MIT TechTV – 2010 David J. Rose Lectureship in Nuclear Technology

John Hodren lays our Obama Administration thinking about energy and climate change and inadvertently reveals some of its flaws. Not only does Dr. Holdren not Know what the LFTR is, but he clearly believes that LFTR technology is a priori impossible.
MIT TechTV – 2010 David J. Rose Lectureship in Nuclear Technology
David J. Rose Lectureship in Nuclear Technology
This distinguished lectureship honors the memory of David J. Rose (1922-1985), a renowned professor of nuclear engineering at MIT. The lectureship was established in December 1984 on the occasion of Professor Rose's retirement and in recognition of his work in fusion technology, energy, nuclear waste disposal, and his concern with ethical problems arising from advances in science and technology.

Professor Rose received his B.A.Sc. degree in engineering physics from the University of British Columbia in 1947 and his Ph.D. degree in Physics from MIT in 1950. When the Department of Nuclear Engineering at MIT was formed in 1958, David Rose was invited to join the faculty. He went on to lead the development of the Department’s program in plasmas and controlled fusion, and remained a member of the MIT faculty for the rest of his professional career.

Professor Rose's professional life encompassed three distinguished careers: scientist and engineer; technology/policy analyst; and bridge builder between the scientific and theological communities. He authored over 150 articles ranging from high technology to theology, and with Melville Clark wrote Plasmas and Controlled Fusion, which became the standard textbook in the field of fusion energy. Professor Rose's book, Learning About Energy, which drew on two decades of research and teaching on energy technology and policy, was published posthumously. Before joining the MIT faculty, Professor Rose was a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs. While on leave from MIT in the early 1970s he served as the first Director of the Office of Long Range Planning at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was honored as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. In 1975 Professor Rose received the Arthur Holly Compton Award of the American Nuclear Society for excellence in teaching, and at MIT he was the recipient of the James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award in 1979-80. In 1986, the Board of Directors of Fusion Power Associates established a prize to be presented annually for excellence in fusion engineering in honor of Professor Rose.

John Holdren
Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to joining the Obama administration Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.

Dr. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and is highly regarded for his work on energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's board of trustees.

During the Clinton administration Dr. Holdren served as a member of PCAST through both terms and in that capacity chaired studies requested by President Clinton on preventing theft of nuclear materials, disposition of surplus weapon plutonium, the prospects of fusion energy, U.S. energy R&D strategy, and international cooperation on energy-technology innovation. In December 1995 he gave the acceptance lecture for the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization of scientists and public figures in which he held leadership positions from 1982 to 1997.

Dr. Robert Hargraves is a very bright fellow. He thought of some of my best ideas before I did. I did not steal Dr. Hargraves ideas, but I may have borrowed a few. I think that I actually developed my ideas for a factory build, small LFTR before I read Dr. Hargraves Blog. There are actually a few variations between Dr. Hargraves visions and mine, but that is beside the point. Both of us think along similar lines about the advantages of small reactors and how to build them quickly, in expensively and in large numbers. Our thinking is directed to slightly different technologies. Dr. Harvraves offers us some interesting insights into technological advances since the 1970's that can contribute of PBR and for that matter LFTR technology. Anyone who is interested in Reactor safety, ought to read Dr. Hargraves discussion of PBR passive safety.

Of course not all of the ideas Dr. Hargraves presents are original with him. Some of them come from a little school called MIT. The MIT Pebble Bed Reactor web site is well worth the time the nuclear curious might spend poking around it. Clearly the MIT work on industrial production of PBRs is a starting point for anyone who wants to design a system of large scale LFTR production.

Looking at the MIT site raised some issues. For example, MIT cost studies based on 1992 data found that a 1100 MWs modular PBR generating facility would cost $2296 1992 dollars over night costs. This was not the sort of savings I would hope for. However, MIT did not engage in the sort of full court press model of reactor cost savings I advocate. Jim Holm proposed reusing old coal fired stem plants as sites for new nuclear facilities. MIT did not consider the economic advantages of Holm plan. Old power plant sites would be well suited to a modular approach, and would enable power production to closely approximate local grid capacity.. One way LFTRs would lower nuclear costs would be the very reduced need for nuclear waste handling and storage facilities. The 100 fold reduction of the nuclear waste problem with LFTR in one of the most significant advantages of that technology over the PBR approach, PBR waste would not only be far more expensive to store, but also far more expensive to reprocess, than LFTR waste would. But then one of the reasons why ORNL chose to examine the liquid fuel approach was the lower cost of fuel reprocessing that a liquid fuel would facilitate.

MIT researchers acknowledged the capital cost advantages of adding more reactors to a modular facility as demand increases, rather than building over capacity, in order to achieve economies of scale in a reactor. Hence an owner might buy 5 100 MWe PRR or LFTR units, thus lowering initial costs. Each unit can be in place ands producing electricity far sooner than a large reactor would be. Thus interest carrying costs would be substantially reduced.

Lowering the cost of electrical generating technology is going to be a major future concern. Research should be directed to lowering nuclear cost. Unfortunately the conventional method for lowering reactor costs is the economies of scale approach. This approach makes far less efficient use of labor that the factory production or factory produced modules approach. Even with reactors like the AP-1000, a conventional reactor designed to be built using factory produced modules, the rate of module production would be far lower, thus the savings entailed by serial production of modules will be far from fully realized. Clearly much more research on lowering nuclear cost should be conducted. Research needs to be directed to developing cost lowering stratigies, and to the potential for cost saving with Generation 4 technology.

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If there is to be a major LFTR effort, where should it take place? I would argue that ORNL would be the ideal place, because of its tradition of Liquid core reactors, even though ORNL stopped MSR research over a generation ago. Were INL to take responsibility for LFTR research, it would require new facilities and a new staff. INL has entirely devoted itself to solid core reactors, thus would have no advantage over ORNL as far as institutional memory is concerned. In fact INL long term commitment to solid core reactors would serve as a disadvantage as Lab staff struggled to understand the challenges of liquid core reactors.

The old K-25 site outside Oak Ridge could serve as the location of a LFTR factory. Ready access to Milton Hill Lake would allow whole reactor assemblies to be moved to destinations by barge.