Nuclear Power: Going Fast 25 comments
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I was offline most of yesterday attending a high-intensity series of presentations hosted by Esquire magazine in the magnificent suite of rooms at the top of the new Hearst tower. GE’s Eric Loewen was there, talking about nuclear power, and specifically what he calls a PRISM reactor — a fourth-generation nuclear power station which runs on the nuclear waste generated by all the previous generations of nuclear power stations.
PRISM is GE’s (GE) name for an integral fast reactor, or IFR, and it’s a pretty great technology. The amount of fuel which already exists for such reactors would be enough to power the world for millennia — no new mining needed. Fast reactors also solve at a stroke the problem of what to do with the vast amounts of nuclear waste which are being stockpiled unhappily around the world. They’re super-safe: if they fail they just stop working, they don’t melt down. And they can even literally replace coal power stations:
One nice thing about the S-PRISM is that they’re modular units and of relatively low output (one power block of two will provide 760 MW). They could be emplaced in excavations at existing coal plants and utilize the same turbines, condensers (towers or others), and grid infrastructure as the coal plants currently use, and the proper number of reactor vessels could be used to match the capabilities of those facilities. Essentially all you’d be replacing is the burner (and you’d have to build a new control room, of course, or drastically modify the current one). Thus you avoid most of the stranded costs. If stranded costs can thus be kept to a minimum, both here and, more importantly, in China, we’ll be able to talk realistically not just about stopping to build new coal plants but replacing the existing ones, even the newest ones.
And best of all they’re eminently affordable: Loewen showed that they could be profitable selling energy at just 5 cents per KwH — which means that you don’t need to price carbon emissions at all to make these power stations economically attractive. With pricing on carbon emissions, of course, they become even economically compelling.
So what’s the problem? They’re untested, and the regulators in the US will take many years and many billions of dollars before they will approve such a project. And legislation is needed, too — including legislation allowing the use of nuclear waste as a fuel. But mainly all that’s needed is political will. It’s unclear the degree to which Steven Chu, the US energy secretary, supports this technology. But if he puts the weight of the Obama administration into supporting this technology and trying to make it a reality, then a lot of private capital will start flowing into the area. And it might be much, much easier to achieve ambitious carbon-emission reduction targets than many people currently think.
Disclosure: No positions.
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This article has 25 comments:
It is not however the only example of technology which has been sidelined.
In the 60's the US had a prototype molten salt reactor.
The program was killed because they are lousy at producing weapon's grade material, they use trivial amounts of a more abundant fuel than uranium, thorium, and like IFRs could replace coal.
So a lot of powerful interests did not like them.
When Chu was asked about them, he referred to metal embrittlement as though it were a showstopper, when in fact it was a normal engineering issue, which the project leaders were confident could be overcome with 70's technology.
It would do everything that fusion is wanted for, but needs none of the fundamental breakthroughs needed for that technology.
Like the IFR, waste would be miniscule and short-lived.
Here are some sites which talk in detail about the technology:
nucleargreen.blogspot.com/
www.energyfromthorium.com/
This clear market signal for clean power production may be blunted by conflicting business as usual policies currently in place at the NRC.
I predict that both the existing reactor builders as well as some new industry entrants encouraged by the possibilities implied in this powerful market signal will introduce air cooled intermediate sized reactors. This market signal will also strongly motivate the utilities to convert existing coal plants to nuclear. What may stop this trend is the conflicting custom built big reactor culture that has firmly entrenched itself deeply in the nuclear power business.
In order for cap and trade to avoid being distorted so that it may do its job effectively, the government must be wise enough to restructure the NRC to ease the way for the commercialization of the intermediate sized reactor market. This future market need for clean base load power will almost certainly be there and if not properly met will lead to confusion, disillusionment, and recrimination that has typified nuclear power for so long.
I Love this tech, But GE has such a track record of mismanagement lately, that I wonder if they can avoid screwing this up.
> jack
Let's hope.
"MSM/corp gov keeps messing with Iran and us.
Let's all hope for peaceful settlement of these unfortunate matters.
To understand the hatred of the United States in Iran, we have to go further back than 1979 -- to 1953, when Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh had the gall to care more about his country than what the British and the United States wanted.
The two superpowers were angry that he nationalized oil interests -- at the time Anglo-Iranian Oil, now known as British Petroleum, was receiving 93 percent of oil proceeds and the Iranians were getting 7 percent.
www.cnn.com/2009/POLIT...
www.prosefights.org/nm...
When the IFR comes on stream, Dr Chu will probably be collecting survivor's benefits - if he is lucky. Personally I am 100% for that reactor, but it is a very long way off.
I am also very pro nuclear, but for a skin magazine to host a serious seminar, at which an executive of an important company gives a high intensity lecture about a piece of equipment that may not be ready for another 20 years, starts me thinking that somebody is trying to promote the shares(stock) of that important company.
Let me put this another way We already have the reactors we need, and rather than spend valuable time and nervous energy talking about reactors that will not be available for many years, it makes more sense to explain the advantages of existing reactors.
However, it makes sense to investigate improving fuel burn to near 100% from around 0.03%, to eliminate waste problems and to move to smaller reactors which can be factory built and slotted in to replace coal in present facilities.
That does not mean that we should not build more conventional reactors in the meantime.
Continuing to reduce cost and improve performance is good too though.
your point is well stated. you can google 'mossadegh' and read all about it.
> jack
In 10 years, when these new nuclear technologies will still be "in the future", solar will be at or below grid parity in many places. The talk will be much more practical like where to get the best deals, and can me, my son, and my brother-in-law install a roof top system ourselves.
In 10 years, micro wind turbines will be affordable and grid competitive. Again, the conversation will be more practical about price, availability, installation, etc.
In 10 years, battery technology will have greatly improved and the cost will be much lower. I believe this because of the huge development effort going on now on multiple types of batteries including the revolutionary Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. Thus, the all-electric and hybrid electric vehicle will be the standard vehicle to purchase. Re-charging will be done from a home solar or wind system via a radio wave link in your garage - yes no annoying plug-in to perform (search on "Intel" and "wireless energy transfer").
So in 10 years, the alternative energy world is going to be talking at a much more practical level than it is now. The talk about potential technologies that could provide large and cheap energy will be substantially diminished, along with that talk about nuclear.
It’s the same pattern as with the Internet. In the early days, there was lots of talk about potential. Now the talk is much more practical. It’s about specific applications, where to get them, how to install them, and how to use them.
On Jun 24 08:56 AM john s. gordon wrote:
> well if current coal plants operate wth 1005/1005 deg steam and reheat,
> how do you taxi up a nuke steam generator (saturated steam and no
> reheat) and match the two? i have been in the electric futility business
> for the last 39 yrs & need to know more about what GE is proposing
> to do.
On Jun 24 09:50 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:
> Felix, folks, I am the leading academic energy economist in the world,
> and please take my word on this issue.
>
> When the IFR comes on stream, Dr Chu will probably be collecting
> survivor's benefits - if he is lucky. Personally I am 100% for that
> reactor, but it is a very long way off.
>
> I am also very pro nuclear, but for a skin magazine to host a serious
> seminar, at which an executive of an important company gives a high
> intensity lecture about a piece of equipment that may not be ready
> for another 20 years, starts me thinking that somebody is trying
> to promote the shares(stock) of that important company.
>
> Let me put this another way We already have the reactors we need,
> and rather than spend valuable time and nervous energy talking about
> reactors that will not be available for many years, it makes more
> sense to explain the advantages of existing reactors.
the US and parts of Europe have tied themselves in knots about effectively administering and regulating nuclear, imposing conditions which would make virtually any industry bankrupt, whilst coal pollutes and kills without paying the costs.
It still manages to provide the vast majority of the US relatively CO2 free power.
If you do the maths, there is no way that renewables on their own can do the job.
In practise a massive coal burn would continue, as has happened in Germany in spite of their putting far larger sums in and raising electricity rates far beyond anything that would be acceptable in the US.
You mention micro-turbines, well, they suffer from the laws of physics, and since most of them need to be placed on roofs the ground effect greatly reduces the power they provide below their rated capacity.
In a few country locations in windy areas they are fine, but for the average dweller in suburbia they are an expensive waste of time.
If you don't believe me, cost up how much an installation would cost you, and get a realistic cost for back up, actual average power produced etc.
The same issues apply to many renewable ideas - they are fine until you do the maths realistically.
I am not against using renewables where they are practical and reasonably cost effective, but we still need compact power with 90% capacity factor.
Lethargy in the US does not mean that great strides in, for instance, pebble bed reactors are not being made elsewhere, most notably in China.
No matter what you do you have to manage and regulate it properly.
I'm glad that my tax dollars have been at work by Argonne National Laboratory on the IFR.
This sounds like a very promising technology, especially the intrinically safe and use of low grade spent fuel with little waste.
I'm curious about how GE ended up with it. Also, what do they consider the first three generations of nuclear plants?
If this isn't just another flash in the pan marketing, stock manipulation plan or cold fusion pop-sci, I would expect the current CO2-conscious admin to fast track this.
There've been way too many "solutions" which were buried for one reason or another- fast breeders, thorium, tokamacs.
Also, it gives me no confidence that the first idea out of the gate is to retrofit existing coal plants. This sure sounds half assed to me.
I had hoped that people more knowledgeable than I might chime in to answer some of the questions on the practicality of converting coal plants to nuclear.
My understanding is that the advantages of doing this is that you can make use of a lot of the existing equipment, although to be sure the design of your nuclear source has to be appropriate.
To this end, high temperature reactors work best, with the Pebble bed reactors being developed in China and, slowly, in South Africa, being highly suitable.
Here is a site which is interested in coal to nuclear:
www.coal2nuclear.com/
And here, in particular reference to PBR's:
'a pebble bed reactor with inert gas cooling can be a very good boiler replacement at a steam power plant. That concept - especially with pebble bed reactors that are small enough to be inherently safe against melting - takes nearly complete advantage of most of the steam power plant systems'
atomicinsights.blogspo...
Since the key seems to be the high temperature, a variety of other advanced small reactors including IFC and LFTR would also likely do the job.
Thanks for the info. I have a hard time with your comment:
"That does not mean that we should not build more conventional reactors in the meantime."
The problem with conventional plants is they're huge and complicated and take forever to bring online. I live downwind from the largest US nuke and I believe it was also the last commissioned around 1985. I've been through at least six nukes over the years that were either under construction or in operation. Awe inspiring, but with no standardized design. When you follow the engineering and operational problems, not very confidence inspiring either. That's why I'm interested in why GE thinks there have been several iterations in design. I'm all for keeping things simple.
Your comment "move to smaller reactors which can be factory built" is the future. Modular reactors with simple designs that are intrinsically safe, preferably with a closed or at least minimal waste fuel cycle can be regulatory streamlined and sited closer to demand. I doubt they're very safe because of the high performance, but the US Navy has been building modular reactors for subs and CVNs for years.
Since coal plants are neither peaking or baseload generation, I don't see the advantage of taking them offline until we have a proven substitute. New steam turbines and generators fit right in with Obama's new infrastructure. All we need is a simple and safe energy source.
If you read any of the dozens of economic histories out there, it's obvious that unless the US gets away from a diminishing fossil fuel energy economy, there's not a bright future. Right now, the alternatives are renewables and nuclear. And I'm not even considering CO2 and / or global warming.
In practise not building nuclear has meant coal burn.
Whilst I would like to move on to better reactors, I consider that renewables can't do the whole job, and until we have better reactors present ones are hugely better than coal burn.
Just the deaths from coal are massive, and the dangers ever present - witness the recent collapse of the dam holding back sludge.
This is aside from the desecration of mountaintops.
People argue that uranium needs mining, but the operation is tiny compared to coal, and more efficient reactors would mean that we would need around 100-300 times less fuel for any given amount of power.
In the case of thorium it would take around 500 tonnes of thorium a year to replace all electric generating capacity.
You are talking about a few guys with shovels and a pick up truck for all the material you need.
If that weren't enough, although I was somewhat sceptical for some time of Global warming, and in particular the modelling used, this seems to me conclusive:
www.physorg.com/news16...
It seems to me then that we should go ahead as fast as possible with whatever we have to mitigate CO2 output right now, and polish things later.
It is also the case that building some more Gen III reactors would start to repair the shortfall in personnel that will be needed to build Gen IV rapidly as they are ready.
Either the IFR or LFTR could replace coal where it is burnt, instead of needing completely new plants, and rapidly reduce CO2 output.
Seems to me that PRISM is ready to go.