactors, Mass Reactor Deployment, and the LFTR

There is at present no end of projects to build small and mini reactors. Most of these projects will not get beyond the concept stage, but a few probably will. I distinguish between mini and small reactors by power output. I would class reactors that generate less than 100 MWe as mini reactors, and reactors that generate from 100 MWe to 400 MWe as small reactors.

Mini reactors are primary useful in situations in which you need small stand alone energy producing units. Think of cities like Juneau, Alaska, where about 30,000 people live. Juneau is too small to rate a big power plant, and too remote to rate an electrical grid hookup. Juneau thus needs a very reliable and low cost, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year electrical technology, to keep all of its dishwashers, and hair blowers running. The 25 MWe Hyperion reactor would appear to offer everything Juneau needs, and at a cost Juneau can afford. Of course. the prototype Hyperion mini-reactor has not been built yet, so estimates of cost and claims about practicality might be subject to revision.

In addition to providing electricity, mini reactors could provide district heat for cities like Juneau. If Juneau had a water shortage, electricity from the reactor could be used to desalinate sea water through reverse osmosis. Local industries could use the Hyperion's heat as input into chemical and manufacturing processes. Clearly then mini-reactors are potentially useful then, but perhaps most useful to smaller communities that are off the grid.

Small reactors are large enough to be useful on a grid, but small enough to be partially or completely factory produced. The proposed Babcock & Wilcox 125 MWe mPower reactor is an ideal example of the small reactor. While engineers will argue in theory that small reactors will be more expensive than large reactors, factory production can change that. Babcock & Wilcox appear to be planning to build their small reactor as a lit in a factory, and then assemble the kit on site. Westinghouse is planning to build the much larger AP-1000 using the same kit system, so Babcock & Wilcox does not seem likely to save a great deal of money with its small reactors, and indeed the amount of on site labor Babcock & Wilcox appears to believe it will need to manufacture the mPower will not lead to a major cost breakthrough.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is planning to buy the first mPower, and to set it up in East Tennessee. Was planning to build as many as 4 big reactors, and still might build them, but the mPower means that TVA can buy reactors in smaller chunks and thus encounter lower financial risk. A large reactor could cost the TVA as much as $7 billion and possibly more. The mPower would be expected to cost under $1 billion, and begin producing power more quickly than a large reactor. Producing power means you don't have to carry interest.

Thus the advantage of a small conventional reactor like the B&W mPower, is that it lowers risks. The mPower has some slight advantages in deployability, but apparently very little advantage in price over larger reactors.

One way to get costs down is to to get better control of labor costs. One good way to do that is to build your reactors in India. Indian built reactors are, even by Chinese standards, inexpensive, and as I have frequently argued the Indians may be about to eat everyone's lunch through low energy prices. The Indians have been building small reactors for years, perfecting their design, and trying out cost savings tricks. What they have learned is impressive, and if they start manufacturing reactor kits in factories as the Chinese are doing, they will stand on

the edge of an energy revolution.

So one way to lower nuclear costs would be to employ Indian labor in reactor construction. But that would not work in the United States or other advanced societies. We have to bring labor costs down by increasing labor productivity. In addition we face a time limit. Climate scientists say we need to bring CO2 emissions under control by 2050. Under control means something like an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions, so that means replacing most of the world's current sources of energy. Thus energy replacements need to be hugely scalable, and they need to be cheap. Conventional reactors are neither scalable enough nor cheap enough, The mPower example demonstrates that small conventional reactors are not going to do the trick. In order to meet our need for low cost and high deployment, we need a compact reactor that is small enough to be transported by rail, truck or barge, easily and quickly assembled on site, and online within a few months. The whole energy generation system has to be low price, and its nuclear fuel will have to be both low cost and abundant.

When I figured this out, the answer to how to do this became amazingly clear. My father had done research on just such a reactor over a 20 year period of time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. That reactor, the Molten Salt Reactor, was known to be capable of operating on the thorium fuel cycle. Researchers believed it to be extremely safe. It was so good at destroying nuclear waste that it had been actually proposed for use in a nuclear waste destroying system. The MSR was both simple and compact, ideal for factory production, and transportation. The MSR was extremely efficient. Thus building a huge reactor was not required in order to efficiently produce electricity. In fact a 100 MWe MSR could produce electricity more efficiently that a 2000 MWe conventional reactor. Nor did the power production system require elaborate housing. You could ship in the turbines and generators by truck, rail or barge, set them up in an old power plant or factory, hook them up to the grid, and to the reactor, and you are ready to produce power.

If you are worried about terrorist attack, you can dig a hole and stick your reactor in it. Kirk Sorensen has produced such designs. Once your reactor is in the hole, it is not going to be damaged by truck bombs, or aircraft attacks. On-site set up and assembly can be facilitated by highly automated machinery.

What about fuel, you ask. It turns out that there is a great deal of thorium just laying around. There is something like 400,000 tons of thorium sitting on beaches in India. As David Walters would say, all you need is 4 Indians with shovels and a pickup truck. In an afternoon, they can dig up enough thorium to produce 1 GWe for a year. Thorium in easily recoverable amounts is found in mine tailings, thus we don't need new thorium mines to produce it, we can simply scoop up thorium that is already on the surface. Even in seemingly small concentrations the energy recovery potential from thorium is such, that the energy investment required to bring about that recovery is worth while.

There would not seem to be any potential impediments to the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor solution to our energy issues. They can be built in large numbers in factories. Small LFTRs are efficient and easily transported. They can be set up anywhere. The do not require water for cooling, they can be cooled with air. They are not good nuclear proliferation tools. They are safe. Their materials output is safe after 300 years, and need not be considered waste.

What is wrong with the LFTR? Some money needs to be spent on their development. A crash development program that cost less than what is spent on the NASA Space program in a year would probable come up with a commercial LFTR model in 5 years or so. Thus considering the enormity of the energy challenges we face, the LFTR provides a doable solution.

So called energy experts claim that there is no such thing as a silver energy bullet, but there is a thorium bullet, and we have every reason for using it. Small Liquid Salt Thorium cycle reactors hold amazing promise for solving the energy problems that confront us during the next 40 years.

Energy costs and advanced nuclear technology

Energy costs are a major concern for Nuclear Green. I am on the lookout for cost data on renewables, and one of my stated concerns is lowering nuclear costs. I contend that renewable generated electricity cost more than nuclear generated electricity, but that the cost of conventionally generated nuclear power, while lower than cost of renewable generated electricity will still be far to expensive to be satisfactory.

I have noted that nuclear generated electricity sells for 4.5 cents per kWh. The Indians seem to be making money at this price even when the power comes from new reactors and is only generated part of the time, due to a uranium shortage. Other nations that will be competing in a post-carbon energy environment, will have to match Indian energy costs, or loose the competition for energy intensive industries. Indian labor costs are lower than those of Western Europe and North America, and if Indian energy costs will also be lower, India will have a significant economic advantage during this century.

Thus it would be highly advantageous for the United States to adopt low cost nuclear technologies. Both labor costs and the cost of materials and parts play a significant role in nuclear costs. So low nuclear costs requite a simple, cheap to build, reactor with low material input as well as relatively few parts. Building reactors in factories could lower costs. Small simple reactors could open the door to other approaches to lowering nuclear costs.

I am hardly the only person who has seen the potential value of this course. Senator Mark Udall has just introduced legislation titled "the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2009,calling for the following,

AUTHORIZED RESEARCH INITIATIVES—In carrying out the program under this subsection, the Secretary shall conduct research to lower the cost of nuclear reactor systems, including research regard
‘‘(A) modular and small-scale reactors; ‘
‘(B) balance-of-plant issues;
‘‘(C) cost-efficient manufacturing and
‘‘(D) licensing issues; and
‘‘(E) enhanced proliferation controls.

Someone in Washington is starting to get the right ideas. We still need to look at what sort of reactor is going to fulfill Senator Udall's expectations. We can expect to see a push for the GE-Hitachi PRISM reactor to accompany this legislation. Steve Kirsch is telling people:

One nice thing about the S-PRISM is that they’re modular units and of relatively low output (one power block of two will provide 760 MW). They could be emplaced in excavations at existing coal plants and utilize the same turbines, condensers (towers or others), and grid infrastructure as the coal plants currently use, and the proper number of reactor vessels could be used to match the capabilities of those facilities. Essentially all you’d be replacing is the burner (and you’d have to build a new control room, of course, or drastically modify the current one). Thus you avoid most of the stranded costs. If stranded costs can thus be kept to a minimum, both here and, more importantly, in China, we’ll be able to talk realistically not just about stopping to build new coal plants but replacing the existing ones, even the newest ones.

There may be a fly in the ointment, as a recent Reuters story suggest:

The drawbacks of the system by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are that the fast reactors involved are very costly and the reprocessing technology involves handling highly radioactive material yet to be proven on industrial scale. . . .

The challenge lies in the high costs of building fast reactors, . . .

Tim Abram, professor of nuclear fuel technology at Manchester University in Britain [says,]

The big challenge is: can we make it economic? Today, the answer is no, so this remains one of the main goals of the Generation IV initiative . . ."

The Reuters story attributed the expensive assessment to "experts". So we have two different stories about cost. is a backer, and of course backers is his more private moments, when he looks at himself in the mirror, yours truly knows full well, that it is difficult for a backer of advanced technology to be fully objective. I have indeed written about LFTR costs, and indeed have probably gone so far out on a limb, that no expert would willingly be quoted as endorsing my claims. Yet I do have a rational for my LFTR cost claims, several as a mater of fact. So we have some conflicting evidence about S-PRISM costs.

A note on history. History would suggest that as a research project, developing the S-PRISM will be very expensive, and the production of the S-PRISM is likely to be expensive by LFTR standards. This statement is not going to make Steve Kirsch, Barry Brook or Tom Blees happy, but I am not trying to step on their toes. None of them have been LMFRR supporters for very long, and they are relying on the Argonne National Laboratory crowd for their information. The history is that a lot of money has already been put into LMFBR research, In the 1970's ORNL research planners estimated that about 10% of the money spent on LMFBR were spent on Molten Salt Breeder Reactor technology, that is LFTR technology could be made viable. Steve, Tom, and Barry will tell you that the money spent on LMFBR technology has not been wasted. Perhaps not, but we need to look at deployment costs.

Features of the S-PRISM are likely to lead to higher cost than could be expected with the LFTR. First, the S-PRISM requires an expensive fuel reprocessing technology, while a low cost fuel reprocessing technology will be included in the LFTR design. Paying for the LFTR will get you fuel reprocessing too, and LFTR advocates will suggest that LFTRs with attached fuel reprocessing units, will cost less than S-PRRISM reactors with comparable power output. A second S-Prism cost issue has to do with a safety feature, the large pool of liquid sodium that the reactor core will be immersed in. The pool structure will probably not be factory built, and on site construction adds to reactor cost. In addition the large pool structure means a larger reactor housing. The solid fuel has to be mechanically removed from the reactor and transferred to a separate processing unit. Than means that space inside the reactors inner housing has to be allowed for fueling and defueling equipment. The NRC will be concerned about the safety of a reactor that uses a coolant as dangerous as liquid sodium.

Reservations about the safety of sodium cooled reactors first lead Oak Ridge scientists and engineers to develop liquid salt cooled reactors as a safer alternative to Sodium cooled reactors. I have no doubt that sodium cooled reactors can be made safe enough to satisfy the NRC, but because of the sodium safety issue, there will be a cost.

At the moment the S-PRISM reactor has business, institutional and governmental sponsors. These include GE-Hitsachi, Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories (with Sandia jockeying for its own smaller LMFBR candidate), and The US DoE. LFTR advocates can point to a viable research program in France, and a very lively interest community in the United States. It is perhaps a sign of the progress of nuclear power that nuclear advocates feel they can have controversies. In fact the controversies are old, and it is almost inevitable that they will resurface as the case for nuclear power grows stronger.

The future of nuclear power will be dependent on lowering nuclear cost. Although most prognosticators suggest that it will take a generation or longer for low cost nuclear technology to emerge, such judgements are based on business as usual assumptions that are likely to quickly fall by the wayside. The desire for low cost, rapidly scaleable nuclear technology is about to become very urgent. The cost of developing either the LFTR or the IFR to a production phase, is very small compared to world spending on energy during the next 40 years. No one yet knows how much money developing advanced nuclear technology will save, but place that sum into the trillion dollar range.