Terrestrial Energy, forging ahead in nuclear innovation

I've been writing about nuclear for about four years now and during this time one company really stood out : Terrestrial Energy.

In the sixties, nuclear innovation was in full bloom, there were a plethora of different designs and principles being tested and one of these was the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). The MSR is the brainchild of Alvin Weinberg and Eugene Wigner. Where most reactors work on a solid fuel principle with fuel inefficiencies (3~4%), the MSR works on a liquid fuel principle with high fuel efficiency (90+ %). The MSRe or Molten Salt Reactor experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratories proved that we can run highly efficient and safe reactors based on the liquid fuel cycle which in term is based on salts with a relatively high melting point. This higher melting point for the work- and cooling fluid brings about a great passive safety feature, once the power fails, the fluid cannot melt down, because it is already molten! You can cool it passively through the use of the inherent convective flow of the fluid and through the implementation of a freeze plug and a sub-critical drain tank, or through the use of blanket-salts. The MSRe ran successfully for 4 year straight and proves that we know the technology and can replicate it. And I have to add that innovation in this field of science has hardly taken off, so the learning curve again can be very steep indeed.

You can read more here : https://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/ornl.pdf

Terrestrial Energy is one of the companies that aspires to make the dream of Weinberg come to fruition; To build a sustainable fleet of nuclear reactors that can stretch human potential and raise prosperity for all. They are working on it by combining the best talents and minds in the industry; by forging alliances with companies like Caterpillar, Energy Northwest, Ontario Power Generation
PSEG, and the Southern Nuclear Operating Company; also by working hand in hand with Canada's government and taking all the necessary steps to make the case of their reactor design and make testing and commercializing it a possibility.

Consider this concept video of how they envision one of their facilities.

Consider comparison in size between their largest unit and other reactors working on different principles. (note the little human silhouette).

One of the best aspects of this reactor design is that we can build them on assembly lines, which means that we will be able to meet a growing demand of energy as a result of a growing world population and emerging economies.

Visit their website for a more comprehensive and detailed view of their vision of a future of plenty and prosperity

http://terrestrialenergy.com/

I am extra stoked that Canon Bryan (CFO) has been reading Science a la Carte and shared this picture with me!

Check their story out and learn something incredible

Dare to think - a blog on Molten Salt Reactors - By Gijs Zwartsenberg

As many of you know, I'm an environmentalist with a strong aversion for fossil fuels. That said, from free inquiry and careful analysis I've concluded that we have only one real option to build a safe and sustainable future of plenty for our children : nuclear energy.

If you're interested in reading up on Molten Salt Reactors (an old - new yet very safe nuclear technology) you should visit :

The perspective of molten salt reactors - Why molten salt reactors will make you love nuclear power.

This is the blog of fellow blogger Gijs Zwartsenberg, whom I met @ the Thorium Conference @ the Technical University of Delft.

• If you are a fellow blogging atheist / Anti-Theist or a person with strong Secular values, contact me, I will put your blog up here as well!
• If you are blogging about Politics, Anthropogenic Climate Change or Energy, you may contact me as well.

 

An alternative analysis and timeline as requested by John Quiggin

this article grabbed my attention and a very brief twitter conversation between two different people sparked me to run to the closet, grab harness, gear up and charge. It's time for another couple of hours of mental exercise.

It was written by John Quiggin, a Professor no less, and he has challenged people to provide an alternative analysis and timeline regarding a possible implementation of nuclear energy in Australia. I'm going to widen the scope since this issue will be facing us all in the near future. Now who am I to oppose the views presented by John? A nobody!!! zero certifications, no accolades, nothing.

I will kick off by making a few assertions :

• Reality will dictate what we [need to] do, economics and politics have to adapt
• The energy demand will go up
• Stress on water will go up
• We are going to have a mass transition of fossil fuelled transportation to electrified transportation, putting more stress on energy generation and shifting the burden

More importantly reality will be this :

• The absolute necessity of seriously mitigating [carbon] emissions to stave of the Anthropocene Mass Extinction

The basic question is : "What use will economics and politics be if they fail at restoring the biosphere that sustains life on Earth?"

And a nice quote from someone who tried to remind me of something "Reality always bats last". I think this paradigm has to and will change eventually.

John Quiggin is a professor at the university of Queensland and I have to admit that some very good and impressive work is being done at this University and I especially applaud them for an on-going series of videos they make available to the general public : UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. I absolutely recommend watching these video's, they are put together very well and contain a wealth of knowledge.

Now let's hold the feet of this issue to the fire shall we? Nuclear energy has to be put into the context of worldly energy consumption.

The US Energy Information Administration annually produces International Energy Outlooks. Now these are pretty interesting because they gives u a yardstick on what we could expect in regards to energy consumption in the future. The extrapolations might come true, they might not come true, but in order to secure the future we have to make projections, not to be caught off guard.

"Total world energy use rises from 524 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2010 to 630 quadrillion Btu in 2020 and to 820 quadrillion Btu in 2040 (figure 1)"

 

 

In 2009 the EIA predicted that energy consumption in 2020 would be 596 Quadrillion Btu, this has risen to 630 Quadrillion Btu in 2013. A rise of 34 Quadrillion Btu predicted at the same time in the future over a four year timespan. So far my second assertion is holding up.

 

let's wave a magic wand and suppose that everything we do has been electrified in 2040, we do not burn anything anymore. The EIA predicts that we would need 820 Quadrillion Btu to satiate the demand.

 

Since the EIA is an American administration I suppose that they use the short-scale quadrillion, which is 1.000.000.000.000.000 This gives me the stupefying number of 820.000.000.000.000.000 Btu of energy required by 2040. And it is even possible that it will be far more than that. But i'll settle for 820 Quadrillion Btu. How much TWh would this be?

• 820 Quadrillion Btu = 240.318 TWh (I cheated by using a conversion tool.)

Let's have a look at the average production per unit

• A nuclear power plant @ 862 MW / 90% generates 6.8 TWh in a year
• A coal-fired power plant @ 750 MW / 60% generates 3.94 TWh in a year
• A wind turbine @ 5 MW / 35% generates 0.01534 TWh in a year
• A 550 MW PV plant generates roughly 1.21 TWh in a year (avg. Calif. household electricity consumption)

Now these are three serious contenders and the one force we want to do away with. Let's quantify the number units required to satiate a 240.318 TWh demand.

• Nuclear : 35.000 reactors
• Coal :  61.000 generators (factor 9x of currently existing capacity)
• Wind : 15.600.000 wind turbines
• Solar : 200.000 - 550 MW plants OR 1.787.490.000.000 individual solar panels / 1.8 Trillion.

How about 2/3rds of 240.318 TWh :

• Nuclear : 23.500 reactors
• Coal :  40.000 generators
• Wind : 10.400.000 wind turbines
• Solar : 133.500 - 550 MW plants

How about EOL time?

• Nuclear : 50~60 years
• Wind : 20~25 years
• Solar : 20~25 years

Yes that's right... over a period of fifty years you need to produce at least twice the amount required. 3.6 trillion solar panels or 30 million wind turbines.

 

You'll get the picture, at least I suppose you do.

 

Stuff like Hydro, Gas-fired, Wave and Geothermal have been left out of the equation. Hydro is already pretty much maxed out. Geothermal has some potential but it doesn't amount to much in terms of deployability and Gas-fired will be one of the bridging technologies. Electricity/Heat to gas conversion systems are a waste of time, batteries won't make a difference and the hydrogen idea neither. These amount to nothing.

 

Now let's be reasonable, shall we? This is the amount of energy capacity that would be required to satiate the sum total demand. This is a complete zero-carbon-burning economy by 2040. How'd you think we get there? Do we want to get rid of fossil fuels before that? Is it even reasonable to expect that we will manage to do it? Do we have enough materials on Earth to do it? Do we have the required feedstock?

Let's take a look at the clock, is time running out? It seems so... This is what reality looks like :

We have to supplant the grey, green and orange. Why? It's very simple :

1. We don't want the average temperature to rise more than two degrees or we will be certain that we will precipitate a mass extinction event.
2. We will run out resources within decades.
• Coal 100 years
• Gas 60 years
• Oil 40 years

Even if we would triple fuel economy by next year and onwards, oil would still  only last for 120 years, gas 180 and coal 300. There are no miracle solutions.

Let's look at it from a different perspective "Topaz" (the 550 MW form) claims to "remove" the emissions [?] created by 73.000 cars. Now there are over a billion cars in the world, I'll settle for a billion. In order to "mitigate" all the emissions from all cars we would need 13698 of them... I don't exactly get what these people try to prove with this, but there's no logic in it, at least there's no way of verifying what they mean with 73.000 cars...

I might be stupid, but I simply don't get the "cars removed" argument. These cars are probably still driving around... So there's no real solution here, it's simply painting a prettier picture than it really is.

This is what a 550 MW solar farm looks like btw, imagine the sheer volume of concrete, steel, aluminium and highly purified silicon required to build it... Let's remember, these solar and wind farms don't get "magicked" into place.

Nuclear has a clear head start over "other renewables". Renewables are being held to a ridiculously low standard, the amount of jobs, the amount of transportation, mining, purification, production that goes on in this sector is stupefying but it doesn't deliver. Now these processes are true for any energy industry, however the scale in which these processes are done is what matters. Installing a trillion eight solar panels is a far more energy intensive process than building 35.000 682 MW nuclear reactors.

What's the nuclear promise? Mind you this is taking it through from a mixed fuel cycle in contrast to a solid fuel cycle. The currently widely championed Molten Salt Reactor approach guarantees 90+% fuel efficiency. This helps us secure at least a couple of thousand years worth of nuclear energy.

Even though there might be some hurdles that need to be overcome, I'm pretty sure that we have no other choice. We can't go all-in, we simply lack the materials and feedstock required. We are in a very tight spot indeed, our resources are literally running out. The only sustainable way to fuel the future is nuclear fusion. Either we find a way to make it happen, or we have to accept the fact that we need extra-terrestrial activities to maintain a human civilisation for the next 500 years or so.

Why would I address this from a worldly standpoint and not simply an Australian one? The world doesn't care about borders. Australia could go 100% renewable, it would only be shifting the burden. If China, India, Europe or America don't drop their coal-fired capacity significantly, we're in big trouble, regardless of what happens in Australia. Australia on the other hand could easily set an example. As a well-stocked, reasonably educated country you could easily transition from a coal-fired economy to a nuclear powered economy. This requires will-power and a well thought out plan. It has been proven in the past that if a country commits its resources, efforts and people to solving a big problem, they can. Simply look at the Manhattan project, the Apollo missions, The way France completely decarbonized their energy industry. A blank cheque could easily be given for a project of a magnitude that would save humanity and the Earth's biosphere. It is a matter of surviving as a society, it is ultimately a matter of existence.

Let's paint a picture, let's magic the lignite and coal away and make Australia [but dare I say it : the world] a nuclear country [disclaimer : these are fables and myths, stories of a kind I cannot possibly substantiate, but there seems to be a lot of that going on nowadays] :

• At some point the message will be clear, we cannot go on, we're on a path that leads nowhere. The basic truth of math rears its head everywhere.
• 2018 The political acknowledgement of the need of nuclear energy.
• 2019 Current global affairs necessitate the implementation of nuclear energy
• 2020 Start of the "new nuclear generation" education
• 2022 Collaborating with other nuclear agencies to set up a framework for quick deployment of nuclear energy. (AP-1000's & MSR's) and provisions in place for future MSR and/or Fusion deployment.
• 2024 Implementation safety framework
• 2024 Start building first AP-1000's = Bridging capacity 1.1GW each
• 2026 Start building the first MSR's
• 2030 Delivery of first AP-1000's in countries that have adopted this approach
• 2031 Deployment of first MSR's in countries that have adopted this approach

I think it would be reasonable to expect that we would have supplanted at least half of all the coal-fired energy generation by 2030 ~ 2035 and let's face it, if we haven't by that time we're in big trouble.

The thing about nuclear power plant construction, this is mainly done by civil engineers, building specialists in concrete, welding, construction, iron workers, etc. Nuclear Engineers and Physicists arrive late in the game. There's enough expertise in this world to set up a framework by which we can build this new energy infrastructure.

 

Let's be honest with each other, even though it might be a hard thing to do in the current context, we have a herculean task ahead of us. If we cannot settle this debate, we'll be in great trouble even before the 2030's are over. You and I will probably agree on that.

I hope you can accept my brutal honesty and my lack of etiquette, the time of reverence is behind us. We first have to acknowledge the reality of things and then necessity requires of us to join forces and solve this final conundrum of humanity. I want my children to grow up in a stable, beautiful and prosperous place, here on Earth.

 

Do we hate this planet?

 

Copyright : Spencer Platt, Getty Images

 Source : wiki

 

Or do we love it?

Energy matters, be prepared to re-examine your reasoning.

Nuclear power invokes a strong reaction, particularly in environmentalists. Often times when I debate these people they tend to react from a clear stance filled with all sorts of confirmation bias. Why would I debate them? Why have I become a proponent for nuclear energy?

I used to be opposed to nuclear energy, simply because I thought that the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents were really terrible and caused a lot of death and destruction. After careful consideration of the facts, having read countless of articles and looking at how things are today, I've had to re-examine my reasoning. This basically means that I have been convinced to take on a new stance on energy related subjects : Renewables aren't as green as advertised, coal, gas and petroleum are very dangerous, cause thousands of deaths each year and may well precipitate the doom of many species currently alive. The most efficient, safe and plentiful way to produce energy is Nuclear. We need to address the nuclear stigma and gradually defeat it, using reason and by forming our judgements based on the evidence, rather than on our gut feelings. Why? Because we otherwise would never be able to get fossil fuel energy generation out of the picture.

The biosphere of Earth is changing rapidly, species are going extinct at a terribly high rate. The increased extermination of species is being precipitated by several factors : pollution, the increase in temperature, a steady decline in precipitation, poorer air quality, acidifying oceans and of course the hunting practices of humans. It all comes down to this, the environment is changing faster than these animals, fish and insects can adapt to.

A couple of these factors are clearly tied to Anthropogenic Climate Change. Our influence on the biosphere of Earth cannot be ignored anymore. People always tend to focus on models, temperature, sea ice, etc. I am concerned about them as well. Climate change deniers can educate themselves using the links in the navigation bar, sceptical science is particularly good.

What needs to be done? Firstly we desperately need to mitigate carbon emissions aggressively. This means supplanting fossil fuelled energy generation with some renewables but mainly nuclear energy. Secondly we need to transform our transportation system, we have to shift from the internal combustion engine (ICE) to preferably a battery electric vehicle future. A future in which our transportation methods are either completely electrified, and in which airplanes would run on synthesized fuels.

If we achieve these goals, we would be cleaning up our air significantly, mitigating not only carbon emissions but also emissions like Nitrous Oxides, Sulphur Oxides, Flea Ash containing all sorts of harmful elements (including radioactive Uranium particles for instance).

Another thing we need to acknowledge is the growing need for fresh/potable water. Currently about 800 million people do not have access to potable water. This number is now declining, however... With the growing instability of precipitation patterns, and the increasing droughts, the availability of water becomes a growing problem. Just look at the American state of California for instance. They depend on water from the Colorado River, and the Sierra Nevada Snowpack. It is estimated that California will run out of potable water reserves before this decade is over, some people even go as far as to say that it will happen this or next year.

Aquifer depletion is a serious problem, especially in America's plains. The food basket for a large portion of the world's population depends on the availability of potable water in the Ogallala Aquifer, a source of water that is depleting i.e. running out... Replenishment rates need to be higher than the rate at which we draw water from these fresh water sources, at this moment replenishment rates are down, if this unbalance continues, aquifers will deplete eventually.

We can desalinate water, this is already being done on a large scale in countries like Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The problem with water desalination is that it takes a lot of energy.

I foresee a giant shift in energy consumption i.e. a shift from fossil based transportation to electricity based transportation; And a very steep increase water desalination activities. These changing paradigms have forced me to take a new view on electricity generation.

Let's look at current energy generation ratio's, in particular the coal fired energy plants. Roughly 75 to 80% of all the electricity on Earth is generated through burning coal and lignite. This amounts to 2300 coal fired energy plants in the world. It is estimated that we have about 100 years worth of coal left in the ground (source : worldcoal.org). So we will be forced to alter our course eventually, there's no denying it.

Also the currently known oil reserves of the world only add up to roughly 4 decades. So we don't have a lot of time left. Another consideration is that if we burn all these reserves, we will precipitate an uncontrollable temperature rise which in term will lead to increased extreme weather patterns, droughts, famine and eventually extinctions.

So it is clear, something needs to be done.

Why would I advocate nuclear and not renewable?

I've been an avid supporter of renewable for a long time. Until I started looking at the figures, the amount of energy produced all over the world. There are some optimistic figures claiming that by 2050 roughly 30 to 40% of the energy production in the world will come from renewable energy sources. The punch required to deliver the final knock out to coal fired energy production simply isn't there.

I've tried to look at predictions about future energy consumption and it didn't seem that they had included a paradigm shift in the transportation sector, meaning that one has to assume that we would still be making massive use of the ICE. If the current BEV revival starts gaining momentum, and it seems that it does, it would mean that the source of energy would shift from petroleum to electricity. Depending on the amount of shift, one can only conclude that the figures of future energy consumption in terms of electricity are too conservative.

Secondly people have not looked at our growing water issues. Which will also require vast amounts of energy.

Thirdly the capricious nature of renewable energy production requires load following energy production, which can only come from either nuclear or fossil energy generation.

Finally the amount of materials required to create this vast network of renewables is incredible, and the waste streams tied to them remain unaddressed. Also take into consideration the limited life span of said technologies, the limited amount of possible repurposing and the inability to recycle key components like wafers, turbine blades, certain electronics. And let's not forget that it takes a huge amount of energy to create for instance 99.99999% silica, required to produce these wafers.

Trying to understand renewables, fossil fuel energy generation and nuclear energy have led me past several interesting routes and have given me new insights. There is no optimal form of energy generation, there's always a catch. The renewables aren't as green as advertised and in our struggle for survival, even though it may not be evident at this moment, requires high energy density, low feedstock, zero emission energy generation. Nuclear is the form of energy generation that does just that and then some. Nuclear energy has a very good track record. France for instance has one of the lowest possible carbon footprints per energy unit produced, simply because they have embraced nuclear energy.

While delving into the history of nuclear energy and looking for possible innovations I came across the terms Generation IV and Molten Salt Reactors. I will dedicate a new article to "new nuclear". These developments are very promising, we can expect a shift from 3~4% fuel efficiency to 90~95% fuel efficiency, passive safety features which make a reactor "walk away proof" and the propensity to get rid of the so-called "spent fuel" or "nuclear waste". As an added bonus we get the propensity to "eat" the world's nuclear arsenals. Turning Megatons into Megawatts, a tremendous force for peace if you ask me!

Nuclear energy has a near perfect track record, compared to the fossil fuel industry it is by far the cleanest source of energy with the least amount of deaths tied to it. Even renewable energies have a higher death toll, these technologies are used in places rather hostile to humans, especially with regards to heights. People tend to fall of roofs a lot. Deathprint per energy source...

We are looking at a bright future if we embrace the possibilities of nuclear energy. We would be cleaning up our atmosphere, we would be able to provide everyone with ample electricity, we would endeavour in sciences and technologies which will help humanity build a completely sustainable future here on Earth, and will allow us reach out farther into space.

If you're interested in these developments I would suggest you to visit these websites :

NASA on nuclear

Letter to the California Energy Commission - by Alex Cannara

What is happening in the world of MSR's?

http://thoriumremix.com/th/

I will be dedicating the next articles to MSR development and Nuclear Fusion.