Kurt Cobb on Resources, Energy, Thorium and Molten Salt Reactor Technology

Kurt Cobb, is an energy writer whose vision is in many respects clear headed, and who has acknowledged both the problems and potential while appearing to be intrigued by Molten Salt Reactor/thorium fuel cycle ideas. Cobb has understood that nuclear power offered a solution to the future problems of global energy. In 2009 Cobb identified the problem,

The end of the fossil fuel era is coming sooner than most people believe as exponentially increasing fossil fuel consumption brings us ever closer to the day when production will peak for oil, natural gas and coal and then begin irrevocable declines. The only options left for powering a modern technical society will then be solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectric, geothermal and nuclear. And of these, only nuclear can conceivably be located wherever it is needed at the scale required.

The earth, Cobb argued, had plenty of resources needed to sustain industrial civilization,

granite contains many common metals such aluminum, iron, magnesium, titanium and manganese. Many more minerals including uranium are available in quantities of parts per million. Seawater contains most of the elements on the periodic table, the source of which is the erosion produced by streams and rivers feeding the oceans. The air contains rare "noble" gases that are important to industrial civilization including argon, neon, helium, krypton and xenon.

The visions of the resource optimists may not work out

here's why the future may not work out as Simon and other cornucopians envision. The main energy resources we use today are mineral resources. Oil, natural gas, and coal provide 86 percent of the world's energy. All of these resources are thought to be growing more abundant through the magic of the resource pyramid. But, if you examine the pyramid closely, you will see that not only do low-grade fossil fuel resources require better technology to extract them, they also require increasing amounts of energy to run that technology. At some point the amount of energy needed to bring low-grade deposits of oil, natural gas and coal to the surface and process and transport them will be more than the energy we get from these resources. At that point they will cease to be energy sources, and the vast, remaining ultra-low-grade deposits of these fuels will be useless to us except perhaps as feedstocks for chemicals.

Cobb adds,

Without a transition to vast new supplies of nuclear and renewable energy, the promise that we will be able to go all the way to the bottom of the resource pyramid is a mere daydream. The resource pyramid only shows what is possible. It does not guarantee that humans will achieve it. If peaks in fossil fuel production are nearing, either society will have to learn to get along without many of its critical resources, or it will have to make the transition to alternative energy swiftly as part of an engineering and planning feat that would be unparalleled in human history.

Cobb is pessimistic about the ability of society to make a rapid and timely transition to post fossil fuel energy sources,

Despite the pressing need for a rapid energy transition, it is doubtful that such a transition will be initiated by market forces before fossil fuels become scarce and therefore very expensive. The reason for this is that markets consistently wrongly assess the mineral economy, projecting what resource economist Douglas Reynolds calls "the illusion of decreasing scarcity." That means that prices stay relatively low until shortly before a resource peaks. . .

Because of the very long lead times required to transform our liquid-fuel based infrastructure, for example, into one that runs on electricity, undertaking such a conversion while oil or other fossil fuel supplies are declining could be very challenging indeed. The alternatives may not expand quickly enough to make up for the energy being lost. In that case, the whole transition project would be imperiled by the declining total energy available to society. That means that money and therefore energy would have to be taken from somewhere else in an already squeezed economy to keep the transition going. Contrary to expectations that so-called green industries will create new jobs, this scenario would result in the creation of new green jobs probably at the expense of jobs elsewhere in the economy (that is, barring improbable and extraordinary sudden leaps in the energy efficiency of the economy).

In such circumstances most people would naturally be focused on just making it through the day with little concern or appetite for spending a considerable amount of their incomes to buy electric cars or retrofit their homes for energy efficiency or passive solar heat. Nor would there likely be much appetite for raising taxes for a government-led transition program and/or set of subsidies related to making a transition away from fossil fuels.

Given the current skyrocketing prices of all fossil fuels, it appears that we are very late in the game indeed. It is not clear that a transition program started now would be completed before oil and possibly natural gas began to decline. But, it is clear that the public--at least in the United States--already has little appetite for a government-led solution when the major U. S. presidential candidates are proposing to lower gasoline taxes this summer to ease the burden on family budgets.

Cobb argued that renewable electrical generators poses difficulties for powering a civilization because of their energy density problem,

Let's take a 500-megawatt power plant which by itself can power a city of 300,000. (A megawatt is one million watts.) It will sit astride a fairly large plot of land. A coal-fired plant near me is just under that capacity (495 MW) and sits on about 300 acres. Most of that land, however, is essentially devoted to undeveloped transmission right-of-way filled with ponds, woods and streams. Only a small portion is covered by plant facilities including coal storage. I estimate less than 30 acres.

For new wind projects huge 5-megawatt wind generators are just now being deployed. If we take these as typical (and they are not), then using an estimate of the direct land footprint for wind towers of 0.38 acres per tower, we find that we'd need 100 towers covering 38 acres. But wind turbines run at only about 30 percent capacity because the wind doesn't blow all the time. This compares to about 70 percent capacity for coal-fired power plants. So we need to multiply 100 towers by about 2 1/3 to get the number of towers we'd need to match the operating capacity of one coal-fired plant. That means we'd need about 233 towers with a direct land footprint of 87 acres. That doesn't seem too bad. And, the land under the turbines is still available for farming and other purposes. The overall direct effects on the land and water are certainly less when compared to the coal plant.

But we're not done. The spacing between towers is typically at least five diameters of the rotor. That doesn't sound like much. But for the 5-megawatt towers in this example, the spacing would be 2,065 feet times 232--we don't need to separate the last tower from another tower beyond it. Then we'd add the diameter of the rotors--413 feet times 233--and we get a distance equivalent to about 110 miles. So, we'd need a line of 5-megawatt turbines stretching 110 miles. In theory, we'd want to split them up and put them in various locations in which the wind blows hardest at different times. But the total length of the line would still be at least 110 miles. If we take the largest separation recommended between towers which is 10 diameters of the rotors, we'd have to just about double that distance.

By comparison most people who live 110 miles from a coal-fired power plant are rarely even aware that it might be a source of electricity for them. And, the plant is certainly not a direct irritation. The lesson here, however, is not one of aesthetics. It is an illustration of the disparity in power densities between those energy sources on which we currently rely and the alternatives now being proposed and deployed.

The power density problem for solar energy is no less daunting.

Cobb then puts his finger on the problem,

We will be obliged to devote vast tracts of space--far more vast than the buildings they serve--to support the energy use of our current infrastructure.

This may not be impossible, but it will certainly be costly and socially disruptive.

In 2008 Cobb saw the failure of the first nuclear age as a potential tragedy for humanity. Cobb wrote,

It is a sad commentary that so many who knew the planet would one day run short of fossil fuels were unable to convince the world to embrace nuclear power in a more thoroughgoing way. With enough development, with careful and serious attention to the waste problem, and with lower-cost, decentralized designs that maximize safety, nuclear power might have succeeded in making any decline in fossil fuel availability just another historical footnote--but only if deployed on a large enough scale and far enough in advance of such a decline.

Now it may be too late. The time for the development of the nuclear economy appears to have come and gone with few people even realizing it.

Yet in the same essay, Cobb criticized the Price-Anderson Act by characterizing it as limiting the

liability for nuclear plant operators.

In fact Price-Anderson arguably protects the government from the consequences of having to pick up the first ten billion dollars of the bill, in the event of a major nuclear accident. The major accomplishment of Price Anderson is to set up an insurance pool that protects under funded nuclear operators.

Even in 2008 Cobb was prepaired to engage in real dialogue with nuclear supporters, and too acknowledge,

The solution, of course, is to build breeder reactors and I have seen designs which address the proliferation problem, in part, by using a hybrid technology that allows non-breeder and breeder operation in sequence and so the reactor doesn't have to be refueled for something on the order of 50 years.

Cobb was pessimistic about such a future,however,

I have come to the conclusion that the regulatory hurdles facing such designs are so great that it is unlikely they will be approved and built in time to address the energy deficits we will be facing after fossil fuels peak.

Cobb believed that the idea of using thorium as a basis for the nuclear fuel cycle was promising, and

besides availability, thorium has three additional distinct advantages over uranium fuel. First, thorium fuel elements can be designed in a way that make it difficult to recover the fissile uranium produced by breeding for bomb making. This reduces the likelihood of nuclear weapons spreading to nonnuclear nations that adopt thorium-based fuel technologies.

Second, the waste stream can be considerably smaller since unlike current reactors which often use only about 2 percent of the available fuel, thorium-fueled reactors with optimal designs could burn nearly all of the fuel. This is the main reason besides its sheer natural abundance that thorium could provide such long-lived supplies of fuel for nuclear power.

Third, the danger from the waste of the thorium fuel cycle is potentially far less long-lived. The claim is that the reprocessed waste will be no more radioactive than thorium ore after about 300 years. This claim is based on the idea that virtually all of the long-lived radioactive products of breeding will be consumed in the reactor before the final round of reprocessing takes place.

Cobb also notes the potential usefulness and value of Molten Salt Reactors in managing the thorium fuel cycle,

There are also practical hurdles for reprocessing solid fuel. But advocates of the so-called molten salt reactor claim that this design lessens the problem of reprocessing since the products of breeding can be continuously extracted and processed from the molten liquid stream inside a closed fuel cycle. They also claim that the design is far less prone to accidents which might release radioactive materials into the environment. None of this, of course, solves the problems of existing reactors that use solid fuel assemblies. But it does suggest a plausible course for vastly expanding nuclear power generation with little worry about fuel supplies and fewer concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation.

Cobb points to what he believes is a possible problem with MSR nuclear technology,

The main concern about these replacements is whether they can be built fast enough to head off an overall reduction in the amount of energy available to society.

I will address this concern.

Cobb's latest essay on nuclear technology is titled, "The Road to Fukushima: The Nuclear Industry's Wrong Turn." While Cobb does not mention either Nuclear Green or Charles Barton, many of the ideas in this essay parallel, indas I have frequently expressed. The lead sentence to Cobb's essay states,

Nuclear researchers knew long ago that reactor designs now in wide use had already been bested in safety by another design.

Then Cobb asks,

Why did the industry turn its back on that design?

This is indeed a very troubling question, and one to which I have devoted a number of posts on Nuclear Green. Cobb asks,

Imagine a nuclear reactor that runs on fuel that could power civilization for millennia; cannot melt down; resists weapons proliferation; can be built on a relatively small parcel of land; and produces little hazardous waste. It sounds like a good idea, and it was a well-tested reality in 1970 when it was abandoned for the current crop of reactors that subject society to the kinds of catastrophes now on display in Japan.

This rather remarkable design is called the molten salt reactor (MSR), and it lost out for two reasons: 1) It wasn't compatible with the U.S. government's desire to have a civilian nuclear program that would have dual use, that is, that could supply the military with nuclear bomb-making materials. 2) Uranium-fueled light water reactors, which are in wide use today, already had a large, expensive infrastructure supporting them back in 1970. To build MSRs would have required the entire industry to retool or at least create another expensive parallel infrastructure. And, that's how MSRs became the victim of lock-in.

Much of this simply parafrases Nuclear Green, although I have recently offered a somewhat more complex view on why the government turned its back on Molten Salt Reactor technology.

Whatever the actual reason for the exclusion of Molten Salt Reactor technology by the United States Government, Cobb is quite correct about the consequences of that decision,

Lock-in has worked in much the same way for the nuclear industry. The decision within U.S. government circles to focus on light water reactors and abandon MSRs relegated the latter to a footnote in the history of civilian nuclear power. And, because the United States was the leader in civilian nuclear technology at the time, every nation followed us.

Then Cobb points to an important question,

So, should the world look again at this "old" technology as a way forward for nuclear power after Fukushima?

Cobb answers his own question,

My sympathies are with the MSR advocates. If the world had adopted MSR technology early on, there would have been no partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, no explosion at Chernobyl, and no meltdown and subsequent dispersion of radioactive byproducts into the air and water at Fukushima. It's true that MSR technology is not foolproof. But its very design prevents known catastrophic problems from developing. The nuclear fuel is dissolved in molten salt which, counterintuitively, is the coolant. If the reactor overheats, a plug at the base melts away draining the molten salt into holding tanks that allow it to cool down. Only gravity is required, so power outages don't matter.

As for leaks, a coolant leak (that is a water leak) in a light water reactor, can quickly become dangerous. If there is a leak from an MSR, the fuel, which is dissolved in the molten salt, leaks out with it, thereby withdrawing the source of the heat. You end up with a radioactive mess inside the containment building, but that's about it.

If the world had adopted MSRs at the beginning of the development of civilian nuclear power, electricity production might now be dominated by them. And, we might be busily constructing wind generators and solar panels to replace the remaining coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Would there have been accidents at MSRs? Certainly. Would these accidents have been large enough and scary enough to end new orders for nuclear power plants as happened after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States? I doubt it.

Cobb is still pessimistic however,

Having said all this, I believe that MSR technology will never be widely adopted. The same problem that derailed it early in the history of civilian nuclear power is still with us. We still have lock-in for light water reactors. Yes, the new designs are admittedly quite a bit safer. But these designs still don't solve as many problems as MSRs do, and they continue to rely on uranium for their fuel. MSRs have shown themselves capable of running on thorium, a metal that is three times more abundant than uranium, and 400 times more abundant than the only isotope of uranium that can be used for fuel, U-235. This is the basis for the claim that MSRs fueled with thorium could power civilization for millennia. . . .

. . . in the United States it is easier to predict that we'll see little progress. In the U.S. it is the industry that tells the government what new nuclear technologies will be developed rather than the other way around. And, the American nuclear industry is committed to light water reactors.

I believe that even if the Fukushima accident had not occurred, nuclear power generation would probably have done no more than maintain its share of the total energy pie in the coming decades. Now, I am convinced that that share will shrink as people in democratic societies reject new nuclear plants.

Yet Cobb also acknowledges that one nation is interested in developing Molten Salt Reactor Technology,

The Chinese have announced that they are interested in pursuing MSRs and the use of thorium to fuel them. Perhaps in China--where the nuclear industry is synonymous with the government and therefore does what the government tells it to--MSRs might actually be deployed. I have my doubts. Even China suffers from the lock-in problem.

I disagree with Cobb's pessimism. Although I believe what he calls the "Nuclear Industry, the current small set of reactor manufactures outside Canada, India and China are wedded to Light Water Reactor technology, the path to the development and deployment to Molten Salt Reactors is open wide open. Molten Salt Reactors are simpler, will require less labor to construct, and fewer building materials than Light Water Reactors. This means that there is a high likelihood that Molten Salt Reactors will be cheaper to manufacture, and simpler to deploy. This gives MSRs superior scalability. MSRs are also more efficient than LWRs. MSRs can do things that neither renewables nor LWRs can do. They can produce industrial process heat of up to !200 C. With their lower costs, MSRs can offer back up generation and peak generation capacity to the electrical industry.

Thus the question is will MSRs spread from China, which appears to be committed to the development of MSR technology, or will MSR technology be developed by other societies as well? There are several paths to MSR development. MSRs could be developed in the United States by one or more National Laboratories, MSR technology can be developed as a ship propulsion technology by the United States Navy. MSR technology can be developed by the United States military as a means of supplying electricity to military bases, and for military operations. MSR technology can be developed by private manufacturing businesses, which are interested in turning their manufacturing skills into a new source of energy related revenue. MSR technology could be developed by large fossil fuel energy companies, which seek a means of remaining in the energy business after their fossil fuel business declines. MSR technology could also be developed by a group of nations, which are attracted by the energy advantages MSRs offer. Thus there are many potential pathos to MSR development, and once adventurers start down one of them, other paths are likely to quickly open up.

When I began to write about MSRs in 2007, virtually no one had heard of them. On the Internet I found, Bruce Hoglund's Molten Salt Interest Pages, and Kirk Sorensen's Energy from Thorium. Fast forward to 2011, and the Molten Salt Reactor, mainly in the form of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, a name given by Kirk Sorensen, is widely known. The idea of a thorium fuel cycle Molten Salt Reactor has been adopted for development by China as a promising new nuclear technology, as Kurt Cobb has pointed out. Other parties are looking with interest, but have not announced plans yet. I expect some MSR development plans to emerge before the end of 2012.

Nuclear Accidents and Public Perception of Nuclear Safety

Nuclear safety is both about public perception, the viewpoint of the enemies of nuclear power, and about actual industrial design and practice. Relative to other industries the safety practices of the nuclear industry are very good. This assessment can be made even though the nuclear industry has just gone through its second worst accident. An accident which involved not one but 4 reactors. There were significant releases of highly radioactive fission products, although the total public exposure was small. Workers at the Fukoshima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were exposed to higher levels of radiation, although not enough to toast them. Several reactors were destroyed, and explosions destroyed several containment buildings.

The Dai-ichi accident was due to a planning failure. The reactor site plan did not allow for a 10 + meter high tsunami, ands important reactor safety equipment was overwhelmed and taken out of service by a 10 + meter tsunami. Beyond the failure of the emergency back up generators, the Dai-Ichi reactors were were designed utilizing the nuclear safety science of the day, and while reasonably safe, they were not the safest reactors possible. Indeed the term "safest reactor possible" is ambiguous, because there is a history of nuclear safety, and the history of nuclear safety demonstrates that not every choice that was made regarding nuclear safety was made with the idea of developing the safest possible nuclear technology in mind.

Unfortunately the goal of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960's was not to create the safest possible nuclear technology, it was to promote the expansion of still very weak nuclear manufacturing and energy production industries to a position of dominance in electrical production. This can be illustrated by a document which Kirk Sorensen has recently drawn attention too. A 1962 report by the AEC to President Kennedy titled, "Civilian Nuclear Power."

This report was signed by a Nobel Prize winning scientist, who was also the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Glenn T. Seaborg. The word safety appeared only once in the report. One page 60 the report contained the suggestion that future licensing reviews should concentrate

on those features which have an effect on the health and safety of the general public.

the report added,

This will be easier to accomplish as reactors become more standardized.

Thus the attitude of the AEC and of Seaborg appears to have been to let nuclear safety take care of itself without further research. Nor did the AEC consider the safety potential of various nuclear technologies important enough to note in its Report to President Kennedy. This neglect was not by accident. Rather it reflected a fundamental attitude of the leadership of the Washington nuclear establishment, which included Seaborg, fellow AEC Commissioner James T. Ramsey, Congressman Chet Hollifield, and AEC bureaucrat Milton Shaw. Within a few years this neglect of nuclear safety would serve as a back drop for the development of a powerful anti-nuclear movement, and a split within the AEC's own research establishment, that would see research scientists testifying against the AEC before Congressional committees.

The Washington nuclear establishment appears to have jointly held a broad set of beliefs about nuclear technology which included:

* The safety of Light Water Reactor (LWR) technology had been established by the United States Navy
* Reactor safety could be assured by adhering to United States Navy nuclear safety practices
* Of all advanced nuclear technologies, Liquid Metal Fast Breeder (LMFBR) technology was the most promising
*Like LWR technology, LMFBR technology was mature
* Other nuclear technologies were less promising, and there for future AEC programs should focus on LWR and LMFBR technologies
* LWR technology simply needed to be implemented, and obstacles should be moved out of that path
* The next step in the development of nuclear technology was the construction of a LMFBR prototype

This set of beliefs was to have an extremely unfortunate effect on the development of nuclear power in the United States, and globally.

It should be noted that scientists within the AEC's own research establishments did not accept the Washington Nuclear Establishment's consensus. Scientists at the AEC's national Laboratories were by no means satisfied with the safety of Light Water Reactors. In particular scientists at the AEC's reactor research facility in Idaho, as well as at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, were concerned that not enough was known about reactor safety, to judge the safety of Light Water Reactors. In addition a continuing series of accidents involving LMFBR prototypes, suggested that the maturity of LMFBR technology had not reached to level of safety that would justify a description of that technology as mature.

One particular problem troubled early nuclear safety researchers,

Because of the scarcity of useful information on fission-product release from fuels, it was necessary, in order to evaluate the safety of early nuclear reactors, to assume that 100% or a large percentage of the fission products would be released to the containment systems in nuclear reactor accidents.

Thus early on conceptual evaluations of nuclear accidents began to paint dark pictures of huge numbers of civilian casualties. Unfortunately, these dark pictures. though not justified by research, still influence public concerns over nuclear safety. The Washington nuclear establishment, focused as it was on the development of a nuclear industry, did not understand the extent to which the public perception of nuclear power would be influenced by the concerns of reactor scientists. Thus by the late 1960's as the nuclear establishment's project was taking shape, the public's perception of the danger of that project was also growing. The nuclear establishment's opposition to further nuclear safety research, which had emerged during the 1960's, became item one in the case against nuclear power presented by a powerful and growing anti-nuclear movement.

In addition to its mistaken beliefe that the safety of light water reactors was established beyond reasonable doubt, the nuclear establishment had concluded that the liquid metal fast breeder reactor wasw by far the prefered line of development for the future of nuclear power. Yet scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory had been able to demonstrate that reactors cooled by liquid salts had the potential to offer numerous advantages over water or liquid metal cooled reactors. Not the least of those advantages lay in the relm of nuclear safety. Molten Salt nuclear technology has superior safety potential, but since the Washington nuclear establishment underestimated the importance of the nuclear safety problem, it did not considered MSR safety potential to be an important attribute.

I personally have no doubt that in most situations that reactors are extremely safe when judged by conventional industrial safety standards. Those standards, however, have not penetrated public perception of nuclear power, and we still face both a public and political leadership, which still believes that the consequences of a nuclear accident may be far worse, than is rationally possible, and hens reactors are far less safe, than experience suggests they are.

It is clear that LWRs are not 100% safe. The Fukushima Dai-ichi accident (or accidents) has demonstrated that at least some safety features of older reactors can be overwealmed by natural disasters. To date the consequences of the Dai-ichi accident have fallen far short of a catastrophy. But whether the public is aware of the distinction between an accident and a catastrophy is open to question. For the enemies of nuclear power, acident and catastrophy are the same thing.

It is clear however, that reactors that could have withstood the natural events that brought about the Dai-ichi accidents are possible. It is clear that better nuclear safety is possible. Better public information on nuclear safety is also possible. It is urgently important to move forwards with the development of safe, low cost and scaliable nuclear technology will be of vital importance for the future of sociate. We now have lss than 40 years to accomplish this. The nuclear safety issue must be resolved, and the public reassured that a nuclear future wqill be a safew future.

Why the LFTR is Still Needed

A new MiT report, The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, argues that

Uranium supplies will not limit the expansion of nuclear power in the US or around the world for the foreseeable futurer . . .

This should quiet the anti-nuclear power camp on that particular issue, but it won/t. Critics of nuclear power have a tin ear when it comes to evidence. Any evidence that discredits their position simply does not exist, in their minds, and thus they will discount the MiT Report, and continue to tell us that we are running out of uranium.

If we are not running out of uranium is their any justification for the LFTR, a reactor that operates on an alternative - Thorium - fuel cycle? The answer is that there are several good reasons for adopting LFTR technology, even though there may be a large supply of accessible uranium.

One major reason for choosing the LFTR is that it invites far lower fuel cycle related capital investments. If the future reactor fleet is to be entirely uranium fueled, very large capital investments will have to go into uranium mines, processing facilities, enrichment facilities, and spent fuel management. in addition all of these facilities have significant operation costs attached.

Now consider fuel related the capital costs associated with a fluoride salt thorium reactor deployment compared to that of a massive deployment of uranium fueled molten salt reactors. First thorium is a bye product of rare earth mining, and with increasing rare earth use in the economy, more and more thorium will be coming out of the ground anyway. Thus, unlike uranium which is often mined in costly uranium only mines, thorium basically comes out of the earth at no added cost, from mines that would exist whether or not we wanted to recover thorium.

Secondly, while the milling expenses for thorium and uranium would probably be similar, 200 times more uranium would have to be milled, because uranium reactors operate on a once through fuel cycle reactors, which consumes less than 0.5% of the milled uranium, while nearly 100% of the milled thorium will be consumed in closed fuel cycle LFTR.

Secondly, the uranium must be enriched, and this involves another costly, energy intense process. With thorium the enrichment process can be skipped. Following enrichment uranium oxide must be prepared fabricated into reactor fuel pellets. in contrast thorium would be prepared for reactor use by fluoridation, a simple, inexpensive and well understood chemical process. At that point the thorium would be inserted into a reactor blanket where it would be bombarded with neutrons. After thorium absorbs a neutron it is transformed into protactinium 233, which will be separated from the blanket salts by fluoride chemical processes, that will be performed by processing equipment that is directly attached to the reactor. Then the p
rotactinium is stored for a few months, while it undergoes nuclear transformation to fissionable U-233. Once that occurs, the U-233 is automatically inserted into the reactor core by another reactor mechanism. All of these processes are low cost.

The advantage of the Thorium Fuel cycle LFTR is that it requires a fuel infrastructure that is 200 times smaller than a fleet of once through uranium cycle reactors would require. The added cost of the uranium infrastructure is not the primary problem. Rather it is the enormous task of building the infrastructure. The LFTR will require a large infra structure as well, but the infrastructure that will be required to keep LFTRs fueled will be tiny compared to that of a once through uranium fueled reactor fleet.

If we draw the comparison between LFTRs and LWRs, even more U-235 has to be prepared per GWh of power delivered. LWRs waste about 17% of the U-235 that goes into the core, as well as an even larger percentage of the plutonium created in the core. These inefficiencies mean that more U-235 has to be produced relative to the fuel requirements of LFTRs.

LFTRs produce little or no nuclear waste, and indeed can be significant consumers of actinides, which are the most troubling components of LWR nuclear waste. LFTR waste products reach benign levels of radioactivity after 300 years, but many useful and valuable fission products become safe after a few years, and can be mined from the fission product stream for use in industry. Long half life fission products have uses in medicine, and industry. Thus the fission products from LFTRs can be viewed as material resources rather than nuclear waste.

Although Fast Breeder Reactors share many of the advantages of the LFTR, they are likely to be considerably more expensive to build and deploy in large numbers. In addition, FBRs require 10 times the fissile inventory of LFTRs or even more, thus limiting the size of the initial deployment of FBRs. FBR advocates argue that the higher breeding ratio of the FBR will make up for the disadvantage. But it will take time to breed up to the size of an initial LFTR deployment. Supplementing the FBR start up stock with freshly separated U-235 would require the same sort of uranium mining, processing and seperating facilities that would be required by a uranium fueled reactor deployment. Using the nuclear fuel inventory in existing LWR waste stockpiles, more than enough LFTRs could be started to provide 100% of American electricity. If the LFTRs simply replaced the fuel they consumed through nuclear breeding, no further reactors would only be required except to meet added electrical demand.

The LFTR offers both lower cost and significant deployment advantages over the FBR.

Thus the LFTR offers economic and deployment advantages over any of its competitors including Light Water Reactors, Uranium fueled Molten Salt Reactors, and fast breeder reactors. It would be far cheaper to invest in LFTR development and deployment than to build the new uranium mines, mills, isotope separation and fuel fabrications facilities that would be needed to support a uranium fueled reactor deployment. Clearly then even given adequate uranium supplies, the LFTR continues to offer significant advantages for a large scale nuclear deployment.

Letter to Jesse 3: Lowering nuclear costs with advanced technology

This is the third in a series of letters i am writing to Jesse Jenkins, the Director of Energy and Climate Policy of the The Breakthrough Institute, I am attempting to demonstrate to Jesse that a massive deployment of nuclear power plants is possible by 2050.

Dear Jesse, To the left is a greatly simplified depiction of a Light Water Reactor core. The core is only the beginning of Light Water reactor complexity. Chris Mowry of Babcock & Wilcox told Robert Bryce

"We estimate there would be between 500 and 1,000 jobs at the site throughout the three-year field construction period."

That gives us somewhere from 2.5 to 5 million hours of labor on site to construct the B&W mPower reactor and its facility. This is no small project and suggests something of the daunting complexity of building a large reactor will also confront the builders of small Light Water Reactors. If factory labor is several times more efficient than on site construction labor, B&W has failed to move enough labor from the reactor site to the the factory. Thus the small Light Water Reactor proves to be something of a disappointment in that it will not offer an economic advantage compared to larger reactors. Chris Mowery stated,

The B&W mPower reactor uses the best features and elements of existing Generation III+ technology. This is technology with which the NRC is familiar, and for which NRC regulatory and licensing protocol already exists. By avoiding the use of new Generation IV technology concepts, we will ensure that the NRC is reviewing designs and reactor technology that it already has the ability to license.

It would appear that B&W believed that it had a choice between Generation III+ and Generation IV nuclear technology and chosen the former because of a perceived weakness of the NRC to assess new nuclear Generation IV technologies..

The major advantage of a small reactor would be that it would allow for the transfer of labor from the reactor site to the factory. Professor Andrew Kadak,, who teaches nuclear engineering at MIT, has pointed out what happens when labor is transferred to the construction site to the factory.

Building a reactor in a factory should save construction time, says Kadak. He estimates that what takes eight hours to do in the field could be done in just one hour in a factory. Once the reactor is manufactured, it would then be shipped to the site of a power plant along with the necessary containment walls, turbines for generating electricity, control systems, and so on.

The great advantage of China and India in the construction of Generation II and Generation III reactors is that it is labor intensive and their labor costs are low. In order for European and American nuclear power to be cost competitive with the power produced in China and India, labor must be used with factory like efficiency. Thus if tasks requiring a day can be completed in on hour, all through the construction system,labor consts can be dramatically lowered.

In addition to moving reactor construction labor from the construction site to the factory, reactor design must be simplified and the production system automated. We have already noted the relative complexity of Generation II and III reactor cores. Here is the design of an extremely simple, low cost and safe Generation IV Molten Salt Reactor core. The core is basically made up of two hollow cylinders, one inside of the other. This core design is light weigh because it lacks internal structure, and because, unlike the Light Water mPower Reactor the Molten Salt Reactor operates under atmospheric pressure.

The Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) is not just simpler, it is more compact. It can be housed in a smaller structure. Compact cores mean smaller housing. The MSR cannot explode, that means a smaller containment structure is required. The late Edward Teller, proposed locating MSRs underground for safety. Underground locations also protect against terrorists attacks via truck bombs or aircraft. Underground locations mean that massive and labor intensive containment structures are not required.

Of course some features of the MSR are not as simple as this core design. But it would appear that the MSR concept holds real promise of lowering reactor labor costs, while significantly adding to nuclear safety, and offering a sustainable nuclear technology that could provide high levels of energy to human society for hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of years.

Confusion About Reactors

It has long been know among reactor researchers that the prevailing reactor design, the Light Water Reactor, is far from the best possible reactor design. Alvin Weinberg, who held the patent on the Light Water Reactor, believed that the fluid core Molten Salt Reactor was a far superior design. Weinberg's mentor Eugene Wigner who played a major role in the early development of reactor theory and design, also believed that fluid core reactors would open the door to low cost electrical production with nuclear power. Oak Ridge reactor experts pointed to evidence that the molten salt reactor could be built at low costs, were very safe, largely solved the problem of nuclear waste, could be used to dispose of the nuclear waste from other reactors, were proliferation resistant in their simple implementation, and could be modified to further lower the risk of nuclear proliferation.

Despite these notable advantages, development of the Molten Salt Reactor was terminated by the the Nixon/Ford Administration, primarily for budgetary reasons, and never renominated. Thus the Light Water Reactor remains the standard reactor world wide. The Light Water reactor has a number of defects. The first is that it is a uranium fuel cycle thermal spectrum reactor that is dependent on enriched uranium to maintain criticality. Uranium-cycle reactors convert some U-238 into Pu-239, but in the thermal-spectrum not enough to burn the U-238 deeply. Pu-239 is a relatively poor nuclear fuel in the thermal spectrum, and fissions twice for every three neutron captures. The solid uranium dioxide fuel used in Light Water Reactors, retains fission product Xenon-135--a neutron poison that inhibits chain reactions and further mitigates against breeding in Light Water Reactors. Unlike Molten Salt Reactors, the solid fuel of the Light water reactor prevents the removal of Xenon-135 fro the core, and this leads to problems maintaining stable reactivity patterns in the reactor core. The Light Water Reactor requires complex monitoring and frequent operator intervention through a complex system of fission controls in order to maintain a stable fission pattern through the core. Without such interventions problems such as xenon transients can develop.

Interrupted coolant flow, and coolant loss can lead to significant problems in LWRs and can lead to core meltdown if not properly managed. Passive safety features can manage most LWR safety problems and systems of multiple barriers to radiation release make the LWR extremely safe, and indeed the operations of LWRs create far fewer human health and safety problems than the operation of fossil fuel power plants, or the manufacture of photovoltaic cells. Yet the safety of LWR is obtained at a high capital cost.

The high capital cost for constructing LWRs have become a major obstacle to their construction. Reactor manufacturers and purchasers believe that large reactors lead to economies of scale. There are reasons to doubt this, however. The very size of large reactor construction project seems to impose a certain amount of chaos on the flow of materials and labor, with over 25% of worker-on-the-job hours lost from productive use due to a variety of inefficiencies. The accrual of interest over multilayer construction projects adds another economic penalty on LWR construction. An large number of highly skilled workers who can command high wages , especially under conditions of labor skill scarcity further adds to construction costs. Finally the prolonged nature of large-scale projection project leads to leisurely advances on the cost lowering learning curve. Thus the LWR construction process leads to a perfect storm of capital costs.

There are unfortunately few remedies for these problems. Asian counties have had some success with the management of LWR construction projects, but it is not clear that transference of those management skills to the United States and Western Europe is possible. Chinese and Indian labor costs are far lower that Western labor costs, and this appears to give Asian economies a significant advantage in capital costs associated with new reactor construction.

A shift to small generation IV reactors may not automatically bring nuclear cost lowering. For example the cost of Factory-Kit-manufactured PBMRs in China are comparable to the cost of Generation 2 and Generation 3+ LWRs there. However, because the core of the LFTR is much smaller than a PBMR core. it appears to build the whole LFTR in factories, possibly in the form of several transportable and easily assembled supermodules. A variety of innovations could lower LFTR costs in comparison to LWRs, and capital costs approaching $1 per watt, seem possible although by no means certain.

Thus the solution to LWR capital costs, is a shift to MSR technology coupled with a number of nuclear cost lowering approaches made possible by the technology switch. There is an up front investment involved in this switch, and that investment might run from as low as $2.5 billion to $10 billion. Considering the potential cost savings which might result from this investment, even a $10 billion investment would be a trivial sum.

Until investments in cost lowering generation IV technology will lead to low cost nuclear technology, we have little choice other than to invest in LWRs. The rational for doing so is very powerful:
1. LWRs provide reliable electricity at a lower cost than reliable electricity from renewable.
2. LWRs do not require CO2 emitting natural gas generators for backup.
3. LWRs use far less land for electrical production than renewables.
4. LWRs are not effected by time of day, or season of the year.
5. LWRs are subject to far fewer geographic limitations than renewables.
6. In many cases, LWR construction need not require expensive grid expansions.

Although renewables supporters often point to the high capital costs of nuclear, they are actually comparing apples to oranges. In fact the capital costs for nuclear plants brings with it a facility that generates at its rated electrical capacity 90% of the time. At best wind facilities produce 40% of their rated capacity over time, while solar facilities produce electricity at half of that rate. While renewable facilities are not producing electricity 60% to 80% of the time, the electricity that cannot produce is typically generated by fossil fuel power plants. The Nuclear plant produces a far greater lowering of fuel costs, and incidentally a far greater reduction of CO2 emissions than wind and solar generating facilities.

Electrical utilities know this. The first year TVA had its rebuilt Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor in service it saved over $800 million in costs. It had been buying electricity from sources outside the system, and the $800 million plus was what the outside electricity cost TVA, Of course the cost of fuel varies a lot. We need to talk about the cos of last year's coal and natural gas, this year, and next years. Last year coal was up $100 per ton, this year maybe $65. Next year, well that depends on how well the national and international economies do. We could be back in the $100 per ton range for coal.

At $100 a ton, a Brows Ferry size plant might save TVA $250 million a year on coal. That fuel saving is going to go a long way toward paying the interest on the nuke. Research has shown that heath care spending is high in areas that are close to coal fired power plants. Now it is not going to a utilities bottom line, but the nuke will save a community on health care expenses. So suppose we have a decline of 10% in health care expenses due to the switch from coal to nuclear. So we are looking at indirect benefits. Wind saves some on the fuel cost of coal, but we still end up paying 60% of what we were paying for coal after we install the wind mills. We still have kids hitting the ERs with asthma attacks. Probably not as often, true.

So the story is that Light Water Reactors are expensive, but then so are windmills and solar technology if you are going to do carbon replacement. Light Water Reactors are far from perfect, but they are safe and they produce lots of electricity. They produce nuclear waste, but nuclear waste will power generation 4 reactors and that is good not bad. Light Water Reactors may be expensive, but are cheaper than wind or sun for coal replacement. The fuel cost saved by switching to reactors will help to pay for them.

Light Water reactors will not replace coal and other fossil fuels in powering America, but neither will sun and wind. Light Water reactors are at least a start, until lower cost Generation 4 LFTRs are moving off the assembly lines.

Are Nuclear Costs Unreasonable?

We are in the middle of an energy paradigm shift about.

Old assumptions are no longer true and even the outlines of the new world is not clear to most people. They were however, clear to a few far sighted people long ago. Both M. King Hubbard and Alvin Weinberg (see numerous posts in Nuclear Green) foresaw the transition form fossil fuels to nuclear energy over a generation ago. We can call this the nuclear energy paradigm.

A second post fossil fuel paradigm has been offered the renewable energy paradigm The Gore Plan and the Google Clean Energy 2030 Plan might be considered as poorly thought out examples of the renewables paradigm. My argument is that when the renewable paradigm is well thought out it falls apart.

The recent objection to Nuclear power is its cost. The overnight cost of nuclear power was around $2000 Per kW in 2002. It has been estimated that the cost will have risen to $4000 this year, and that it will rise to as much as $8000 by the middle of the next decade. Some authorities suggest that the cost of Nuclear power will rise even higher with the figure of $12 Billion per GW being offered. In time that figure is plausible. The cause of this rapid cost escalation is the Asian construction bomb. The rapidly expanding economies of India and China demand construction commodities and finished parts for energy plants. This demand has doubled the cost of building new power generation facilities and is expected to continue the rapid inflation of new power plant production for the foreseeable future.

The materials inflation is expected to impact the price of renewable power generating facilities even more than it will impact the cost of new nuclear pants. One of the flaws about the renewables paradigm is that it is rather vague about the source of base electrical generating capacity. Base capacity is those electrical plants that are producing power all of the time. I have recently argued that renewables generated base electricity required by a fully implemented renewables paradigm would be very expensive, perhaps as much as $25,000 per kWh in the middle of the next decade. This would be two to three times as expensive as nuclear generated base power.

Other factors come into play. For example the cost of both fossil fuel fired power electrical generating facilities is rising, and fuel costs are rising as well. Last winter the price of Appalachia coal peaked at $300 a ton on the spot market. Asian demand for coal fired electrical energy is pushing the price of coal as well as the price of other commodities. The price of natural has risen. New gas supplies have been tapped, but they are expensive to recover. And of course the cost of building replacement coal and gas fire power plants also has to be considered. Although some advocate the clean coal paradigm, in fact, at least 57% of the useful energy produced in a coal fired CO2 sequestering power plant, and possibly as much as 75% of it, will be used to power the sequestering and other gas cleaning operations. Thus a heavy fuel cost would be added on to the very expensive cost sequestration related equipment.

In 2007 the Tennessee Valley Authority put a reactor back into service after having been mothballed for two decades. The Browns Ferry Unit 1reactor had been refurbished at the cost of $2 billion dollars. During the first year the Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor was in operation, it saved TVA $800 million. That was the ammount that TVA would have had to pay, Thus the Browns Ferry reactor will pay for its rebuilding in 2 1/2 years. It will pay for its rebuilding and interest in a little more than 3 years. Encouraged by such how quickly the Browns Ferry reactor is paying for its rebuilding, TVA has decided to complete an old partly completed reactor, Watts Bar Unit 2. In addition TVA has two other partially built reactors, Bellefonte 1 and 2, that it is now considering completing. In addition TVA is planning two new more reactors at the same spot.

If we look at the cost of new coal fired generating facilities and add on top of those costs the cost of fuel, then even the $8 billion nuclear plant no longer seems so expensive. Compared to the new renewable bade electrical generating facilities, the cost of nuclear facilities is quite a bargain. This does not mean i am entirely satisfied with the present form of nuclear power, i am not. i am satisfied that the new Generation III+ reactors are very safe, and that they will produce electrical power for a very long time, perhaps as long as 100 years. I am not satisfied that the Uranium fuel cycle, with once through fuel technology is the best possible approach. I am not satisfied that once fuel leaves a Light Water Reactor it becomes waste. I am not satisfied that light water reactors are the lowest possible cost nuclear power generating reactors, clearly they are not. I am not satisfied that proposed storage solutions to the problems of nuclear waste are a resonable approach, and I am not satiasfied that no nuclear solution to the probl;em of load following or peak power reserve has been offered for the nuclear market.

At the moment the Light Water Reactor is the best technology on the market for post-carbon fuel electrical generation. But the shift to the nuclear paradigm will not be completed with Light Water Reactor technology. Because we have no other choice, we must begin to replace coal fired power plants with Light Water Reactors. We must begin to do this quickly, and with considerable numbers. This would be the case even if we were not concerned with global warming. The triple concerns of glonal warming, peak oil, and demand forced inflation of coal, makes it urgent that the shift to nuclear power be made quickly.

We out also to move quickly to improve the nuclear option. To decrease the cost of new nuclear facilities, to make them even safer. To solve once and for all the problem of nuclear waste, and to create new energy from spent reactor fuel, and useless nuclear weapons that only represent a danger to civilization.

The shift to the nuclear energy paradigm will talk place. There are very serious flaws in the renewable paradigm even if Al Gore and Google like it. We would be entering an early stage of the nuclear paradigm during the next few years. The final form of the nuclear paradigm is beginning to take shape in the minds of a few dreamers.

In honer of the 10,000th post on Energy from Thorium.

A Primer on Nuclear Safety: 2.2 Defense in Depth

A Primer on Nuclear Safety:
2.2 Defense in Depth
Controlling Nuclear Reactions in Light Water Reactors

The Enrico Fermi was the first nuclear scientist to find a solution for controlling chain reactions in a nuclear reactor. Fermi said that his Chicago Pile was "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers." Of course natural uranium fuel was added. There was, Fermi realized, something else needed in order to make his reactor safe. That was a means of soaking up the neutrons created by the chain reaction in order to control it. The way Fermi chose to control the Chicago Pile was to insert a number of cadmium-coated control rods into the reactor. Inserting the rods would slow the chain reaction and eventually stop it. In fact history reports that the chain reaction in Fremi's first pile was initiated by lifting control rods that were initially embedded in the pile.

Fermi and his associates were none to confident in the mechanical reliability of the control rods. Thus a back up system was devised for an emergency shut down of the reactor in case the control rods failed to operated properly during a shut down. A history of the Chicago Pile experiment states:

Since this demonstration was new and different from anything ever done before, complete reliance was not placed on mechanically operated control rods. Therefore, a “liquid-control squad,” composed of Harold Lichtenberger, W. Nyer, and A. C. Graves, stood on a platform above the pile. They were prepared to flood the pile with cadmium-salt solution in case of mechanical failure of the control rods.

In many respects the Fermi's CP-1 was the evolutionary ancestor of the Light Water Reactor, and the control scheme for Light Water Reactors is basically the same as for the CP-1 although a few twists have been added.   The control rods now use Hafnium rather than cadmium for neutron absorption.  And rather than flooding the core with a Cadmium salt solution, boron in the form of boric acid is injected directly into the cooling water. Because the dilution of the boric acid in the cooling water can be easily altered, the use of boron is by no means limited to reactor shutdown. By altering the boric acid content of cooling water reactor operators can actually control the chain reaction, thus providing a simple but effective throttle for a chain reaction.

It is possible to completely shut dow a LWR by increasing the boron content of the coolant water, or by a high concentration of boric acid in the emergency coolant water. However reactor shut downs and start ups are normally controlled by the control rods. Control rods can also be used to control chain reactions in parts of the reactor, and the play a major role in counteracting Xenon poisoning.

Xenon-135 is a nobel gas that is produced in the fusion process. It is highly radioactive, but in addition it has a very powerful neutron absorbing property. Because of this property, even a relatively small amount of Xenon, produced during a chain reaction has the capacity to slow down and even stop the chain reaction. Hence reactor controls must posses a means of balancing reactor power output as the amount of Xenon in the reactor increases due to Xenon production by nuclear fission.

Controlling reactor power in the face of Xenon poisoning is not simple. Xenon builds up with the fission process, and decreases as it undergoes nuclear decay. There can be a lag between the positioning of a control rod and its effect on the power level and heat generation of a reactor. Running a light water reactor at low power increases difficulties related to Xenon poisoning. Xenon may not be evenly spread through the core. Thus hot and cool spots may develop in the core. since coolant flow is based on average power output, coolant flow to reactor hot spots may not be sufficient, and as fuel pellets begin to overheat, and their cladding begin to overheat, their integrity may begin to break down.

Control rods played a far more critical role in the Chernobyl accident than would be possible in a light water reactor accident. In the Chernobyl RBMK reactors the control rods were divided into three segments. The upper and lower segments were made of graphite, while the middle segment was made of graphite a nuclear moderator, while the middle segment was made of a of a material that served as a neutron poison. As the control rod is lifted coolant water fills the bottom of the control rod channel. Under normal operations the control rod is lifted to the position in which its lower graphite segment fills the channel inside the reactor core. But because a highly dangerous test was being conducted on the Chernobyl reactor, the lower graphite segments of control rods were also partially withdrawn from the reactor. Thus more water entered the reactor core through the control rods channels. As I have already observed coolant water served as a break on the chain reaction within the Chernobyl reactor. As we observed poor management of the Chernobyl reactor during a test lead to the boiling of the coolant water inside the reactor and the voids created by the steam bubbles began to removed the break placed on the chain reaction by the presence of coolant water in the core. As the overly withdrawn control rods began to descend into the core of the Chernobyl reactor they first displaced water that had served as a break on the chain reaction, and replace it with graphite, a moderator that greatly increased the chain reaction.

The insertion of the graphite tips of the control rods into the core of the Chernobyl RBMK was sort of like attempting to hit the breaks of car that is running out of control, and hitting the accelerator instead. The power level of the Chernobyl reactor went off the charts, and as reactor heat increased dramatically the remaining coolant water in the reactor core flashed to steam. There was a large steam explosion, which as we have seen destroyed the top of the reactor and the surrounding radiation shield.

A similar accident could not occur in a light water reactor because (a) water in the control rod channels moderates rather than slows the nuclear reaction, (b) the water in the control rod channels is immediately displaced by a neutron poisoning material in the control rod, and (c) voids created by heat related bubbles in the reactor coolant work in concert with the control rods rather than against them.

Control rod insertion during an accident can be accomplished by gravity rather than mechanical means. Control rods can be attached to the lifting mechanism by electro-magnets. The termination of power output during an accident would automatically produce control rod insertion and shut down. The shutdown can also be triggered by operator control.

There are redundancies in the control rod system and of course reactor operators always have the options of shutting the reactor down by adding more boric acid to the coolant water. The loss of reactor coolant does cause a termination of the chain reaction, because the water serves as a moderator for the chain reaction in Light Water Reactors. At the same time the loss of coolant water is highly undesirable, because coolant water is required to remove the residual heat from fission product decay from the reactor core.

The control system of Light Water Reactors thus provides for operational redundancies and safety backups. Emergency shutdowns can be accomplished by passive safety features that use the law of nature to insure that a chain reaction stops as soon as the reactor ceases to produce electrical power. Different control systems insure that operators have more than one emergency shutdown system available. Finally automatically operating passive shut down systems, insure that the reactor will automatically shut down before serious safety problems emerge, thus interrupting chains of events that could lead to serious reactor accidents.

If I had a hammer or a molten salt reactor

I subscribe to a google alert for capacitors technology. My theory is that ultra-capacitors will play a major in the post carbon world. An alert that slide into my yahoo mailbox this morning lead me to the following observation:

"If high energy metal forming is good, why isn’t it far more widespread in industrial applications? Some researchers in the field, in a paper entitled Opportunities in High-Velocity Forming of Sheet Metal, pose the same question. They answer it in this way:

Suppose that a classically educated, but sheltered, engineer is asked to devise a procedure to drive nails into wood. If he or she is unaware of the concept of the hammer, the engineer is likely to develop something that looks like a modern press. The device might be built so that it precisely aligns a nail normal to the piece of wood and has an actuator that moves at a controlled displacement rate (possibly with high force) and drives the nail slowly into the board.

Other engineers might applaud this approach as it offers much control and precision. By way of added improvements, the engineering community would work on issues such as the stability and buckling of the nail as well as the challenge of making a truly portable nail driver. Over time, others would improve on this approach. Standards would be developed and the viability of many companies might become dependent on its continuation.

Now imagine another engineer suggesting that this common but somewhat elegant process could be replaced by simply banging on the head of the nail to drive it into the wood. While this has many advantages in terms of simplicity, cost, stability of the nail and portability, it might encounter some resistance as it appears some control over the process is lost and there might be a substantial learning curve in developing good hammers and the skills needed to wield them properly.

Fortunately the hammer was developed long before conventional engineering practices!

In some sense this analogy parallels the state of sheet metal forming technology today. Forming typically is accomplished with the motion of massive matched tools with precise control of static forces and slow displacement rates. In effect, we now are suggesting that much might be accomplished by hurling chunks of metal into dies.

What we are dealing with is a natural human tendency to follow accepted patterns of thinking and acting, rather than explore the possibility that other patterns might be preferable. Long ago I discovered that people were most like to change when they had no choice. The young are more ammenable to change because they have not yet patterned their central nervous system with old ways of thinking and acting. Foreigners and outsiders are more likely to pick up new ideas of thinking and acting, to take advantage of new opportunities, than people who can point to long traditions in the old ways.

This brings us to the the Molten Salt Reactor. An internet discussion thread from 2006, yields the following observation:

The MSR technology sounds promising (and depressing, to think that TMI and Chernobyl might have been avoided if this technology would have become dominant but due to apparently nontechnical reasons this never happened). - Tap-Sa

Well perhaps it would be better to say that TMI and Chernobyl would be impossible with MSR technology and leave it at that. Last month, I think that I demonstrated that MSR technology was rejected by the United States political establishments for irrational reasons. Consider the MSR as the hammer, and the LWR as the press. It is not that the idea of the Molten Salt Reactor was unknown, however. It was just that the LWR looked to the Navy like the tool that it needed. The Air Force had the crazy idea of using molten salt reactors to provide nuclear power for flight, so the molten salt reactor got off on the wrong foot by being associated with a a bad idea. The Navy thought in terms of boilders, turbines and electricity. Much of Hyman Rickover's naval career, was based on his understanding of electrical generating systems. The Light Water Reactor fit into the Navy's propulsion system because it generated the super heated water that when turned to steam would run ships efficiently. For the Navy the LWR look like a great tool, because ships could travel for years without refueling, using light water reactor technology. As long as it kept the ships running and not create big problems for the Navy, the LWR was a satisfactory tool.

The Navy had patterned its shipboard propulsion systems after land based electrical generation technology. As a consequence any advance in Naval propulsion technology had the potential to feed back into the civilian power industry. This is exactly what happened.

There were problems with light water reactor technology. Some problems that could be fixed. Some which could not be fized. The basic problem is that a light water reactor is not a very efficient way of extracting the potential energy present in nuclear fuel. The CANDU reactor which uses heavy water is a somewhat better tool, but still extracts only a tiny fraction of the energy present in nuclear fuel.

The big problem emerged as soon a LWR technology was applied to civilian power use. A whole lot of what went into the reactor as nuclear fuel came out as "nuclear waste." This problem is greatly magnified because of the inefficiency of fuel use in light water technology. What appears to the naval propulsion engineer, or to the engineers for industries that produced civilian electrical technologies, as a highly efficient fuel process, struck nuclear scientist as messy and inefficient. The messiness results in the unmanageability of slightly used nuclear fuel. The sort of stuff that comes out of a LWR.

Alvin Weinberg, who patented the Light Water Reactor, knew full well its limitations. Weinberg had a hammer. It was called the Molten Salt Reactor, and it potentially had none of the LWR's limitations. But the advocates of the LWR technology said, "You can never get the thing to work." And they made sure that no chance would ever be given to those who wished to prove them wrong.

INL/Nuclear Power Industry Strategic Plan for Light Water Reactors

Press release from Idaho National Lab:
EPRI, INL Announce Release of R&D Plan Focused on Near-Term Increase in Nuclear Energy Production

The Electric Power Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory today announced the public release of a joint INL/Nuclear Power Industry Strategic Plan for Light Water Reactor Research and Development. The plan was developed by an industry-lab team and reviewed and approved by the leadership of the INL's Utility Advisory Board and EPRI's Nuclear Power Council.

The plan sets forth two strategies that must be employed for nuclear energy to play a substantial role in meeting future U.S. energy needs. The first strategy is to efficiently construct and operate dozens of new nuclear power plants, starting in the next several years. The second is to maximize the contribution from our existing nuclear power fleet by extending the operating licenses. Implementing both of these strategies will require significant investment in research and development.

"Recent analysis by EPRI shows that all low-emission electricity technologies will be required to satisfy anticipated goals for reduced CO2 emissions - energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear energy, and clean coal with CO2 capture and sequestration" said Chris Larsen, vice president and chief nuclear officer for the Electric Power Research Institute. "Industry recognizes that LWR technology is mature and that industry should carry a large portion of the responsibility in maintaining this technology. However, this plan demonstrates that the magnitude of the challenges facing this nation require the active engagement and leadership of the Federal Government in achieving the stretch goals identified in the report."

The proposed industry/government cost-shared R&D effort set forth in the plan is focused on 10 objectives, six of which are considered to be of the highest priority. These high-priority objectives include:

Sustaining the high performance of nuclear plant materials
Transitioning to state-of-the-art digital instrumentation and controls
Making further advances in nuclear fuel reliability and lifetime
Implementing broad-spectrum workforce development
Implementing broad-spectrum infrastructure improvements and design for sustainability; and
Addressing electricity infrastructure-wide problems

INL's Deputy Director for Science & Technology, Dr. David Hill, said "Both the public and private sectors have much to gain from this research effort. Consumers across the country will benefit from avoided emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, reliable baseload electricity, and the creation of thousands of high-wage jobs. Benefits to the private sector include improved plant performance and reduced business risk during new plant development."

Because both the public and private sectors stand to benefit from these strategies, the plan recommends that the research and development program necessary to implement them be pursued through a public-private partnership. The research effort would be managed by a team comprised of DOE, EPRI and Nuclear Energy Institute representatives.

View the plan.

Comment: Although I do not regard Light Water Reactors as the best long term option for the Nuclear Industry, they are the best short term option.  

The Energy Blog attempted to organize a discussion on the topic by asking the question, "it fair for the government to pay for the research?" Mike Keller seconded the question by asking, asks, "why should the US taxpayer foot the bill?"

Good question Mike. The answer is that Public investments are justified when the public receives large benefits form the investments, and where private investors may lack the resources to finance the investments on their own,

In the case of nuclear power, there is a very powerful case for public investments. The case includes the following:
1. Upwards of 20,000 Americans die every year from causes related to the use of coal to generate electricity. Replacing coal fired plants with non-carbon power sources will prolong the lives of those people.

2. Hundreds of thousands of Americas have health related problems that are adversely impacted by coal fly ash and other combustion products. Pollutants from coal fired power plants are responsible for many thousands of hospital and Emergency Room admissions every year. Insurance costs related to coal combustion caused illness runs into the 10's of billions of dollars. Part of the costs for these health problems fall on the federal government in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and other federally financed healthcare programs.

3. Further financial obligations for coal combustion related health care problems fall on state and local governments.

4. The Federal government has received far greater return on past investments in nuclear power, than it has received on investments in renewables research. Returns to the government include taxes paid on the income of nuclear power plants, and taxes paid on added economic activity attributable to the presence of low cost nucleargenerated electricity.

5. The adverse economic impact of CO2 emissions/global warming will have a negative impact on both the income and the expenses of the federal government. Partially financing the substitution of carbon free technology, for fossil fuel technologies will in the long run prevent declines in government revenues while lowering potential government mitigation expenses.

6. Of post-carbon technologies, nuclear power is by far the most reliable. Solar and wind generating facilities operated at an average capacity factor of 20%. Nuclear power plants operate year in and year out at a capacity factor of over 90%.

In the best of all possible worlds the government should not be subsidizing research that benefits private businesses. This is not the best of all possible worlds. At present private businesses are delivering power to our society in a way that kills substantial numbers of people every year.

At present the private businesses are delivering electricity in a way that makes hundreds of thousands of people sick, and generates tens of billions of dollars in health care expenses. The government has an obligation to the people of this country to protect the health of its people. Paying for nuclear power research is a legitimate way for the government to fulfill its obligation to protect the health of its citizens.

At present businesses deliver electrical power in ways that will in the long term create enormous liabilities for our society individually and collectively. It is a legitimate function of government to protect its citizens from predictable environmental harm, just as it is the legitimate function of government to protect its citizens from criminals and foreign invaders. Government investment in nuclear research is part of a governmental attempt to protect American citizens from environmental harm cased by greenhouse gas emissions. I might add that so far private business has not demonstrated a willingness to face the situation. Indeed many private businesses have operated in cavalier disregard for both their own best interest, and the best interest of the country. EXXON and other large businesses have been guilty of subsidizing public disinformation campaigns about global climate change. This goes beyond irresponsibility, and borders on the evil. Thus it is the responsibility of government to face what private business can't or won't.