Efficient Cars and Nuclear Power Efficiency

I must confess that I am of two different minds on the topic of efficiency. On one hand I am critical of the notion that efficiency can replace post carbon energy generation, yet I also have devoted a considerable effort to increasing the efficiency of the process of building nuclear power plants. In addition, I am conducting a personal case study of how to make my personal energy use more efficient. The contradiction involves the the fact that I some times consider adopting personal efficiency approaches that I reject when consider the proposals of the efficiency crowd. Lets consider the case of the 300 kg car. Julian Allwood and his Cambridge University associates have proposed radical steps such as the use of 650 Pound cars.
My inclination is to reject this notion out of hand, and I would were it not for the fact that I have considered doing just that for some time, and am presently considering an even lighter vehicle.

The whole idea strikes me as mega cool. So cool that we could name the electrical three wheeler the Apple! Needless to say there are some draw backs. The first is that the electrical three wheeler might not be safe, or at least safe enough, Can you imagine Ralph Nader writing an expose of the 650 pound car titled "Unsafe at any Voltage."

My concern rests on an analysis of a shopping trip in my spiffy three wheeler.
Now I drive to the nearest shopping center on Clinton Highway via Pleasant Ridge Road. a winding 40 MPH two lane artery, with less than great visibility.

Pleasant Ridge Road does not look safe for such a tiny, flimsy electric vehicle, does it? Not with cars that are more than five times more massive, not to mention the pick up trucks. So I face this quandary, I can get an electric three wheeler for under $2000. It is sort of cool, and will get me to the shopping center, where I usually shop. But I cannot convince myself that it is safe.

In addition I have other concerns. My wife and I travel in our area. Our latest trip was to Norris Dam. Making such trips are quality of life issues for my wife and myself. Norris Dam is not far from our home, but we would probably need a vehicle with a 50 miles range to be comfortable driving there. A hundred mile range might be needed if we wanted to spend the day in the Smokies. Greater range means more batteries and greater weight. Only the first vehicle on this page might be remotely practical for such trips. It is a hybrid, and has a cost of perhaps $18,000 to $23,000. You can buy a lot more car for that sort of money, although a lot a lot better gas millage will come with the three wheeler. Bigger all-electric cares are possible, but they will require bigger batteries, and bigger batteries cost money and add to auto weight.

Thus the argument for the 650 pound car breaks down once safety and transportation range requirements are considered. A 650 pound or even lighter car might be possible for in town shopping trips, but will consumers be comfortable with their safety characteristics?

The energy efficiency question can be looked at from another perspective, applying efficiency to the production of energy. My argument has always been that efficiency is the solution posed by most nuclear related problems. One reason for adopting Molten Salt nuclear technology, is its potential for efficient manufacture and efficient use. The Molten Salt Reactor is the reactor equivalent of the 650 pound car, but with out the safety hazards posed by Pleasant Ridge Road, and without the 650 pound car's trip distance limitations. In fact the Molten Salt Reactor can manufacture its own fuel, so potentially you can keep it running for periods of time up to 30 years.

I have pointed out several times on Nuclear Green that the factory manufacture process makes more efficient use of labor, and that the limitation of factory manufactured large reactor is that they have to be manufactured as kits, with final assembly taking place on site. By shifting to smaller reactors, the number of pieces in the kit can be limited, so on site assembly does not require a lot of labor or time.

The cores of Molten Salt Reactors can be very simple and easy to manufacture, Molten Salt Reactor parts need not be built form exotic and expensive materials. It may be possible to build Molten Salt Reactors from composite materials similar to the composite materials that go into aircraft. Even when comity type materials such as steel are used in MSR parts, MSRs can be designed to operate at higher temperatures than conventional reactors, and thus will produce electricity with greater thermal efficiency.

One of my Nuclear Green readers "Engineering" recently commented on an old Nuclear Green Post,

Writing in the wake of the Fukushima events, I find it striking that the report speaks of “safety” without distinguishing between radiation exposure hazards inside the plant and massive release of radioactive materials into the environment. Avoiding massive external release is (a) more important, (b) the greatest MSR safety advantage, and (c) an unmentionable advantage in the already-risk-free Milton Shaw world.

"Engineering" is arguing that in MSRs greater nuclear safety is consistent with more efficient, low cost nuclear technology. Now that is quite a trick, but it is part of the beauty of the Molten Salt Reactor concept.

In conclusion, it would appear that efficient 650 pound cars face a rocky road, with safety and range problems, but more efficient nuclear technology via the Molten Salt Reactor concept is possible, and is consistent with improved nuclear safety.

Does Nuclear Grade Graphite Burn?

Does Nuclear Grade Graphite burn?

The Union of Concerned Scientists's Ed Lyman never met a reactor he liked, despited his profession that he is not prejudiced against nuclear power in principle. Are Lymans concerns about nuclear safety sound? Or is Lyman trying to lead us off the deep end? Is Lyman trying to convince us that a safe reactor is not possible? Take for example the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, a reactor that seemingly is safe. Unlike Japan's ill fated GE Mark 1 reactors if you shut down the coolant system of the PBMR, nothing bad happens. The PBMR is melt down proof. Now isn't that a safer reactor? "No way," Lyman tells us:

The PBMR has been promoted as a “meltdown-proof ” reactor that would be free of the safety concerns typical of today’s plants. However, while the PBMR does have some attractive safety features, several serious issues remain unresolved. Until they are, it is not possible to support claims that thePBMR design would be significantly safer overall than light-water reactors.

You see there Lyman is ready to rescue us from our nuclear safety illusions. What is wrong with the PBMR is simple,

A second unresolved safety issue concerns the reactor’s graphite coolant and fuel pebbles. When exposed to air, graphite burns at a temperature of 400°C, and the reaction can become self-sustaining at 550°C—well below the typical operating temperature of the PBMR. Graphite also burns in the presence of water. Thus extraordinary measures would be needed to prevent air and water from entering the core. Yet according to one expert, “air ingress cannot be eliminated by design.”

Rainer Moormann, a German reactor scientist argued that,

graphite burning caused by a huge air ingress may lead to massive fission product releases into the environment.

Genera Atomic says Lyman is wrong because nuclear grade graphite does not burn. It is often incorrectly assumed that the combustion behavior of graphite is similar to that of charcoal and coal.

Numerous tests and calculations have shown that it is virtually impossible to burn high-purity, nuclear-grade graphites. Graphite has been heated to white-hot temperatures (~1650°C) without incurring ignition or self-sustained combustion. After removing the heat source, the graphite cooled to room temperature. Unlike nuclear-grade graphite, charcoal and coal burn at rapid rates because:

* They contain high levels of impurities that catalyze the reaction.
* They are very porous, which provides a large internal surface area, resulting in more homogeneous oxidation.
* They generate volatile gases (e.g. methane), which react exothermically to increase temperatures.
* They form a porous ash, which allows oxygen to pass through, but reduces heat losses by conduction and radiation.
* They have lower thermal conductivity and specific heat than graphite.

In fact, because graphite is so resistant to oxidation, it has been identified as a fire extinguishing material for highly reactive metals.

The oxidation resistance and heat capacity of graphite serves to mitigate, not exacerbate, the radiological consequences of a hypothetical severe accident that allowed air into the reactor vessel. Similar conclusions were reached after detailed assessments of the Chernobyl event; graphite played little or no role in the progression or consequences of the accident. The red glow observed during the Chernobyl accident was the expected color of luminescence for graphite at 700°C and not a large-scale graphite fire, as some have incorrectly assumed.

Is this true? The New Scientist published a discussion of the General Atomic claim in its November 4. 1989 edition. The New Scientist investigation pointed out that the graphite in the Windscape fire was inpure, while the relatively pure graphite at Chernobyl contributed little to the that fire's heat. General Atomics in the past offered a demonstration to skeptics who wanted further convincing of their "Graphite does not burn," claim. A block of graphite would be brought out and heated to a red hot temperature. Then oxygen would be blow ovr the red hot graphite which would not catch fire. Needless to say Ed Lyman did not attend one of those demonstrations. The New Scientist did not entirely support the General Atomics Graphite does not burn claim, but the analysis came down on the side of a graphite does burn reluctantly, and is not very dangerous conclusion, pointing to Peter Kroeger's research for support.

Peter Kroeger of Brookhaven National Laboratory used a compluter simulation to check on General Atomic's claim. He found that if openings developed at two opposite ends of a graphite reactor containment structure, air could flow through the core, and graphite structures would burn some, but not very much, and certainly not enough to release radioactive materials embedded in the graphite. Kroeger remarked,

Air ingress into the primary loop requires prior depressurizatlon with significant subsequent air inflow. Scenarios that have been considered are, for Instance, a primary vessel leak such that during decay heat removal via a
main loop or an auxiliary loop, significant amounts of gas can be exchanged between the primary loop and the RB, while the operating loop forces the re- sulting gas mixture through the core [34]. (It may be hard to conceive signi- ficant air ingress and combustible gas discharge from a single break; butonly with such a large break or with several separate breaks and with simultaneous forced flow conditions can significant amounts of air be forced through the core.) Order of magnitude computations indicate that natural circulation can only result In about .1 to .3 kg/s of gas circulation through the core of a typical modular pebble bed reactor. The initial RB air Inventory of about 80 kg mol (even if none were lost during the Initial blowdown) can only cause the burning of about 400 kg of graphite. Thus, air Ingress consequences under natural circulation conditions appear to be less severe than those under the above forced cooldown scenarios.

Four hundred kilograms? That is less than a thousand pounds, hardly a roaring confligration.

Kroeger found that,

Separate code applications for air Ingress with auxiliary loop cooling [34,43,44] generally indicate that fuel temperatures are only raised slightly due to local burning, at most reaching 1200 C for a core with 1000 C design temperature. Thus, fuel failure from excessive temperature is not to be ex- pected. With auxiliary cooling the oxidation stops after 4 to 96 hrs, depend- ing on the assumed air ingress rate and the number of loops operatlij^. The maximum burn-off (averaged over a pebble) ranges from 100 to 350 mg/cm , which represents about 10 to 40% of the total exterior graphite coating of the fueled pebbles. (It should be noted that the higher values are obtained for extremely large assumed air ingress rates, which may not be realistic.)

A further review of the Lyman's (and Moormann's) claim that graphite fires an PBMR are serious nuclear safety issues, is the composition of the Pebbles of Pebble Bed Reactors. The Pebbles are complex manufactured objects. Each pebble contains an inner coat of silicon carbide a nonflamable material that is designed to contain radioactive fission products within the pebble. Any fire on the graphite surface of the pebble would be stopped by the SiC coat, and thus would not lead to a dangerous release of radioactive materials.

Needless to say, Ed Lyman forgot to mention any of Peter Kroeger's research, the General Atomic's argument, or other arguments that makes his simple "Graphite burns" statement less than a serious enditement of pebble bed reactor safety.

Even less so, does the "graphite burns" statement a serious safety objection to the use of graphite in the core of Molten Salt Reactors. It should be noted that the presence of liquid fluoride salts would be a serious inhibitor of any graphite fire, and in the event of salt drainage from a MSR core, a graphite fire would not be a safety issue, because both fission products and nuclear fuel would drain out of the core along with the coolant salt. Thus even if we reject the General Atomic's contention that Nuclear Graphite does not burn, the graphite burns objection does not appear to raise a serious concern about Molten Salt Reactor safety.

Energy: Renewables and Efficiency won't work, but the Molten Salt Reactor can.

In order to be reasonable assured that replacement energy resources of the current fossil fuel based energy economy, serious attempts should be made to identify plausible options. Most 2050 replacement energy plans, both for the United States and globally, do not offer anywhere near a one for one replacement for current energy sources. Indeed, much of the energy in future energy plans comes from a source that can be labeled, unwarranted assumptions.

Take for example the Zero Carbon Australia, 2020 report which claimed that all of Australian energy could com from renewable energy sources by 2020. Ted (F.E.) Trainer, a well known Australian energy theorist pointed to some of the plans flaws,

To summarise, my back of the envelope impression is that when the foregoing points are added the ZCA conclusion is out by the following factors:
i. The efficiency gain assumed for electric vehicles should be perhaps halved.
ii. The assumed proportion of travel that can be transferred to electric vehicles is too high, in view of how well people and freight can be got to intended destinations by light vehicles and public transport, and in view of what people will accept.
iii. The embodied energy costs of plant might be much more than 10 times as high as has been assumed.
iv. Far more storage for solar thermal needs to be assumed, perhaps 96 hours, as distinct from 17.
v. The amount of solar thermal capacity might need to be trebled I am right about the peak vs average issue.
vi. Very optimistic assumptions and estimates have been made throughout, including regarding costs.

Trainer was not the only critic of the ZCA plan to point out its unrealistic optimism. DaveBurraston has offered fact based critiques of the ZCA plans assumptions about wind implementation time, and solar facility construction times Martin Nicholson and Peter Lang, offered a long and detailed critique of the ZCA plan. They note,

BZE make a number of assumptions in assessing the electricity demand used to calculate the generating capacity needed by 2020. In summary these are:
1. 2008 is used as the benchmark year for the analysis. BZE defend this by saying “ZCA2020 intends to decouple energy use from GDP growth. Energy use per capitais used as a reference, taking into account medium-range population growth.”.
2. Various industrial energy demands in 2020 are reduced including gas used in the export of LNG, energy used in coal mining, parasitic electricity losses, off-grid electricity and coal for smelting.
3. Nearly all transport is electrified and a substantial proportion of the travel kmsare moved from road to electrified rail including 50% of urban passenger and truckkms and all bus kms. All domestic air and shipping is also moved to electric rail.
4. All fossil fuels energy, both domestic and industrial, is replaced with electricity.
Demand is reduced through energy efficiency and the use of onsite solar energy.

Thus

the net effect of these assumptions is to reduce the 2020 total energy by 58% below the 2008 benchmark and 63% below the ABARE estimate for 2020.

The plan thus assumes that over 50% of energy demand will simply disappear by 2020 because of efficiency improvements. Even given wildly optimistic assumptions about the growth of energy efficiency and its permanence, it is unrealistic to imagine that efficiency growth would lead to a 50% decline in Australian energy demand by 2020. But beyond ZCA's highly improbable assumptions about the gross increase in efficiency, is the highly questionable assumption that all efficiency gains will endure without rollbacks. In this respect ZCA resemble other pro-renewable ideology driven future energy plans. Yet a well established principle of classic economic theory suggest that efficiency is far from being a royal road to energy savings . The principle, called Jevons Paradox asserts that increased energy efficiency leads to increased energy use. Numerous scholars including Blake Alcott have questioned assumptions about energy efficiency made by Amory Lovins, and numerous renewables advocates. Alcott writes,

One certain conclusion, though, is that if Jevons is right, then efficiency policies are simply counter-productive. Even taxes on fuel or CO2 will be compensated by efficiency increases, and moreover they face the problem that tax revenue also gets spent on material and energy (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996, p. 20).

And finds a further paradox,

By enabling population and affluence to rise, both business-as-usual and policy-induced efficiency gains are partial causes of environmental stress.

Thus at the very least, the assumption that efficiency gains will bridge the gap between current fossil fuel powered energy sources and the limited capacity of renewable energy sources to meet future societal demand for energy, we must acknowledge that the argument for a Malthusian collapse of civilization in a future energy crisis, has a real basis. Yet conventional renewable energy plans such as the ZCA2020 plan suffer from a serious flaw. They assume that nuclear power cannot and will not play an important role in the transition to a post carbon energy order. Were this assumption were to prove true, it can be argued that little will prevent the Malthusian collapse of civilization, but there are strong reasons for rejecting the assumption of a none nuclear future.

Critics of nuclear power assert that nuclear power is too expensive to serve as a practical source of post-carbon energy. The best thought out presentation of this argument is presented by Mark Cooper. But Cooper's research is seriously flawed, by a perspective that is limited to France and the United States, and by a perspective that assumes only the highest possible costs, rather than a range of future cost possibilities.. In fact new nuclear costs in Asia are quite low. For example the EIA reports that current levelized nuclear power costs in South Korea run from $0.029 to $0.048 per kWh. the high rang assumes a higher than current interest range. The levelized cost for nuclear power in China runs from $0.03 to $0.055 per kWh. These prices are very competitive with coal and extremely competitive with renewable costs in China and South Korea. The same source reports the levelized power costs of nuclear power in the United States to be $0.048 to $0.077, a cost which is very competitive with renewables. The levelized nuclear cost range for France is similar. These cost ranges fall within the current range of electrical prices charged in the United States, and are well below the current electrical price range in France.

But beyond the exaggerated cost claims about nuclear power, critics of nuclear power frequently ignore opportunities to decrease nuclear costs. In fact numerous steps can be taken to lower nuclear costs. These include factory manufacture of reactors, recycling the site and equipment from old coal fired power plants. It is far easier to transport small reactors than large reactors from factories, and small reactors can be set up far more quickly. Rapid manufacture lowers interest cost. Thus the movement to small, factory manufactured reactors holds potential for lowering nuclear cost.

In addition a switch to a more advanced nuclear technology, the molten salt reactor, has a significant potential for further lowering nuclear cost. MSRs are both simple and compact, thus potentially lowering materials input costs, as well as manufacturing cost. MSRs also produce far higher temperatures, opening the door to providing industrial heat, and combined heat and power uses. Waste heat from MSRs could be used in nuclear desalinization systems, opening the does for further income streams. Thus rather than offering one use for its heat, a MSR could operate an industrial heat topping cycle, an electrical middle cycle, and a desalinization bottom cycle, easily pushing total thermal efficiency to well above .50. These multiple uses would significantly lower the levelized cost for electrical generation.

Because of their high thermal efficiency MSRs can be manufactured in small sizes without sacrificing their efficiency when compared to large conventional reactors. Thus the MSR is an excellent candidate for factory manufacture. Molten Salt Reactors can also be air cooled, a feature that adds to their flexibility.

Because of their simplicity, safety, potential ease of manufacturing rapid set up, and because they have a virtually unlimited fuel supply, Molten Salt Reactors like the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor offer a significant route to a post carbon energy deployment. LFTRs in particular offer solutions to the nuclear waste problem, can produce their own fuel in a way that will prevent nuclear proliferation, and have the potential to produce electricity at a cost that is lower than conventional nuclear power plants, or renewable electrical sources. Thus MSR technology as to potential to be the energy silver bullet.

The Big Lots Reactor Revisited

I first discussed the Big Lots reactor concept over a year ago. Lowering energy and nuclear costs is a persistent focus of Nuclear Green, and the Big Lots concept grew out of that focus. In March of 2009, I suggested:

The most important questions which we need to answer about thorium cycle/LFTR technology are:

1. Can it be built at a reasonable cost?
2. Is is scalable enough to meet our energy needs?
3. Can we complete world wide deployment of carbon technology replacing LFTR by what is often seen as the cut off date of 2050?

I responded to my own question

Perhaps my only original idea about Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) design was more a marketing suggestion, which combined David LeBlanc's suggestion that capital costs for LFTRs could be lowered by using lower cost materials that would tolerate somewhat lower reactor performance. David LeBlanc's suggestions indicated that low cost LFTRs could be built from commonly available low cost materials. I saw that this would solve a major problem in all current plans to produce post carbon electricity, that is the absence of a low cost load following and peak reserve electrical production technology to replace natural gas. Indeed the Greenpeace "energy [r]evolution" plan is not a true post carbon energy plan because it calls for an increase in the capacity of natural gas powered generating facilities over the next 20 years in order to supply load following and peak energy capacity to the grid as a compensation for the increased penetration by wind powered generators.

So the basic Big Lots idea was to build reactors with low cost materials, that will not compromise safety provided a somewhat lower level of performance. It first should be noted that lowering performance does not mean poor efficiency. In the Big Lots performance is lowered is several ways. First the operating temperature is lowered to a lower temperature that can be tolerated by steel. Secondly, the reactor would not be expected to operate on a full time basis. This would extend core component life, since the core components would not be subject to neutron radiation much of the time. Thirdly the reactor would be expected to operate at less than full power during much of the time it is actually producing power.

Performance compromises are relative. Even a lower performance LFTR will still operate at a higher temperature that an Integral Fast Reactor, thus the overall efficiency of the Big Lots reactor would not be compromised. Conventional reactors are designed to operate at peak power and efficiency almost all of the time, but the demand for electricity from the grid constantly varies, with electrical demands typically peaking during the daytime, and dropping back at night. Rather than build a lot of high cost nuclear and coal fired power plants to produce peak demand electricity, the electrical utilities have during the last generation to natural gas powered turbines. In addition, natural gas turbines can be ramped up quickly. This makes them excellent rake up and reserve electrical generating capacity. Natural gas turbines are also easy to throttle. Thus they are useful for following load demand on the grid, or in balancing the variable electrical output of renewables. Natural gas is an expensive fuel, but concepts such as combined cycle generations have made natural gas powered plants more efficient. Utilities are willing to pay more for peak electrical generation capacity, and natural gas fired electrical generation turbines and combined cycles generation plants have lower capital costs than coal or nuclear generation facilities. The cost of natural gas fluctuates over time, and typically electricity produced with natural gas is more expensive. Of course the use of natural gas also increases global CO2 emissions, although not as much as coal. The Big Lots idea is to come up with a low cost carbon free substitute for natural gas peak demand, load following, backup and reserve electricity generation.

The Big Lots reactor could do everything a natural gas powered generation unit can do, without CO2 emissions. If the price of the Big Lots reactor can be kept low enough, it can be economically quite competitive with natural gas, even if its overall capital costs are higher, because fuel costs would be lower than that of a natural gas powered unit. Even if the Big Lots were not designed to be a breeder, this could still be the case. In addition to lower fuel costs, the cost of the Big Lots would be less, as I note,

operating LFTR on a partial power or a part time basis decreases neutron damage to core material. At the same time load following power and peak load power is purchased by utilities at a premium price. It appeared to me that there was a potential for synergy here.

And the operations of the Big Lots creacto can potentially be profitable because,

load following power and peak load power is purchased by utilities at a premium price.

Big Lots Reactor price can be lowered by factory manufacture,

Production of the Big Lots Reactor would be highly scalable because it is factory built. The production process can use labor savings machines at every stage of the production process. Given a large enough production volume, parts manufacture can be partially or even completely automated. Robots can replace workers in some assembly operation. It is anticipated that the factory produced Big Lots will be shipped to the reactor site for final setup in modular units. Labor savings equipment can be used in site preparation, component assembly and in finishing off the site.

The Big Lots factory would be large, but not larger than a modern aircraft assembly factory. Component modules need not be produced in the same factory. The modules would be major reactor components. The assembly of the modular components should be relatively simple and quick, with most of the assembly being performed in factory settings.

My original Big Lots post triggered a discussion on Energy from Thorium discussion in March 2009. That discussion is still echoed in more recent EfT discussions. Skinny Dog wrote a couple of weeks ago,

his low-temperature / common materials approach reminds me of what Charles Barton calls "Big Lots" reactors. You should hook up with him on the idea. I think it's a good 'un.

Good or no, the Big Lots approach is not the only way the peak load, reserve power problem can be solved, using molten salt technology. A Molten Salt Reactor is a big salt heating device, and with Solar thermal power, once liquid salt is heated, it can be stored, and then produced when energy is demanded. Thus if surplus heat produced by a LFTR or other MSR - surplus heat being heat not required by current energy demand, - then the excess energy can be stored as hot salt. When energy demand increases beyond immediate reactor generation capacity, hot salt can be withdrawn and its energy turned into electricity by a closed cycle gas turbine or Sterling engine.

The Social Construction of Ignorance: Cochran and the Fast Reactor Canard

Thomas B. Cochran is a lobbyist employed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, to attack nuclear power on a full time basis. As befits a Lobbyist, Cochran is well compensated. In 2006 Cochran was one of the 5 highest paid employees of the NRDC, with a total compensation package approaching $200,000. In 2006 the largest single foundation donor to the the NRDF was the Energy Foundation, an environmental funding NGO, that also funds many other anti-nuclear "environmental organizations. The NRDC has been a recipient of funding from the Pro-coal Joyce Foundation, which has served as a conduit for funding of pro-coal lobbying, and propaganda activities to a number of environmental organizations. The NRDC has also been the recipient of funding from the infamous Tides Foundation, which allegedly provides sub-rosa funding services between supposedly ideologically pure organizations and environmentally tainted funders. The NRDC also receives funding by the Ted Turner foundation, a funding source controlled by natural gas baron, Ted Turner, who along with T. Boone Pickens is on of the architects of the natural gas-renewables alliance.

Cochran is a long time critic of nuclear power, whose criticism seemingly do not squarely put him in the nay sayers camp. Cochran is not as obviously a fake expert as is Amory Lovins, but there are some red flags. Cochran is a Nuclear proliferation expert and nuclear proliferation canard has been a major item in the the anti-nuclear propaganda story. Alex DeVolpi writes,

A. David Rossin, a former DOE official who had substantial nuclear-technology experience before entering government service, writes that long ago he first heard from Tom Cochran of the NRDC the term “weapons-usable.” Rossin agrees that — despite the large body of contradictory evidence — the term is often applied by “today’s nonproliferation activists” indiscriminately to “all isotopes of plutonium."

The Hoffnagles offer a category of "denialist" strategies, Impossible expectations (and moving goalposts). it is fair to ask if the nuclear proliferation argument against nuclear power is not an anti-nuclear ploy. Since Cochran testified before the DoE Blue Ribbon Commission last week, it is legitimate to ask if his testimony amounted to knowledge pollution or if it expressed a fact and science based set of rational beliefs.

Cochran's testimony before the Blue Ribbon Commission included a challenge to the legitimacy of the Commission, that the Commission was not lawfully constituted:

The Commission membership is not balanced as required by law. First, let me make that we do not question the integrity of the members of the Commission, for which we have regard, and we recognize your dedication to public service. The issue arises from the legal requirement that committees under FACA be balanced in terms of the points of view represented, and from the common-sense view that if you desire to succeed you shouldn’t begin by locking out constituencies that you need for success. This commission is not balanced and important points of view are not represented on the Commission.

This objection appears to have been proforma, and intended to lay the groundwork for a subsequent propaganda anti-nuclear campaigns against the Blue Ribbon Commission report, which is likely to make recommendations that the NRDC and its fossil fuel industry paymasters oppose. Cochran articulated the NRDC's interests, as one of fair representation,

NRDC, other NGOs and individuals with long interest and sometimes active participation in federal policy related to the management and disposal of nuclear wastes share a range of views from a position that nuclear power should compete for market share without further federal subsidies to the belief that the role of nuclear power should not be expanded due to cost, proliferation, safety and waste management considerations. Many believe further nuclear subsidies carry high opportunity costs in mitigating climate change. The views of these groups and individuals are not represented on the Commission. . . .

Cochran then cleverly set the commission up for failure by suggesting who should be represented in its membership, and what it should try to accomplish. First,

Attachment 3 is a statement of Principles for Safeguarding Waste at Reactor Site. This statement was produced and circulated long before the formation of the Blue Ribbon Commission. It is signed by representatives of some 170 national and local groups in 50 states— a very large, thoughtful constituency that are actively participating in matters now under consideration by the Commission. In NRDC’s view these groups have essentially no representation on the Commission. The DOE and the Obama administration should have been aware of this statement, the long involvement of many of these organizations in the “issues under consideration” by the Commission, and should have made sure that they were represented on the Commission just as the nuclear industry is well represented.

The Commission cannot expect to be an effective voice in solving the nuclear waste problem if it excludes representation of important constituencies from participating in its discussions and formulating its recommendations. If you expect to reform the process for managing and disposing of spent fuel and nuclear waste, you best not begin by locking out of the process important constituencies whose inclusion is needed to reach a durable consensus on future policy.

Secondly Cochran recommended goals for the commission,

The Commission should focus on getting the geologic repository program back on track. Regardless of whether U.S. nuclear capacity increases, decreases or stays approximately the same, and regardless of which nuclear fuel cycle is adopted or when, the United States needs one or more geologic repositories for the sequestering of spent fuel and high level radioactive waste for very long periods. Consequently, in our view the highest priority of the Blue Ribbon Commission is to get the repository program back on track. This should be the focus of your efforts and recommendations of your interim report. The issue of what is the preferred future fuel cycle can wait.

These two suggestions, taken together are a trap, likely to lead the Commission into failure in its assignment. The groups which Cochran recommends for inclusion in the Commission, undoubtedly include "Not in My Back Yard" (NIMBY) constituencies. The recommendation of a geologic repository program is likely to bring out NIMBY opposition in force.

Cochran then clearly joined the anti-nuclear cam by attacking the fast reactor option for closing the fuel cycle:

The wide spread use of fast reactors and a closed fuel cycle to burn selective actinides for waste management purposes has essentially no chance of succeeding within any policy time frame that is relevant to resolving either current nuclear waste storage issues or the problem of decarbonizing the U.S. electric power generation sector. Continued U.S. research and development (R&D) on advanced reprocessing will also fan global interest in plutonium separation and utilization technology and thereby increase nuclear weapons proliferation risks.

Closed fuel cycle schemes to reduce repository requirements typically require that on the order of one-third of the reactor capacity be comprised of fast reactors. The precise fraction is not important here—only to note it is a large fraction. To achieve such a balanced ratio of fast to thermal reactor capacity in the United States in the next few decades would require roughly that the next 50 gigawatts-electric (GWe) of reactor capacity built in the United States to be fast reactors, e.g., 50 fast reactors each about the average size of U.S. nuclear power reactors operational today. The Commission should acknowledge the fundamental reasons why this outcome is highly unlikely in the next few decades or for that matter in this century.
History has not been kind to fast reactors. They have cost considerably more than thermal reactors, and seem likely to stay that way, and have proven to be much less reliable than thermal reactors.

There are several acts of knowledge pollution here. First Cochran is aware that fast reactors are not the only plutonium burning option. If he is unaware of the Molten Salt Reactor actinide burning option, then his competence as a nuclear proliferation/nuclear arms control expert is open to question. In effect Cochran attempts to fines all plutonium burning breeder options by dismissing fast reactors. In doing so he ignores the potential nuclear waste disposal use of Molten Salt Reactors. Canadian Reactor Scientist, David LeBlanc has recently pointed out the developmental potential of the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor (DMSR). The DMSR could be quickly developed, because its design utilizes already mature, tested, technologies, it is highly safe, and can use any possible nuclear fuel. ORNL originally proposed the DMSR because it had outstanding proliferation prevention characteristics. These proliferation prevention features would undoubtedly undercut Cochran's objection to plutonium burning closed fuel cycle reactors, and thus would destroy his attempt to destroy the nuclear power option by setting the bar to high.

That Cochran is aware of the Molten Salt Reactor option is beyond dispute. He is a listed co-author report on the history and current developmental status of Fast Breeder Reactors, titled "Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status. " Cochran co-authored a chapter of that report which includes a discussion of the Molten Salt Reactor:

Although the highest priority was given to LMFBRs, several other types of breeders were considered, and reached various stages of development in the United States. In addition to the LMFBR, these included the gas (helium) cooled fast breeder, and two thermal-neutron reactor types, the light-water breeder reactor and the molten-salt breeder reactor (MSBR). The fast-neutron breeder reactors were designed to breed plutonium from uranium-238, while the thermal-neutron breeder designs were optimized to breed uranium-233 from thorium-232.

Perhaps the most interesting alternate concept explored in this early work was the molten-salt breeder, which still has advocates.47 In this reactor, the fuel and coolant are combined in a molten mixture of fluoride salts. The salt flows through the reactor core, through an intermediate heat exchanger, and then back to the reactor core. Molten-salt reactors were first proposed by Ed Bettis and Ray Briant of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) during the post-World War II attempt to design a nuclear-powered aircraft.48 Two molten-salt reactors were built at ORNL. The first was a prototype aircraft reactor, the 1.5 MWt Aircraft Reactor Experiment (ARE), which operated for 100 hours in October 1954. The second, the graphite-moderated 8 MWt Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE), operated between June 1965 and December 1969, demonstrating the technical feasibility of the molten-salt breeder concept.

In 1972, ORNL proposed a major development program that would have culminated in the construction and operation of a demonstration reactor called the Molten Salt Breeder Experiment. The total program cost was estimated at $350 million over a period of 11 years.49 Those who would have had to approve the funding of the program were already heavily committed to the LMFBR, however. The ORNL proposal was rejected by the AEC partly because it wished to reduce the number of breeder candidates to be developed and because the breeding ratios projected for the molten-salt reactor were low compared to those foreseen for the fast-neutron reactors.50 In January 1973, ORNL was directed to terminate MSBR development work. The program was reinstated a year later, and in 1974 ORNL submitted a more elaborate proposal calling for approximately $720 million to be spent over an 11-year period. This proposal was also rejected, and, in 1976, ORNL was again ordered to shut down the MSBR program “for budgetary reasons.”

Thus clearly Cochran is aware of the MSBR's existence, and has some idea about its potential. Yet in his testimony before the Blue Ribbon Commission, Cochran omitted mention of the Molten Salt Reactor based closed end fuel cycle options. Given the statement on the Molten Salt Reactor which Cochran allegedly co-authored, the omission of mention of a Molten Salt Reactor closed fuel cycle option appears to have been deliberate. Cochran ignored important information, which would have given the the Blue Ribbon Commission an attractive option that would have offered a potential contribution to managing the problem of used light water reactor fuel, while also offering a potential source of low cost nuclear generated low carbon electricity. Thus even as he ignored the potentially attractive DMSR option, Cochran sought to block all use of closed end fuel cycle approaches to the LWR nuclear waste issue, by an attack on the LMFBR. This argument fails the standard, of rational fact and science based discourse.

A canard, is a story intended to distract its hearers from an important truth. Cochran's attack on fast reactors thus is a canard intended to distract the Blue Ribbon Commission from the promising solutions to the problems of current nuclear technology offered by molten salt nuclear technology. I can only conclude that Thomas Cochran engaged in deliberate acts of knowledge pollution during his testimony before the DoE's Blue Ribbon Comission on the Nuclear Future.