Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the only long term solution to the US, and world, energy crisis.
The US needs many thousands of gigawatts of inexpensive energy to power our industries, homes, and vehicles.
Solar,wind,wave, and geothermal sources are too dilute and undependable for this.
Ethanol creates more problems than it solves. The hyped up hydrogen cycle is D.O A (dead on arrival) and will remain D.O.A. Once again, too many basic physical problems.Oil, gas, and coal spew out vast amounts of CO2, and will run out.
Nuclear power is the only source which is concentrated enough to provide the huge amount of inexpensive, inexhaustible power that we need.
We need fast breeder power reactors which can produce more fuel than they burn. In addition, they can burn the spent fuel from our thermal nuclear power reactors. This would eliminate our nuclear waste problem and the need to bury vast amounts of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca mountain.
Oil is used for production of plastics and chemicals, and is far too valuable to burned for energy. When either oil or coal is burned,we exhaust CO2 into the atmospher.
So it doesn't make sense to burn it no matter how cheap it is.
Uranium has no legitimate use whatever, except as fuel for nuclear reactors. No CO2 is produced. We should take the clue, as many other countries already have, and make nuclear power a national priority.
The US is behind both France and Russia in the development of fast breeder reactors. This is unacceptable, and has to change.
In the meantime we can build as many thermal nuclear reactors as we want, at 1000 megawatts each (electrical) Then this power can be used to power electric cars, trains, and other vehicles..
As T. Boone Pickens said today, natural gas is only an interim solution while we develop a perminent one. Here is the permanent one.
The US needs many thousands of gigawatts of inexpensive energy to power our industries, homes, and vehicles.
Solar,wind,wave, and geothermal sources are too dilute and undependable for this.
Ethanol creates more problems than it solves. The hyped up hydrogen cycle is D.O A (dead on arrival) and will remain D.O.A. Once again, too many basic physical problems.Oil, gas, and coal spew out vast amounts of CO2, and will run out.
Nuclear power is the only source which is concentrated enough to provide the huge amount of inexpensive, inexhaustible power that we need.
We need fast breeder power reactors which can produce more fuel than they burn. In addition, they can burn the spent fuel from our thermal nuclear power reactors. This would eliminate our nuclear waste problem and the need to bury vast amounts of spent nuclear fuel at Yucca mountain.
Oil is used for production of plastics and chemicals, and is far too valuable to burned for energy. When either oil or coal is burned,we exhaust CO2 into the atmospher.
So it doesn't make sense to burn it no matter how cheap it is.
Uranium has no legitimate use whatever, except as fuel for nuclear reactors. No CO2 is produced. We should take the clue, as many other countries already have, and make nuclear power a national priority.
The US is behind both France and Russia in the development of fast breeder reactors. This is unacceptable, and has to change.
In the meantime we can build as many thermal nuclear reactors as we want, at 1000 megawatts each (electrical) Then this power can be used to power electric cars, trains, and other vehicles..
As T. Boone Pickens said today, natural gas is only an interim solution while we develop a perminent one. Here is the permanent one.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob Babcock on -
Nuclear Power is NOT a Solution, but MORE OF THE SAME PROBLEM!
1 - It takes a LOT of energy to mine, refine, and transport the fuel for nuclear plants.
2 - It takes a LOT of energy to build nuclear plants.
3 - Transporting nuclear fuel to the plants and nuclear waste from the plants poses hazards to our communities.
4 - Nuclear fuel remains dangerous and has to be kept away from people longer than civilization has existed on earth.
5 - Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act over 50 years ago because the insurance industry realized that nuclear power plants were too risky to insure, so the financial costs of an accident will be borne by the public - estimated to be higher than $560 billion today.
6 - Existing nuclear plants are among the targets of terrorists, we don't need to add more targets
7 - The power grid is ALSO A TARGET for terrorists. Reducing reliance on a power grid creates more independence.
8 - For the $12 billion 2008 cost of building a nuclear power plant, it is likely that over 700,000 homes could be made more energy efficient enough to SAVE OVER 50% IN ENERGY USAGE annually
9 - With number 8 above, many more jobs would be created
10 - Adding solar and wind to home and business structures would create even more jobs, eliminate dependence on fossil fuels, and eliminate the need for an energy grid
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on -
Your first two points, and part of your third, apply to any kind of fossil fuel, and in fact apply much more to oil and gas.
New nuclear fuel is not dangerous. Spent fuel is, but it can be reprocessed to remove the small quantity of actinides, and retrieve the plutonium for use in new reactor fuel
Your fourth point is refuted by nuclear fuel reprocessing and FBR's(fast breeder reactors),
Spent fuel can be burned in to produce vast amounts of electricity and to transmute and burn the actinides. Spent fuel from FBR's is far cleaner than spent fuel from thermal reactors. Once transmuted and burned, the actinides are harmless.
Nuclear plants are not risky. Not one person has ever been killed in our nuclear power industry. If you want to talk about risks, you need consider the risks of every human activity.
All of our infrastructure including all of our plants are subject to attacks by terrorists. so why do you single out nuclear power stations? For one thing, nuclear plants have very strong, thick, reinforced walls and so are very hard to blow up. Airliners, for example, are much easier.
Certainly, as your state in your point 7, distributing the power sources reduces reliance on the power grid. But this is best accomplished by a generating plant at each load center on the grid. However, such generating plants have to generate 1000's of megawatts to be useful, and this cannot be done with solar or wind power.
The real cost of building nuclear power stations is not much more than the cost of building any power station. Our cost is high, but this is due to endless bureaucracy, licensing issues, and constant law suits.
Of course, we should all build more energy efficient homes. Everyone should concentrate on stopping heat transfer through walls, roofs, and windows This is so obvious now, that practically everyone is either improving their insulations, or planning to.
Considering all the above, it is clear that we must reinvigorate our nuclear power programe. Please look at the new Hyperion reactor announced by Hyperion Power Generation.
The Hyperion projected cost per kilowatt-hr is one to two cents. It can run for 7 to 10 years on one fuel charge. It is intrinsically safe so it can never be damaged no matter what happens to its regulating or shutdown system. The total nuclear waste after 10 years of operation will fit inside a softball.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Riggs on -
HI Gerry;
I never cease to be amazed at how much disinformation is being put out about nuclear power .It seem that some people pick up their information from anti-nuclear sources and believe every word, as its human nature to believe the worst. Even when the source of this information dosen't have a clue on the subject.
However when a proponent such as yourself, who is qualified to give opinions on nuclear power as a nuclear engineer tries to educate the public on the long term advantages of nuclear, you have people bringing up arguements that might have been valid 40 or 50 years ago, but have been disproved or eliminated by modern technology .In the short term I agree that we need to develop other sources of energy, but in long term. only nuclear will give us the power we will need in the future. Because power is progress, without it there is no future. Thanks Gerry, for your information and input on the subject.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Thanks Bill.
What you are saying is true.
For years I didn't think so, but now I think there are forces working for their own self interests who have been discouraging nuclear power and nuclear fusion. I suspect that misinformation from these sources is responsible for confusing our public.
That is why I am so interested in the Hyperion Power Generating company. It's not that what they are doing couldn't have been done years ago, it's that they are doing it now.
The US Navy published experimental results supporting cold nuclear fusion.
Please check http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue44/navy.html.
Ordinarily, you would have expected the US Government to jump on this and establish a program of cold fusion research. They did not.
As you said, inexpensive energy is vital to our civilization. It's what started the industrial revolution and we have become more and more dependent on cheap energy since then.
Nuclear power is the only source which can provide the vast amounts of cheap energy that we need. Solar, wind, georthermal, waves, and tides are just too dilute. They can help a little, and that's it.
First, nuclear fission using FBR's(fast breeder reactors). Then nuclear fusion.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Hello Scottar
Excellent commentary and reference links.
It's what I see also. There is misinformation everywhere and I agree that most of it seems to be deliberate.
Chernobyl blew up because it was an unsafe design and everyone knew it. All of our reactors are designed with a negative temperature coefficient, and a secondary containment building. Chernobyl's design was a boiling water cooled reactor prone to developing a positive temperature coefficient. Also it no secondary containment.
A positive temperature coefficient means that when the reactor temperature increases, its power increases instead of decreasing.This makes the reactor unstable leading directly to a runaway power surge.
What happende at Chernobyl was a power transient at low power began to boil the light water coolant out of the coolent tubes. This caused the reactor power to increase because the water was no longer there to absorb the neutrons it was previously absorbing. This increase in power caused more water to be boiled out, further increasing the reactor power. The initial small power transient increasd exponentially until it blew up the reactor.
The reactor was tripped, but the shutdown rods could not be inserted fast enough to stop the power increase.
This kind of accident cannot happen in a PWR (pressurized water reactor) because the coolant water is not allowed to boil
Thousands of gimmicky startups are using misinformation to tap into public money to build their schemes, and governments are tripping over themselves to give them our money.
Purchasers and sucked in investors never seem to ask for an unbiased and complete feasibility study which takes into account, and provides estimates, for every part of the project.
Our vast electrical grid is anchored at load centers by huge power stations supplying 1000's of megawatts You are dead right that these can never be replaced by solar, wind, geothermal, waves, tides, or ethanol.
The large high tension power lines that we see criss crossing the country are all anchored by huge power stations. Is it even feasible to provide lines and rightaways to connect the puny amounts of power from wind or solar farms?
No, it is as you say. Alternative energy's place is to help out on the home and farm.
The public doesn't understand what a megawatt is, and this is not helped by alternative energy proposals always saying "enough power to supply 20,000 homes". What if the wind fails in the morning when all the houses are running their toasters?
This does not tell anyone anything. Is it night or day, cold or hot, perfect insulation of none, etc.? US power demand is not measured by the number of houses. No, it is measured in 1000's of megawatts.
Cheap energy from fossil fuels enabled the industrial revolution, and is indispensible to continue it.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Lighter and safer autos can be made with plastics but they will feel the wind more than heavier ones Being blown off the road is not a pleasant experience but it happens even now on mountain roads.
The new light source you mention uses LED's and they are the most efficient lights. However, an LED is a point light source, unlike incancdescents and fluorescents which spread the light.
This means that each LED bulb must contain a bundle of individual LED light points which make the LED bulb directional. So LED lights are best for path, road, reading. etc. lighting.
You mentioned the recent global cooling trend in conjunction with carbon emissions. I have been a warming skeptic for years because I have never been able to follow Gore's 'science'
Here is a global cooling link which requires careful reading:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf
The author, who is obviously a climate expert, argues that the optimum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is three times what it is now.
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Permalink Reply by Shirley Kirby on -
Gerry,
Thank you for directing me to this forum. I am very interested in nuclear power as a serious alternative to coal, natural gas, oil, sun or wind but concerned about safety.
I am also interested in the miniature nuclear power plant minus the $50M price tag. A friend of mine has lessened his dependence on utility companies. He has a coal and wood burning furnace that he personally provides the coal and wood for. He hauls his coal from a nearby mine and has wood on his land that was partly cleared. He pays a fraction of what it costs to heat another home of the same size. I envy his lack of administration and delivery and supply bills for natural gas which come whether his furnace is used or not.
Even at a much lower price, I would need more convincing of the safety of a nuclear power generator before I would invest in one. I am reminded of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII by human-shaped chalk marks on the cement in anti-war demonstrations. In the sixties I was frightened of the possibility of nuclear war during the Bay of Pigs stand off. I know a little about Three Mile and Chernobyl. Recently there was an on, off and on again problem with supplying medical isotopes because of a perceived safety issue in Canada.
In Alberta on one hand the government proclaims to have no interest in nuclear energy. On the other the oil sands uses an extensive amount of energy to extract and process the oil from the oil sands and the Alberta government fully supports that exploration and production. Some supporter of nuclear power say that almost 20 nuclear reactors would be needed just to meet the production growth planned to 2015.
I need more information to quell my fears for safety or to promote the building of nuclear power plants in Alberta.
Shirley
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Permalink Reply by Harvey on -
Please read the information at the Hyperion site.
http://hyperionpowergeneration.com/
These are self regulating units.
They have a negative temperature curve.
That means they COOL DOWN if anything happens to them unlike Chernobyl .
They are certified to NOT need shutdown monitoring systems.
They are sealed, with no moving parts in the hot area of the reactor.
And only the manufacturer can open them for service.
When the fuel is depleated they simply swap them for a new unit.
All of the nuclear processing is done at their secure facility.
They are also used to reclaim oil from oil sands at a better cost than the current methods.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Hi Shirley and Harvey
I thank you both for supporting and contributing to this forum.
There are some new signs that nuclear power is on its way again after being nearly killed by our politicians.
You could almost call it a resurrection.
The damage is that there are now very few engineers in the US nuclear power industry, and that other countries, notably Russia, are now 30 years ahead of us.
The Hyperion development is the most significant US nuclear announcement in years.
The Hyperion specifications look perfect, so 2 weeks ago I sent them a list of nuclear-engineer type questions in order to furthur probe those specs.
No reply yet. but I suspect they are busy answering questions.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Riggs on
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Hi Gerry;
Once again, congratulations on the tremdous sucess of your forum. It give people a way to express their support and some to express their fears, as it is human nature to fear things that they don't understand. Only by people such as yourself that can explain the necessity of nuclear power for the future of our country, and try to counter the anti-nuclear misinformation that has been scareing people for many years. The opponents of nuclear, "oil, coal and gas" are now in decline so it is time to lobby, by all interested in our future to educate, our law makers as to the only answer to our long term power needs. Bill
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Permalink Reply by Harvey on
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Hi Gerry
I am currently working on an installation of the Hyperion reactors.
It is in the planning stage right now.
When it is finished it will be an array of 40 units, each with 2 turbine generators attached.
They will be phased in over a 5 year period starting in about 3 years.
As a result I TALK to the Hyperion people on a regular basis.
They actually answer their phone and are happy to discuss anything you would like to talk about.
However, as strange as it sounds, they are a little slow on e-mail replies.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Harvey, that is very, very interesting.
I suppose you are using two steam generators and two turbine generators for redundancy, probably each rated a 25 megawatts electrical. Anyway, that is the way I would propose it.
I have talked to Cody at Hyperion a few times, and they are promising my answers next week.
Do you know if they have considered using pressurized gas and the Brayton cycle for their final heat transport. I think this would be simpler than a steam generator. I feel that steam has a lot of operational problems.
I think you are saying that you plan to start installing the first one in three years, which is impressive. Do you have any date for commissioning the first unit?
For me, all this news is exciting, to say the least. Thanks for letting me know, and congratulations to you for being on the forefront of all this. -
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