Was Alvin Weinberg a Team Player?

I generally have high regard for Rod Adams work. Rod's blog posts are evidence driven, and Rod almost never jumps the track, but this morning he did in a comment on Nuclear Green. The comment was a response to my recent post on Alvin Weinberg's integrity. Rod wrote

I am not sure why you think Weinberg was so correct about his safety concerns with light water reactors. Certainly they are not "inherently safe" and they require care in design, manufacturing and operation, but the safety record of the machines that caused Weinberg so much worry has been extraordinary all around the world.

Sometimes I think that the real answer to why Weinberg was fired was that he was not a team player and was so sure of his own knowledge that he overlooked the fact that others were just as smart and just as concerned about the welfare of their fellow man.

I cut my nuclear teeth on light water reactors. One of the most intellectually difficult tasks I had every year was coming up with some kind of reasonable scenario for our annually required "reactor accident" drill. My down to earth technicians and I just could not figure out how those thick stainless steel pipes were supposed to suddenly burst open.

These comments were most unfortunate. Rod appears to have made this comment without being aware of a number of Nuclear Green posts that would have better established the relationship of the nuclear safety issues to Weinberg's firing. Since I have offered a number of reasonably well documented posts on Weinberg's firing, Rod seemingly has ignored the available evidence and has not offered other evidence in support of his contentions.

Since my discussion of the evidence regarding the major actors in the Weinberg firing is quite extensive, I will point to relevant posts rather than discuss the evidence at length. First I noted what is arguably the unconstitutional authority which Congressman Chet Holifield exercised over the AEC. Hiring and firing decisions are made by persons with executive authority in an organization, yet Alvin Weinberg was invited to the office of a member of the legislative branch of government to be told that he was hired. Constitutionally, Congressman Holifield had no right to fire Alvin Weinberg. I have tried to point out that the safety nuclear safety conflict that formed part of the back drop of Weinberg's firing was not between and Weinberg and the Holifield clique, it was between the community of National Laboratory scientists. I have tried to lay out the issues that motivated that conflict. In fact Rod Adam's comment sheds some light on the attitude of Milton Shaw who played a major role in the safety conflict. Rod argued,

One of the most intellectually difficult tasks I had every year was coming up with some kind of reasonable scenario for our annually required "reactor accident" drill. My down to earth technicians and I just could not figure out how those thick stainless steel pipes were supposed to suddenly burst open.

Robert Pool described the difference of attitudes between the national laboratory scientific community and ex-Navy reactor developer Milton Shaw,

Milton Shaw, the head of the AEC's Division of Reactor Development and Technology, was convinced that such safety research was reaching the point of diminishing returns. An old Rickover protege, Shaw saw light-water reactors as a mature technology. The key to the safety of commercial power plants, he thought, was the same thing that had worked so well for the navy reactor program: thick books of regulations specifying every detail of the reactors, coupled with careful oversight to make sure the regulations were followed to the letter.

In fact the Three Mile Island accident was to show that the civilian Light Water Reactor had not reached a level of maturity comparable to that of Naval Light Water Reactors which Shaw (and Rod Adams) assumed.

Post Three Mile Island the civilian Light Water Reactor did reach an outstanding level of safety, but at a considerable cost. As I have documented, Alvin Weinberg's conflict with Milton Shaw had to do with an experiment which involved deliberately destroying a reactor in order to find out what happened. The worse case that concerned the scientists was the China syndrome, a core melting through all containment. A reactor was being built in Idaho in order to conduct this experiment. Shaw decided that the reactor was not needed, and stopped further construction. Dozens of National Laboratory scientists objected to the scrapping of what was considered an important nuclear safety experiment, and testified before Congress. Weinberg agreed with them, but did not take his disagreement to the level of Congressional testimony. Eventually the Three Mile Island accident was to substitute for for the Idaho nuclear accident experiment.

Rod tells us,

Sometimes I think that the real answer to why Weinberg was fired was that he was not a team player and was so sure of his own knowledge that he overlooked the fact that others were just as smart and just as concerned about the welfare of their fellow man.

My evidence suggests that Holiway, Ramsey and Shaw failed to exercise proper leadership. Holiway, as I have indicated exercised executive authority over the AEC even though he was not entitled to by the constitution. Ramsey's appointment as an AEC Commissioner had been dictated to the Kennedy Administration by Holifield. Ramsey was in fact a member of Holifield's staff, and after his appointment continued to engage in the subordinate relationship with Holifield, continuing to report to him. Shaw improperly turned decision making about a personnel matter, Weinberg's status as a National Laboratory Director to Holifield.

Considering the misconduct of all of the key players, the alligation that Weinberg was not a team player does not hold true. There is more evidence. The Nixon administration appears to have decided to attack the power of the Hloifield clique. When Ramsey's appointment came up for renewal, he was not reappointed by Nixon. His replacement was Dixie Lee Ray, who was soon appointed AEC Chairman. Ray proceeded to outmannuver Shaw, who was forced to resign. Holifield was shorn of his power and decided to not run for reelection in 1974. Ray, now had a chance to right the wrong done by the Weinberg firing episode, and she did so, by arranging for Weinberg to come to Washing as the first Director of Energy Research. Weinberg's appointment, if I am not mistaken involved directly reporting to the President. Weinberg was not happy with his position, and left it after a year, but this appointment should be taken as evidence that Weinberg was viewed as a team player.

Was the Advent of the Power Reactor Premature?

The Light Water Reactor has never been an unqualified success. It is perceived as dangerous by many people, the disposition of its spent fuel remains a matter of political controversy, and it is often alleged, quite wrongly, to be a useful nuclear proliferation tool. In addition the light water reactor has taken much criticism because building it in the size deemed most effective is extremely expensive, and takes a long time.

Many of the charges against the light water reactor are exaggerated or simply untrue. No one is his or her right mind would base a nuclear arms program on light water nuclear technology, and while light water reactor safety may be expensive, they are safe.

The once through fuel nuclear cycle leads to the supposed problem of nuclear waste. The anti-nuclear fanatics love to play games over the issue, charging that disposing of used nuclear fuel would lead to all forts of future hazards for the environment and the future of humanity, and then opposing any attempt to solve the issue. The basic problem with used nuclear fuel, is that over 99% of the energy in mined uranium is not tapped. The most common proposal to solve that problem involves the development of expensive fast breeders, that also posse potential safety issues, and are sure to draw the fire of the anti-proliferation crowd.

The Light Water Reactors have proven by now that they can be safely managed. This has been proven by the safety record of the American nuclear fleet, and by the post Three Mile Island record of the American Nuclear Industry. But was the American nuclear power industry safe enough between 1960's and 1980's? This is not an inconsiderable question because we have seen that reactor scientists in Oak Ridge ands Idaho were dissatisfied with the safety of American power reactors at that time. Although leadership of the Washington nuclear establishment discounted the scientists concerns, they did so for reasons that were in no way valid. Their argument's against the scientists complaints assumed conditions in the American Nuclear Industry which the political insiders knew to not be the case.

Thus AEC reactor czar Milton Shaw, AEC Commissioners Ramsey and Seaborg, and Powerful Congressman Chet Holifield all favored a rapid push toward nuclear power, arguing that its safety was assured and no further nuclear safety research was needed. They were wrong. The Navy had solved the safety problem of its Light Water Reactors, but the Much larger Civilian Light Water Reactors were in no wise as safe. The concerns of the reactor scientists were justified by the Three Mile Island accident. The Three Mile Island accident revealed serious safety issues including:

* No automatic reactor shut down when the reactor was unsafe to operate.

* No system to notify operators that important nuclear safety systems were off line.

* Operators could override safety systems when they started to operate.

* System instrumentation was so poorly designed and confusing that it failed to provide reactor staff with assistance in diagnosing the reactor problem.

* Reactor staff was poorly trained and mistakenly shut down back up safety system when it came on line.

The existence of these problems suggests that serious systematic problems existed in the nuclear power industry and the the NRC. Many of the problems were not immediately cured as an aftermath of the Three Mile Island Incident, and by 1985 the problems with the TVA reactor fleet and its management were so bad that the entire fleet was ordered shut down. TVA reactors required major repairs and revisions, and the last of the shut down reactor was not brought back into service until 2007.

The truth is that both the reactor designer/builders, and the reactor managers were not prepared for their tasks, and the NRC did not set rigorous safe reactor design and operation standards and begin to demand that they be meet until after Three Mile Island. Once it did, and signaled to the Nuclear Industry that it intended to enforce its standards, the Nuclear Industry responded and nuclear power became significantly more safe.

Given the history of nuclear power up to Three Mile Island, it would appear that the emergence of the American Nuclear power industry in the 1960's and 1970's was premature. in several respects.

*

The civilian reactor manufactures had not mastered safe reactor design.

* The NRC regulation of nuclear safety issues was inadequate.

* Reactor owners lacked nuclear management skills.

* Reactor operators were poorly trained.

Eventually, after Three Mile Island the reactor builders began to develop safer designs, the NRC set a strong system of safety standards, and strongly enforced them. Nuclear management gained understanding of its takes, and the skills to perform them, and nuclear operators were better trained.

There are two fundamental problems with this history. The first is that no one acknowledge the trajectory of nuclear safety history. That is the historical movement toward safer nuclear power plants. The apologists for nuclear power frequently ignore the immaturity of the nuclear power industry prior to Three Mile Island. The critics of the nuclear power industry consistently refuse to acknowledge how far the industry has come since Three Mile Island.

The second fundamental problem is that no one recognizes the deep relationship between nuclear safety and nuclear costs. This relationship was built into the light water reactor. The Navy adopted the light water reactor, not because it was cheap, but because it was useful. In fact the high cost of the Navy's reactor design has proven a long term impediment to the emergence of an al nuclear powered fleet. The Navy cannot afford to power all of its ships with reactors. Nuclear powered submarines are so much more useful that nuclear power on them is cost effective, and Aircraft Carriers are very expensive anyway.

No one realized it at the time, but the choice of the light water reactor wedded the world's nuclear power industry to an expensive technology. In 1960 there were no other options, but then the first nuclear era did not have to be rushed either.

In retrospective it seems clear that the emergence of the American Nuclear Power Industry should have occurred at a far slower pace. In addition the choice of the light water reactor as the primary electrical generation technology was also a mistake. More research could and should have been devoted to finding safer, lower cost nuclear options.

Electrical Reliability and Wind Redundancy

I have an Internet friend, NT, who lives at the very southern tip of India. We frequently chat on line, our conversation are windows into life in India. Our conversations are frequently interrupted by power outages, which crash my friends computer. I had no idea why those outages occurred so frequently, until I recently learned that electricity for NT's community is generated by two small conventional power plants and a large wind farm. NT has electricity when the wind is blowing, but local electrical demand can overwhelm the output of the small electrical plants, in the absence of a brisk breeze. At periods of high electrical demand the result is a blackout that only is reversed when the wind starts blowing again. When NT's computer crashes because of an electrical blackout, that may be the end of our conversation for the rest of the day. According to NT outages could last for hours, and it was often impossible to predict when electrical services would resume.

People in the United States could adjust to such conditions, but would they want too? Until very recently I lived in Dallas, Texas. Summers in Dallas can be blisteringly hot. Hotter in fact than NT's home town of Kanyakumari, where the summer temperature seldom rises about 95 F. In contrast the average Dallas temperature in July and August is 96 F, with as many as 59 100 degree days having been observed. The Dallas heat can be a health hazard to older people with heart conditions. Thus air conditioning in Dallas is not a luxury, it is a matter of public health. In 2003 when Dallas like summer heat descended on Western Europe, 50,000 people died. Thus electrical reliability in Texas is not a matter of personal connivance, it is a matter of public health.

Thus when a famous energy expert claims

there is not and has never been a need for any particular plant or kind of plant to run all the time, . .

what is he really saying? Does our expert mean that reliability is not a desirable characteristic?

Our expert alleges,

All power plants fail, varying only in their failures’ size, duration, frequency, predictability, and cause. Solar cells’ and windpower’s variation with night and weather is no different from the intermittence of coal and nuclear plants, except that it affects less capacity at once, more briefly, far more predictably, and is no harder and probably easier and cheaper to manage. In short, the ability to serve steady loads is a statistical attribute of all plants on the grid, not an operational requirement for one plant. Variability (predictable failure) and intermittence (unpredictable failure) must be managed by diversifying type and location, forecasting, and integrating with other resources. Utilities do this every day, balancing diverse resources to meet fluctuating demand and offset outages. Even with a largely (or probably a wholly) renewable grid, this is not a significant problem or cost, either in theory or in practice—as illustrated by areas that are already 30-40% wind-powered.”

This is a very cleaver argument, but there is an error. What differentiates base load power from other generation sources in not a never fail reliability, but low generation cost. Base load power is low cost power, and the reason grid operators seek it out, is because it is available day in and day out at a low cost. Since the grid operator is interested in fulfilling customer demand at the lowest cost, the operator seeks to contract with the lowest cost power source for power as much time as possible. The fact that low cost power providers may be also highly reliable operators is a significant plus for the grid operators, because he or she does not does not have to contract with higher cost power providers at periods of high power demand.

The problem for the grid operator is that electricity must be provided, no matter the energy costs. Our way of life is dependent on reliable electricity, and not just for air conditioning. Consider the the great blackouts of 1965, 1977 and 2003. The August 14-15, 2003 blackout shut down many cities in the United States and Canada. Cost estimates vary, but the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA) estimated the direct costs of the blackout on Ohio manufacturers to be $1.08 billion. Numerous large manufacturing plants were shut down for a day. Ontario set asside $75 million to compensate local governments for their blackout related expenses, and lost revenue. Utilities lost between one and two billion dollars, and the total losses for the day long blackout may have been as high as $10 billion. Clearly then the electrical reliability problems which my friend NT experiences in India would not be considered acceptable in the United States.

The baseload issue then is the balance between grid reliability and low electrical cost. If the wind capacity factor were .30 and the capacity factor for nuclear is .90, at least 1000 MW wind farms would be required to produce as much electricity as one reactor 1000 MW reactor. But a wind system with three generator is not likely to be as reliable as the reactor. In Archer and Jacobson suggest that it would take at least five 1000 MW wind farms to begin to approach a reactor's reliability, and that a wind array containing seven wind farms would still not be as reliable as a single reactor. The seriousness of the redundancy problem is illustrated by Peter Hawkins' case study of German wind.

Germany’s 22,000 MW of wind, with a capital cost of about $40 billion, is really effectively a capacity of only about 4,000 MW in terms of production capability. As a result, the wind plants in Germany represent 16 per cent of the total capacity (MW), but only about 5 percent of the electricity production (MWh).

By increasing their wind capacity to 48,000 MW in 2020, the germans hope to be able to increase their wind generated electrical output to 13% of their generation total. But the added 26,000 MWs of wind capacity would cost at least $100 billion. actually it probably would cost more because in order to increase their wind capacity factor, the Germans would be required to build offshore wind generators, and German offshore wind is proving to be as expensive. The German Alpha Venture offshore project has a name plate generating capacity of 60 MW and cost $375 million to build. That is $6.25 watt, a cost that lands German wind squarely in the nuclear cost range for much less reliability and a far shorter life span. But from a carbon reduction standpoint the increase in German wind capacity will not lead to a decrease in German CO2 emissions. At least not if the German Left gets its way and shutdown all German reactors by 2020. The 26,000 MWs of German wind generators would not even begin to approach the displaced electrical generation of German reactors. No wonder German

wind integration study, which covers the period to 2020, did not project CO2 emissions beyond 2015.

The shutdown of German reactors would increase absolute amount of CO2 emitted in the generation of German electricity, That does not really matter to German Greens, whose insane hostility to nuclear power knows no bounds. The Greens would clearly prefer to destruction of human life on this planet to the toleration of nuclear power.

Renewables advocates argue that the limitations of wind can be countered by adding solar generation to the renewables mix. But given the limitations of renewables, renewable advocates have found only three methods of making renewables reliable:

1. Burn a lot of natural gas whenever renewable generated electricity is in short supply.

2. When renewable output is high, save the surplus in some form of energy storage.

3. Build transmission systems from areas where surplus generation is possible, to areas where electrical supplies would be inadequate due to the limitations of local renewable resources.

Each of these approaches has serious flaws. The first approach is unsatisfactory because it fails to eliminate carbon emissions from the electrical generation system.

The second approach is advocated by a report titled Energy Self Reliant States. The word storage is repeated over and over in this report:

Very high penetration rates will require new developments in electricity storage. . . .
establish a system of widely distributed and abundant storage that would change the very underpinnings and assumptions of an electricity system designed without storage in mind. . . .
Some renewable fuels, like sunlight and wind, are variable. Thus the estimates, especially for wind, assume a significant level of storage or on-demand distributed generation. . . .
sufficient electricity storage . . .
sufficient electricity storage . . .
These investments should be designed to allow the integration of many variable and dispersed generators as well as growing amounts of distributed storage. . . .
To achieve very high proportions of our electricity from variable renewable energy sources will require very significant amounts of storage and/or a restructuring of our electricity system to rely on more natural gas-fired distributed backup generators. The electricity storage sector has seen many technological and commercial developments. This report does not examine storage and its implications but in our analysis of variable renewable energy potential we assume sufficient storage is available. . . .

The report argues:

that a new extra high voltage inter-regional transmission network may not be needed to improve network reliability, relieve congestion and expand renewable energy. The focus should be on upgrading the transmission, subtransmission and distribution systems inside states. These investments should be designed to allow the integration of many variable and dispersed generators as well as growing amounts of distributed storage. New in-state transmission lines may well be needed but these will probably be lower voltage lines. In any event, they should be built only after maximizing energy efficiency and the use of existing transmission capacity.

Energy efficiency and demand reduction, as well as the use of distributed generation, can free up significant amounts of distribution and transmission capacity.

But what would such a storage system cost? Tom Konrad. a renewables advocate suggests that

On a national basis, such storage would cost an estimated $13 Trillion, or over 65 times the cost of the transmission investments they oppose.

Konrad argues that by connecting low renewable resource states with electricity produced in high resource states, much of the cost of storage could be avoided. Konrad argues that a $700 billion transmission system could be substituted for the $13 trillion storage system. However, Konrad's estimate is presented with out the sort of detailed analysis that would back up his claims. Before the $700 Billion estimate is accepted, it would have to be tested against a worst case scenario.

Even if we accept Konrad's cost estimate for the total transmission package, we have to weigh that against lower cost alternatives. The Babcock & Wilcox, small mPower reactor is expected to cost less than $3500 per kW. MPower reactors can be located on the grounds of old coal fired power plants. close to target electrical markets, eliminating the need to expand the current grid, or alternatively add very large and hugely expensive grid storage components. A $700 Billion investment in mPower reactors would buy half of the current generation demand. Given that practically immortal reactors now produce about 20% of our electricity, the other 30% of the electricity could be had for another reactor investment of $400 billion or less. Furthermore, reactors can be situated close to the sea coast, where their now wasted heat can be set to work producing massive amounts of fresh water. The sale of water thus would add to the nuclear revenue stream, while adding little to nuclear costs. The $400 billion reactor investment would end the necessity of investing several trillion dollars in renewable generation capacity, and the all nuclear system would be be far more reliable than either renewables plus storage or renewables plus new long distance transmission. In addition the nuclear system would offer significant new water source for areas now experiencing water shortages.

Thus the fallacy in the "base load fallacy" argument is its failure to acknowledge the relationship between electrical reliability and electrical costs. The name plate capacity costs of renewable electricity means little. What will matter in a post carbon grid is the cost of reliable electricity, and nuclear generated electricity, even conventional nuclear generated electricity would cost far less than a renewables plus storage or a renewables plus transmission approach. The only other renewables reliability approach would involve the unacceptable emissions of large amounts of CO2. Thus, nuclear power can supply reliable electricity at a far lower cost than renewables, and would not extract a carbon penalty.

Letters to Jesse: 1 Labor and Factories.

Jesse Jenkins is the Director of Energy and Climate Policy of the The Breakthrough Institute, an active Energy/Environment Blogger, and an active participant on the Energy Collective. Yesterday Marc Gunther posted an essay on Lemar Alexander's recent speech on land use. Marc's post is titled Nuclear power: An inconvenient solution. I commented,

Lemar Alexander's most useful role may be to provide political cover for Democrats who are beginning to see the light on renewables. My own case studies, over the last two years, suggest that nuclear power will be less expensive than renewables, and far more reliable. The case for energy efficiency is seriously flawed, and energy efficiency may never yield its projected benefits. That leaves nuclear as the only viable option. The question will not be, should we invest in nuclear? The right question is what form of nuclear will give us the lowest cost power, and what form of nuclear will produce the most rapid deployment. So far Senator Alexander is following the conventional nuclear route. This my not be, however, the best plan for a nuclear future. For far to often the advocates of nuclear power have been stuck in trying to defend it, without considering what would be the best form for nuclear to take. I have tried to point to alternatives, lower cost and faster routs, I hope that others will see the point in future discussions of a nuclear future.

Jesse responded,

Charles, nuclear power cannot be the only viable option. If it is, we will not see the world transition sufficiently to clean/low-carbon power sources. To de-carbonize the global energy supply and transition away from coal and oil over the next 50 years while keeping up with growing global wealth and energy demand, we will have to provide 2-3 times the total global energy supply entirely from clean energy sources. And that's assuming the world becomes 2/3rds more efficient overall (matching nation's like Japan's energy intensity of economic activity). Nuclear power, while a viable and probably necessary component of that mix, cannot fill the entire gap. No single technology can. I'm open to and increasingly supportive of nuclear power in our energy mix. I wish nuclear power advocates were not insistent on knocking down every other alternative in order to build the case for nuclear. We're going to need a lot of energy from a lot of sources, and not all will be anyone's definitely of ideal. Time to get the scale of our energy challenge clear, prioritize a portfolio of energy sources, and make the investments necessary to catalyze their development and deployment.

I suspected that Jesse did not know a lot about nuclear power, but at this point might be open to a dialogue, so I wrote back,

Jesse I would be happy to hold a serious conversation with you about the potential of nuclear power. My view is quite different than yours. I believe that I have identified nuclear deployment approaches that would be far more effective than your assumptions would allow. If you are interested in talking, let me know.

Jesse's response was very encouraging,

Hi Charles,
Do you write here for theEnergyCollective.com? This would be a great forum for you to sketch out your vision for nuclear power expansion. The trick will be providing on the order of 15-30 terawatts of carbon-free power by 2050 and 25-45 TW by 2100. Can nuclear scale to that magnitude? That would be my question for you. Thanks for your honest answers.

So it is 1:00 AM and here I am writing the first part of my explanation to Jessee.

Dear Jesse, Some time ago Westinghouse estimates that it will take between sixteen to twenty million hours of labor to build an AP-1000 reactor. Most of those hours are performed by highly skilled laborers an large construction sites. Organizing such large scale construction projects has in the past posed very large problems. Past reactor builder climbed very steep learning curves, and received very expensive educations on efficient reactor construction. Research on labor utilization at reactor building sites suggested a high degree of management disorganization, with an average worker not performing construction related tasks for 2 or more hours a day,. Even when they are actually working reactor builders are not performing in a very efficient fashion. How can labor efficiency be improved? The answer is simple, build more of the reactor in a factory. We can build big reactors in a lot of small price at factories, and assemble them on site. Westinghouse plans to do this,l but as we have seen building the reactor will still take 3 years, and is quire expensive. We will call the lot of little pieces approach the Kit reactor. Another approach, which Babcock & Wilcox plan to take, is to assemble most of a small reactor in a factory, and then ship a few large pieces to the reactor site for final assembly. Babcock & Wilcox executives say that tasks that require a wholes day of labor to perform on site, can be acomplised in one hour in a factory. Construction of the small B&W reactor still requires two years, and I suspect a lot of assembly has to be performed on site.

We could decrease labor by simplifying reactor design, including decreasing the number of parts used in the reactor, and decreasing materials input. Westinghouse has already do this in in their AP=1000 design, and I suspect B&W will do it in their small 125 MW mPower reactor. Technological improvements now being research could potentially increase the power outputs of the Westinghouse and B&W reactors by as much as 50% without increased labor or materials input.

In the end however, Light water reactors are going to be complex, require a lot of labor, and potentially have limitations to their scalability. For rapid deployment we will need to turn to far more simple reactors. Fortunately there are two alternative reactor technologies which potentially could be mas produced in factories, with significantly less labor, and materials input, and be deployed in far less time than the B&W mPower reactor. These candidates have the potential for rapid ramp up of production, massive deployment, and resolution of many of the major problems that have plagued the Light Water Reactor. The candidate technologies are the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), and the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Both designs produce little nuclear waste, both have significant safety features, both use nuclear fuel far more efficiently than current, and both could stretch nuclear fuel reserves for thousands and potentially even millions of years. Of the two, the IFR is potentially more controversial. I will discuss these options in another post.

Jessy you talk about 15-30 terawatts by 2050. I am skeptical about the value of energy efficiency. I also believe that if we are going to replace 80% of carbon based fuel we will probabnly need more like 100 terawatts(e) by 2050 of nuclear power by 2050. With factory production of advanced reactors, and innovative implimentation of reactor deployment that can be acomplished, indeed a world wide deployment of 1000 terawatts of nuclear power would be possible by 2050. There is, of course, much more to the story, that i have told so far. - Charles

A Primer on Nuclear Safety: 1.2.1 Heat, Water and Reactors

1.2 Heat and water
1.2.1 A history

The period of 1944-1945 was a period of intense ferment among the reactor designers at the University of Chicago "Metallurgy Lab". The great World War II reactor projects had passed the design phase. A couple of interesting minor reactor design projects were underway. One at Chalk River in Canada, and from this project was eventually emerge the Canadian CANDU reactor concept. The other project was was a most interesting one. Both Eugene Wigner and Enrico Fermi were interested in cooling a reactor with a water which contained a mud like uranium fuel in suspention. Thus the amazingly simple core of the only contained water and Uranium fuel in a mud or soup like suspention. The reactor was called the "Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor." It turned out to be one of the safest reactors ever designed, but it also turned out to have some problems that inhibited its development beyond the experimental stage.

Fermi built an Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor called the LOPO (for low power) at Los Alamos during World War II. By that time enriched uranium was beginning to flow from Oak Ridge, and the LOPO appears to have been the first reactor to run with enriched uranium fuel.

We have seen that the first two attempts to build water cooled reactors were not entirely successful. THe Hanford reactors had recognizable safety issues, which precluded the use of the design for civilian power plants in the West, but not the Soviet Union. The Uranium slurry fuel of the Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor proved to be less than successful. But Wigner and his group of very bright young men had thought of another approach to water cooling reactors.  The idea as to build a reactor that was structurally similar to the graphite pile reactors, but without the graphite bricks.  Instead water would be used as both a moderator and a coolant.   The designed was quite feasible, with the exception of one technical problem.  

Alvin Weinberg was to be assigned the patent for the Light Water Reactor.  At Oak Ridge Wigner with Weinberg's assistance design of a water cooled and moderated reactor that was to be used for Materials testing.   The development went lead to the creation of a small prototype, the Materials Testing Reactor mock-up to test controls and hydraulic system.  The Mock-up had the capacity to go critical. 

In 1946, as thinking about water cooled reactors was beginning to evolved in Oak Ridge, a maverick Naval officer, Hyman Rickover appeared on the scene. Eugene Wigner had decided to creat in Oak Ridge a sort of informal graduate school for training in the new nuclear technology, and Rickover was selected by the Navy to receive reactor technology. Rickover quickly made himself the man to go to about reactor issues in the Navy, and in 1947 he assigned by the Bureau of Ships with the task of exploring the use of reactors for ship propulsion. In 1949 Rickover was givena second assignment within Division of Reactor Development, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and then assumed control of the Navy's effort as Director of the Naval Reactors Branch in the Bureau of Ships. These dual assignments gave Rickover great power.

Rickover saw early on the potential of the water cooled reactor for ship propulsion. By the late 1940's the U.S. Navy had been using steam powered ships for over 100 years. The Navy prided itself on its technologically advanced boiler technology, a technology which gave U.S. Navy ships unusual cruising range without refueling. A range that helped it to defeat the Japanese Navy and eventually to destroy the Japanese empire. The reactor held the potential for Rickover and the Navy of extending the Navy's reach, at a time when the cold war was heating up.

Rickover needed to convert the water cooled reactor into a generator of steam. Working with Alvin Weinberg and the scientist and engineers of Oak Ridge a design for a pressurized water reactor was developed, and passed on to the Navy's reactor engineering labs, the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory founded in 1946, and the Bettis Lab, founded in 1948. Together these Labs produced the actual designs of the reactors that were to power US Atomic submarines, and were to play a major role in the development of the civilian power reactors.

The first civilian power reactor in the United States was a naval reactor that had been designed for aircraft carrier use, but which the Navy intended to keep on land for research purposes. Rickover arranged to hooked up a generator to the reactor, which was dubbed the Shippingport reactor, and donated it to President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program. The Navy continued to conduct research with the Shippingport reactor until it was decommissioned in 1982.

Most subsequent civilian power reactors were scaled up and modified versions of the Shippingport reactor. The safety problems of civilian power reactors are inherited from their Naval predecessors, and have to be understood in that context.

There is little doubt that Rickover's influence played a pivotal role in the choice to concentrate reactor research on two reactor designs, the Light Water Reactor, and The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor. Both reactor concepts have safety flaws. But Rickover was more introduced in producing quick results, than in building the safest possible reactors.

A. Stanley Thompson worked for North American Aviation during the 1940s and spent time in Oak Ridge during the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion days. Thompson had a chance to observe Rickover in action during a conflict between Rickover and two officials of North American Aviation. Rickover traveled to the North American headquarters to meet with company officials on a Saturday in 1949. Officials were called in for the meeting, and everyone arrived with the exception of physicist Mark Mills, who was out on a tennis court. When Mills finally arrived, Rickover started chewing him out about a report Mills had written about the potential for chemical explosions in reactors. Rickover launched into a tyrade, and eventually Mills tired of the abuse,

"Sir, I resent your treatment of me. I will no longer stand for it. I'm leaving!" Mills said, and started to walk out.

Rickover also stood smilling, and said, "Mark, I think we now understand one another. You can get back to your tennis game."

After Mills walked our, Rickover commented to us, "Mills is now conditioned on reactor safety."

After the meeting, North American's Chauncey Starr complained to the AEC about Rickover's abuse of Mills.

Thompson continued:

"The next time I saw Rickover was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at a conference on the nuclear propulsion of aircraft hosted by Alvin Weinberg, Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Rickover was there in his self-appointed capacity of keeping himself informed on everything in the nuclear business. Chauncey Starr gave a talk, for which he had been coached by aircraft engineers at North American, on the importance of Mach number, aircraft lift to drag ratio, and engine thrust to weight ratio for the design of an airplane and its nuclear power plant."

"In the evening we were invited to a friendly and welcoming dinner at the home of Marge and Alvin Weinberg with several of the senior members of Weinberg's staff and their wives. After dinner we were seated in a circle in the Weinbergs' living room. For a while, Rickover was directing at Starr on the opposite side of the circle a series of stinging remarks against which Starr was doing what he could to defend himself. The rest of the party had lapsed into a stunned silence. Finally one of the wives remarked, "You know, there's something going on here that I don't understand." Rickover addressed her, "I'll tell you what's going on. This man [pointing to Starr] has been knifing me in the back, and I don't like it." Word must have got back to Rickover that Starr had talked to people at the Atomic Energy Commission about Rickover's visit to North American. On the way down the hill from the Weinbergs' party, I saw Starr and Rickover walking arm-in-arm, and talking in a confidential manner. I assumed that Starr had now been "reconditioned" on interference with Rickover. I was impressed with Rickover's ability to turn on alternating charm and ferocious attacks, as suited his purpose at the moment."

Light Water Reactor EROEI

Alvin Weinberg invented and patented the Light Water Reactor. My father made an important contribution to its development. Both Dr. Weinberg and my father, like other scientist they worked with, never regarded the LWR as the best way to make nuclear power.

Light Water Reactors are not very efficient producers of energy. Although potentially 100% of uranium could be either burned as nuclear fuel, or converted to nuclear fuel, only a tiny fraction, less than 1% of the energy locked in uranium is released inside light water reactors. U-235 is the primary fuel of light water reactors, and only 0.7% of natural Uranium is U-235. Because the normal hydrogen in light water tends to consume non-trivial amounts of neutrons in reactors, the U-235 content of nuclear fuel has to be increased to 3% or even 5% of the reactor uranium. The enrichment process requires large amounts of energy.

First, because of the nature of the uranium enrichment process, nearly 30% of the U-235 present in natural uranium does not get included in the enrichment product. So 30% of the potential energy of the U-235 present in natural uranium never makes it to a reactor. Some breeding of U-238 takes place in inside a reactor. The result close to 3% of the U-238 is converted into reactor-grade plutonium. Now reactor-grade plutonium is not very good nuclear fuel in a thermal-spectrum reactor. It does not burn well in LWRs, and when the reactivity of the fuel can no longer support a chain reaction inside a light water reactor, nearly 20% of it is left. Another 12% 27% of the original U-235 is left.

Thus light-water reactors only extract about 0.6% of the energy present in natural uranium. The rest of the energy goes into two piles. One marked “Depleted Uranium”, and the other marked “spent reactor fuel”. “Spent reactor fuel”, ironically contains about as much U-235 as natural uranium. The system of electrical generation in Light Water Reactors is to place the reactor inside a high-pressure vessel, heat water with it, turn the hot water into steam (in a BWR) or use the hot water to make steam (in a PWR), and run a turbine with it. The turbine then turns a generator, which produces electricity. This whole, rather complicated system only turns about 1/3rd of the heat produced in a LWR into electricity. Thus 70% of the energy captured by the reactor is lost as waste heat. So of the energy present in natural uranium, 0.2% gets converted into electricity, 99.8% of the energy gets lost.

The light-water reactor system is extraordinarily wasteful in terms of energy. It is also wasteful in terms of uranium. In order to make LWR fuel, 200 pounds of natural uranium gets depleted. 19 pounds of that uranium can go back into a reactor, so over 90% of mined uranium never goes into a reactor. Of those 19 pounds of depleted uranium – almost all U-238 – that goes into a reactor, 18 ½ pounds comes out unchanged. Such is the power generated by splitting the atom, that by using only a very small amount of its potential energy, very useful work gets done.

It is a measure of the inefficiency of light-water reactors, that its “spent fuel” can be removed, remanufactured without changing the fuel ration, and placed in other types of reactors – say the heavy water CANDU reactor, and used like ordinary CANDU nuclear fuel in electrical power generation. But even the CANDU reactor is still not very efficient. For every 200 pounds of uranium used in a CANDU reactor, about 1.4 pounds actually generates energy or about 0.7% of the energy in natural uranium. From the viewpoint of EROEI (energy returned on energy invested), the CANDU reactor is a better deal than light-water reactors. First because uranium does not have to be enriched before it goes into CANDU reactors. And secondly, because the CANDU is a little better at extracting energy from uranium than light-water reactors.

It is clear then that the light-water reactor, a technology that was advanced in the late 1940's and early 1950's primarily for military use, is very inefficient at the task of extracting energy from uranium, and converting it into electricity. Only 0.2%, that is one five hundredth (1/500) of the energy that could potentially be liberated from uranium by the nuclear process, is converted into electricity by the light-water reactor. The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) can do much better than this.

Alternative energy futures, an examination of costs

I think that the energy future belongs to Kirk Sorensen.

Here is my case. Almost all future energy schemes would require enormous amounts of energy, materials and time to implement. For example, advocates of wind power have argued, on the basis of a Stanford study, that they have located 19 places in the United States where the wind is sufficiently reliable to provide base power, provided those localities are linked. Indeed if only 10 of the 19 localities are linked, the researcher argue that conditions required to be regarded as a base power resource will be meet.

Here is the problem I see. First, wind generators, very seldom produce electricity at even 50% of rated capacity. A wind generator is considered doing well if it produces power at one third of rated capacity. No the Stanford researchers calculated that if you link power generation from 10% very good wind generating localities, that between 33% to 47% of the generated electricity can be considered base power. Prudence would require that we consider the lower figure, for this is a don't count your chickens until the eggs are hatched situation. So assuming an output of 33% of rated capacity from the operating wind generators, and that a 33% of the generated electricity can be counted as base power, then base power = .33 X .33 of the rated capacity of operating wind towers. That is about 11% of rated capacity. If, for the sake of argument, we assume the 47% base load figure, we get a little over 15% of rated capacity as reliable base load power. It gets worse. The Stanford calculations found that base load power might be flowing from as few as 3 out of 10 wind farms at any one time. This means that 11% to 15% or the rated power resources of any given wind farm, must be able to supply the targeted base load electricity.

How many wind towers are we talking about then? One guess I have encountered is one million. We are talking then about lots of concrete and steel going into upwards of a million 200 foot tall towers, with 10 to 20 ton wind generators on top. We are talking about a lot of man power. We are talking about an enormous collection system. We are talking about a hell of a lot of resources.

A utopian Scientific American article titled "A Solar Grand Plan," proposed a scheme to provide 69% of American electricity from solar sources by 2050. The proposal suggests that as much as 35% of American energy needs can be supplied from solar sources located in the desert Southwest. Global warming researchers suggest that by 2050, we should cut our fossil fuel use by 80% as part of a plan to bring anthropogenic global warming under control. Thus the "Grand Plan" offers well under have of the energy needed from non-carbon sources. In addition, plan writers failed to consider that the most likely substitute for fossil fuels in surface transportation is electricity stored in batteries or capacitors. Thus the electrical system may be expected to provide somewhere between 60% and 80% of the national energy demand.

The "Grand Plan" suggests that 35% of American energy needs can be produced from "solar farms, that cover 8500 square miles of desert real estate. Consider 85oo Square miles of desert covered with row after row of solar panels, or mirrors and towers. Think of it in terms of materials that have to be fabricated. Think of the refined silicon, the glass and steel, think of the wiring in the collection system. Now think what you need to store electrical energy over night. I recently attempted to price battery backup for renewable energy, and found to my astonishment that 16 GWh's of sodium sulfer (NAS) battery backup might run as much as nine billion dollars. A nuclear power plant which would cost far less, would provide more power for 24 hours a day. It gets worse. The batteries have a project life span of 15 years. Nuclear plants have been shown to last for at least 60 years.

The "Grand Plan" suggested storing energy in the form of compressed air in caves, and then generate electricity on demand by releasing the air through turbines, and perhaps burning some natural gas in the air stream. There is no indication in the Scientific American story that anyone has actually tried to seal air at high pressure in a cave. Nor have such caves been identified, as far as I can tell. Given the lack of experience with this technology, it is impossible to say how much it would cost, provided it can be made to work at all.

A third scheme for Sandia Laboratory involves the heating of molten salt in a Solar thermal aray. Sandea is quite excited about this, and they are quoting prices as low as $0.08 per KWh for base power using this system. This would be quite impressive if we actually saw a commercial ST system using molten salt technology built and texted. But Solar Thermal manufactures have not done that yet, and they quote prices of from $0.17 to $0.31 per KWh. b Indeed ST manufacturers quote prices of as much as $7.00 Per KW, for installed systems. Since the most pessimistic estimate of the price of new nuclear plants is $3.50 per KW, it is clear that solar power is at present no bargain.

The reason for high solar cost is simple. High material demand, high manufacturing costs, and high installation cost all are part of the cost picture. Add to that the cost of construction in remote locations, and the cost of electrical connections and connections to the grid. Figure that energy storage is also going to cost. As with wind we are clearly talking about an enormous amount of materials required to build some variant of the Scientific American Grand Plan. It is not clear if enough material resources will be on hand to tackle the Scientific American "Grand Plan." The Scientific American Grand plan called for a public subsidy of $420 billion. We need a basis for guesstimating what a per square mile for solar electrical instalation would cost. One billion dollars a square mile is not beyond the realm of possibility. Such a figure will, however, drive the solar fanatics crazy, so assume for the moment a cost of $500 million per square mile. This would give us a price of $4.25 trillion for our 85oo sq mi solar field. Add the $420 billion public investment, gives us $4.67 trillion cost to generate 35 percent of American energy requirements via a solar system. This is without the anticipated resource inflation.

Let us now turn to another option for solving our energy crisis, that would be a plan to draw our energy of Light Water Reactors. Let us assume that the 100+ civilian power reactors currently being operated in the United States will have to be replaced by 2050 as well. We would need about 1000 reactors to supply the required 80% of US energy by 2050. Westinghouse is able to deliver an unassembled reactor for a little more than one billion dollars per GW. Construction of the reactor containment facility and generator room, spent fuel holding facilities, and electrical switching facility, plus assembly of the reactor will cost from $1.5 to $2.5 billion. Westinghouse and GE have made significant progress in lowering material and labor costs, but we are still talking about a lot a material that goes into the construction of AP-1000 light water reactors. Thus the total cost of replacing 80% of American energy output with LWRs would be somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 trillion. Inflation in the cost of resources could well raise the price.

What ever energy plan the United States adopts for replacing fossil fuel generated electricity, we are going to be competing with the rest of the world for resources to implement our plan. That means that the price of raw materials and manufactured parts most likely will rise rather than fall as we near 2050. A very good plan to meet the 2050 target would make modest resource demands. Light Water Reactors might well require fewer resources than wind or solar schemes but they are still resource hogs, and they have significant bottlenecks. Light Water Reactors require enormous forged steel pressure vessels. The world manufacturing capacity for such vessels is no where near the expected demand, and such forging facilities can neither be built quickly or cheaply. We should not forget that 7 years of the Bush administration has left the United States with an enormous trade deficit and a dollar that is falling in value. These problems suggest that resources obtained from abroad may be far more expensive in the future than in the past. We thus need a plan which will use local resources, as much as possible.

We have now here is where Kirk Sorensen comes in. The Molten Salt Reactor makes truly modest resource demands. It requires less steel. Because the reactor coolant is not under pressure, it does not need a pressure vessel. Because the core is already molten you don't need an emergency cooling system to prevent core melt down. The emergence system for core overheating, is simple, passive and very effective. There is no problem with hydrogen buildup inside the reactor, and no high pressure steam to explode. The escape of reactor produced radioisotopes is far less of a problem, thus containment requirements are also modest.

Finally small molten salt reactor units, with attached power output generators pre-attached, can be produced on assembly lines and shipped via rail or water born transportation to their final destination. They can either be set up in low price containment buildings, or situated in underground chambers. An inner radiation protection structure would also serve for extra containment protection.

Such structures can be situated close to existing power transmission lines, thus expensive additions to the grid will not be required. Small Molten Salt reactors can be air cooled. In addition their wast heat can be used in cogeneration, or for the distillation of sea water.

How much would installing molten salt reactors cost per KWh? If we consider that Westinghouse has recenly sold light water reactors to China, for about $1.2o per K, it would seem likely that molten salt reactors can be delivered as completed unites for from somewhere between $1.00 and $2.00 per KW. This would bring us to a price of between one and two trillion dollars for supplying 80% of the national energy requirements.

Although the Molten Salt Reactor does require new few from time to time its new fuel requirements are limited because it burns almost all the potential energy in natural uranium or thorium. The worst possible case for capitol costs for 1ooo GW of Molten Salt reactor power generating capacity, will be far less than the capitol cost for far less generating capacity from solar power. In addition the material inputs costs for molten salt reactors will be far less subject to inflation, because fewer scarce minerals are involved in molten salt reactor construction.

For our modest investment in Molten Salt Reactors we will get the capacity to dispose of nuclear waste. A solution to world wide energy problems that will last for thousands of years. We get the energy independence which has eluded the United States for the last 40 years. We get great flexability in reactor location. We get the capacity to use waste heat, for industrial purposes, for space heating or cooling, or for for sea water desalinization.

Charles Julian Barton, Sr. at Y-12

I talked with my father, Charles Barton, Sr., yesterday about his ORNL career. He is not a good communicator. His speech as always been halting, and he does not organize his memories into well formed stories. I can see that Interviewing him will be a process, and that information will come out in little snippets. My father's view of the the importance of the information might not be the same as mine, or of histories. What I have learned so far:

My father views his work on the separation of Zirconium and Hafnium. Zirconium and Hafnium are "rare earths." They are chemically similar, and thus not easy to separate. About 1% to 3% of refined Zirconium is Hafnium. Inside a reactor Zirconium and Hafnium behave very differently. Zirconium has a low neutron cross section. That means it is unlikely to capture neutrons inside a reactor. Capturing neutrons slows down or even stops chain reactions. Zirconium also resists corrosion. This makes it an ideal metal to use inside a reactors, especially as a cladding for fuel elements in light water reactors. Hafnium is has a high neutron cross section. It is 600 times more likely than Zirconium to capture neutrons inside a reactor, and unless separated from Zirconium, will poison chain reactions. Hafnium is also used inside reactors as control rods.

The chemical, and metallurgical properties of Zirconium made it an ideal material for light water reactors. During the 1940's the Navy saw that reactors could revolutionize the propulsion of submarines. They looked at two designs, one using sodium as a coolant. The history of sodium cooled reactors has always been a troubled one, and the Navy did not master the technology. The second naval reactor concept, patented by Alvin Weinberg, was the light water reactor. Pure zirconium was needed in order to get good performance from the light water reactors. Thus the development of both the atomic submarine and civilian light water reactors became possible. Today 85% of the world's commercial reactors are light water reactors that use Zarconium fuel cladding.

My father's first job at Y-12 in 1948, was to work along with Lyle Overholser, and J.W. Ramsey, to develop an industrial process for separating Zirconium and Hafnium. Lyle and my father had been a PhD students together at the University of Virginia in the 1930's. J.W. Ramsey was the father of a long time friend Jim Ramsey. Previous literature reported the use of ether . But the volitility of ether made it difficult to work with. My father and Lyle Overholser tried various organic solvents with little sucess. Then one day Ramsey showed up with a jug of hexone, and suggested that they try it. The hexone workes well, and the hexone process is still used for seperation in the United States. The separation process turned out well, and the light water became the corner stone of the first nuclear age. The names of L.B. Overholser, C.J. Barton, Sr., and J.W. Ramsey are on the patent. The patent describes the separation process:

The separation of hafnium impurities from zirconium can be accomplished by means of organic solvent extraction. The hafnium-containing zirconium feed material is dissolved in an aqueous chloride solution and the resulting solution is contacted with an organic hexone phase, with at least one of the phases containing thiocyanate. The hafnium is extracted into the organic phase while zirconium remains in the aqueous phase. Further recovery of zirconium is effected by stripping the onganic phase with a hydrochloric acid solution and commingling the resulting strip solution with the aqueous feed solution. Hexone is recovered and recycled by means of scrubbing the onganic phase with a sulfuric acid solution to remove the hafnium, and thiocyanate is recovered and recycled by means of neutralizing the effluent streams to obtain ammonium thiocyanate.

The History of ORNL states:

"Herbert Pomerance later that year discovered that zirconium's capability for neutron absorption had been vastly overstated because of its contamination by the element hafnium, which had a much greater poisoning effect.

Zirconium minerals have traces of hafnium, whose chemical characteristics are nearly identical to zirconium's, making economical separation of the two difficult. With funding from Captain Rickover and the Navy, laboratory researchers across the country investigated ways to separate the two elements. In 1949, chemical technologists at the Y-12 Plant, under the direction of Warren Grimes, developed a successful separation technique and scaled it to production level under the direction of Clarence Larson, then superintendent of the Y-12 Plant.

Zirconium alloys became essential first to the Navy's reactors and later to commercial power reactors. Zirconium rods filled with uranium pellets made up the fuel cores of nearly all light-water reactors, and hafnium was used in the control rods to regulate nuclear reactions. "

After the industrial facilities for purifying Zirconium were established at Y-12, the Y-12 Chemistry group was transfered administratively to ORNL. My father was moved to X-10 to work on the aqueous homogeneous reactor. Although little known now, the Aqueous homogeneous reactor was quite successful. It might have received a great deal more attention had not ORNL been also developing an even more promising concept, the Molten Salt Reactor.

At least one ORNL technical report reflects my father's aqueous homogeneous reactor research,
PHASE STABILITY OF HOMOGENEOUS REACTOR HOT FUEL SOLUTIONS. He was the lead writer along with J.S. Gill, GM Habert, WL Marshall, and RE Moore.

The History of ORNL reports:

"In 1952 the Lab built a small (1-megawatt) ``homogeneous'' reactor, one in which a liquid uranium solution was used both as fuel and as the source of steam to spin a generator's turbine. Besides offering potentially higher generating efficiencies than solid-fuel designs, it offered and important operation advantage: Its fuel solution could be routed continuously through a processing plant for purification and replenishment so the reactor would not require shutdowns for refueling. In 1957 ORNL built a larger homogeneous reactor, one modified to irradiate thorium and ``breed'' uranium while it generated power. But by then work on a solid-fuel breeder was well under way, and the AEC soon abandoned the liquid-fuel alternative."

The next post on my father's ORNL career will deal with his role in the development of Molten Salt Reactors.