Weinberg on Post-Carbon Energy: Social Engineering or Technological Fix?

My "confession" has pointed to the deep influence of Alvin Weinberg on my thinking on energy. This influence was exercised during my formative years because I grew up in the only community in the world, where Alvin Weinberg's view effected the editorial content of the local newspaper. It is quite obvious to me as I read Weinberg's post ORNL papers, that he was on the right track about energy. and that he accurately foresaw our current situation. I believe that Alvin was a wise and gifted man, and that his views belong in the current energy debate. Today I would like to focus on Alvin Weinberg's 1977-78 paper BEYOND THE TECHNOLOGICAL FIX.

Alvin Weinberg differentiated between Social Engineering and technological fixes. Weinberg offers a definition of a Technological fix.

A technological fix is a means for resolving a societal problem by adroit use of technology and with little or no alteration of social behavior.

Social Engineering would be an approach that focuses on changing human behavior. Almost everyone who writes about energy advocates some technological fix. For example, renewable advocates prefer the use of wind or solar technology to provide energy for society. There are, however, significant problems with these technologies. They are expensive, and in in significant ways unreliable. Further technological fix is required for the unreliability problems, and those fixes are also expensive.

Most advocates of renewable energy argue that efficient use of energy can compensate for the inefficiencies of solar and wind generated electricity. Allegedly, greater energy efficiency is low hanging fruit, and great demand reductions can be accomplished by relatively trivial investments in energy efficiency.

The problems with the renewable energy/energy efficiency paradigm is simple, people lack motive to adopt it. If as many scientist claim we need to replace something like 80% carbon sourced energy by 2050 we need routes that will get us there, but to date there seems to be no natural route that will lead us to that replacement. Hence renewables advocates are forced to fall back onto a social engineering approach to carbon mitigation. Yet resorts to social engineering carry with them problems and unintended consequences as Weinberg pointed out over 30 year ago.

It is significant that so much of the discussion has been concerned
with supply rather than demand. Again, this is natural since demand ordinarily involves individual actions of many consumers, whereas supply embraces far fewer, but more powerful actors. In principle, it is easier to increase the efficiency of a central station power plant - say by installing low Btu gas topping cycles - than it is to persuade millions of people to turn off their lights or to insulate their homes. In the one case - increasing efficiency of supply - the ultimate consumer has little reason to change his style of living; in the other case, his customary habits are intruded upon, and he must readjust at least some of his ways of doing things.

Weinberg pointed to the unintended consequence of the social engineering approach.

I would suggest that the primary adjustment imposed by social rather than technological approaches to reduction in demand is a loss in our freedom to allocate time. . . .

Much of the current rumble about soft energy paths - which implies small, decentralized generating systems based largely and ultimately on the sun, as wel l as upon a myriad of individual social decisions - involves sacrificing time, or at least freedom in our allocation of time, in the interest of saving our scarce resources of oil and gas. of the inherent intermittency of the sun. This sacrifice of time is a consequence mainly of the inherent intermittency of the sun.

Weinberg's views were amazingly prophetic, and accurately reflect out current situation. And Weinberg anticipated critiques of his position,

Social critics tend to be wary of technological fixes because they do not get to root causes . . .

Most technological fixes can do no more than help remedy the immediate problem that invoked the fix. In their wake they leave other problems which, in turn, are amenable to resolution by additional technological fixes: fixes are applied over fixes, and the society, to be metaphorical., becomes a patchwork of band-aids -indeed, I have referred to it as the "band-aid society".

However, as Weinberg points out,

But technological fixes are not unique in this regard for, if we are honest, social fixes also have unforeseen and deleterious side effects. On a grand scale, we have the Marxism, which has brought in great revolutionary movements - for example, its wake massive suffering. . . .

one must concede that neither technological nor social fixes can ever be expected to produce utopia here on earth: our society, I believe, will always be a band-aid society - about all we can hope for is that small l incremental improvements, taken as a whole, will lead to happier,
more fulfilled people.

Weinger's solution to the problem of energy is also the technological fix that I endorse:

constitutes a possible technological fix for the underlying, long-term
nuclear energy, at least in its breeder embodiment, problem of energy I believe is undeniable - this, despite the current disaffection with nuclear energy and rejection of at least some breeder reactors.

Confessions of a Nuclear Blogger: Part III

Why should anyone pay attention to my blogging? After all I am not a trained scientist, nor and I a trained engineer. Yet I write about advanced nuclear technology as if I have some authority on the subject. How can that be? The answer is quite simple. I have acquired a measure of nuclear literacy. That is I can read many documents that reports on nuclear technology, and even the working reports by nuclear researchers and acquire some basic understanding of what is said. This is not to claim that I have the same level of understanding that as a scientist or engineer. I do not. But it is not necessary to understand science as a scientist in order to understand the implications of scientific developments for society.

My acquaintance with LFTR technology is long standing. My father began to do research on Fluoride Salt coolant/fuels in 1950 and continued to conduct research until 1969. My parents' longtime neighbor, Oak Ridger Editor and publisher Dick Smizer wrote about fluid fuel reactors and vision that Incorporated the LFTR paradigm. The idea of nuclear powered desalination was closely related to the MSR project at ORNL. An even more daring project grew out of the desalination concept, the notion of nuclear powered agro-industrial complexes to be built in the Middle east, An ORNL display on the at the 1964 United Nations Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, represented the high point of the ORNL vision. During the conference President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev viewed the ORNL presentation and commented favorably on it.

During the 1960's Weinberg became increasingly concerned with technological fixes to social problems, especially in contrast to social engineering. But Molten Salt Reactorsof the LFTR type were very much on Weinberg's mind, and were in1966 already influencing his thinkingin another 1966 lecture which became the basis for a National Academy of Science essay that Weinberg wrote with his old Manhattan Project and ORNL associate Gale Young, they explored of the future which the LFTR type reactors would open up. Weinberg's thinking has moved beyond desalinization and middle eastern Agro-industrial complexes to the use of nuclear power in the production of hydrogen, ammonia and other industrial processes. Indeed, Weinberg foresaw

a qualitative change in the world's industrial economy. At this price for prime energy it seems plausible that we can desalt sea water economically, and it seems to us to be at least a plausible speculation that we can produce hydrogen, and thence ammonia, and possibly even fluid fuel from coal at prices that are not much higher than we now pay for these commodities. The great advantage of basing these processes upon nuclear energy is that when breeder reactors are developed, the energy will be available quite independently of the availability of raw materials. Once a breeder reactor is inventoried with its initial load of fuel and fertile material, it can run without requiring any new fuel or fertile material for many decades. Thus the energy economy of a country, and therefore the many parts of its industry that can be based ultimately on energy, becomes decoupled from the accident of local distribution of fuels.

One cannot help but be impressed with the vast change in relations between nations that would ensue from this ubiquity of cheap energy. It is one of the most exciting prospects the world can expect from the Nuclear Energy Revolution.

We have clearly arrived at the new LFTR paradigm. I was at the time still a young man who was still hanging around Oak Ridge, and very much unsettled on my life course. I was to go on in 1970-71 to work in a year a proto-internship in the ORNL-NSF Environmental Studies program. By that time both Weinberg and the Laboratory were in trouble, and thew pull back fromthe paradigm.

Weinberg's thinking about reactors was still somewhat conventional. In order for the paradigm to be realized, a low cost LFTR would be necessary, and the key to keeping LFTR costs low lay not in economies of scale as Weinberg believed, but in factory production of clusters of small modular reactors such as the design Ed Bettis reported on in ORNL-4528.

Thus in 2007, when I began to cast around for AGW solutions, the LFTR paradigm was already in the back of my mind. ready to be called to service.

Confessions of a Nuclear Blogger: Part II

The genesis of Nuclear Green lay in my attempt to determine if a global post carbon energy solution was possible. I concluded that not only was it possible, but that the LFTR solution was necessary because renewable energy approaches would almost certainly fail. The problem of indeterminacy plagued both wind and solar electrical generation systems, and the reliability problem seemingly bonded renewable generation systems to fossil fuel burning, CO2 emitting technology. For those who doubt my assessment I will call attention to the Greenpeace energy plan, Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable U.S.A. Energy Outlook.

The [r]evolution plan involves two stages of development, with continued developments in the use of fossil fuels continuing to play a major role in the energy mix for the next 20 years. Only after 2030 does the report envision moving away from a deep dependency on fossil fuels. The Greenpeace plan calls for a shift from coal, lignite, and oil products to natural gas during the next decade with gas-fired electrical generation capacity increasing from 340 GWs in 2005 to 505 installed GWs in 2020 while the number of coal and lignite burning facilities are expected to drop.

Renewables energy Guru Joe Romm has become a virtual shill for the Natural Gas Industry, (also see here , here, and here. I am )

My original conclusions were that solar and/or wind based energy systems would either require an expensive system of energy storage, or an ongoing, long term dependency on fossil fuels. Since the establishment of Nuclear Green I have repeatedly attempted to test that conclusion, and have been unable to find strong evidence contradicting it. Thus the renewables paradigm has been shown to to be based on false assumptions.

I would argue that conventional nuclear power advocates appear to have not developed a post carbon energy paradigm, and are content with statements such as nuclear power belongs in the post-carbon energy mix. This statement creates a huge black box marked "post-carbon energy mix." Nothing inside the box is explained, so we have no detailed account of how various post carbon energy needs are to be meet using nuclear sourced solutions. In addition, conventional nuclear technology is expensive, and has proven unpopular with the public, despite very significant improvements in areas like nuclear safety. The problem of nuclear waste, which is closely tied to the inefficient use of fuel in the conventional nuclear uranium fuel cycle, remains a problem for the conventional nuclear industry.

One of the functions of Nuclear Green has been an ongoing analysis of the role of LFTR technology in the post carbon society. Even before the creation of Nuclear Green, I had concluded that the LFTR had the potential for supplying all the electrical energy required by our society. I also concluded that the LFTR would serve as the source of land based transportation energy, through the electrification of land based transportation.

I eventually understood the LFTR concept to represent a new energy paradigm. On December 30, 2008 I wrote:

Probably no more than a thousand people in the entire world fully understands the paradigm, although thousands more understand bits and pieces of it. Much of the paradigm was shaped by Eugene Wigner, a authentic genius and a man of singular vision. Wigner foresaw the need for extracting the enormous energy potential from thorium and using it to sustain human civilization. Wigner's vision included a heavy-water fluid-core reactor as the instrument through which thorium was to be transformed into nuclear fuel. Alvin Weinberg, Wigner's former student and another genius, later realized that the Molten Salt Reactor was a far superior tool for realizing the full energy potential of the thorium fuel cycle, and the potential to increase energy efficiency to increase its energy potential even further by coupling it with massive desalinization projects in desert countries.

I explained that my role was to explore the LFTR paradigm on a conceptual level. I must add that I am far from alone in understanding the LFTR paradigm. Certainly Kirk Sorensen and David Walters do, as well as many of the contributers to the EfT Discussion Forum. As I noted

The LFTR paradigm then suggests that the technology for a low cost transformation of American electrical generation already exists, and is capable of rapid development and deployment in little more than a decade provided Manhattan project type resource commitments are made to realizing the paradigm. Like all new paradigms, the LFTR paradigm is poorly understood, and its potential is only seen by a limited number of people. However the LFTR paradigm is being discussed on the Internet, and knowledge of the paradigm could spread rapidly. Skeptics might argue that there is no such thing as a silver bullet to solve the energy problem, yet the paradigm suggests that there is a liquid thorium bullet.

My view is that the LFTR paradigm represents nothing less than the future energy course for world society, an inevitable course. The importance of the LFTR paradigm is obscure to most people who think about energy. As i explained:

Early phases of paradigm shifts are often periods of confusion. There is now a great deal of confusion about the LFTR. People, who fail to understand how radically different the LFTR is from better understood Light Water Reactors still wonder how the LFTR could not have all of the flaws of LWRs. In fact the LFTR paradigm offers solutions to all of the major problems of LWRs without difficult and expensive fixes and workarounds. Until people adjust their thinking to include the new paradigm, the confusion will continue to be common

Confused, irrational thinking about the cost of renewables can also be attributed to disorganized discourse about renewable energy options. Discussions of renewable energy options often replace facts with wishful thinking. Thus future energy production tends to be over estimated while capital costs associated with future renewable energy tends to be underestimated. This problem is often notable when the projected cost of renewables is compared with the projected cost of conventional nuclear power.

I have explored the LFTR paradigm on Energy from Thorium, Nuclear Green, the Oil Drum and elsewhere. The LFTR paradigm can be expressed:

There is a vary large amount recoverable energy in the form of thorium found in the crust of the earth. The amount of recoverable thorium in the earths crust would exceed even the most optimistic estimate of human energy consumption by a factor of at least 10.

The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor capable of burning thorium at 98% efficiency. The LFTR can be manufactured in factories and installed almost anywhere at a low cost.

The LFTR is extremely scalable and has the potential for rapid large scale deployment.

The LFTR is extremely safe.

The LFTR eliminates from 99% to 99.9% of nuclear waste produced by conventional reactors.

The LFTR does not produce weapons useful nuclear materials, and the LFTR would would not be a practical tool for nuclear proliferation.

Fission byproducts from the nuclear process in LFTRs would be very valuable, and would provide a second source of income for reactor owners.

LFTRs can be deployed to control CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning within 40 years.

LFTRs can provide heat for industrial processes.

LFTRs can provide electricity for surface transportation systems.

LFTRs can be used to produce liquid and gaseous fuels from air and water.

Waste heat from LFTRs can be used to desalinate sea water.

The savings on the cost of fossil fuels burned in fossil fuel electrical plants will pay the cost of replacing fossil fuel plants with LFTRs.

The LFTR can be built from common, low cost materials.

EEStory, new chapter but no prototype II

Talk about recycling titles.

Head EEStor honcho, Dick Wier reappeared in one of his telephone interviews last week, The Interview got recorded, and was posted on the Internet for a while. Transcripts of the interview exist. Tyler Hamilton did a story on it. Tyler's story includes a transcript. Will, one of Tyler's readers commented:

Honestly, this interview drops my confidence…significantly. The basic errors in science that he makes are jaw dropping. Na and K as contaminants for voltage breakdown because of how they work in a solution? Alumina as the highest resistivity material in the world? 1100 V/um for alumina – by it self, sure. Not for 3500V across the 0.3um of the coated material. “The most thing you hear about…these bloggers…is voltage. I just showed you where…you know…it sounds like they don’t read. So the purity and the fact that I have test data (that) showed it…and also the polarization. So I think that overcomes it.” Well, Mr. Weir, no, no it doesn’t. Not even close. On THEEESTORY, an interview with one Dr. Cross has a quote that their claims are “outrageous”. Of course, he also claims that they are scientists, so I’m not sure how much faith I have in Dr. Cross, either.

For me the bottom line on the EEStory has always been no prototype has been released to ZENN Moters for truly independent evaluation. Dick Wier tells us that there can be no prototype will be released until the production line is finished. This is hard to accept. Again we get from Weir words and promises, but no prototypes. I am still waiting for the prototype.

End of story to date.

Update: discussion on EEStory noted that a test of an EESU would not be required to establish EEStor credibility. The test of a single 0.4" square by 0.2" component would do the job nicely. So far EEStor has not offered a component for independent testing.

Confessions of a Nuclear Blogger: Part I

Confessions of a Nuclear Blogger

I have no technical training in nuclear science or engineering, although I do have an unusually broad education in the social sciences and humanities. My father was a reactor chemist who worked briefly for Y-12 and for a much longer period of time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He made a significant development to the Light Water Reactor, and numerous contributions to the development of Molten Salt Reactor chemistry. He also made contributions to nuclear safety and the study of radioisotopes from natural gas in the home. I grew up nuclear literate, and had a proto-internship in environmental studies in the ORNL-NSF Environmental Studies Program in 1970-71.

My nuclear literacy has several sources. The Oak Ridge School system stressed science education, and nuclear literacy played a role in the science focus. In addition, as a child I paid numerous visits to the American Museum of Atomic Energy (now called he American Museum of Science and Energy) in Oak Ridge. In addition, Long time “Oak Ridge,” editor and publisher Dick Smyser made notable contribution to Nuclear Literacy in Oak Ridge. Smyser was the brother-in-law of Three Mile Island Commission Member Thomas Pigford who was a Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Chairman of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Smyser, who lived in my childhood neighborhood, was exceptionally well informed on nuclear technology. He was able to translate complex scientific concepts into a language that the wives and children of Oak Ridge scientists could understand. Smyser was known nationally for asking Richard Nixon a question at a news conference that lead to Nixon’s famous statement, “I am not a crook.”

In 2007 my analysis of the problem of global warming mitigation lead me to the conclusion that the factory based manufacture of a large number of MSR/Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors offered the only practical means of replacing carbon based energy sources with a post carbon energy technology by 2050. My views have not altered during the last two years.

During the second half of 2007 I blogged increasingly on nuclear issues, but I felt that I needed a dedicated nuclear blog. In December 2007 I launched Nuclear Green a blog, which focuses on the LFTR as the post carbon energy solution.

Many of my best early ideas turned out to not be original. My unoriginal ideas include factory production of reactors, factory produced small reactors, and reactor clustering. Clustering of small reactors was thought of at ORNL in the 1960’s. IFR researchers had proposed factory production of relatively small IFRs. The IFR researchers also noted the potential for low cost which I regarded as a great virtue of a factory produced LFTR. About my only original idea from my from the original “grand LFTR plan” was the notion that the LFTR was rapidly scalable – that a very large number of LFTRs could be built and started in a relatively short period of time. Nothing seem to prevent setting very ambitious goals, for example producing up to 80% of the world’s energy from the LFTR by 2050. This was potentially a very important contribution, because – contrary to the prevailing wisdom – the scalability of the LFTR suggested that the world energy problem was solvable, and solvable with a single technology.

Another original contribution was an analysis of the LFTR from the perspective of “Green Engineering”. As it turns out all potential LFTR designs – 1 or 2 fluids moderated, 1 or 2 fluids epithermal - conform to the principles of Green Engineering.

Finally, what is clearly my most original concepts have to do with the use of the LFTR a reserve - intermediate and a peak load - generator. This concept began with my observation that the LFTR could be a technically superior, low cost back up for renewable. An intermittent back up role would be perfectly compatible with the LFTR’s capabilities. In fact the LFTR would perform so well in the backup role, and would be so less expensive than the renewables that the real question would be why would you need renewable generating capacity at all.

But if the LFTR could back up solar and wind, it could also serve as part time – intermediate or peak load – generating capacity. In fact part time operations would tend to extend LFTR life. David LeBlanc observed that using lower heat tolerant, but also lower cost materials in LFTR construction could lower LFTR cost. Lowering LFTR costs would also make the LFTR more cost competitive with natural gas part time generators. I thought this was especially important because Light Water Reactors are too expensive to compete with natural gas powered generators in part time roles. And no natural gas technology replacement had emerged despite an obvious need for such a technology on the post carbon grid.

Kirk Sorensen's Google Talk

Michael Lee Barton

In memory of Michael Lee Barton (July 23, 1946 to Oct. 23, 2008) He was a a devoted husband and father and a gentleman.

A Concluding Unscientific Preface to the Keys, Revised

I began my thinking about reactor manufacture some time ago. There are enormous drawbacks to on site manufacture. First it is a crafts-labor intensive form of manufacture. Craftsmen swarm over the site performing all sorts of tasks. We have pipe fitters installing pipes, welders welding, electricians installing miles of wiring, carpenters building forms. Rebar being installed, forms placed, and concrete poured. Workers are constantly shifting within job sites; they have no assigned station at which tools can be kept handy. Workers require frequent assignment and direction in performing their tasks. Supervisors must constantly move back and forth from their superiors to their subordinates relaying messages and assignments, and monitoring work for progress.

Workers are assigned tasks for which they are expected to use their general repository of work skills, but the tasks may not be performed up to speck, and the supervisor does not have time to notice it, because he or she is too busy moving back and forth, between project managers relaying assignments and information.

Lets look at what can happen. Take the Olkiluoto-3 reactor construction project in Finland. The story is well known: “Flawed welds for the reactor's steel liner, unusable coolant pipes and suspect concrete in the foundation.” The massive construction project is already more than two years late and 25% over budget. An investigation revealed ”The power plant vendor has selected subcontractors with no prior experience in nuclear power plant construction to implement the project. These subcontractors have not received sufficient guidance and supervision to ensure smooth progress of their work.”

This was hardly surprising. Any construction project of that size is an opportunity for human error to flower. Investigators reported:

“[T]he specific quality requirements for constructing a nuclear power plant were not clearly brought up when inviting tenders on concrete supply. The process of designing the concrete composition, concrete manufacturing and the respective quality control measures involved problems in accountability and communication because there were many subcontractors. There was no manager on site with an overall responsibility for the preparation of the base slab and an authority to issue binding orders to all parties. Problems had arisen during minor concreting performed on site, but they did not result in measures for ensuring the smooth implementation of the main concreting. The approved concrete composition was altered during concrete mixing. Deviations in the concrete composition and in concrete pouring were not addressed openly and without delay.”

The root cause then was that no reactor had been built in Finland since the 1980’s, hence no one had experience building a big reactor, and no one really knew what he or she was doing. Furthermore the project clearly got out of control of its managers. The history of reactor construction in the United States and Canada has been one of a consistent pattern of construction taking longer than scheduled, and costing more than planned. Consider now that in the United States, with the exception of TVA and its contractors, no electrical utility has experience with reactor construction in a generation, and the prior performance of utilities was, to say the least, not encouraging. Since the NRC licensing will not be completed for the first reactor project before 2012, the earliest any of the current proposed reactors construction project can be expected to come on line is 2015. Hence we might expect to begin reaping a practical benefit from reactor construction experience about 2015. Hopefully, short, or at least shorter construction periods will teach begin to teach everybody involved by actually doing the work of constructing reactors and learning something from the experience.

Even if accomplished perfectly on site. construction of reactors is expensive and probably always will be. Reactor construction methods are in some cases use technologies that were known to the Romans. Such construction relies on skilled human power, rather than mechanized manufacturing approaches. Thus in an era of increasing construction costs, it become increasingly expensive to build reactors as construction rather than manufacturing projects.

Westinghouse estimates that the construction of AP-1000 reactors require between 16 and 20 million man hours of labor, most of which will be performed by skilled laborers. The most skilled workers for a construction project of this scale would be the engineers and managers who are organizing the work schedules, and assuring a constant flow of up to spects materialsonto the job site. Thus a 1 GW reactor is a massive construction project that requires enormous amount of skill at every level of the project from the utility management to the welders and pipe fitters. In order for a construction plan to work both those who make the plan and those who carry it out must have a precise understanding of what they are doing. Even with perfect planning and organization, the skill level required of workers, the amount of labor involved, and the relatively low degree of mechanization will insure that reactor construction labor costs will remain high.

John Geesman, a former Commissioner and Executive Director of the California Energy Commission, recently wrote a series of essays on the Congressional Budget Office recently released study of nuclear power. While the CBO's study appears flawed, nuclear advocates ought to pay attention to its conclusion, and Geesman's essays (found here, here , here, and here.)

In fact the CBO report reflected a great deal of uncertainty about reactor construction costs. The report noted a range of projected reactor costs from 1.2 to $4.8 million per installed megawatt. and stated: “The breadth of that range reflects the uncertainty associated with the cost of building new nuclear plants in the United States, and is wide enough to capture plausible further increases in construction costs.” Thus inflation was factored in. Critics of nuclear power have ignored the inclusion of inflation in CBO reactor cost estimates, never the less the CBLO report highlights the need to take major steps to control the cost of nuclear power.

It is my view then that the custom, on site manufacture of large reactors by teams of craftsmen under divided and multilevel supervision is an expensive manufacturing system that invites human error. I have not even considered her the possibility for corruption entailed in this construction system.

One of the major arguments against nuclear power as a major replacement of fossil fuel generated electricity, is simply that the difficulties of manufacture, the slow pace, the labor requirements and the cost all conspire against the construction of enough reactors to quickly enough to effectively replace fossil fuel power plants by 2050. It might beaded, that the prospects for windmills replacing fossil fuel generators, are dismal, and the prospect of PV and CSP replacing fossil fuels rely on the same sort of massive construction projects that raises questions about the future of nuclear power.

The question then if I start with a blank piece of paper, or in my case a blank computer screen with the word “Word” in the upper left menu bar, and a self imposed mandate to replace fossil fuel power with post-carbon generated electricity by 2050, how should I proceed?

I felt that several goals were important:
1. Decreasing reactor cost
2. Rapid manufacture
3. The production of as many reactors as were required to replace the use of fossil fuels as energy sources for our society.
4. The highest possible level of reactor safety
5. Resolution of the problem of nuclear waste.

Dr. David L. Goodstein the vice provost, and a professor of physics and applied physics at the California Institute of Technology, published a book titled “Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil” in 2004. Goodstein argued that 10,000 (1 GWe) nuclear power plants to replace all the energy we are currently getting from fossil fuels for all purposes, and expresses a justifiable skepticism about our society’s ability to accomplish this goal, at least justified given the way we do business now.

Environmentalist Joe Romm has also recently argued that there would be serious problems replacing fossil fuel power plants with nuclear generated electricity. Romm argues that problems like high reactor construction costs, manufacturing bottlenecks, the slow pace of reactor manufacture, the limited supply of key reactor parts, and alleged water shortages, an alleged shortage or Uranium, and difficulties associated with the supposed problem of nuclear waste, are going to limit the futuire of the nuclear industry.

It is my view that a rethinking nuclear power is required to answer Goodstein's and to a certain extent Romm's arguments. The rethinking assumed that we would need 10,000 GWs worth of electrical generating reactors by 2050, and that goal is achievable is we take certain well defined steps to attain it. In order to accomplish the goal we must change the way we do business in order to accommodate our new circumstances. We must move beyond business as usual if we are going to replace fossil fuels as sources of energy. Changing the way reactors are built is both possible and necessary.

Update July 23, 2009: Some concluding observations

Using Data from the DoE's Energy Information Administration, the Institute for Energy Research has concluded that the 2016 levelized cost of renewable electrical generation sources will carry higher levelized cost than conventional nuclear generated electricity. Thus if the cost of nuclear generated electricity is unacceptably high, the cost of renewable generated electricity is even more unacceptably expensive.

I have chosen to not disagree with the critics of Nuclear power about the various flaws in the current system of nuclear generation of electricity. I do disagree with the contention that the flaws in current nuclear generation technology are fatal, or justify a rejection to current nuclear technology. Rather the flaws of current nuclear technology justify the development of an improved nuclear technology, one whould overcome current flaws. I have pointed to LFTR technology, a radical nuclear technology that might be nothing less than the silver bullit, which energy experts allege does not exist. In the "Keys" series i pointed to approaches to LFTR implementation that would lead to a levelized cost for LFTRs that is far lower than the levelized cost of new conventional nuclear plants. The actual cost of LFTRs will not be not be known for some time to come, but in my "Keys" series, i have demonstrated that there are good reasons for the hope that the levelized cost of LFTR electrical generating facilities will be far lower than the levelized cost of conventional nuclear power pants. Further research will help to establish the accuracy of this picture.

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Cost: Research & Development

I have added a number of revisions to the original 2008 post that better reflect my current understanding.

The "Keys" series has pointed to two Generation IV reactor designs as having potential for lowering reactor costs. They are the Pebble Bed Reactor and the Liquid Fluoride Reactor. Of the two the LFTR has a far superior potential for lowering reactor costs and for demishing or eliminating the problem of nuclear waste. The LFTR also has a potential safety feature would revolutionize nuclear safety because radioactive fission products are bonded to fluoride or are dissolved in the liquid fluoride salt mixture. It is possible to extract the fission products from the liquid fluoride salt mixture either by a continuous processing of the salts, or by a periodic batch processing. From the viewpoint of nuclear safety, continuous salt processing holds a decided advantage. If fission products were to be stripped out of the reactor on an ongoing bases, there would be a number of advantages. This possibility was actually explored at ORNL in the MSBR days. If fission products were to be stripped out of the reactor on an ongoing bases, there would be a number of advantages. This possibility was actually explored at ORNL in the MSBR days. (see ORNL-TM-3579: Design and Cost Study of a Fluorination-Reductive Extraction-Metal Transfer Processing Plant for the MSBR) The ORNL study estimated the cost of of a 3 day turn around processing plant for a 1000 MW LFTR would be $25,000,000. This facility would have similar processing capacity to that required for a 6 hour turn around on a 100 MWe LFTR. In 2008 terms the cost would be something over $100,000,000. However it appears that extracting FPs were only a small part of the 1972 fuel processing system's aim, and the extraction of many FPs was expected to take place within a 2.4 hour time frame. Hence a processing plant designed to remove FPs from a 100 MW reactor might cost farless than $100,000,000.

Uri Gat, an ORNL reactor scientist advocated the continuous extraction of FRs as a major safety measure made possible by the LFTR. Gat noted:

"There are two major possible events that can lead to a dispersal of radioactivity from a nuclear reactor and become a health hazard. The first is an uncontrolled reactivity increase that will yield a power burst which would damage the reactor and disburse the radioactive fission products inventory. The other event could be failure to remove the decay heat of the fission products resulting in overheating and dispersal of inventory. The so-called source term - the likelihood for a quantified release of radioactivity -is the product of the inventory of fission products and the driving force or the energy to disperse this inventory."

The first event was basically preventable by use of fluid fuel, As the chain reaction increased in the reactor core, heat levels would rise, fluid fluoride salts expand as they are heated, the expanded salts are pushed out of the reactor core carrying fissionable materials with them. The decrease in fissionable materials means that the nuclear reactor will slow and its heat will drop. Thus arun away chain reaction is impossible because of the design of the reactor and the physical properties of its fluid salt core.

Gat believed that it was possible to build ultimate safety into fluid fueled reactors, and the key was the continuous extraction of fission products:

"The source term in the U[ltimately] S[afe] Reactor is controlled by continuous removal of fission products at the rate they are produced. Fission products are allowed to accumulate only to a level of 1 to 6 hours of full power operation equivalent. That is an equilibrium level as if the reactor had operated for the equivalent time without any removal of fission products ; then any additional fission products are removed as they are produced. . . . It has been determined 2] that at the 1 to 6 hours equivalent build-up time the fused fuel salt of The U .S . Reactor will not reach boiling due to after-heat even without any heat removal . Thus decay heat cannot provide sufficient energy to disperse the fission products, and there is no source term associated with the decay heat."

Ralph Moir is a retired Lawrence-Livermore National Lab scientist. His professional career was spent developing the concept of a Fusion-fission hybrid reactor, but in his retirement Moir's interest has shifted to the development of the LFTR. Moir's co-authored Edward Teller's last paper, which made concrete proposals on the subject. In a previous"Keys" posting, I briefly described the Teller-Moir views on underground siting of LFTRs.

It should be noted that Teller and Moir (Ralph Moir and Edward Teller, Nuclear Technology 151 334-339 (2005), http://www.geocities.com/rmoir2003/2mlt_slt.htm) also advocated stripping FPs from the fluoride salt mixture. Not withstanding the often stated notion that stripping FPs meant that containment was unnecessary, Teller and Moir advocated a 4 barrier containment system. Their containment system structure was, however, not massive. Indeed gravity provided one of the 4 protective barriers to FP release.

Would continuous stripping FPs from LFTR fuel/coolant salts be justified from the viewpoint of cost? This is topic for research. Stripping FPs would make LFTRs not just safer, but safe, and this would boost public confidence in the safety of nuclear power. In addition, some construction savings would result from this feature. The reactor not require a primary emergency cooling system, nor would it requite a cooling system for core drain tanks. Although a system of multiple barriers to FP escape in still in place, one of the 4 barriers would be gravity which has no cost, and two of the 4 barriers would de the reactor vessel, and the reactor housing, that is their serving as safety barriers is only a secondary function. One further barrier is required by the Teller-Moir system, but that outer barrier would need not be massive or expensive.

Massive protection from suicide aircraft attack would be provided by the under ground setting.

Would there actually be construction savings from continuous stripping of FP from the the LFTR fluoride salts? That is a matter for research! Research would lead to one of three conclusions:
1. The stripping FP's from the LF salts, would low construction costs.
2. The cost of stripping FP's from the LF salts would exceed other construction savings, but the added safety benefit would be worth the added expense.
3. Stripping FP's from the LF salts would not be cost effective.

I have drawn attention to efforts to summerize research efforts required before the launching of a commercial LFTR. In 1974 ORNL prepared a detailed research program for the development of MSR/LFTR type reactors. Some of those tasks have since been accomplished. Ralph Moir has more recently provided a list of proposed LFTR research topics here. Moir's research projects would lead to the creation of a first generation of LFTRs commercial power reactors. In a paper titled "Recommendations for a restart of molten salt reactor development," (Ralph Moir, Energy Conversion & Management) Moir justifies the LFTR research on the grounds that it could lower nuclear generated power prices by as much as 20%. In fact, my own findings point to a potential for much lower nuclear cost. The potential savings entailed in my "Keys" series could lower the price of nuclear power to the point where it would be significantly less expensive than the current levelized cost of fossil fuel generation. The levelized cost of LFTR generated electricity would be far lower than wind and CSP in the Southwestern United States. In an interview which I posted on Nuclear Green, Moir stated that a crash research program to develop LFTR technology could be brought to completion for a billion dollars. This is just a guess, and suggestions I have advanced in the "Keys" series. could well cost more than a billion dollars to research.

Moir's suggested research program in his "Recommendations" is a business as usual program. The time for business as usual has past, and in my interview with Moir, he agreed that a Manhattan Projects style research program for the development of the LFTR was warranted.

It is not as if the LFTR is a newly invented idea. My father started research on in the summer of 1950. One of the research projects to look at solubility enhancement, corrosion, neutron loss of NaF, ZrF4, UF4 salts, is actually a return to a fuel salt formula which my father patented. (I must add that I would in no respect profit from my father's research, patent rights are held by the U.S government.) Two Liquid salt reactors were built in the 1950'san '60's, and both were quite successful. I have demonstrated with a detailed analysis of WASH-1222 and a description of the destructive career of AEC bureaucrat Milton Shaw, who made many serious mistakes including the decision to terminate Liquid salt reactor research (see here, here and here).

ORNL generated a large body of research data on liquid salt reactors from about 1950 into the 1970's. These research reports, many of which can be found in the "Energy from Thorium" document repository, constitute the starting point for any LFTR research and development program. The LFTR has been the focus of ongoing research programs in France, the Netherlands, Russia, Japan and the United States. In addition to the Teller-Moir paper, numerous other papers and reports have recommended expanded programs of LFTR research and development.

It is a reflection of how poorly informed the NRC bureaucracy still is, that it continues to ignore proposals from figures like Moir, that LFTR research be reinitiated. The dead hand of Milton Shaw is still on the tiller of our national reactor research and development policy, and we are sailing head on toward the shore.

Plato's Myth of the Cave, and the Energy Collective

Plato's Myth of the Cave

Imagine a dark, subterranean prison in which humans are bound by their necks to a single place from infancy. Elaborate steps are taken by unseen forces to supply and manipulate the content of the prisoner’s visual experience. This is so effective that the prisoners do not recognize their imprisonment and are satisfied to live their lives in this way. Moreover, the cumulative effects of this imprisonment are so thorough that if freed, the prisoners would be virtually helpless. They could not stand up on their own, their eyes would be overloaded initially with sensory information, and even their minds would refuse to accept what the senses eventually presented them. It is not unreasonable to expect that some prisoners would wish to remain imprisoned even after their minds grasped the horror of their condition. But if a prisoner was dragged out and compelled to understand the relationship between the prison and outside, matters would be different. In time the prisoner would come to have genuine knowledge superior to the succession of representations that made up the whole of experience before. This freed prisoner would understand those representations as imperfect—like pale copies of the full reality now grasped in the mind. Yet if returned to the prison, the freed prisoner would be the object of ridicule, disbelief, and hostility. - Plato paraphrased by John Partridge

Nuclear Ignorance and Illiteracy in the Energy Collective

In 2007 when I began to look at the question of mitigating Anthropogenic Global Warming, I began to ask questions that were dictated by common sense. It was proposed by David Roberts of Grist for example that the energy from fossil fuels could be replaced by renewable energy. So I ask Roberts, what do you do for energy when the Sun goes down and the wind stops blowing? The wind is always blowing somewhere Roberts suggested. The Sun is always shining somewhere, he added. This might be sure, but setting up renewable generating facilities everywhere gets to be expensive. This has not stopped David Roberts, Mark Z. Jabonson, Amory Lovins, Joe Romm, and a hoard of confused, incompetent and ignorant "energy experts" whose writings appear on "The Energy Collective" from erroneously suggesting that renewables are an acceptable, lower cost alternative to nuclear power.

Some of my posts on LFTR potential have begun to appear on The Energy Collective blog. A few writers like Rod Adams and Dan Yurman are very nuclear literate, but most Energy Collective writers are simply nuclear illiterate. A few are aware of their shortcoming and do not commit the sin of presuming to write on topics about which they know nothing. It is a wise person who can recognize his or her limitation and not presume to transcend it. More than a few Energy Collective writers are prisoners of the cave, who believe that their limited and distorted knowledge of nuclear technology is everything there is worth knowing. No effort at rational persuasion can shake these ignoramuses out of their stupor.

The Energy Collective has begun carrying some of my posts on the LFTR. I wonder what the nuclear illiterates make of what I write. I suspect that they see me as incredibly simple minded and misguided. As far as I can tell, they are not the least interested in following up on what I have to say. Why learn about the incomprehensible? It is better to settle for ignorance and intellectual incompetence. Of course those who are comfortable with life in the cave, are not going to seek a way out, nor can they offer advice to others about what is real and what is not.

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Cost: Investment Costs

Aside from a few minor editorial alterations I have no changes to make to this post.

Reactors are built with borrowed money. Any way you look at it, the cost of money is a major factor in the cost of building reactors. The reactor owner must borrow money to finance the reactor's construction. The borrowing starts even before the first spade of earth is turned, and continues until the current starts flowing to electrical consumers. Since it takes at least 3 years for reactor construction to be completed, and complex reactor projects often take far longer, this means that interest may be accumulating for several years before repayment begins. Thus the cost of interest on borrowed money during the construction phase adds significantly to reactor capital costs.

Let us consider two approaches to reactor manufacture/construction. The first is the traditional approach. The second is the cost lowering approach I advocate.

In the first approach a power company orders a 1 GW Generation 3+ reactor from the manufacturer. Once NRC approval for the project is approved, the manufacturer starts ordering parts and contractors begins site preparations. Money has to be borrowed to pay for these activities and interest charges begins accumulate. Once parts are built they are shipped to the manufacturer for module assembly, and as modules are assembled, they are shipped on to the building site for final assembly. Meanwhile construction activity continues at the site. This goes on for several years. At the end of the construction phase the fuel; is ordered, then loaded into the reactor. Tests are run, and only then does the reactor start generating power. The sale of electricity to the consumers from the reactor produces a stream of money with which to begin repaying interest and principal. We have been borrowing money for 3 years before the first repayment can come in.

The second approach is as follows. The power company orders 10 100 MWe Generation 4 reactors. Their construction is to be spaced over a 3 year period. The factory manufacture approach will allow for rapid assembly of large reactor modules - say a reactor module, a power generating module, and a module for chemical processing units. While the reactor moves down the assembly line site preparation is underway. Once the modules arrive on the prepared site, they are given final assembly. The completed reactor is given its first fuel charge, and after initial testing, electrical production begins. Three months worth of interest has accumulated before the reactor can begin to repay the borrowed money. Then construction of the second unit begins. The small reactor approach, has saved the small reactor owner up too 88% of the accumulated construction phase interest, that would be added to the capital cost of a large reactor project. In addition, during the three year construction project. the owner will see a steadily increasing stream of revenue, which pays not only interest and principle but also contributes to the bottom line of the electrical business.

In addition the decreased risk entailed by the small reactor multiple unit model diminishes investor's risk. Not only is far less money at stake, over a far shorter period of time, but project cancellation due to expense over run or over estimate of consumer demand is fat less likely.

Small, relatively inexpensive, reactors are much more likely to be completed in a timely fashion than big reactors are. Owners are not forced to order more generating capacity than they need as they might with huge one size fits all reactors.

A further observation on reactor construction financing

The current reactor financing system assumes a different set of social goals, than the situation we face demands. The current financial system assumes that the construction of power producing facilities is a speculative investment, whose risk should be born by investors, until the project is complete. Once the production of power begins, the investors are entitled to receive compensation for the risk they task.

This approach leads to the problem we noted earlier, that the accumulation of interest during the project construction phase increases project capitol costs.

Our current social goal is quite different than that assumed by the old regulatory model. Priority needs to be given to the replacement of fossil fuel burning, CO2 producing energy sources, by post-carbon energy sources. This would mean that the sources of the about 75% of American electricity that is currently produced by fossil fuel burning electrical generators must be replaced by post carbon electrical generating sources. No matter what technology is used, the potential cost of greenhouse gas induced global warming far outweighs the cost of changing energy sources, hence the over riding social goal is the change in energy sources, not the question of who should bare the risk. The risk clearly comes from a failure to implement a viable system of financing changes in energy production technology.

Our social goal should be to changing the energy system, to motivate that change by penalizing producers and consumers who do not change, and to see to it that the change can be financed at a reasonable price. Subsidies tend to favor the adoption of energy new technologies, but they may have limited CO2 reduction effect, witness of the peak load inefficiency of California wind generators.

My suggestion would be to link the system of penalties for CO2 generation with a system of rewards for post-carbon energy construction. Hence power companies would have to pay carbon penalties for electricity produced by burning fossil fuels. Rather than going into general revenue accounts however, those penalties would flow into escrow accounts that can be used for for post carbon energy construction. The penalties would be past on to consumers who would be motivated by higher electrical costs use more efficient electrical technology.

Thus the risk of generating new post-carbon electrical generating facilities would be passed on from the investors to the rate payers. It might be complained that this system favors investors over rate payers, but in facto this system lowers rather than raises the costs which rate payers eventually carry. First by insuring that financing for new post-carbon power generating facilities is available, and by lowering the cost of that financing. Thus rate payers are assured that they will have electrical energy when they need it, and that they will not have to carry the cost of construction phase interest once power from the new electrical generating facilities comes on line.

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Cost: Some Siting Considerations

Since I wrote this post, my thinking has turned to the use use of LFTRs to re[;ace natural gas fired turbines and combined cycle generators. David LeBlanc's suggestion which was also found in an old ORNL research report, was that stainless steel and other low cost materials could be used in the LFTR with a relatively modest performance penalty in exchange for a cost advantage. It occurred to me, that given the LFTR's already modest cost, that a low cost LFTR could easily replace natural gas generators as peak power producers. I called the Peak generation LFTR the "Big Lots" reactor, after my favorite bargain shopping haunt. The LFTR's negative co-efficiency of reactivity gives it the unique ability to shut off while at maximum coolant temperature. Thus the LFTR enters peak reserve ready to almost instantly spin its turbines to maximum output levels. Thus natural gas fired power plant sites would also be available for LFTR conversions. LFTRs and be air cooled, thus the availability of coolant water would not be an issue, and LFTR can generate electricity at a lower cost than natural gas generation system.

When I first saw Jim Holm's web page, I thoughts what a crazy Idea. Jim wants to convert coal burning power plants into pebble bed reactor sites. The more I think about Jim's idea, the more it makes sense to me. Jim has clearly thought a lot about the problem and siting is a big issue. Jim proposes that the pebble bed reactors be built under ground at these old power plant sites.

There are, of course alternatives to underground siting. Kirk S. wants to site reactors under water. Actually there are actually quit a lot of mobile reactors sited underwater already. They provide the power for atomic submarines. So there are no real technical problems with Kirks concept. Kirk wants to place his under water reactors off shore. Power would be sent to land by a submerged power cable. Unlike atomic submarines the reactor would be unmanned. Remote operators would perform whatever controlling functions would fall to the operators. As I have already noted human control is a major problem for nuclear safety. Thus reactor safety is best handled by the inherent safety features of the LFTR.

Underwater siting would work if for reactors located on the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf Coasts and for reactors located on the Great Lakes, but It would not work for Utah! Thus even if we locate all our coastal reactors under water we still need to build inland reactors, and there are siting issues. That is where underground sites come in. I will talk more about them shortly.

One major advantage of recycling old power plant sites is that it eliminates the grid hook up problems. Every power station needs to be connected to the grid. In some cases the grid may require significant and expensive modifications to accommodate power from a new power station. This is the case for new nuclear power plants as well as wind farms. Added grid capacity can be expensive, in some cases running to billions of dollars.

To the extent possible, in a crash program to replace old power plants with nuclear generated power, we might want to avoid secondary expenses related to the grid. Later on we might want to upgrade the grid, but the major goal is to stop producing CO2 as quickly as possible, and that is where the investment dollars should go. In addition the old power station is a site that is partially prepared. There maybe useful structures on the site, and the site is laid out for the generation of electricity.

We can see some of the important features in the pictures of TVA's Bull Run Steam plant. I wanted my readers to notice the especially beautiful lake side setting. There is a problem with that setting, however. If you intend to site a reactor or reactors underground, the first question you would have to ask is about the water table. There is a lot of limestone in the area of the Bull Run plant, and I suspect that you would not have to dig very deep to find subsurface water. An under ground reactor that is underneath the Bull Run Steam Plant might end up also being under water, but I do not think that is what Kirk has in mind for his under water reactor sites. So right off we have a problem with the site, but note the adjacent ridge. The inside of the ridge is also underground. Now the ridge may be above the water table, but there may still be a water problem. The ridge is probably limestone, and water may be trickling through it when it rains. It well may be that the Bull Run site is not suitable for underground construction, in witch case you might have to go with plan C. That would be to build a massive containment structure or structures above ground. The Bull Run plant is currently rated at 870 MW. That means that the grid hookup could handle the power generated by up to 9 small 100 MW reactors. Waterside settings for power plants are not at all unusual because even coal fired power plants require cooling water, and locations by rivers and lakes frequently means high water tables.

Aside from cost savings, why then should we think about underground settings? The use of underground reactor sites was originally Edward Teller's idea, and Teller was very much a man of ideas. Teller was truly a nuclear safety pioneer. In the late 1940's Teller was the first chairman of the AEC's Reactor Safeguards Committee. Teller was also concerned about global warming. He warned the 1957 ACS meeting about the CO2/global warming problem. The discovery of the natural underground reactors at Oklo, in Gabon, Africa interested Teller. Teller noted that the fission products produced by the Oklo natural reactors had not moved in over a billion years, and had long since ceased to be dangerous. Teller came to believe that underground siting was the ultimate answer to the problem of nuclear safety. He advocated that reactors be buried at least 200 meters under ground. He was not alone in holding this idea. Andrie Sakharov wrote in his Memoirs, "Plainly, mankind cannot renounce nuclear power, so we must find technical means to guarantee its absolute safety and exclude the possibility of another Chernobyl. The solution I favor would be to build reactors underground, deep enough so that even a worst case accident would not discharge radioactive substances into the atmosphere.”

Other research has shown that underground reactors protect against:
* Attacks by aircraft
* Other forms of terrorist attacks,
* Sabotage and vandalism
* Radiation release in the event of an accident

Teller assumed a deep (200 meters) reactor setting. Research conducted during the 1970's, however concluded that there were cost penalties connected with deep reactors. This conclusion ought to be assessed in light of current construction costs. Wes Myers, and Ned Elkins suggested that past cost research had not evaluated siting in underground salt formations.

Myers and Elkins favored salt formation settings and noted some of the cost benefits:
* Decommissioning costs,through in-situ decommissioning and
disposal
• Transportation costs,through co-located storage/disposal facilities
• Excavation costs, which are ~$20/m3 in salt vs~$40 to $80/m3in
granite
• Facility costs,through elimination of the containment structure
• Reactor costs,through the use of modular reactor
• Site costs for successive reactors, due to the lack of constraints on
lateral expansion in the subsurface
• Security costs, because of the need for fewer guards and physical
protection measures
• Insurance costs,through reduced health and property risks

There would, of course be ways of indirectly recovering the cost of excavating granite. The mined granite could be processed for Thorium. The recovered thorium then run through LFTRs, and the power produced would more than pay the cost of mining, but this approach does not lower upfront costs, and for the near future there are less expensive ways to recover thorium.

It should be noted that Ralph Moir was able to talk Teller into a shallow underground setting for LFTRs, when they collaborated on Teller's last paper. (See Thorium fueled underground power plant based on molten salt technology, Ralph Moir and Edward Teller, Nuclear Technology 151 334-339 (2005)).

Underground siting does hold some promise for limiting siting costs. However, problems such as the presence of ground water should be considered. Siting in salt formations, and in old salt mines holds promise. Underground siting could provide superior protection against attacks by suicide aircraft, and other forms of terrorism. In addition it could provide a means of containing radioactive materials in the event of reactor accidents. Underground siting would be appropriate for smaller Generation IV reactor such as the PBR and the LFTR and has been proposed for both of them. Underground siting then is an interesting and promising option for advanced reactors that requires further research,

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Cost: Labor Costs

I have continued to work on the potential labor cost savings of from factory manufacture of small LFTR's. In a later post I noted:

. Researchers found that work disorganization was a significant cause of conventional reactor costs. Over 25 percent of workers time in reactor construction projects was wasted by work disorganization. Shifting labor from a construction site to a factory would help to solve the work flow problem.

Labor cost are of course a major source of reactor construction expenses. It was recently reported that the on site construction of AP-1000 reactors require from between from 16 to 20 million man hours to complete. The labor required for parts and module manufacture must be added to the cost. I have already suggested that as much work as possible be transfered to a factory where mass production techniques could be used. These techniques could include labor saving automation in the manufacture of standard reactor parts, and the extensive use of of robots in reactor assembly. These are standard well understood aspects of modern manufacturing and should not require further elaboration.

The work force in the reactor factory should be well trained and compensated accordingly. Assembly line workers should be understood to be part of the quality control, assembly technique and reactor design improvements teams, and both encouraged and motivated to make contributions to efforts of those teams.

In addition to the factory team there should be a site development team, whose task is to analyze site conditions, develop site plans, using as much as possible site design information stored in the sight development data base. Once the site conditions are understood, and a plan developed, the site would be quickly developed. The site development should be completed on the same day that the assembled reactor is shipped. The third stage would be reactor assembly and site completion. Again the highest possible degree of assembly automation should be used. Both of the onsite teams should be be part of the manufacturer's quality control, assembly technique and reactor design improvements teams, and both encouraged and motivated to make contributions to efforts of those teams.

The keys to controlling labor cost in reactor construction include using modern mass manuring techniques, carful organization of working activities, the organization of experience based data bases drawing on workers experience, from which best practices can be identified, and the inclusion of all workers as part of management teams. Labor practices should have an over all goal of creating a well-compensated, high morale workforce that is efficient, loyal, productive, and creative. That is an important part of lowering labor costs.

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Costs: Nuclear Waste

I am at present satisfied that this discussion of the potential effects of the LFTR on the cost of handling nuclear waste presents an adequate picture.

The problem of "nuclear waste" is one which is generated by nuclear technologies which fail to efficiently convert U-238 into nuclear fuel. The ultimate source of the problem is found in the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle, and in the use of reactor technology which fails to burn Pu-239 efficiently, and in fuel cycle technology which fails to efficiently, and cleanly reprocess nuclear fuel in a cost effective fashion. As a consequence of the systemic fuel inefficiencies, added facilities for the handling of used nuclear fuel must be added to reactor construction cost. The nuclear industry regards paying the added construction expenses as preferable to paying for fuel reprocessing, However, since we are taking the "full court press" in examining cost lowering measures to reactor construction, the cost of fuel storage facilities is certainly an issue.

In my previous "keys" postings, I found advantageous in both the PBR and the LFTR as far as cost savings are concerned. But the LFTR has a major advantage in terms of a need for post-reactor fuel storage facility costs, and indeed in virtually every aspect of the fuel cycle. About 98% of the Thorium that enters a LFTR is burned up inside the reactor. The other 2% will come out as Neptunium 237, which has a use. In once through uranium cycle civilian reactors, Most of the original fuel charge remains unused when the fuel is withdrawn from the reactor. In addition significant amounts of the fissionable materials remain in the "spent" fuel, and their presence becomes an issue in post-reactor fuel handling. Post reactor fuel handling is a problem for LWRs and for PBRs. And if anything there are more problems in reprocessing post-reactor fuel from Pebble Bed Reactors, than in reprocessing fuel from LWRs. (Kirk Sorensen discussed LFTR fuel reprocessing here, and here.)

There are, however, added fuel handling expenses that come with LFTR technology. The fuel/carrier/coolant salts of the LFTR are in most designs subjected either continuous or periodic processing. The design requires that several sorts of processing should take place. Each process would require a separate processing unit. These fuel reprocessing units would add to the expense, and complexity of the LFTR. In addition they would create safety issues, and there would be significant problems with servicing and maintaining them.

The economics of fuel reprocessing with LFTR is, however, complex. The reprocessing of LFTR involves the extraction of fission products which are valuable minerals and metals. This in tern creates a second revenue stream from the LFTR, the sale of valuable fission byproducts. While it is doubtful that this revenue stream would by itself return all of the capitol costs involved in LFTR fuel reprocessing, it would at least produce a partial return on the capitol investment, beyond revenues produced by the generation of electrical power.

There are hidden advantages that effect reactor construction costs. By solving "the problem of nuclear waste," the LFTR would go a long way toward undercutting public opposition to nuclear power. If nuclear power is more acceptable to the public, investment risk diminishes. Diminished risk means lower capital costs. Hence the superior fuel processing features of the LFTR may in fact indirectly lower reactor construction costs. It would most certainly lower nuclear fuel cycle costs. There is a public relations benefit to constructing what is perceived as being clean or at least cleaner nuclear power. That benefit does have a cash value, even if it is not directly accounted in assessing the cost of reactor construction.

The Keys to Lowering Reactor Costs: Inherent Safety

This post argues that the LFTR inherent safety features serve to lower nuclear cost. I am sure that IFR advocates would make the same case for the IFR. Discussions of nuclear safety seldom consider the impact of nuclear safety issues on reactor costs. Thew LFTR has fewer safety problems than the current Light Water Reactors used by the nuclear power industry. Switching to safer reactors means switching to different and lower cost safety measures. Hence a lowering of safety related reactor costs.

One of the Keys to lowering reactor cost is engineering high levels of inherent reactor safety into the reactor design. There are two ways to think about safety. The first way would be to examine reactor designs to identify inherent safety flaws. Once the flaws are identified, safety systems are designed to prevent those flaws from leading to serious accidents. The Light Water Reactor is an example of this approach. If the reactor looses its coolant water the nuclear fuel in the reactor core would overheat and eventually if it got hot enough it would melt. There are ways to prevent this. For example, inserting reactor control rods if the heat inside a reactor begins to rise. But sometimes a reactor operator might decide to do the wrong thing, and not insert the control rods. Human error is the biggest cause of accidents, so an inherently safe reactor has to be fool proof. That is no human error, no matter how serious can lead to an accident. The best way to do that is to build self regulation into the reactor design. If a reactor can regulate itself, then there is no need for a reactor operator. If you eliminate operators, you eliminate operator errors.

Simplicity is an important component of of reactor safety. The fewer parts there are in a reactor, the fewer parts there are to break. One way to build simplicity into a reactor is to rely on the laws of physics and chemistry as much as possible. For example the Westinghouse AP=1000 reactor relies on gravity to feed emergency cooling water into its core. Thus you do not need electricity to pump coolant water into the AP-1000 core, in the event it looses its normal coolant. This is what is called a passive safety feature. Operators do not need to turn on pumps, because as the core looses coolant water, an automatic process releases coolant water from an overhead tank. The water, powered only by gravity, flows into the reactor core, cooling it.

Of course even a gravity feed emergency cooling system costs money to build. Is there any way to save that money? Well if you could push the reactor fuel out of the reactor, you would not have to cool it inside the reactor. If for example your reactor was overheating because it had too much nuclear fuel in the reactor core, you could cool down the reactor by pushing some of the fuel out from the reactor core. Doing this would be difficult with a light water reactor, and doing it would more problems that would requite expensive solutions. So instead reactor designers take other approaches to controlling heat. One would be to increase coolant flow inside the reactor core. Increased coolant would remove heat from the core. Another method would be to insert reactor control rods into the reactor core. The reactor control rods would slow down the chain reaction. But this would lead to a decrease of reactor power output. Thus the reactor operator has a choice to make about how to deal with the increase in reactor heat. A wrong choice might lead to under production of power, or in the worse case it could lead to a serious accident. The history of nuclear accidents suggests that whenever you introduce the possibility of a human being making a bad choice you can count on that happening sooner or later. The best way to control accidents is to take the possibility of making bad choices away from the reactor operator.

The best way to remove bad choices from reactor operators is by designing reactors to operate in a stable fashion, to respond to increases in reactor temperature by automatically pushing fuel out of the reactor core. It would also be desirable if the reactor core got too hot to remove all of the reactor fuel to a place where no chain reaction would be taking place, and where its temperature could be easily controlled. Impossible, you say? Not at all!

So we want to lower reactor cost by building a reactor with these safety features:

* Simple reactor structure

* Continuous removal of radioactive gases from the reactor fuel

* A strong tendency to push nuclear fuel out of the core as reactor temperature rises

* The reactor is both stable and be self-controlling

* No externally operated controls are required

* Safety features are all passive, are triggered automatically before unsafe reactor conditions arise, and rely on the basic laws of physics and chemistry

* Safety is inherent and safety features cannot be altered by tampering, and are thus fool proof

* Ultimate reactor shut-down can accomplished by moving nuclear fuel from the reactor core

* An automatic, passive feature and automatically feature is used as a means of both triggering the transport and actually removing fuel material from the core if the reactor reaches an undesirable heat level

* The force to empty the core of nuclear fuel solely uses only the power of gravity

* core melt down could never be a problem

* Emergency core cooling would not be required

* Coolant leaks would not lead to core melt down

* Escaping radioisotopes would be either chemically bonded to materials that are solid at sub reactor core temperatures, or is not bonded, encapsulated by solid materials outside of reactor.

* Radioactive gases are continuously removed from the reactor fuel, so that no fuel accident will cause the escape of large amounts of radioactive gases from the reactor core.

* The chemistry of escaped isotopes would facilitate their local and relatively low cost containment.

* The chemical bonding and encapsulation of escaping radioisotopes would facilitate their post-accident clean-up and recovery.

* Even terrorist attacks using large amounts of explosives or direct attacks with large aircraft, would not lead to widespread dispersal of core radioisotopes. Radiation and radioactive materials would be contained locally.

You might believe that it is impossible to build a reactor for which safety is not an added on at extra expense feature. But not only is it possible, but such reactors have already been built and tested. Why do we still have reactors that are expensive to make safe?

Greater inherent safety is can be the outcome of simplified reactor design, and thus lower reactor construction costs. Chemical and physical features of reactor fuel that prevents its dispersal in the event of an accident, in turn can lead to a lowering of containment costs. Stable operating reactors, and the elimination of operator choice, lowers the number of operators needed for safe reactor operation. A smaller staff means that less space is required for staff housing, less staff housing lowers construction and maintenance expenses for staff housing. A smaller staff means smaller staff compensation expenses. Hence greater safety saves on many fronts. It saves in reactor expenses, site construction expenses, and in reactor operations expenses.

Again if we examine what we understand about the cost saving advantages of inherently safe reactor design stand out. We can observe that light water reactor technology, as well as LMFBR technology have some significant inherent safety problems. In order to build a satisfactory level of safety into the design of these reactors, expensive safety features have to be added to the reactor design. Two Generation IV reactor concepts demonstrate superior inherent reactor safety. They are again the Pebble Bed Reactor and the LFTR.