NNadir Blogger Extraordinair

NNadir stopped blogging on Daily Kos about a year ago. His Daily Koss blog should be regarded as something of a treasure. He occasionally drops in to Energy From Thorium to read and comment on a discussion, but that is not his forte. I have attempted to induce him to blog on Nuclear Green, but so far he does not seem interested. Yet in addition to his Daily Kos Blog, Nnadir kept a second blog on Democratic Underground.com and there continues the threads he followed on his Daily Kos blog.

Nnader is probably an acquired taste. Yet he has a great deal of value to say, more perhaps than any other pro-nuclear blogger. His reach is far as well, For example he discusses “Oh. Oh. 'Renewable' Energy Journal Publishes Data on the Carbon Cost of Um, 'Renewable' Energy.”

“The values in table 7 in grams of CO2 per kwh:
Coal: 975.3
Oil fired 742.1
Gas fired 607.6
Nuclear 24.2
Wind 9.7–123.7
Solar PV 53.4–250
Biomass 35–178
Solar thermal 13.6–202
Hydro 3.7–237
For so called "renewable" energy schemes, the range is derived from the fact that renewable energy does not produce the same amounts of CO2 everywhere but is dependent on location.”

We also find, "The Operational Lifetime of Wind Turbines in Denmark: Government Data."

No “nuclear blogger” has written more on nuclear fuel reprocessing and about fission products than Nnader. For those of you who debate nuclear waste issues, reading NNadir on reprocessing and fission products is a must. Naadir typically is more interested in the Uranium as opposed to the thorium fuel cycle. But he has written about thorium. Thus it is not surprising that he is more interested in the reprocessing of fuel from conventional Light Water Reactors, and the use of fast breeders, than he has been in Molten Salt Reactors and thorium breeding. Nnadir is firmly in the nuclear camp and is a supporter of conventional nuclear technology. In an essay on , The Status of Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles,

“One may cavil about nuclear energy, but it is well understood that all of the usual - and largely ideological - objections aside, nuclear energy has the lowest external cost of all forms of scalable, continuous energy. By "external cost," we mean costs to the environment and human health - precisely the costs that are not paid "at the pump" or "at the outlet." Believe it or not, the external cost of nuclear energy is not only lower than all fossil fuels (by a large margin) but it is also lower than many more popular - if economically and energetically insignificant - renewable energy strategies. In fact, nuclear energy is safer than both solar energy and biomass energy, albeit in the former case, by a trivial margin. Depending on the nature of back-up and availability (and to some extent geography), nuclear energy is slightly less safe than hydroelectricity and wind power. However wind power is not continuous and hydropower is pretty much tapped out.”

In this essay, NNadir tells us a truth so simple that it has often been overlooked, yet is very important,:

In fact, so called "nuclear waste" is remarkable only in the sense that no one has ever died from it.”

This is what I would call called cutting to the chase.

Nnadar has extensively covered Indian fast breeder technology:

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt 1)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt 2)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt 3)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt 4)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt 5)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt. 6)

The Light of Day: India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor: Some Technical Comments. (Pt. 7)

To that list add,
Continuous Plutonium Recycling In India: Improvements in Reprocessing Technology.

As you begin to see, NNadir covers his topics in very considerable depth. He is facinated by Plutonium.
See also the Plutonium Vector

Neptunium also gets attention: More On the Element Neptunium, a Constituent of So Called "Dangerous Nuclear Waste."
NNadir also pays a great deal of attention to Fission Products. He informs us that “Supply of Rhodium in Used Nuclear Fuel To Exceed World Supply From Ores by 2030.”

And reveals that “Indians Publish A Method To Recover High Purity Palladium From Used Nuclear Fuel.”

Cessium is best known as a radioactive nuclear weapons fallout danger as NNadir reveals in:
Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining, Even Mushroom Clouds: Cs-137 and Watching the Soil Die.

Cessium in discharged reactor fuel comes in for a lot of NNadir attention:
Profile of a "Dangerous Nuclear Waste," Cesium. Part 1.

Profile of "A Dangerous Nuclear Waste:" Cesium Part 2.

Profile of A "Dangerous Nuclear Waste:" Cesium, Part 3.

Profile of a "Dangerous Nuclear Waste:" Cesium, Part 4.

Profile of a "Dangerous Nuclear Waste," Cesium, Part 5.

Other fission byprodycts include Technetium,
Unalloyed Fear: Technetium, an Element of "Dangerous Nuclear Waste" (Pt.2)

Deliberately Eating "Dangerous Nuclear Waste:" Technetium, Part 3.

And Tritum:
Profile of Radioactive Substance Associated With Nuclear Power: Tritium.

Clearly then NNadir was and continues to be a valued member of the pro-nuclear community who has made an outstanding and enduring contribution to us with his blogs.

The Oak Ridge Paradigm and the Thorium Cornucopia

I had the good fortune to grow up in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge was one of few places in the world where people held a comprehensive view of the future. Oak Ridge scientists, including my father, were warning in the 1970's of the long term climate consequences of burning coal for energy. During the 1970's environmental activists like Amory Lovins touted the use of Coal in preference to carbon free nuclear power. Not only were Oak Ridge scientists extraordinarily far sighted in their understanding the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels, they were equally far sighted in their understanding of the importance of cO2 emissions for global climate stability. ORNL scientists were aware of the work of Jay Forrester, Dennis Meadows, and the Club of Rome, and rejected their pessimistic conclusions about the future availability of resources to support human society.

During the 1960's Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers had commissioned an independent study by Rice University geologists, found that a huge deposit of thorium in Vermont. The report's findings, backed by famed Geologist M. King Hubbert, were that

Thus the importance of the present work on the Conway granite lies in the indication that tens of millions of tons of thorium are available when the need for vast amounts of higher-cost nuclear fuel becomes pressing. . . . the long-term future of nuclear power is not limited by the supply or by a prohibitively high cost of fuel. Furthermore, the Conway granite may become even more important considering the likelihood that improved extraction techniques may make the thorium available at costs well below the $100/pound estimated in preliminary laboratory experiments. It is also possible that larger amounts of lower-cost thorium might be realized by locating high-grade ore reserves such as the Lemhi Pass, Idaho, area may prove to be or by finding a large granitic batholith more economic than the Conway.

The probability of a very large, and previously unidentified world thorium reserves, with previously worthless land, suddenly being identified as containing very large thorium deposits.

During the 1950's and 1960's ORNL researchers focused on the Molten Salt Reactor, a radical new approach to reactor design to as a means of efficiently converting thorium into nuclear fuel. This approach was first suggested to ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg by Chemist Raymond C. Briant. Oak Ridge scientists remained confident that the thorium fuel cycle Molten Salt Breeder Reactor could serve as a source of enormous amounts of future energy, despite the hostility of ARC officials who were in conflict with ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg over a number of Issues including nuclear safety (see the story here, here, and here). By the mid-1970's ORNL researchers knew that if the development of thorium breeding Molten Salt Reactors could be continued long enough, the project could be brought to a successful conclusion. A 1974 ORNL report stated

Tke objective of developing breeder reactors is to obtain a reliable and abundant source of energy through efficient use of our uranium and thorium resources. Molten-salt breeder reactors have attributes of fuel utilization, economics, and safety that make them well suited to this objective. . . . Because they differ in many aspects from solid-fuel fast breeder reactors, MBRs provide good insurance for the nation's energy supply in case major obstacles are encountered by the other concepts. In addition, the ability of the molten-salt reactor to be started up as a breeder or operated economically as a converter on plutonium, 235U, or 233U makes it particularly suitable as a companion for other types of reactors in a balanced fuel economy. It is believed that a strongly motivated and adequately funded program can lead to molten-salt breeder reactors that can play a major role in providing for our future energy needs.

It should be noted that that ORNL was not the only institution which believed thorium to be a long term energy solution. Indian atomic energy researchers, noting that India had far more Thorium than Uranium resources, decided to launch a research and development program with the use of its local thorium. The Indian plan was nothing if not complex, with a requirement for three separate types of reactors and several different types of fuel reprocessing plants. In contrast, ORNL's plans only required one basic reactor type, which had its own fuel processing technology embedded into the basic reactor design. Despite this added complexity, the ORNL reactor turned out to be simpler than any of the three Indian reactors.

The use of the low cost, thorium breeding molten salt reactor. the LFTR, as a source of large amounts of virtually inexhaustible supply of energy, was the Oak Ridge paradigm, but hidden within the paradigm was the secret of the thorium cornucopia. The LFTR was designed to be a fission engine that was far more efficient than previous reactors. That efficiency gave rise to a stream of materials, that was a byproduct of the nuclear fission process. Critics of Nuclear power would describe that stream as nuclear waste. But many of the stable fission byproducts that leave a reactor are not dangerous, and in fact are valuable minerals like Neodymium, an rare but essential material that will be much in demand in a post carbon economy, and Palladium a rare and valuable mineral which is often used as a chemical catalyst, but also has uses in jewelry and electronics. These an many other valuable materials can be extracted from the stream of stable fission byproducts that are produced from reactors. Even radioactive fission products have their uses in an industrial economy.

Thus the LFTR will provide a virtually inexhaustible stream of exactly the sort of minerals which the Club of Rome insists will be in such short supply that civilization will collapse due to their absence. But fission products are not the only minerals that the thorium economy will produce. Numerous minerals including rare earths and phosphate are found in association with thorium ore. So called low grade thorium ore, can be recovered with a favorable energy return is used as a LFTR fuel source. Thorium in concentrations as low as 10 parts per million an be mined with attractive energy returned on energy invested. Associated minerals can be recovered along with the thorium. Thus low concentration rare earths and phosphate ores can be recovered as part of thorium mining while maintaining as positive energy rate of return. The Club of Rome particularly points to phosphate shortages as a future threat to civilization and indeed to human life. Thus an assured source of phosphate will be of great future importance. Because the recovery of thorium will basically pay for the mining operation, the other recovered materials, including phosphate will simply add to the thorium related product stream.

Finally a third materials stream can be developed from nuclear desalinization. The desalinization process leaves a mineral rich brine as a by product. Many minerals, like lithium dissolved in the sea water, that might not be economically recoverable directly from the sea, would be recoverable from the brine. Thus minerals that might not be economically recoverable from the sea, could be recovered at market competitive prices.

Thus the world created by a thorium based economy will be one of relative material abundance, with minerals produced as byproducts of thorium recovery and use, playing an important role in maintaining the material basis of human civilization and human life.

The LFTR Answers RMI's Objections to Nuclear Power

The Rocky Mountain Institute has identified a number of problems with the system of providing nuclear power through the use of Light Water Reactors. I agree in whole or in part with their assessment of LWRs. However, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor brilliantly all of the problems that the RMI points to. The RMI states:

It's too expensive. Nuclear power has proved much more costly than projected — and more to the point, more costly than most other ways of generating or saving electricity. If utilities and governments are serious about markets, rather than propping up pet technologies at the expense of ratepayers, they should pursue the best buys first.

Not only are LWRs but also renewable generating facilities are extremely expensive. The LFTR creates multiple potentials for cost breakthroughs:

1. Factory construction of small reactors, rather than onsite construction of large reactors.

2. Innovative approaches to reactor siting including reuse of old power plant sites, underground reactor placement, and underwater reactor placement.

3. Labor savings in reactor manufacture and operation.

4. Decreased interest carrying cost by greatly shortening manufacturing time.

5. Decreased facility building requirements.

6. An innovative approach to nuclear fuel that eliminates fuel enrichment and fabrication costs.

7. Eliminating the need for 95% of nuclear waste storage facilities.

8. Low cost inherent and passive reactor safety features, that rely on the laws of nature prevent
safety problems, rather than expensive engineered safety work around for safety issues.  

The RMI states:

Nuclear power plants are not only expensive, they're also financially extremely risky because of their long lead times, cost overruns, and open-ended liabilities.

By building reactors in factories, and taking advantage of the many cost lowering features of the LFTR, the financial risks associated with the construction of nuclear power plants can be avoided.  Factory built LFTR can be delivered, set up and be running within a few months of the initial order. Factory production methods assure price. The order price is the price electrical utilities will pay. Because of the inherent and passive safety features LFTR, the threat of nuclear accidents will no longer have the potential to create large open-ended liabilities.

The RMI states:

Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide — but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change.

The LFTR will dramatically lower not only nuclear construction costs, but cost less to build than renewable electrical generating facilities with similar 24 hour a day electrical generating capacities. Thus the LFTR will be the lowest cost path to reduction of CO2 emissions, and and thus to fighting climate change.

The RMI states:

And of course nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal and the proliferation of potential nuclear weapons material. (However, RMI tends to stress the economic arguments foremost because they carry more weight with decision-makers.)

By its efficient use of thorium based nuclear fuel, the LFTR will greatly reduce the volume of reactor product. The problem of long lived, radioactive transuranium elements in spent fuels is eliminated. The small amount of transuranium elements produced by LFTRs can be extracted from fuel and reused as nuclear fuel in special reactors. The IAEA has designated the LFTR as a proliferation resistant technology. Unlike traditional reactors, the LFTR does not produce "nuclear waste" or "spent fuel". All of the fission products from LFTRs are usable in a a variety of settings, and some materials are extremely valuable. The liquid nature of LFTR fuel makes the recovery of fission products possible. Many fission products from the thorium fuel cycle lose their radioactivity quickly, and become stable. They can be used almost immediately, while other fission products may remain radioactive longer, and may be stored until they are safe to use. Finally long term radiation emitters can be use in medicine, industry, food preservation, sanitation, and for other purposes. Thus reactor fission products are a resource to be used, and by efficiently using them the so called problem of "nuclear waste" will be eliminated.

C.J. Barton, Sr. at ORNL: Into the 1960's

In the late 1950’s my father was nearing 50. He had come back from a major political problem , a conflict with his boss Warren Grimes over my fathers stand in opposition to local liquor sales. Along the way he had contributed to the way scientist’s design and use an important research tool, the gloveboxes. The glovebox research had come about because he had been asked to do research that required glove box use. His research problem had been to establish if it ware possible to use Plutonium as a fuel in Molten Salt Reactors. Plutonium is a very dangerous material to work with, and there had been fires and accidents involving glovebox research in the past. My father had , by the late 1950's reached an age at which many scientists begin to loose their productivity, but his most productive years at ORNL lay ahead of him.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s some ORNL research focus shifted from experiments with exotic liquid fuel reactors, to questions concerning the light water reactor. The success of the Atomic submarine had caught many people’s attention. Admiral Hyman Rickover had a far more narrow focus than Alvin Weinberg, and Eugene Wigner. Rickover was a navy man and the navy liked boilers, because they were the traditional way to power ships. A light water reactor is in fact a reactor inside a boiler. Not only does the water cool the reactor, it also slows down the neutrons that cause a chain reaction. But ordinary water does not do as good job of promoting a chain reaction as graphite or “heavy water reactors” do. Hence LWRs need more U235 to keep their chain reaction going.

Rickover saw that the light water reactor could power for more than submarines. it could also be useful for powering surface ships, and Rickover realized, civilian power plants. Rickover had pushed for the development of reactors large enough to power aircraft carriers. President Eisenhower had called for the development of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the aircraft carrier reactor allowed Rickover to kill two birds with one stone. Rickover donated a naval reactor to serve as a prototype civilian power reactor. At the same time, the navy was still able to do research with the reactor.

The Shippingport reactor thus became the prototype civilian power reactor. And virtually every functioning power reactor since has been a light water reactor. The Light Water reactor was an ORNL project and the staff of ORNL from Alvin Weinberg downward was aware of its flaws and weaknesses. One of the problems of the light water reactor was what could be called its intrinsic safety issues.

Light water reactors are supposed to heat water, and hot water, under pressure is a difficult medium to work with. There was always a danger that a leak could develop somewhere in the plumbing. If the coolant started leaking, then the temperature inside the reactor would start to rise. This would intern increase the pressure inside the reactor pressure vessel, and force more water out. Thus a loss of containment accident could turn disastrous.

Research at ORNL increasingly turned to the question of what could happen in the event of a light water reactor accident. That was where George Parker came in. Parker was the ORNL Reactor Chemistry Division’s leading expert on the behavior of radioisotopes in reactor accidents. Parker was like my father, a senior scientist, who was more comfortable in a lab than in a staff meeting.

My father, who had speech difficulties, was a good writer. Parker was not. My father was assigned in 1960 to work with George Parker, if only to help Parker to get his ideas and research on paper. My father was to later say that his role was to interpret George Parker to the world. But the fact that my father was lead author of some of their papers tells me that my father was taking the lead is some of their joint research. The two scientists hit it off, and became within the confines of the laboratory friends. My father greatly admired George Parker, who he considered to be a gifted scientist.

The two scientists worked together to gain a picture of what would happen in the case of a nuclear accident. They studied a chain of events that began with the overheating of fuel elements, to the breach of reactor fuel containment within the reactor, the melting of reactor fuel, and the behavior of molten reactor fuel. They traced the escape of radioisotopes from the confines of a reactor. It is probably safe to say that they made themselves into some of the worlds leading experts on fission product release in reactor accidents, and indeed the wrote the Chapter on Fission Product release in a 1973 Reactor Textbook, “The Technology of Nuclear Safety.”

Thus 20 years before the Three Mile Island accident G.W. Parker and C.J. Barton Sr., had a good idea what would happen if such an accident were to occur.

For most of my fathers first dozen years at Oak Ridge his writing was confined to internal reports, and other research related documents. But beginning in 1960, he began publishing papers in Nuclear Safety, and other scientific journals. At the same time, My father was writing a major technical report with George Parker and two other associates, “Fuel Element Catastrophe Studies: Hazards of Fission Product Release from Irradiated Uranium.”

That study was followed up in 1962 by a Nuclear Safety paper that my father coauthored with R.E. Adams, W.E Browning, and Parker, a paper on “Particle and Fission Product Behavior in Nuclear Accidents.”

During the early 1960’s my father became involved in an amazing diversity of studies. He continued to do Molten Salt research for the Reactor Chemistry Division. In addition nuclear fusion was becoming a focus at ORNL and he and R. A. Strehlow were asked to do research on how electric power might be extracted from a Thermonuclear Reactor. They propose a blanket approach, which turned high-energy neutrons into heat.

My father was also became involved in research about environmental contamination by radioisotope discharged from the Oak Ridge facilities.

Update: I have been reviewing my father's papers and have found a detailed account of his career. In a few matters, my father, who will be 96 on the 16th of this month, appears to have forgotten a few details. His memory for dates is not always accurate. He simply has for gotten exactly when things happened. On the other hand, he told me several stories that were not included in his earlier account. I plan to scan his most interesting papers, and post them. I must have to say that what my father writes is more interesting than anything I have said.