tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post3871451389365769649..comments2024-02-16T17:52:44.944-06:00Comments on The Nuclear Green Revolution: Advocating the Aim High Project as PolicyCharles Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-58486911182661985892009-02-16T16:05:00.000-06:002009-02-16T16:05:00.000-06:00Not everywhere people are scared about nuclear pla...Not everywhere people are scared about nuclear plants, or at least you can put them enough near the cities in order that district heating has still economic sense<BR/>I don' t know if you just know Swiss refuna nuclear district heating, 140,000 MWh of heat per year<BR/><BR/>http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/htgr/abstracts/abst_29067739.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-51471062246019578852009-02-16T08:30:00.000-06:002009-02-16T08:30:00.000-06:00I don't know what the thermal efficiency of a LWR ...I don't know what the thermal efficiency of a LWR at part load is. I am sure the navy reactor people know. Th problem with using reactors for direct heating is simple. People prefer that reactors be built away from population centers. The anti-nuclear crowd portray images of the evacuation of huge cities as a downtown reactors blow up with mushroom shaped clouds. Up until now this has been hard to fight, and reactors have been located out of heating distances.Charles Bartonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-87449875655340992062009-02-15T07:15:00.000-06:002009-02-15T07:15:00.000-06:00Thanks very much, Charles, I' ll read itBesides el...Thanks very much, Charles, I' ll read it<BR/><BR/>Besides electric transportation (both with plug-in hybryds or electrified trains), don' t forget the possibiliy of using waste heat of high efficient LFTR to feed district heating networks inside the cities or to use electricity to power electric heat pumps, air sourced ones for hot climates and ground sourced for colder places<BR/>In particular it could be very interesting to study the possibility of a district heating/LFTR waste heat linkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-4806283506124869442009-02-15T05:28:00.000-06:002009-02-15T05:28:00.000-06:00Alex De Maida i will respond to your question abou...Alex De Maida i will respond to your question about LFTR costs in a post.Charles Bartonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-31493682043134672792009-02-14T21:28:00.000-06:002009-02-14T21:28:00.000-06:00A new paradigm for our transportation system is a...A new paradigm for our transportation system is a must. Electric power is the best option. While better batteries are coming which are adequate for local driving we should also consider electrifying our highways. An efficient induction coupling is now available. Our computer technology is extremely powerful and reliable. Computer guided vehicles have the potential to be much safer than human drivers. The computer can choose a route to immunize traffic congestion saving billions of dollars in wasted time and fuel. The vehicle batteries will recharge while on the highway. While electric propulsion is much more efficient than internal combustion, the computer can add to efficiency by grouping vehicles into pods so that only the first vehicle in the pod meets the wind resistance. I always get the “you dreamer look” when I bring this topic up. I don’t see any new technology needed to make this a reality. It is not like hydrogen or fusion that needs more breakthrough technology to move ahead. My farmer friends have multiple units on their farms to guide their tractors and combines from satellites. Our auto industry could again lead the world with a full scale retooling to electric vehicles. They made a rapid change to war machines in the 1940s. With LFTRs and electric transportation technology to export we will have employment for former coal workers and a new economic base for our economy. If LFTRs produce electricity cheaper than dirty Chinese coal power plants coal will stay in the ground and there is a chance that global warming will abate. I avidly support your efforts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-35240429843300692822009-02-14T19:22:00.000-06:002009-02-14T19:22:00.000-06:00Aim High presentation claims a cost of 2000 $ per ...Aim High presentation claims a cost of 2000 $ per kW of LFTR, maybe I'm missing something but where does this estimate come from?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-64955973262504923652009-02-14T14:46:00.000-06:002009-02-14T14:46:00.000-06:00Charles, Hargraves presentation is great:http://re...Charles, Hargraves presentation is great:<BR/>http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh<BR/><BR/>Though I agree that the LFTR approach would be vastly superior to the strict renewables path, I still think conventional nuclear is by some orders of magnitude better than what we have now. Am I advocating settling for second best? No. But what I am advocating is at least a significant build-out of the latest generation of LWR's to the point that it replaces 50% or greater of the coal burning plants. Knocking out a significant percent of coal anytime soon, can only be done with nuclear.<BR/><BR/>According to my calculations, to knock coal down by at least 50% say by 2015 would require about 125-150 new LWR's. This would give the US nuclear fleet a roughly 60-40 mix of new and older generation reactors, while at the same time, leaving plenty of room for newer better solutions to fill in for the future. The reason why I advocate this approach is because the designs are available today and given enough of a push, something like this could be realistically accomplished by 2020. Secondly, if indeed the pollution for coal is as bad as environmentalists claim, then the urgency to act should have been more than 15 years ago, so we are already working behind schedule. Thirdly, pushing for the build-out of around 150 LWR's would indeed provide many jobs especially if they are placed in communities that are starving for a base of jobs and the supporting economic cloud which follows a new nuclear plant.<BR/><BR/>As an additional thought, reaching sideways might not be such a bad idea either. As pointed out in William Tucker's book, Terrestrial Energy, the nuclear industry ought to think about "[adopting some energy friends]", namely solar. The oil, gas, and coal industries certainly have adopted wind and solar as their good deeds pawn, but in a manner of speaking - they don't deserve it. And why should they get all this great PR when it really is their Machiavellian power play against the nuclear industry?<BR/><BR/>The fossil industry is wearing the "I'm with Stupid->" t-shirt that points to wind and solar. Mind you, I don't like wind power but there are some at NREL who do like nuclear - a lot, that's a start. Now if we can only get that on a public statement. The problem is not with renewable energy sources themselves per se, but with the unrealistic expectations of those who advocate their mandates and massive scaling while ignoring their limitations at the cost of a lot of money and common sense. Granted being that many of those same people are anti-nuclear, it would be a stretch to think any type of nuclear-solar partnership is going to happen. I could see some good PR coming out of such an effort for both sides, however solar needs to accept that nuclear is the "meat and potatoes" and solar is the dessert after. Somehow the fossil industry has managed to do this without informing "stupid" that this is the arrangement between them. Again, this isn't an economic energy strategy as much as it would be PR. At this point I think there is quite a great number of people who see nuclear advocates as arrogant and unwilling to accept the potential contributions of other energy sources. It sometimes pays to make some concessions to get most of what you want instead of losing all of it at the insistence of wanting it all. At the rate things are going though, it might take 10 years for the renewables crowd to figure out they've been the good little buddy to fossil fuels all along.Jason Ribeirohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06863185203119704249noreply@blogger.com