Ryan
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2011
- Messages
- 290
- Reaction score
- 1
- Country
- Location
Fukushimas Lesson: Alternative nuclear, not no nuclear
By Mark Halper | March 11, 2012, 12:01 AM PST
oday is the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that tragically killed an estimated 19,000 people, wiped out entire towns and led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Daichii nuclear power station in northeast Japan.
Japan has subsequently shut down almost all of its 54 nuclear reactors, an understandable short term reaction but also one with considerable energy and economic consequences given that nuclear had supplied 30 percent of Japans electricity.
The Fukushima Daichii plant melted down because it used an old-fashioned system that relied on external power to operate its reactors cooling system. The backup in that system failed when the tsunami flattened the diesel generators that drove it.
The anniversary thus marks an obvious time to reflect on nuclear. The nuclear choice is not black and white. Its not a simple yes or no decision. Rather, its a matter of yes but. What the world should do is stick with nuclear as part of its CO2-light mix of energy generation, but move away from the conventional water-cooled, uranium fueled reactors that comprise nearly all of the 435 reactors that the World Nuclear Association says are operating on the planet today.
Granted, many, maybe even most of those 435 are not as prone to failure as was Fukushima. And the Big 3 reactor makers - Toshiba Westinghouse, GEH and Areva - are indeed moving toward safer designs that deploy passive cooling systems that do no rely on external power. But those improvements are bolt-ons to the basic water-cooled, uranium fueled design that took root in the 1960s, when the weapons-grade spent fuel that they produced appealed to the U.S. and the Soviet Union, two countries then caught up in a Cold War and intent on nuclear armament.
Here, is a quick look at alternative fuels and designs that would support a safer nuclear future, from the standpoint of both operational safety and weapons-grade waste. These technologies could be the same sort of disruptive force to Big Nuclear as the Skypes and Googles have been to Big Telecom and Media. They are the Betamax to the inferior VHS of conventional nuclear. Unlike Betamax, they should find longevity. They have been around for decades. In a back to the future play, now is their time. China is developing all of them. This is not a complete list, nor a thorough examination of each. For that, I could point you to my Kachan & Co. report, Emerging Nuclear Innovations - Picking global winners in a race to reinvent nuclear energy. Consider the following a good taster, and a handy pocket guide, of alternative nuclear:
Thorium. An alternative fuel to uranium. Its abundant. Its waste has little of the weapons proliferation risk associated with uranium and lasts for only hundreds of years, not the tens of thousands (or millions) associated with uranium. Deployable in conventional reactor designs. Some supporters like Kirk Sorensen, president of Huntsville, Ala.-based thorium reactor startup company Flibe Energy, believe that thorium operates best in a reactor design known as molten salt (see below). Oak Ridge National Laboratory built a molten salt thorium reactor in the 1960s, which could have become the industry standard had the U.S. government not settled on more weapons-friendly uranium during the Cold War. Thorium developers in China include a group called INET at Tsinghua University, and the China Academy of Sciences.
Molten Salt Reactors. MSRs use liquid (molten) fuel, not the solid fuel rods of todays reactors. This provides cooling advantages, because the coolant can travel with the fuel in a molten salt mix, reducing engineering of cooling system. MSRs tend to require less fuel, and less fuel enrichment. Flibe Energy and Ottawa Valley Research are working on MSRs.
Fast Neutron Reactors. Unlike conventional reactors, FNRs allow neutrons to travel fast through the reaction chamber. This potentially increases the efficiency of fuel, and increases what the industry calls fuel burn-up. Fuel lasts much longer in an FNR than it does in a conventional reactors. FNRs can also tap, as fuel, the plutonium and long-lived actinides that todays reactors leave as dangerous, weapons-grade waste. The plutonium breeder reactor is a form of FNR, but FNRs do not have to be breeders (breeders produce more plutonium than they consume). Demonstrator FNRs have encountered various accidents, but when built and operated correctly, FNRs hold great potential. In theory they can run for 30 years or more without refueling; todays uranium rods last about 18 months. TerraPower, the Bill Gates-backed nuclear startup, is developing at type of FNR known as a traveling wave reactor. General Atomics in San Diego has a rival FNR design it calls the energy multiplier module, which can use spent fuel from other reactors. China plans to shift heavily to FNRs by 2050.
Pebble Bed Reactors. PBRs are a form of gas-cooled reactors. Gas picks up heat emitted by reactions in balls, or pebbles, of fuel. The gas runs through a heat exchanger to boil water, create steam and drive a turbine. QPower, a South African company, is investigating the use of helium as the coolant, and believes this will be far safer than todays water coolant. China is planning close to 20 PBRs.
Fusion. This has been the Holy Grail of nuclear power since at least the 1950s. It gave rise to the atomic energy catchphrase too cheap to meter. Whereas conventional nuclear and all the alternatives above practice the fission of splitting atoms apart, fusion gets energy from putting atoms together. Typical development projects aim to fuse two isotopes of hydrogen - deuterium and tritium. Another type fuses standard hydrogen and boron. The great challenge of fusion is to get more energy out of the process than what goes in - and there has to be enough of an excess to be financially viable. Some of the best known fusion research projects are huge, expensive, international, government backed operations, such as the ITER tokamak in Cadarache, France, and the laser-based National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. They are still decades away from commercialization. But several startups include General Fusion, Helion Energy and Tri-Alpha could get there much sooner.
All of these technologies face an uphill battle against the entrenched powers of the water-cooled, uranium industry. They also face regulatory hurdles. Regulators like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the U.S. would take at least seven expensive years to approve the commercial deployment of a new fuel or reactor type. But that could speed up. When I last looked, President Obamas Blue Ribbon Commission on Americas Nuclear Future was considering splitting the NRC so that a separate group would examine alternatives and expedite a sound review process. Its time to split from the past, and make that happen. It could help fuse a safe nuclear future.
Note: This version corrects an earlier version, which referred to the fusion company General Fusion as Nuclear Fusion. Apologies for the error. MH. (March 13, 4:15 a.m. PT)
Fukushima’s Lesson: ‘Alternative’ nuclear, not ‘no’ nuclear | SmartPlanet
"China is developing all of them."
Bill Gates knows some of the guys above. They run China National Nuclear Corp., Chinas huge state-owned nuclear company. Besides chairing Microsoft, Gates is chairman of nuclear startup TerraPower, and hed like to sell CNNC a reactor. Hes hardly the only one knocking on their door.
You see, China will lead the world in nuclear power. Its a growth market, perhaps even a boom one.
While other countries equivocate on nuclear policy in a post-Fukushima era - Germany has famously decided to abandon nuclear - China is going for it. It is currently building 27 nuclear reactors and it could install 100 or more by 2030, according to the World Nuclear Association. Thats nearly a quarter of the 432 reactors that the WNA says operate in the world today.
Its all part of a plan - goodness knows China can plan - to move away from the fossil fuels that are wreaking havoc on air quality and health and also spewing greenhouse gases in a country that derives 80 percent of its electricity from coal-fired plants. While Chinas energy engine is also making steady solar and wind advances, make no mistake: It will rely on nuclear.
So it was really no surprise, in fact, not even news this week when the media went atomic with reports that Gates is talking to China National Nuclear Corp. about possibly developing a reactor with them. Weve known that since last June, when CNNC posted a brief statement on its website confirming that its boss and and second-in-charge had met with Gates and his Terra CEO, John Gilleland.
On June 9th, CNNC general manager Mr. Sun Qin, (and) vice-general manager Mr. Yu Jianfeng met with American Terra Power company chairman Mr. Bill Gates and CEO Mr. John Gilleland, they conducted a discussion about the cooperation between CNNC and Terra Power company, the CNNC statement said. (Thats Sun Qin in the mug shots above, where CNNC calls him president.)
After the meeting last summer, I spoke with CEO Gilleland for my Kachan & Co. report on nuclears future. Gilleland was encouraged, but he made it clear that a deal with China was not fait accompli. Its still not. Terra is offering its wares in other countries as well, including India and Russia.
Gates merely reaffirmed all that this week, noting in a talk at Chinas Ministry of Science and Technology that Terra is in the early stages of discussions with CNNC. Dont believe the more sensational reports saying its a done deal. While that might eventually come true, Terra and China are still talking.
What makes an eventual China deal plausible is that Terras reactor fits a design known as fast neutron reactor, or FNR. China plans theres that planning again to shift heavily towards FNRs by 2050, according to the WNA.
Unlike todays conventional reactors, FNRs do not slow down, or moderate, the neutrons that split out of atoms and serve as the heat source that eventually drives a turbine to make electricity. FNRs can be more efficient and cost-effective. Depending on the design, they can burn both the depleted and spent uranium left over from the conventional nuclear fuel cycle. And FNRs tend to use as fuel the weapons-grade plutonium left over after burning uranium, rather than leaving the plutonium as hazardous waste as happens in todays reactors. Terra uses an FNR design called a traveling wave.
Almost all of the worlds 432 operating commercial reactors are conventional water-cooled, uranium-fueled models. They produce weapons-grade waste, and if not managed properly they can dangerously melt down. Thats extremely rare, but its what happened at Japans Fukushima nuclear plant in March.
China is currently building conventional reactors, but it is intently developing a variety of other nuclear technologies that are potentially safer and less weapons-prone.
Besides FNRs, these include reactors that run on thorium fuel, as well as unconventional designs such as pebble bed reactors, molten salt reactors and, of course, fusion reactors - the Holy Grail concept that will nicely put atoms together rather than hazardously rip them asunder. Most of these concepts date back to the 1950s and 1960s, but lost out commercially for various reasons (in the case of fusion, no one has yet figured it out; stay tuned).
China would prefer to develop these alternatives through homegrown initiatives but it is demonstrating a possible willingness to work with foreign entities such as Terra.
China will, I repeat, will, develop these unconventional reactors. CNNC, the huge state-owned group talking to Gates and Gilleland, is just one of over a hundred nuclear organizations in China, many of which are also looking into alternative nuclear technologies. CNNC alone has declared it will invest $120 billion in nuclear through 2020. Thus, they represent the industrys future.
This will pressure the rest of the world to do adopt alternative nuclear technologies, in order to compete economically. Plenty of companies are working on alternative nuclear around the globe. San Diego-based General Atomics is developing an FNR that could well challenge Terras. Huntsville, Ala.-based Flibe Energy is developing a thorium based molten salt reactor. Norways Thor Energy is making thorium fuel advances. South Africas Q-Power has an impressive pebble bed reactor on the drawing board. Thats just to name a few.
In the United States, President Obamas Blue Ribbon Commission on Americas Nuclear Future is contemplating changing nuclear regulations in order to facilitate the development of these alternatives, which threaten the entrenched nuclear as usual crowd.
Meanwhile, if you have a good nuclear idea, you might want to get in touch with Mr. Sun Qin in Beijing.
Meet the future of nuclear power: 8 guys in China | SmartPlanet
. Trust me its one of the best universities in Canada, better than any university you have in honkuver 
.
