The Oil Drum EROEI study was produced by Professor Charles Hall and his students. Very quickly I began to questions Hall's qualifications to produce an EROEI. Hall is and Ecologist. Now Ecologist do study the energy economy of systems of living organisms in the environment, but this is a very different energy system than that which is developed by industrial societies. Hall's CV, reflected research in ecology of Costa Rican jungles, but it it did not reflect any expertise on resource economics, or other subjects that would be needed to understand the EROEI of advanced societies. I found this troubling.
HaLL published the first 4 parts on the series on April 8, 15, 22, and 29. I found the April 22 study on Nuclear EROEI every bit as troubling as I had anticipated.
I wrote a long response to the post In which I raised questions about the way the EROEI concept was applied to nuclear power:
The entire business of EROEI studies is a diversion from the question of reactor efficiency. We know that vast amounts of energy are locked up in uranium and thorium. What we need to be doing is studying the efficiencies of fuel cycle/reactor systems in extracting that energy, rather than expending our time arguing about the EPOEI of one system. Any review of the uranium/light water reactor fuel cycle will review that it does an extremely poor job of extracting the potential energy of nuclear fuel.
EROEI studies never note the different between the energy economies of the CANDU reactor and the LWR. CANDU reactors have a demonstrated ability to operate with almost nuclear fuel including natural uranium. The EROEI of natural uranium CANDU fuel cycles should be examined. There are presently 18 CANDU reactors operating in Canada. Other CANDU reactors operate in India, China, Korea Argentine, and Romania. CANDU Reactors can be operated using "spent" nuclear fuel from LWR. The EROEI for recycled fuel would be very large, since recycled fuel would enter the CANDU with only the energy input of transportation and fuel fabrication. Tests have been run on CANDU reactors.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/index.html
The Indians has just completed construction the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) a CANDU type reactor to run on thorium cycle fuel.
http://www.npcil.nic.in/nupower_vol13_3/ahwr.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/09/stories/2008040959691700.htm
It is one of the most advanced reactors in the world, and should have an EROEI significantly better than the EROEI of Light Water Reactors. The Indians plan to embark on serial production of AHWR type reactors, before 2020.
A second reactor type whose EROEI should be examined, is the Russian BN-600. Although the BN-600 is a developmental LMFBR reactor that has successfully delivered commercial nuclear power since 1980. The Japanese have purchased BN-600 technology from the Russians, and may build duplicates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor
Thirdly, the Indiana are engaged in a significant thorium fuel cycle. The Indians have already built and tested both thorium fuel cycle proof on concept and developmental thorium fuel cycle reactors and have built or are building prototype thorium fuel cycle reactors including the just completed AHWR, the soon to be completed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, and the more advanced , Fast Thorium Breeder Reactor (FTBR) underdevelopment at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai.is second thorium fuel cycle breeder. The Indians are in the last stage of a 3 stage developmental program for a complex Uranium/thorium reactor fuel system, that is many times more energy efficient than the Uranium/light water reactor fuel system.
The Indians plans to build thorium fuel cycle reactor capable of producing 20 GWy of electrical energy by 2020, and to produces 30% of their electricity from thorium cycle reactors by 2050. Indian scientists calculate that the assurred thorium reserve of India is large enough to provide it with electrcity for 400 years. Given the extent of Indian thorium cycle reactor development, and future plans and EROEI of nuclear industry EROIE that ignores the Indian plans is at the very least incomplete.
Further, any discussion of nuclear EROEI ought to note that that real world LWR EROEI using MOX is much than the EROEI of normally fueled French LWRs. The use Pu-239 in nuclear weapons absorbed the original energy input into weapons fissionable materials. The energy input into recycled fuel (MOX) would equal the energy requirements for disassembling nuclear weapons, fabricating MOX, and transporting it to the reactor. Reactor grade Plutionium can also be a source of MOX. U-238 in the MOX can be assummed to come from Depleted uranium stockpiles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel
American civilian power reactors are being used to dispose of surplus Russian U-235. Fully half half of the uranium used in American reactors USA is ex-Russian military U-235. One sixth of the current world U-235 supply comes from recycling Russian nuclear weapons. In addition, Pu-239 from American and Russian nuclear weapon stockpiles, not ony can but should be used as reactor fuel.
The estimated US U-235 stockpile was estimated to be in the range of 750 tons in the early 1990s, of which 174 tons (23% of the total) have been declared surplus.[13] More than 30 tons of the excess HEU has been blended down, reducing the total stockpile to something in the range of 720 tons. The US has a plutonium of 111.4 tons. The UK acknowledges possession of a military stockpile of 7.6 tons of plutonium, 21.9 tons of HEU (U-235). The Japanese hold a plutonium stockpile of from 16 to 20 tons. In 2000 the US and Russia agreed to each dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium. Estimates of the total world stockpile of weapons grade plutonium range as high as 300 tons.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/monitoring/declarations.asp
In addition to surplus stockpiles of reactor grade plutonium, mostly found in "spent nuclear fuel" equals 400 tons. http://www.dhushara.com/book/explod/nuclears/pluteu.htm Civilian plutonium stockpiles are growing and constitute the largest single problem associated with "nuclear waste." But even if all civilian reactors shut down, the disposal of military and civilian plutonium would be a significant problem. By far the best solution from an EROEI viewpoint would be to burn the plutonium in breeder reactors or thorium converters as the Indians plan to do.
EROEI studies of nuclear power commit numerous other EROEI errors.
EROEi calculations do not evaluating reactor grade plutonium reprocessing in the UK, France and Germany, despite the fact that reactor grade plutonium returned to reactors amounts to largely free energy. http://www.inesap.org/bulletin16/bul16art15.htm
Various sources describe the amount of fissionable material remaining in “spent” nuclear fuel. The Wikipedia reports that 1% of the fuel mass of “spent fuel” is reactor grade plutonium. While unburned U-235 would constitute >.83 percent of the "spent" fuel mass. The Wikipedia also reports, “Fissile component starts at 0.71% 235U concentration in natural uranium). At discharge, total fissile component is still 0.50% (0.23% 235U, 0.27% fissile 239Pu, 241Pu).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel
Plutonium based fuel can be used in Heavy Water Reactors.
http://www.cap.ca/news/moxsummary.ps
With Heavy Water Reactors a burnup rate of 50% of reactor grade plutonium is possible with the use of a U-238 fuel cycle, and 75% with the use of a Th-232 fuel cycle.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/mox.htm
The encyclopedia of the earth reports
Reactor grade plutonium contains about 55-70% of fissile Pu-239, and >19% of non-fissile Pu-240, non fissile isotopes of Plutonium will never constitute more 30% of reactor grade plutonium.
In contrast. studies of the use of ex-nuclear weapon Pu-239 in MOX fueled light water reactors suggest that only a net burnup on only 1/3 of the original plutonium, leaving an unsatisfactory burn is disposal of plutonium.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:tDm1iQnQSJ4J:www.fissilematerials.o...
Depleted Uranium contains 0.25-0.30% U-235. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf14.html
Thus the Uranium enrichment process looses 35% to 42% of the U-235 in natural uranium. 20% of reactor fuel U-235 fails to fission after absorbing reactor neutrons, thus becoming non-fissile U-236. (WASH-1097) Another 25%+ of reactor U-235 remains when the fuel will no longer support a chain reaction. In addition, plutonium remaining in the reactor amounts to nearly 25% of the original U-235 in the fuel charge. Thus the net fissile burnup rate in a light water reactor is only 30% of the original U-235 charge.
In contrast CANDU reactors contain about 0.2% U-235.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
An equal amount of spent CANDU fuel will be PU-239. Hence Heavy Water Reactor fuel post-reactor fuel is more truly spent, while spent light water reactor fuel, contains more fissile material than natural uranium a fuel that can be used in Heavy Water Reactors.
Heavy Water reactors are also more efficient in burning U-235. Assuming 0.1% U236 content in "spent fuel" (WASH-1097), this means that 57% of the U-235 in natural uranium gets burned up heavy water reactors, verses a burnup of around 35% of the U-235 in natural uranium for light water reactors.
Since part or most of the nuclear energy of uranium and plutonium in post reactor LWR nuclear fuel is capturable by other reactors, it should be added to the energy output of light water reactors in a fair assessment of the uranium.LWR guel cycle..
Various sources describe the amount of fissionable material remaining in “spent” nuclear fuel. The Wikipedia reports that 1% of the fuel mass of spent fuel is reactor grade plutonium. While U-235 would constitute >.83 percent of the fuel mass. The Wikipedia also reports, “Fissile component starts at 0.71% 235U concentration in natural uranium). At discharge, total fissile component is still 0.50% (0.23% 235U, 0.27% fissile 239Pu, 241Pu).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel
Plutonium based fuel can be used in Heavy Water Reactors.
http://www.cap.ca/news/moxsummary.ps
With Heavy Water Reactors a burnup rate of 50% of reactor grade plutonium is possible with the use of a U-238 fuel cycle, and 75% with the use of a Th-232 fuel cycle.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/mox.htm
The encyclopedia of the earth reports
Reactor grade plutonium contains about 55-70% of fissile Pu-239, and >19% of non-fissile Pu-240, non fissile isotopes of Plutonium will never constitute more 30% of reactor grade plutonium.
One Kg of fissile Plutonium burned in a reactor produces 10 MWh of electrical power. Thus one ton of fissile plutonium will produce 1 GW years of electrical power.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Plutonium
Studies of the use of nuclear weapon Pu-239 in MOX fueled light water reactors suggest that only a net burnup on only 1/3 of the original plutonium, leaving an unsatisfactory burn is disposal of plutonium.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:tDm1iQnQSJ4J:www.fissilematerials.o...
Depleted Uranium contains 0.25-0.30% U-235. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf14.html
Thus the Uranium enrichment process looses 35% to 42% of the U-235 in natural uranium. 20% of reactor fuel U-235 fails to fission after absorbing reactor neutrons, thus becoming non-fissile U-236. (WASH-1097) Another 25%+ of reactor U-235 remains when the fuel will no longer support a chain reaction. In addition, plutonium remaining in the reactor amounts to nearly 25% of the original U-235 in the fuel charge. Thus the net fissile burnup rate in a light water reactor is only 30% of the original U-235 charge.
In contrast CANDU reactors contain about 0.2% U-235.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
An equal amount of spent CANDU fuel will be PU-239. Hence Heavy water reactor fuel is truly spent, while spent light water reactor fuel, contains more Fissile material than ordinary Heavy Water Reactor fuel does.
Assuming 0.1% U236 content (WASH-1097), this means that 57% of the U-235 in natural uranium gets burned up heavy water reactors, verses a burnup of around 35% of the U-235 in natural uranium for light water reactors.
Such great inefficiency leaves a great deal of nuclear fuel unused by light water reactors, but re-enrichment of so called "depleted uranium tailings" is currently being conducted at Paducah,
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/NEWS0...
and in Russia.
http://www.greenpeace.fr/stop-plutonium/en/trade_russia_en.php3
And research continuses on improving the burnup ratio of LWRs.
In short some of the inefficiencies of the uranium/light water reactor fuel cycle are either being corrected or are amenable to correction. Nuclear EROEI is a snapshot in time, that often ignore the complexity of nuclear fuel cycles, as well as the effect of reactor, enrichment and fuel recovery technologies on nuclear fuel efficiency. Since it is impossible to generate a single number in calculations involving so many independent variables, the value of nuclear EROEI studies which arrives at a single number is very questionable, and a meta-analysis of such studies will lead to a distorted and inaccurate picture. The best we should hope for is a range of EROEI numbers for a given fuel cycle, with the possibility of a comparison between the ranges of various fuel/reactor options.
The study on Nuclear EROEI confirmed my worst fear.
First it contained no empirical data. Hall does not tell us how much energy is used to mine, mill, enrich and fabricate reactor fuel. He does not tell us how much energy goes into building a reactor. He does not analyze back end options for “spent fuel” and the energy input for each option. Although he acknowledges my email to him suggesting that he should review the Canadian and the Indian Fuel cycles which are significantly different from the Light Water Reactor Fuel Cycle of France and the United States, he acknowledges is inability to perform the task.
Secondly most of his bibliography did not include Internet links, even though in some cases the source is posted on the Internet.
For example Hall lists an unpublished paper by Gene Tyner, but provides no link to it. Yet that paper is posted on the Internet.
http://www.mnforsustain.org/nukpwr_tyner_g_net_energy_from_nuclear_power...
Thirdly, Hall’s bibliography referes to Anti-nuclear propagandist, such as Helen Caldicott and Jan Willem Storm Van Leeuwen.
Caldicott’s writings on nuclear energy have not been peered reviewed. Numerous critics have poked holes in Caldicott’s work. When given a chance to respond to her critics, arguments Caldicott flatly refused. Instead she simply attacked her critics because they disagreed with her.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2007/12/helen-caldicotts-reign-of-error...
Hall relies heavily on Storm Van Leeuwen to support his case. Yet David Bradish has shown that Storm Van Leeuwen has made serious mathematical errors in his work.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/01/van-leeuwen-and-smiths-egreg...
Roberto Dones, a distinguished scientist (http://gabe.web.psi.ch/team/cv_rd.html), writing under the Letterhead of the Paul Scherrer Institute, subject the work of “Stom-Smith to withering criticism. http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pdfs/Critical%20note%20GHG%20PSI.pdf
Dones argues that "Storm-Smith" cherry pick data:
"the authors do not critically address their own evaluation in view of findings from those studies. Instead, they extract worst data from just one presentation (Orita 1995: Preliminary Assessment on Nuclear Fuel cycle and Energy Consumption), which is a highly incomplete survey, was never reviewed, nor it reports the used sources. ISA (2006, #35) discard figures reported in Orita (1995) on mining as “outliers”. . . SvLS qualify the data presented at that meeting as oversimplified and incomplete as if this were representing the whole of studies on the nuclear chain. Incidentally, several studies whose intermediate results were presented at the IAEA had and have been published in reports and journal papers and are acknowledged as reference LCA studies."
Dones points to methodological errors:
"SvLS (2005) often convert costs into energetic terms using generic factors, not reported in the text, lacking critical consideration of cost components, and lacking use of technical match to compare with real energy expenditures." "SvLS (2005) add thermal to electric energy directly to give “total energy”, which is certainly not recommended practice." "SvLS do not provide explicitly conversion factor(s) PJe or PJth to CO2 mass." Dones also notes, "SvLS (2005) comparison of CO2 emission from nuclear with natural gas is not consistent.." and "SvLS (2005) use references that are likely to be outdated."
Dones also states,
"SvLS (2005) is not accounting for mine industry practices." Dones, as well as other critics reports, SvLS (2005) pay no consideration of co-production of minerals as common practice for economically viable mining and milling (processing) of the ore especially in case of low grades. If co-production or by-production occurs, the energy expenditures shall be allocated to the different products according to the specific needs, accurately analyzing (to the extent possible) the complete process flow."
Dones then points to
"Storm-Smith's" notorious Olympic Dam mine error: "[A]s reported in (ISA 2006), in the Olympic Dam mine, where uranium is extracted as a byproduct of copper, “most energy requirements would have been attributable to the recovered copper” under consideration of energy allocation to different products by process flow analysis. ISA (2006) reports the results of Olympic Dam’s own calculations based on such energy allocation, obtaining 0.012 GJ of energy to uranium “for every tonne of ore that we process in its entirety (from mining through to final product)”. This would correspond to 0.012/0.7/0.85/0.82 = 0.024 GJ/kgU for U-grade of 0.07% (proved ore reserves), or 0.041 GJ/kgU for 0.04% U-grade (total resources).9 Application of the formula in (SvLS 2005, Chapter 2, #5) would give for 0.07% grade the energy intensity of 4.4 GJ/kgU and 10.6 GJ/kgU, respectively for soft and hard ores, while with 0.04% the energy intensity would be 8.2 GJ/kgU and 19.5 GJ/kgU, respectively for soft and hard ores: i.e., SvLS formula would calculate two to three orders of magnitude higher values than this specific case."
Dones argues,
"SvLS (2005) systematically overestimates energy expenditures, thus the associated GHG."
It should be noted that like “Storm-Smith” Hall prefers old sources.
“The seemingly most reliable information on EROI is quite old and is summarized in chapter 12 of Hall et al. (1986). Newer information tends to fall into the wildly optimistic camp (high EROI, e.g. 10:1 or more, sometimes wildly more) . . .”
It is quite clear that Hall dismisses any study of nuclear EROEI that comes up with a figure higher than he and Storm Van Leeuwen would allow as wildly the wildly optimistic, and automatically dismissed.
Martin Sevior criticisms of “Storm-Smith” have previously been twice debated on The Oil Drum. Hall ignore Sevior, Sevior’s debate with “Storm-Smith” (http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Powe...) and the debate of Sevior’s critique of “Storm-Smith on The Oil Drum. (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323 and http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/7/195721/3132)
Fourthly, Hall dismisses peer review publishes studies of Nuclear EROEI.
“Newer information tends to fall into the wildly optimistic . . .”.
Fifthly he dismisses alternitive reactor technologies.
“Previous “new technologies” such as Breeders (Clinch River, Super Phoenix) have been abandoned as too expensive. Plumbing issues have plagued the Candu style reactors, although they appear intrinsically cheaper and safer and do not require energy-intensive enrichment.”
In fact the Russian BN-600 breeder has been successful. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor) The Japanese recently paid a billion dollars for BN-600. The so called plumbing problems of the CAND reactor are technologically fixable, and at any rate, CANDU reactors have a capacity factor of 87% and an availability factor of 92.4% which is more than satisfactory. (http://www.cns-snc.ca/media/reliability/reliability.html#CF)
Sixthly, Hall sites sources that do not appear in his bibliography.
“according to at least one source, extraction of uranium from seawater would cost much more energy than contained in the uranium itself.” (Leeuwen 2006)
Hall also references (Leeuwen 2005) several times,
There is no mention of Leeuwen 2006 or Leeuwen 2005 in the bibliography.
Hall thus uses this seemingly non-existent source from a discredited authority to prove that extraction of uranium from sea water is not an economic possibility, and to argue that uranium is a non-sustainable resource.
Seventhly, Hall confesses his lack of a technical capacity to assess the EROEI of reactor/fuel systems in India and Canada:
“I am not technically qualified to judge from all these differing perspectives.”
Yet it is this very lack of technical capacity that is at the center of Charles Hall’s failure to assess the EROEI of nuclear power. Far from producing a rigorously reasoned, well documented argument, factually based argument, Hall has given us an argument without data through the use of what Bruno Latour called black boxes, that is by reference to sources whose data are neither assessed nor reported. Hall tells us, I did that else where. a long time ago., and newer information is
“mostly as disparate, widespread, idiosyncratic, prejudiced and poorly documented as information about the nuclear power industry itself. Much, perhaps most, of the information that is available seems to have been prepared by someone who has made up his or her mind one-way or another (i.e. a large or trivial supplier of net energy) before the analysis is given. “
In other word it does not support Hall’s conclusions.
Instead Hall relies on one schematic to set out his argument.
“The following diagram, which should be considered conceptually if not necessarily quantitatively appropriate, illustrates the main issues.”
The diagram is found here:
(http://www.theoildrum.com/files/EROI_Nuclear_schematic.png)
On that schematic in the mid right there appears the word “Time” and an arrow that points to the word “Storm”. The word “Storm” of course represents the dubious conclusions of one “Storm Van Leeuwen.”
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2008/03/nuclear-illiteracy-and-nuclear....
As we use to say when I was younger, “garbage in, garbage out”.
The paper had actually been written by one of Hall's students, but Hall had failed to correct his student's errors, and the seriously flawed paper which was published on The Oil Drum.
The nexr week on April 29, the 4th post in Charles Hall's EROEI series appeared, but LattyCO commented:
Nate,
I'm not going to spend time on someone whose previous posts have been shredded.
Robert and Jeffery don't always agree, but it is because they disagree about how to interpret the data they present, not because one of them picks data from discredited sources.
You can get offended if you want, but this series does not deserve to pass the Oil Drum Editors and I am shocked that it continues.
Interestingly the 5th part of the Charles Hall's EROEI series did not appear this week.
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