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APS Physics | FPS | Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors

Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir introduce iquid fuel reactors:

APS Physics | FPS | Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors

The 2009 update of MIT’s Future of Nuclear Power shows that the capital cost of new coal plants is $2.30/watt, compared to LWRs at $4/watt. The median of five cost studies of large molten salt reactors from 1962 to 2002 is $1.98/watt, in 2009 dollars. Costs for scaled-down 100 MW reactors can be similarly low for a number of reasons, six of which we summarize briefly:

Pressure. The LFTR operates at atmospheric pressure, obviating the need for a large containment dome. At atmospheric pressure there is no danger of an explosion.

Safety. Rather than creating safety with multiple defense-in-depth systems, LFTR’s intrinsic safety keeps such costs low. A molten salt reactor cannot melt down because the normal operating state of the core is already molten. The salts are solid at room temperature, so if a reactor vessel, pump, or pipe ruptured they would spill out and solidify. If the temperature rises, stability is intrinsic due to salt expansion. In an emergency an actively cooled solid plug of salt in a drain pipe melts and the fuel flows to a critically safe dump tank. The Oak Ridge MSRE researchers turned the reactor off this way on weekends.

Heat. The high heat capacity of molten salt exceeds that of the water in PWRs or liquid sodium in fast reactors, allowing compact geometries and heat transfer loops utilizing high-nickel metals.

Energy conversion efficiency. High temperatures enable 45% efficient thermal/electrical power conversion using a closed-cycle turbine, compared to 33% typical of existing power plants using traditional Rankine steam cycles. Cooling requirements are nearly halved, reducing costs and making air-cooled LFTRs practical where water is scarce.

Mass production. Commercialization of technology lowers costs as the number of units produced increases due to improvements in labor efficiency, materials, manufacturing technology, and quality. Doubling the number of units produced reduces cost by a percentage termed the learning ratio, which is often about 20%. In The Economic Future of Nuclear Power, University of Chicago economists estimate it at 10% for nuclear power reactors. Reactors of 100 MW size could be factory-produced daily in the way that Boeing Aircraft produces one airplane per day. At a learning ratio of 10%, costs drop 65% in three years.

Robert Bradley, Jr., and the future of energy

I am interested in the intellectual interpretation of energy issues. Robert Bradley, Jr., offers a "libertarian" interpretation of climate and energy issues, in two energy related web sites, masterresources.org, and the Institute for Energy Research. Bradley's libertarian ideology intrudes into postings on both web sites, but far more heavily on masterresources, than on the IER pages. Neither site focuses heavily on nuclear power, and Bradley does not usually receive attention from nuclear bloggers. Whether or not he should receive more attention is another issue. Libertarians are potential allies of a nuclear approach to global energy issues, but Bradleyis far more interested in fossil fuels, and in particular intellectual issues related to the governmental regulation of fossil fuels than he is in alternative energy sources.

A brief biography of Bradley stated,

Robert Bradley worked at Enron for 16 years. As director of public policy analysis for his last seven years there, he wrote speeches for the late Ken Lay, Enron’s CEO, who was convicted in 2005 of fraud and conspiracy. Dr. Bradley is also founder and CEO of the Institute for Energy Research of Houston, Texas, and Washington, D.C. He frequently writes and lectures on energy, political economy, and corporate governance. He is currently completing his seventh book, Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies, the second volume of a trilogy on political capitalism inspired by the rise and fall of Enron.

16 years with Enron, coupled with subsequent research on the failure of Enron may not have have provided Dr. Bradley a deep understanding of the role of nuclear power in future energy systems. Bradley is not interested in technology. His view of the energy future is based on a sort of hero worship of capitolists, preached by Ayn Rand. Bradley wrote,

Readers of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which so notably portrayed the American businessman as a hero, may well be wondering what to say about it all. They should say: Ayn Rand was right. She comprehended business in its highest and lowest forms. . . .

Thus Bradley offers a form of Libertarianism that is heavily influenced by Ayn Rand's thought. There are other forms of Libertarian which Rand appeared to have criticized. Rand stated that she would prefer voting for comedians Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers or Jerry Lewis than for the 1972 American Libertarian Party. She described

Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program.

And while Rand regarded some businesses people as heros, many received her scorn:

In my new book, I glorify the real kind of productive, free-enterprise businessman in a way that he has never been glorified before. I present him as the most heroic type of human being, more so, in a way, than Howard Roark. But I make mincemeat out of the kind of businessman who calls himself a “middle-of- the-roader” and talks about a “mixed economy”—the kind that runs to government for assistance, subsidies, legislation, and regulation (Michael Berliner, Letters of Ayn Rand, pp. 441–42).

Needless to say, Ken Lay of Enron was the sort of businessman who talked

about a “mixed economy”—the kind that runs to government for assistance, subsidies, legislation, and regulation . . .

At least in Bradley's world view.

Liberalism is not an ideology the term refers to a complex set of ideas that are not entirely coherent. There is no clear boundary between liberalism and libertarianism. Liberalism focuses both on human freedom and on the creation of an environment of personal opportunity. A few Libertarians understand the kinship between libertarians and liberals, but most often Libertarians view Libertarianism as a form of conservative ideology. The followers of Ayn Rand for the most part should not be considered quasi liberals. Real Liberals, and liberal leaning libertarians are supporters of science, but Rand's ideology, which stresses hyper individualism, is not sympathetic too or supportive of science.

Bradley has found his capitalist hero in the person of Charles Koch, a successful businessman who heads a $100 billion a year private business. Koch, his brother David Koch, and Bradley are all bitter opponents of climate science, with the Koches bank rolling much of the right wing attack on science. Thus we have the Koches who are in the energy business in total denial concerning the challenges and opportunities of the future energy business. Charles Koch controls the Libertarian Cato which through Cato "scholar" Jerry Taylor is in the anti-nuclear propaganda business along with Greenpeace and the Serra Club. Taylor claims,

Why is it risky to build nuclear power plants? Because new nuclear projects tie up more capital for longer periods of time than its main competitor, natural-gas fired generation. Nuclear power makes economic sense only if natural gas prices are very high. Then, over time, the high initial costs of nuclear power would be offset by nuclear power’s lower fuel costs. Moreover, as noted by Moody’s in an analysis published in July of last year, there is uncertainty associated with construction costs, regulatory oversight, technological developments that might reduce the cost of rival facilities, and the ability of utilities to recover costs and make a profit over the lifetime of the plant – a risk tied up in the economic prospects of the region being served by the plant. And those risks have been increasing, not decreasing, as time has gone on.

Taylor also stated,

Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding). When the day comes that the electricity from solar or nuclear power plants is worth more than the costs associated with generating it, I will be as happy as the next Greenpeace member (in the case of the former) or MIT graduate (in the case of the latter) to support either technology. But that day is not on the horizon and government policies can't accelerate the economic clock.

Many free market advocates support nuclear because it costs less to generate nuclear power than it does to generate electricity from any other source (save, perhaps, hydroelectric power), thanks to nuclear's low operation and maintenance costs. However, someone has to first pay for - and build - these plants and the rub is that nuclear has very high, upfront construction costs ranging from $6-9 billion. By contrast, gas plants cost only a few hundred million dollars to build and coal a couple of billion depending upon the capacity and type of plant.

Fortunately the Koches are not going to be running the business that carries their name for much longer. Charles is 75 and David is 70. How much longer they can stay at the helm of a $100 billion a year business is open to question. As it is they are potentially causing enormous damage to the future of society by their sponsorship of the climate change denial industry, and efforts to ignore the potential benefits of nuclear power.

Further Jacobson objections to Consideration of Nuclear Power: Safety and Uranium

In his new paper on post carbon energy sources ("Providing all Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas of Infrastructure, and Materials," Energy Policy in press), Mark Z. Jacobson refuses to consider nuclear power as a future energy source:

For several reasons we do not consider nuclear energy (conventional fission, breeder reactors, or fusion) as a long-term global energy source.

in previous posts, I have offered an extensive analysis of two major parts of of Jacobson's objections. By far the most serious objection is the claim that the spread of civilian nuclear power technology would lead to the development of nuclear weapons by states which currently lack them. This argument is speculative, and the evidence from actual instances of attempted our actual proliferation is that nations that lack a civilian nuclear power program are more likely to seek to acquire nuclear weapons, than nations which operate civilian power reactors.

A second Jacobson argument focused on CO2 emissions associated with civilian nuclear electrical generation. Jacobson's argument rested formally on two meta-analytic studies of nuclear associated emissions, but those studies in turn relied on a questionable source, and both appeared flawed by anti-nuclear biases. But Jacobson's argument appears to go beyond what could be asserted on the basis of his sources, and appears to rest on a previous Jacobson Paper in which he asserted a causal connection between the spread of civilian nuclear power technology and future nuclear wars every 30 years. Since the claimed connection between civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation appears to have been falsified, the connection between the spread of civilian nuclear power and nuclear war appears to lack support. indeed it might be anticipated that nations which lack a civilian nuclear power program are more likely to engage in nuclear exchanges, than nations which possess civilian power reactors.

I mentioned one further Jacobson objection to nuclear power, the time required to construct nuclear power plants. Jacobson calmed,

The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years,

Yet the transformation of French electrical generation technology to 75% nuclear took place over a period of 19 years and involved the construction of no less than 54 reactors. Thus Jacobson once again offers assertions against which clear and powerful evidence support contradictory conclusions.

In addition to these objections Jacobson objected to consideration of nuclear power on the grounds of safety and the future nuclear fuel supply.

conventional nuclear fission relies on finite stores of uranium that a large-scale nuclear program with a “once through” fuel cycle would exhaust in roughly a century (e.g., Macfarlane and Miller, 2007; Adamantiades and Kessides, 2009). In addition, accidents at nuclear power plants have been either catastrophic (Chernobyl) or damaging (Three-Mile Island), and although the nuclear industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed new (but generally untested) “inherently” safe reactor designs (Piera, 2010; Penner et al., 2010; Adamantiades and Kessides, 2009; . . .

Since Jacobson passes over the whole safety issue with a relatively few words, I will deal with his assertions on nuclear safety briefly. First, nuclear power has proven itself to be by far the safest energy technology. Conventional Light Water Reactors have proven themselves to be extremely safe, with an unprecedented record of operation without a major accident since 1979. The only serious LWR accident failed to produce injuries or deaths, despite long standing, but unsuccessful efforts by nuclear opponents to argue that there were Three Mile Island accident casualties. This contention was rejected by a court decision. Thus, the safety of nuclear power has been established by thousands of years of Light Water Reactor operation without a single casualty producing reactor accident.

Jacobson's treatment of “inherently safe reactor" is very problematic. Jacobson asserts, although

the nuclear industry has . . . i proposed new (but generally untested) “inherently” safe reactor designs . . . there is no guarantee that the reactors will be designed, built and operated correctly.

In fact several “inherently safe reactor" have been tested. these include the Pebble Bed Reactor, the IFR prototype, the EBR II, and the Molten Salt Reactor prototype, the MSRE. These tests demonstrated that inherently safe reactors are possible, and can be built with proven technology. Thus we can point to reasonable assurance that inherently safe reactors will be in fact safe.

In the case of all three prototypes, inherent safety features were tested and performed as expected. In the case of the molten salt reactor, the stability and safety features are so inherent in the reactor concept, that an unsafe MSR design is highly unlikely. The inherent safety of the Molten Salt Reactor is a byproduct of the basic reactor concept. Further molten salt power generating reactors can be designed to produce power without any operator input. Hence operator errors would be impossible in normal operation situations. Hence Jacobson's claims about inherent nuclear safety are contradicted by reactor prototype safety experiments, and the basic nature of the inherently safe reactor concepts.

Next we turn to the Jacobson claim that

a large-scale nuclear program with a “once through” fuel cycle would exhaust [uranium supplies] in roughly a century

This contention is decisively refuted by a recent MIT report "The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle," That report states,

There is no shortage of uranium resources that might constrain future commitments to build new nuclear plants for much of this century at least.

The benefits to resource extension and to waste management of limited recycling in LWRs using mixed oxide fuel as is being done in some countries are minimal.

Scientifically sound methods exist to manage spent nuclear fuel.

it is often recognized that long term, nuclear technology needs to shift from once through Light Water reactors, to more advanced uranium and thorium breeder reactors. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, reactor scientists have understood that the long range development of nuclear power would require breeder reactors. The possibility of using advance technology reactors to breed uranium and thorium has been frequently discussed. Jacobson rejects the possibility of nuclear breeding with a the simple claim that there is no proliferation proof nuclear power cycle. While this is true, as we have already noted a commitment to nuclear power generation appears to decrease rather than increase proliferation risks. Thus there is no clear evidence that nuclear breeding technology will actually lead to nuclear proliferation in practice. Jacobson relies entirely on speculative, untested and untestable arguments in making the claim that breeder reactors pose significant proliferation risks.

Jacobson also briefly reviews the use of thorium breeding as an alternative rout to sustainable nuclear power but ultimately rejects it:

A related proposal is to use thorium as a nuclear fuel, which is less likely to lead to nuclear weapons proliferation than the use of uranium, produces less long-lived radioactive waste, and greatly extends uranium resources (Macfarlane and Miller, 2007). However, thorium reactors require the same significant time lag between planning and operation as conventional uranium reactors and most likely longer because few developers and scientists have experience with constructing or running thorium reactors, As such, this technology will result in greater emissions from the background electric grid compared with WWS technologies, which have a shorter time lag. In addition, lifecycle emissions of carbon from a thorium reactor are on the same order as those from a uranium reactor. Further, thorium still produces radioactive waste containing 231Pa, which has a half-life of 32,760 years. It also produces 233U, which can be used in fission weapons, such as in one nuclear bomb core during the Operation Teapot nuclear tests in 1955. Weaponization, though, is made more difficult by the presence of 232U

once again we see that Jacobson relies on his business as usual, too much time argument, to justify the rejection of what would otherwise appear to be an attractive nuclear option. And once again Jacobson relies on a problematic argument. In the case of thorium, relatively small thorium breeding molten salt reactors (LFTRs) can be rapidly built in factories, and require significantly less on site work to for their completion. The LFTRF licensing process can be streamlined, if a goal of completing hundreds or even thousands of LFTRs in a short time is viewed as desirable. A small amount of Ps-231 is produced in thorium breeding, but it can simply left in the reactor core where it can be converted by the breeding process to U-232 or U-233. While it is true that U-233 is weaponizable, the one test of a U-233 containing device proved to be a failure. It would appear that American weapons designers rejected U-233 as a weapon material. As with proliferation risks associated with fast reactors, there is no strong evidence that possessing thorium breeding reactors actually increases the danger of nuclear proliferation beyond the risks associated with not possessing civilian nuclear power plants.

The global abundance of thorium, an untapped source of potential nuclear fuel, is such that thorium could supply all human energy needs for millions of years. Thorium fueled molten Salt Reactors are very safe, and the CO2 emissions associated with them would be far less than those associated with any renewable energy source. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors can be operated to produce no long term transuranium waste, and to produce fission product wast that with reach background radiation levels within 300 years.

Thus once again it must be concluded that Mark Z. Jacobson excluded nuclear power as a future energy source without rational justification.

Jacobson: Beyond Cherry Picking

In a previous post I looked at Mark Z. Jacobson's decision to exclude nuclear power as an future energy source in a recent paper. In that post I reviewed Jacobson's assertions that the global spread of nuclear generated electrical power would cause nuclear proliferation and nuclear war. In the course of my investigating of actual instances of proliferation, I found that nations which lacked civilian nuclear power facilities were more likely to undertake the development of nuclear weapons than nations which possess civilian nuclear power facilities. Thus arguably the spread of nuclear power generation facilities may lead to a decline in nuclear proliferation risks.

In this post I intend to consider other arguments which Jacobson uses to justify the exclusion of nuclear power from future energy plans. A second part of Jacobson's argument for the exclusion of nuclear power claims that wind generated electricity leads to significantly lower CO2 emissions than would be the case with nuclear generated electricity. Jaacobson claims:

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, in part due to emissions from uranium refining and transport and reactor construction (e.g., Lenzen, 2008; Sovacool, 2008), in part due to the longer time required to site, permit, and construct a nuclear plant compared with a wind farm (resulting in greater emissions from the fossil-fuel electricity sector during this period; Jacobson, 2009), and in part due to the greater loss of soil carbon due to the greater loss in vegetation resulting from covering the ground with nuclear facilities relative to wind turbine towers, which cover little ground. Although recent construction times worldwide are shorter than the 9-year median construction times in the U.S. since 1970 (Koomey and Hultman, 2007), they still averaged 6.5 years worldwide in 2007 (Ramana, 2009), and this time must be added to the site permit time (~3 years in the U.S.) and construction permit and issue time (~3 years). The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years, compared with an average of 2-5 years for wind and solar installations (Jacobson, 2009). Feiveson (2009) observes that “because wind turbines can be installed much faster than could nuclear, the cumulative greenhouse gas savings per capital invested appear likely to be greater for wind” (p. 67).

A careful examination of Jacobson's statement will reveal many problems. Jacobson makes claims about the relative emissions of CO2 from wind and nuclear power (9-25 times more carbon emissions). in support of this assertion Jacobson references papers by Lenzen and Sovacool. Both papers offer meta analyses of the life cycle CO2 emissions of CO2 by nuclear power. Both papers reach similar conclusions, which reflect an estimated life cycle CO2 emissions from nuclear power that is several times greater than that found by Dones. in several previous posts, most recently "Honor the Truth" (December 26, 2010), I set out the criticisms by Dones and others that studies of the lifecycle CO2 emissions associated with nuclear power reported by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith contain numerous and serious flaws. Thus the "Stormsmith" CO2 emissions estimates cannot be considered reliable. Dones wrote that "Stormsmith's"

results are definitively outliers.

Yet both Lenzen and Sovacool rely heavily on "Stormsmith" for their conclusions. At any rate neither Lenzen nor Sovacool support Jacobson's claim of nuclear lifecycle emissions 25 time greater than wind lifecycle emissions, and indeed not even "Stormsmith" supports anything close to this claim. Where does the 25 times claim then come from? In his paper Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security, Jacobson wrote:

In this section, the CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions (emissions of CO2 plus those of other greenhouse gases multiplied by their global warming potentials) of each energy technology are reviewed. We also examine CO2e emissions of each technology due to planning and construction delays relative to those from the technology with the least delays (opportunity-cost emissions), leakage from geological formations of CO2 sequestered by coal-CCS, and the emissions from the burning of cities resulting from nuclear weapons explosions potentially resulting from nuclear energy expansion.

The inclusion of carbon from burning cities ignited by nuclear weapons as nuclear power emissions, explains the 25 times carbon emission claim, but it is wacky, and needless to say utterly without scientific validity.

Even if "Stormsmith" could be considered a reliable source, Jacobson derives arguments from the Lenzen and Sovacool papers that cannot be supported from those papers. First a meta analysis is not a scientific study, and its conclusions are not scientific. Secondly, meta analysis can be manipulated to produce highly biased results. The Wikipedia observes:

The most severe weakness and abuse of meta-analysis often occurs when the person or persons doing the meta-analysis have an economic, social,or political agenda such as the passage or defeat of legislation. Those persons with these types of agenda have a high likelihood to abuse meta-analysis due to personal bias. For example, researchers favorable to the author's agenda are likely to have their studies "cherry picked" while those not favorable will be ignored or labeled as "not credible". In addition, the favored authors may themselves be biased or paid to produce results that support their overall political, social, or economic goals in ways such as selecting small favorable data sets and not incorporating larger unfavorable data sets.

If a meta-analysis is conducted by an individual or organization with a bias or predetermined desired outcome, it should be treated as highly suspect or having a high likelihood of being "junk science". From an integrity perspective, researchers with a bias should avoid meta-analysis and use a less abuse-prone (or independent) form of research.

There is abundant evidence that both the Sovacool and the Lanzen studies were biased. Both studies rely heavily on "Stormsmith" despite Dones's critique of "Stormsmith's" methods and conclusions. There is added evidence that Sovacool was engaged in cherry picking, he found fault with most of the peer reviewed studies of life cycle emissions from nuclear power, and excluded them from his analysis. Thus neither Sovacool nor Lanzen offer credible evidence on the life cycle emissions of nuclear power plants, and both studies are likely to reflect the biases of their authors. Thus Jacobson lacks credible sources for his assertions about the life cycle CO2 emissions of nuclear power plants, and therefor there are no credible data to make comparisons between the lifecycle CO2 emissions of wind and nuclear.

But what of Jacobson's claims about soil loss in connection with nuclear facilities? Uranium mines use a variety of mining technologies, and in a variety of settings, but in the United States all uranium mines use a technology called in situ leaching. In situ leaching does not disturb the soil, thus uranium mining in the United States cannot be regarded as creating a soil loss problem. Underground mines in other countries do not, for the most part create soil loss problems. New Canadian uranium mines tend to be underground. Many surface open pit uranium mines are located in desert country where soil loss to uranium mining would lead to only a very limited loss of ground covering vegetation, hence an insignificant impact on the global carbon cycle. Further, a review of recent mining practices indicates that played out open pit uranium mines are used for tailings disposal, thus limiting the impact of uranium mining tailings on ground covering vegetation and the carbon cycle. Of the world's 10 largest uranium mines only three, representing 20% of the global uranium mining total were open pit mines. Of those three, two, representing over 11% of the global uranium mining total, are located in desert environments. The number of in situ mines and their percentage of the global uranium mining total is rapidly increasing, and is currently running at 32% of the uranium mining total.

Uranium mills and uranium separation facilities occupy a tiny fraction of the global industrial infrastructure. Thus arguments attributing a displacement of ground cover so large as to impact the global carbon cycles are simply absurd. Finally reactor have small footprints. Most land dedicated to reactors constitute buffers designed to protect the public from any possible release of gaseous and volatile radioisotopes in the event of a reactor accident. The soil in reactor buffers is typically undisturbed, and and ground cover assumes natural forms. The developed area of reactor facilities is relatively small and thus the impact of even thousands of power producing reactors on the global carbon cycle through vegetation displacement would be insignificant.

Thus Jacobson's claim that nuclear power plants

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy,

is partially based on arguably unscientific and bias sources and partially based on an highly exaggerated account of the impact of the nuclear power cycle on ground cover vegetation and the global carbon cycle. Even the sources

What of Jacobson's claim that

The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years, . . .

Jacobson exaggerates the time scale required to build a large number of reactors. The French decision to convert its electrical system too nuclear power was made in 1973. The whole project was completed by 1992 19 years after the decision was made.

The French example is appropriate here because France was able to convert 3/4ths of its electrical industry to nuclear power very quickly. One group of 34 900 MW French reactors was completed between 1977 and 1988. A second group of 20 1300 MW reactors was completed between 1985 and 1992.

French nuclear power reactors

Class	Reactor	MWe net, each	Commercial operation
900 MWe	Blayais 1-4	910	12/81, 2/83, 11/83, 10/83
	Bugey 2-3	910	3/79, 3/79
	Bugey 4-5	880	7/79-1/80
	Chinon B 1-4	905	2/84, 8/84, 3/87, 4/88
	Cruas 1-4	915	4/84, 4/85, 9/84, 2/85
	Dampierre 1-4	890	9/80, 2/81, 5/81, 11/81
	Fessenheim 1-2	880	12/77, 3/78
	Gravelines B 1-4	910	11/80, 12/80, 6/81, 10/81
	Gravelines C 5-6	910	1/85, 10/85
	Saint-Laurent B 1-2	915	8/83, 8/83
	Tricastin 1-4	915	12/80, 12/80, 5/81, 11/81
1300 MWe	Belleville 1 & 2	1310	6/88, 1/89
	Cattenom 1-4	1300	4/87, 2/88, 2/91, 1/92
	Flamanville 1-2	1330	12/86, 3/87
	Golfech 1-2	1310	2/91, 3/94
	Nogent s/Seine 1-2	1310	2/88, 5/89
	Paluel 1-4	1330	12/85, 12/85, 2/86, 6/86
	Penly 1-2	1330	12/90, 11/92
	Saint-Alban 1-2	1335	5/86, 3/87
N4 - 1450 MWe	Chooz B 1-2	1500	12/96, 1999
	Civaux 1-2	1495	1999, 2000
	Total (58)	63,130

(Source World Nuclear Association)

it would appear then that France offers a model to any nation which wished to rapidly convert its electrical generating system to post carbon energy sources. It should be noted that French reactors are as safe as reactors anywhere in the world, so the rapid development of nuclear power in France was not accomplished at the cost of nuclear safety.

It should also be added that newer reactor construction technologies have emerged since the French Reactor building program was completed. These include factory construction of reactor modules, with field assembly of modules, and the introduction of time and labor saving construction/assembly equipment. In addition, refinements of reactor construction planning have emerged from asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. This improvement in reactor construction planning has significantly lowered reactor construction costs. China has adopted the best construction practices with a consequent decrease in construction costs of 40% compared to the construction practices of French reactor constructors. Any attempt to convert the American energy economy to post carbon nuclear power should take advantage of all possible cost and time saving technologies and techniques.

Thus Jacobson lacks objective, scientifically valid grounds for his a priori exclusion of nuclear power from consideration as a future post carbon energy source. He objects to nuclear power on the basis of

* Nuclear proliferation

* Nuclear CO2 emissions

* Nuclear effects f the Global Carbon Cycle

* The time scale of nuclear construction

My conclusions are that none of these objections have merit.

* The evidence from the study of actual instances of nuclear proliferation suggests the spread of nuclear power appears to inhibit rather than encourage nuclear proliferation.

* Jacobson uses biased and inaccurate sources in making his claims about nuclear CO2 emissions.

* Jacobson goes beyond his sources and concocts highly unscientific arguments that extend well beyond any scientific evidence, in order to justify his exaggerated carbon emissions estimate.

* Jacobson greatly exaggerates the impact of nuclear facilities on ground cover vegetation and the Global carbon cycle.

* France was able to convert 75% of its electrical industry to nuclear powered generation in the same time scale that Jacobson claims is required to build a single nuclear plant.

One must conclude that Jacobson's anti-nuclear arguments suffer from confirmation bias. Jacobson simply ignores sources that contradict his viewpoint. When supportive sources are available, Jacobson cherry picks, but his claim that

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy,

is not truly supported even by cherry picking. Thus Jacobson's exclusion from consideration of nuclear power as a post carbon energy source is not supported by judgements that can in any way be characterized as scientific and is the products of a personal bias.

IEA projected price for nuclear, fossil fuel and renewable generated electricity

(Source The Oil Drum)

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Mark Z. Jacobson's Proliferation of errors.

In a new paper, Mark Z. Jacobson rejects consideration of nuclear power technology as a post-carbon energy source:

we do not consider nuclear energy (conventional fission, breeder reactors, or fusion) as a long-term global energy source. First, the growth of nuclear energy has historically increased the ability of nations to obtain or enrich uranium for nuclear weapons . . . and a large-scale worldwide increase in nuclear energy facilities would exacerbate this problem, putting the world at greater risk of a nuclear war or terrorism catastrophe . . . The historic link between energy facilities and weapons is evidenced by the development or attempted development of weapons capabilities secretly in nuclear energy facilities in Pakistan, India, Iraq (prior to 1981), Iran , and to some extent North Korea.

Jacobson's statements here are misleading to the point of disingenuousness in several respects. It is possible to produce nuclear power without the use of enriched uranium, and it is almost inconceivable that Jacobson does not know this. If he truly unaware of natural uranium thermal reactors, he has no business pretending to have enough knowledge to form valid judgements about nuclear technology. Natural, unenriched uranium can be used as a nuclear fuel in power reactors that use graphite or heavy water as moderators. All Canadian power reactors are designed to operate with natural uranium, thus enriched uranium is not required by a nuclear power industry. The first American reactors built during World War II used natural uranium fuel.

Secondly, Jacobson fails to differentiate between low enrichment uranium used in civilian power reactors, and high enrichment uranium. Low enrichment uranium (under 20% U-235) is not used in nuclear weapons, as Jacobson no doubt knows, so his failure to note this distinction should be counted as a deceptive argument.

Jacobson asserts that there is no proliferation-proof nuclear technology and that the spread of civilian nuclear power generating facilities will inevitably lead to the spread of nuclear weapons, but he provides no proof that this is true. Not only have nuclear powers not produced weapons from plutonium derived from power reactors, but the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union all used heat from purpose-built plutonium production reactors to generate electricity. I repeat: there is no instance in which any of the five recognized nuclear powers have used plutonium from a civilian power reactor in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, nor is there any instance of nuclear weapons proliferation in which a weapon was manufactured through use of plutonium from a civilian power reactor.

Plutonium from civilian reactors differs from plutonium from made-for-purpose reactors. It is explosive, but it poses big problems for weapons designers, and while explosive, it may explode with a force that is far weaker than the force created by plutonium from a weapons production reactor. Reactors intended to produce plutonium for weapons are simple to design and cheap to build. Building a plutonium weapons production reactor is not beyond the capacity of even an economically backward country like North Korea. Thus the risk of a would-be proliferating nation using plutonium from civilian power reactors to build nuclear weapons is quite low.

It has also been alleged that while plutonium from civilian power reactors might not be useful to a nuclear weapons program, the technically trained staff of civilian nuclear power programs would be so useful to would be proliferators. It has been asserted that the very existence of such staffs increases proliferation risks. However, it should be noted that nations which have produced nuclear weapons have not drawn on personnel associated with civilian power reactor programs, although in some instances such personnel were recruited from indigenous nuclear research programs. The successful proliferation programs of Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa recruited most or all of their weapons program personnel from outside the nuclear research field. Thus it would appear that recruitment of nuclear weapons development specialists is not related to presence of local civilian power facility staffs, and that the absence of such staffs would inhibit the development of local proliferation programs.

Jacobson, in effect, argues that by avoiding the construction of civilian power reactors, the likelihood of nuclear proliferation and nuclear war can be diminished or even prevented. This argument contains multiple flaws. First it is unlikely that a large scale international buildup of nuclear power can be prevented. Both China and India have announced policies involving the construction of hundreds of reactors, while an increasing number of states including France, Sweden, Korea, and Japan produce a significant percentage of their electricity through the use of nuclear power, and except for Sweden plan significant expansions of their nuclear power industry.

Even if the outlawing of civilian power reactors were to become a goal of American foreign policy, it is exceedingly unlikely that the United States could enforce this policy on independent minded states like France, India and China. France and Japan already exports reactor technology, and it is inevitable that South Korea, China and India will do so as well. Again there seems little that the United States could do to prevent the global spread of civilian nuclear technology. Thus preventing the growth and spread of civilian nuclear power technology appears to be infeasible and thus not an effective tool to prevent nuclear proliferation. But even if it were possible for the United States to prevent the growth and spread of civilian nuclear technology, the probability of nuclear proliferation would not decrease. Most states which have developed nuclear weapons technology have done so without the air of a civilian nuclear power industry. The successful nuclear weapons development programs of South Africa and Pakistan included the development U-235 separation technologies. Neither of these programs were expensive.

But what of Jacobson's claim that

the development or attempted development of weapons capabilities secretly in nuclear energy facilities in Pakistan, India, Iraq (prior to 1981), Iran , and to some extent North Korea.

The term "nuclear energy facilities" is usually understood to refer to nuclear power plants, although occasionally laboratories, research reactors or uranium processing plants are referred to as nuclear energy facilities. Jacobson fails to define nuclear facilities, thus what he meant by the term is at best ambiguous, but in only one instance did the nuclear energy facilities even remotely involve nuclear powered electrical generation complexes. In most instances national proliferation efforts are not centered on indigenous nuclear research facilities.

Several successful proliferation programs have been aided by other countries:

* France provided Israel with a plutonium production facility upon which the Israeli nuclear weapons program was built.

* Canada provided India with a reactor capable of producing weapons grade plutonium.

* China provided Pakistan with U-235 and weapons technology

* North Korea provided Syria with a plutonium production facility apparently identical to its own.

Criminal organizations have provided states with proliferation tools:

* A.Q. Kahn provided Pakistan with detailed plans of uranium separation centrifuge technology

* The A.Q. Kahn gang provided Iran with uranium centrifuge technology

* The A.Q. Kahn gang provided Libya with a U-235 separation factory

In addition the North Koreans found declassified plans for a reactor capable of producing weapons grade plutonium in the United Kingdom. Ironically the plans were declassified as a part of the Atoms for Peace program during the 1960's.

The nuclear weapons programs of India and South Africa used some resources from Civilian nuclear research programs. But only India had a power reactor program as it developed its nuclear weapons program.

Mark Z. Jacobson asserts that there is no proliferation-proof nuclear technology and that the spread of civilian nuclear power generating facilities will inevitably lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union all used heat from purpose built plutonium production reactors, to generate electricity, but there is no instance in which any of the five recognized nuclear powers have used plutonium from a civilian power reactor in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and there is no instance of nuclear weapons proliferation in which a weapon was manufactured through use of plutonium from a civilian power reactor. Plutonium from civilian reactors differs from plutonium from made for purpose reactors. It is explosive, but it poses big problems for weapons designers, and while explosive, it may explode with a force that is far weaker than the force created by plutonium from a weapons production reactor. Reactors intended to produce plutonium for weapons are simple to design and cheap to build. Building a plutonium weapons production reactor is not beyond the capacity of even an economically failing country like North Korea. Thus the risk of a would be proliferating nation using plutonium from civilian power reactors to build nuclear weapons is quite low.

It is also alleged that while plutonium from civilian power reactors might not be useful to a nuclear weapons program, the technically trained staff of civilian nuclear power programs would be so useful to would be proliferates. it has been asserted that the very existence of such staff's increases proliferation risks. However, it should be noted that nations which have produced nuclear weapons have not drawn on personnel associated with civilian power reactor programs, although in some instances such personnel were recruited from indigenous nuclear research programs. However, the successful proliferation programs of Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa recruited most or all of their weapons program personnel from outside the nuclear research field. Thus it would appear that recruitment of nuclear weapons development specialists is not related to presence of local civilian power facility staffs, and that the absence of such staffs would inhibit the development of local proliferation programs.

It should be clear by now in only one instance of nuclear proliferation did an indigenous civilian nuclear power industry play a causal role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. In most instances the the nations which acquired nuclear weapons did not possess civilian power reactors.

It should be pointed out that nations which possess and operate civilian power reactors conform to the current nuclear non-proliferation agreements. Thus paradoxically, the possession of civilian power reactors is inversely associated with proliferation risks. Nations which do not possess civilian power reactors are the nations most likely to develop nuclear weapons contrary to international agreements.

Thus the contention by Mark Z. Jacobson and others that preventing the spread of civilian nuclear technology will contribute significantly to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons is contradicted by a considerable body of available evidence. The risk of nuclear proliferation exists whether or not nations possess civilian nuclear power plants, and the available evidence suggests that nations that which possess power reactors are actually less likely to seek to acquire nuclear weapons than nations which do not possess them. Thus Jacobson erred when he argued that the spread of civilian power technology would lead to the spread of nuclear weapons and the increased risk of nuclear war.