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.
Views: 1
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by tass on -
Now THAT is too cool....
portable nukes.....
Kinda like a CVN, huh..... or a boomer....
Ought to be some nuke mechanics out here somewhere....
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on -
There are some, please believe me.
We could be on the verge of a nuclear revolution, where nuclear power begins to replace fossil fuels.
It's just too bad that it has taken 30 years or more and has led to so much tension about energy supplies, and perhaps even some wars.
We need to use what nature has given us. Remember that there is no shortage of energy in the Universe, which wastes it on a prodigal scale.
On earth, there is no shortage of power either. It is misinformation which makes us think so.
Nature has given us nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, so we should use these.
Actually it is little miraculous that we even know about nuclear fission because the half life of our only naturally occuring fissile element, U235, is a mere 700 million years, and it was all made in our ancestor supernova star explosion before our solar system was formed at least 4 billion years ago.
Anyway, there is still some left, so we are very lucky,and we are very stupid not to take advantage of this gift.
Nuclear fusion is next, and I believe right around the corner. Its been shown beyond any doubt that it works. All we need is a theory that explains how it does. -
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Permalink Reply by Harvey on -
Gerry
I plan on using 2 gererators rated at 50% of the capacity of each reactor.
That gives me 1/2 of the power if one fails.
Also, when the fuel is depleted it takes 1 to 2 years for the reactor to cool down enough to be removed for re-fueling.
During that time it will still produce steam, but at a lower level.
By having 2 small units, I can continue running one of them on the cool down cycle.
I have also provided for 3 reactor pits in each group so that the new reactor can be installed while the old one is cooling down for removal.
That's 4 generators and 3 pits in each group.
All of the piping is cross valved and cross connected for re-distribution as needed to keep all of the generators running all of the time.
We will probably be the first site operational with these units.
Surprisingly, the biggest bottleneck is not the reactors but the generators.
China has ordered so many generators that all of the companies that make them are 2 to 3 years behind schedule.
I have talked to GE, my prefered units, and they say the earliest they can deliver is 2 years after the order is placed.
Some of the other companies are worse, 3 to 4 years backlog.
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Permalink Reply by Ida-Russkie on -
We also need to look at the thorium fuel cycle. When you use a breeder reactor with thorium it breeds U233 which ,as I understand things, can not be used in a bomb. the Russians are using a design where they take a core of plutonium with a blanket of thorium wrapped around it. you burn up the plutonium. and produce extra fuel in the process. In the end the waste has a shorter( a in a few 100 year) halve life,
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/10/a-nuclear-re...
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Hi Ida-Russkie
Sorry, I am not an authority on bombs and in fact have no interest in them. However, I understand that is is possible to make a U233 bomb but it's not very practical.
However, it does make an excellent fissile material for nuclear reactors, and fast breeder reactors can be designed with a fuel cycle that never produces ANY fissile material which is useful for bombs.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Hi Adam
You are correct. Nuclear fission does produce heat and the heat can be used directly. For example in water desalination.
Trouble is, heat is difficult to transport very far, which means the desalination plant, oil sands, oil shale, or whatever, must be close to the nuclear power plant.
Because of various physical problems, most reactors cannot produce high temperature heat, and are usually limited to about 800 degF.
You are dead right about steam turbines wasting most of the heat energy they receive. But that is also due to basic physics, called the Carnot cycle. This states that the maximum efficiency you can get from ANY heat engine limited by the difference between the highest temperature in the engine, and the lowest temperature in the engine.
Fast breeder reactors use different physics and engineering which allows them to produce heat with a much higher temperature, usually 600 degC or greater.
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Permalink Reply by Warren Reynolds on -
Mr. Miller As an ex-nuclear engineer for GE, I know "nuclear's dirty secrets". However, the dumbest thing our Government is doing is backing the loans for nuclear power plant construction through DOE at some $8 bn per power plant.
I have done exhaustive cost analysis for a solar-hydrogen storage power plant (24/7) of equivalent size. It costs only 35% of constructing an equivalent nuclear power plant. So, the questions is: In this down economy, why even build a nuclear power plant with all its nuclear waste, etc. ? Besides the safety and terrorist issues, It just doesn't make practical and economic sense.
Dr. Warren Reynolds
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Miller on
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Dr. Warren, thanks for writing to Pickens plan.
I would like to know more about your analysis for a 1000 Mw solar-electrolysis-hydrogen-fuel cell power plant.
While I understand that if source of the power is free, whenever I have looked at it, the overall efficiency has
been quite low, requiring a very large area of solar cells.
I am not a proponent of building more thermal nuclear power stations because of the nuclear waste problems,
inefficient use of uranium, large footprint, high cost, and operational complexity.
It seems to me that Fast Breeder reactors (FBR's) address all these problems. They are intrinsically
safe (can be self regulating), extract at least 100 times more energy from uranium, their spent fuel
is much cleaner, they produce high quality steam, and the have a very small footprint
Their fuel cycle can be designed so that there is no point where any useful bomb material
can be extracted. Weapons grade plutonium, plutonium from spent fuel, U235 remaining in
spent fuel, and radioactive transuranics from spent fuel can all be included in the FBR fuel
cycle.
Once we have a modular design, the FBR should be inexpensive to build and operate, and
be much safer than most thermal reactor designs.
Russia appears to be at least 30 years ahead of America in using FBR's for commercial
electrical generation, although at one time, America was ahead of everybody.
Gerry Miller, B.A.Sc. Engineering Physics
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