Can common ground be found between “warmers” and “skeptics”? Can we identify energy sources that satisfy the concerns of both groups?
Guest Post by Charles Hart
Warmers want energy that does not emit CO2 because they look at the climate data and conclude that CAGW is a credible threat that needs to be addressed. Their energy sources of choice are typically wind and solar.
Skeptics look at the same climate data and conclude the evidence for CAGW is just too weak to justify accepting the current high cost and unreliability of wind/solar. They look at Europe and notice that nuclear has given France the smallest carbon footprint and wind/solar has not been effective in any European country in keeping energy both low cost and low carbon.
What about nuclear? Some warmers support it (e.g. Dr. James Hansen) but others do not because of toxic waste streams, lingering concerns about safety, cost, and the potential for proliferation.
What if we could have nuclear power that was far “greener” than current technology, cost considerably less, was even safer and more proliferation resistant? What if this “greener” nuclear technology had already been proven in working prototypes?
Welcome to LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactors) technology. Demonstrated in the 60′s, the thorium/uranium fuel cycle molten salt reactor (LFTR) approach was abandoned to concentrate efforts on the uranium/plutonium fuel cycle pressurized water reactor (PWR) during the cold war bomb making era, an era when lots of plutonium was considered a good thing, not something to be worried about.
LFTR (compared to current PWR): A waste steam 10,000 times less toxic (some variations of LFTR can actually burn PWR waste). Cost <50%, thus competitive with coal. Even safer (no fuel rods to melt, no high pressure radioactive water to escape, passive criticality control ….). More proliferation resistant.
What about the politics? Replacing coal with LFTRs is far easier politically than imposing cap n trade or carbon taxes. $10B invested over 10 years could update this technology and make it ready for commercialization. LFTR is attractive to both Democrats/warmers and Republicans/skeptics. It is very green, cost competitive and can be put into production for a realively modest sum.
Short version:
Long version:
For more information see:
American Scientist “Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors”
http://energyfromthorium.com/2010/07/01/welcome-american-scientist-readers/
“Energy Cheaper Than From Coal”
http://energyfromthorium.com/2010/07/11/ending-energy-poverty/
Mechanical Engineering Magazine “Too Good to Leave on the Shelf”
http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/May/Too_Good_Leave_Shelf.cfm
Dr James Hansen LFTR endorsement
20081229_Obama_revised.pdf (application/pdf Object)
LFTR nuts to bolts.
Nuclear is Evil. Fossil Fuels are Evil. Combustion is Evil. Progress is Evil. People are Evil. The Greens will accept nothing that does not require a major restructuring of society. Besides, where are we going to get the uranium, from the US’s vast reserves? Oops. I forgot. Mining is Evil. Oh, and NIMBY rules!! Store it where you make it!
Any solution that doesn’t involve impossible sacrifice, and the guilt associated with failing to sacrifice properly. Is unacceptable, simply because people who don’t fail in their sacrifice, don’t feel guilty and people who don’t feel guilty are much more difficult to manipulate.
On a personal level the day I hear politicians and green activists openly discussing the nuclear option. Is the day I’ll start to feel a little bit scared, because then I will know that they genuinely believe there is a problem.
Max More: August 9, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Excellent! It’s about time the potential agreements between the warring views were explored further.
Concur. We have more in common with a lot of the warmers — okay, *some* of the warmers — who comment here than is apparent at first.
Nuclear energy, in whatever form, is definitely the way to go for energy that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide.
Once again, we see the same guilty party involved in the lies – the MFM (MSM) media and “Academina”.
All of this could easilty have been solved had our lying left wing MFM media been held to account for their deliberate lies and propaganda.
If it works, do it!
@ur momisugly Poptech:
Transportation is an issue when you are regarding carbon emissions, but the major problem is domestic energy consumption, specifically coal. Hence the Hansen death trains. I think that it would be quite helpful to find a way to tap, perhaps via trolley systems, into the electrical grid for urban transportation. Not every city has the expanse necessary for a subway. Take Cincinnati. You could trolley around town, or perhaps take a steam boat up to Dayton, sans carbon. It isn’t the most advanced tech, but it does serve the mentioned purpose.
I think the transition from oil as a fuel source for transportation of industrial goods over land is an important problem to solve because without a solution, we are at the mercy of oil producers. Not to mention that oil can just be dirty to produce. There have been good attempts at solutions that did not pan out, think ethanol, but we need something that can power the heavy-hitters like tractor trailers.
It sounds too good to be true, so it probably is.
At the political level, I am nervous of the “Baptists and bootleggers” phenomenon, whereby environmentalist groups and their ideological opposites (in this case advocates of nuclear power) make common cause. Just like prohibition, it is hard to see how good can come of such a marriage of convenience, or that it would last. The chief winner from prohibition was organised crime.
The Norwegian government commissioned a report on Thorium as a potential energy source. Norway got plenty of the stuff. (“The Thorium Report” is here. 160 page PDF, in English)
The bottom line: “9. Any new nuclear activities in Norway, e.g. thorium fuel cycles, would need strong international pooling of human resources, and in the case of thorium, a strong long-term commitment in university education and basic science.”
…and with that the left-wing government abandoned any further interest.
Thorium. HMM.
What about steam moderation? which can burn fuel far more efficiently?
Yes the technology is out there but the question is is is it economic compared to coal or gas?
I doubt it.
Even though I have recently had a couple of highly paid offers to act as consultant to the nuclear industry, which originally I trained in as a nuclear physicist, which is very flattering, I have my doubts. Nevertheless it seems that there is a shortage of skilled personnel, not surprising given the neglect of nuclear power the last fifty years.
It is not that nuclear cannot provide base load load above all else but as the French experience has taught us when other fuels are cheap it is very expensive: conversely people now say that France enjoys cheap nuclear power. Dependable yes but not that cheap.
Overall during the lifetimes of the stations, some fifty years, and allowing for fluctuations in fossil fuel prices it is probably more than twice the price per unit than coal or natural gas would have been.
Of course in times of artificial shortage of these fossil fuels due to chiefly political considerations it does look both cheap and secure. And seductive.
But politics change whereas demand for power does not.
A lot of people are very upset about burning fossil fuels because of the CO2 produced: others are worried about a shortage of fossil fuels in light of what they imagine the increased demand of the rapidly growing and industrialising world will be.
What me worry? about CO2? No and I don’t believe in little green fairies at the bottom of the garden either. And as to shortages of fuel or food it hasn’t happened yet and in the modern world and isn’t likely to.
Remember we have technology: provided wealthy Luddites allow us to use it. One result is that famine, once a genuine scourge of the human race is now only a weapon of war wielded by politicians to starve their enemies and amass wealth and power to themselves. As is energy starvation. You have to keep the people poor you know.
The Luddites are always with us and will do everything in their power to keep the people poor. Upon some imaginary excuse, which usually comes down to the fact that poor people should not live so luxuriously. They need to know their place you know: they are the poor and should not be allowed to become rich.
No my view, for what it is worth, is that for a century or two King Coal will remain just that but that if the 19th century was the age of coal and the 20 century was the age of oil the 21st century will be the age of natural gas. The known reserves are enormous and cheap to extract, but better still natural gas is not only abundant but can easily be synthesised into liquid hydrocarbons for transport and use.
No doubt nuclear fission may have its place but only as a bit player. As for solar, wind or more practically hydroelectric well they too may play a minor part.
As for nuclear fusion I remember DRAGON and worked on JET and it is just as far in the future as it was then.
I’m sorry but to use English vernacular I refuse to get my knickers in a twist over the End of Days due to our sinful ways, today by burning fossil fuel, as preached by Doomsayers, or by the no doubt well meaning but gravely mistaken worriers about
the future of the world.
Future generations will take it all in their stride.
Kindest Regards.
A quick google indicates that the idea is pretty well regarded in most circles, especially the ‘green’ ones. Could be interesting.
Poptech says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Well, we have to solve that at some point. Batteries are getting better and better, cheaper and cheaper, lighter and lighter. Technologies that ‘transmit’ power may well be emerging, and there is always the old standby of Hydrogen. H2 just seems such a neat and clean way to store energy and release it.
Whats up with this? “LFTR is attractive to both Democrats/warmers and Republicans/skeptics.” Since when does Democrat == warmer and Republican == skeptic?
I strongly suspect that the “Skeptics” would largely support any viable method of power generation, we certainly need to conserve fossil fuels for areas like transport, where (short of large sea-going vessels) nuclear reactors just aren’t a practical solution.
Mention “Nuclear Power” to the “Warmists” and you’ll hear howls of “Chernobyl” and “Three Mile Island”.
As has been mentioned previously, Green is the new Red.
Most technologies tried and abandoned are so for a reason; and reactors which use molten solids as heat-exchange medium are one of those. During the Cold War, both USA and USSR tried using low-melting-point metals as heat transfer mediums for nuclear submarine reactors. These would allow for a higher rate of heat transfer in a smaller reactor (size is a very important consideration in subs). The experiments were successful in making the reactors work (USS Seawolf using molten Sodium, Project 645 using a Lead-Bismuth alloy), but they were plagued by repeated breakdowns due to the fact that any small leak in the exchangers would result in a huge mess to clean up, and if you let the medium freeze in the pipes, you lost the reactor. These experiments were different from the LFTR reactor proposed in that they used conventional cores (Uranium bars), but their problems weren’t caused by their cores, but by the heat-exchange mediums (molten metals, molten salts). While it is possible these reactors could be made to work (the Russians kept at it in their Alfa submarines), it will not be a matter of just “$10B invested over 10 years” to “update this technology and make it ready for commercialization.” PWR reactors are used worldwide for a reason: their engineering is easier. We may need nuclear, but choosing it for political reasons (“Warmers and Skeptics can both agree on it”) is not going to make it a panacea; wind and solar have also been favoured for political reasons and look how marvellous that has turned out to be!
I thought I would pause briefly from my schemes to take over the world by pointing out I am cautiously keen on nuclear power.
——-The “newly” radioactive fluid passes through a helium heat exchanger, during which the helium must also become radioactive, for the same reason.———-
This comment is all wrong. The material in the heat exchangers is chosen to be of a kind that does not become radioactive.
If we’re going to go nuclear, Thorium definitely seems to be the way to go. Jo Nova reckons that the US have spent $32BN in ten years on climate research. While the US has spent big, they came late in the game.
Tying the spend to overall GDP would indicate that there has been at least $100BN spent on climate research. Some of this will still have to be spent for things like the satellites, but I don’t see any reason why a substantial portion of the rest cannot be spent on further research on nuclear, and on electrical energy storage. Zinc/Air batteries sound very promising.
Having spent too much time in the past on reddit, I’d have to agree with Cassandra King. I don’t think a cheap source of energy is what the Greens want.
You could only say that if you have zero understanding of what people like Hodlren are saying. Yes, we should be building LFTR reactors, as many of them and as fast as possible. But this will not help at all if the fundamental ecological issue is not addressed, and the fundamental ecological issue is growth. You can not have infinite growth in a finite system. Impossible. And it is not just energy that is a limiting resource, it is laundry list of them. No amount of technology and innovation can beat growth, and this is what the free market lunatics refuse to understand because they live in a world where money is that magical things that can make everything happen while in the real world it is physics that rules, and physics has some very immutable laws.
That’s the general picture. Here are the specifics:
1. We probably do have time to phase out coals with LFTRs on time to avert a really major climate catastrophe if we embark on a WWII type of mobilization program (not that it will happen).
2. But we have no time to replace oil and natural gas, especially the former, which has probably peaked already, as it will take decades to do that.
3. LFTRs do absolutely nothing to solve the problem of fossil aquifer depletion (you can desalinate water for drinking, but that’s a small fraction of the total usage, it is unrealistic to think that you can desalinate and transport water over thousands of kilometers to sustain agriculture in the regions that will have depleted their aquifers in the next few decades)
4. LFTRs do absolutely nothing to address the depletion of phosphate deposits. Again, no phosphates = going back to pre-Green revolution agricultural yields.
5. LFTRs do absolutely nothing to address the issues of topsoil loss, salt build up due to irrigation, etc.
6. LFTRs do absolutely nothing to address the issue of general ecosystem collapse, especially in the oceans, due to overfishing, deforestation, habitat loss due to “development”, etc.
7. What LFTRs can do is give a false sense of “problem solved” and encourage further growth of population and per capita consumption to even more unsustainable levels, thus speeding up the process of collapse. Which is the reason for Holdren’s remark about cheap energy.
Nobody is against technology, the people who warn against the dangers of overshoot are almost invariably coming from technical backgrounds. But technology is not a silver bullet against reality, it can only operate within the very real physical limits of our planet and this has to be always remembered.
peat says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:28 pm
In this respect, the thorium reactor design is very intriguing, given that it utilizes a fission process that is hard to divert to bomb making. Of the many energy technologies pursued, this one to me seems very encouraging. $10B for its continued development is a drop in the bucket compared to what has been spent on fusion research, for which we seem no closer to the holy grail.
Considering that ITER, an international collaboration of many of countries , is expected to produce a working prototype fusion reactor on something like 15 billion total cost,
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/05/no-solution-yet-to-iters-budget-.html
Europe’s share of the ITER project will likely cost €7.2 billion, 2.7 times the original estimate. (The E.U. is scheduled to cover 45% of the project’s total cost, with the other six partners—China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States—contributing about 9% each.)
the 10 billion you quote is not as trivial as you claim.
One of the reasons the utilization of the tokamak idea is so delayed is because of parsimonious budgets.
That said, if this thorium fluoride reactor could be ready within ten years for commercial purposes it could well be an interim solution, until fusion becomes commercial. I also am worried of proliferation of reactors, particularly in our quake prone region through the Balkans and ME. This design seems to have self safety from construction and would be ideal for such locals.
It is good not to have all our eggs in one basket.
BTW I think the ITER fusion project is suffering the same problems CERN faced and had the accident with the accelerator: parsimonious budgets and bad decisions at the top from wishful advice. Instead of hiring the best in engineering and have them in site, because of economies, one outsources to university teams various components that have to be brought together and made to work supervised by too few real experts. It is easy for academicians to declare themselves “experts” as we have seen in the climate scene, in contrast to engineers who have come out of the tough way of open markets. These “experts” then give bad advice on construction and the advice of the real experts is overridden to the detriment of the projects.
Sadly, Cassandra King is the closest to the truth out of all these comments.
Reading the words of the leaders of the environmental movement over the last 30 years, the last thing they want is for the public to have access to cheap, sustainable, reliable, environmentally friendly energy. It is their worst nightmare.
Quotes:
The two main reasons why thorium reactors were never built are: 1. Thorium reactors did not produce plutonium which was necessary for keeping communism away from the free world. 2. During all this time, scientists were banking on fusion reactors.
The former reson is no longer valid while the second turns out to be the second biggest global scam ever, (after the AGW theory) because after some 60 years of money-guzzling research, fusion is still very far away.
Meanwhile, hydrocarbons have moved the world foreward, lifting many from below the poverty line up to a decent living standard. Enter the green movement, hijacked by the extreme left-wing left-overs of the soviet era, who, seeing their base (the poor) becoming richer and therefore, in their mind, capitalist, are trying to do their damnest to keep us as poor as possible, so as to keep their grassroot base as wide as possible. (Communism thrives in poverty, so they keep people poor))
So, what’s better than destroying the energy sources that are making the global populations achieve better living standards?
Thus, the green/red movement is:
Against nuclear energy. They have demonised nukes, even though it has proven to be the most safe and clean form of energy (vide France, Finland, India…)
Against oil, coal and gas. They invented the hoax of CO2=end of the world while in fact CO2=life.
In favour of donkey transport for the masses. But they still want to fly in airplanes, live in villas etc etc…………..
My bottom ine: Lets keep on utilising the solar power that arrived on this planet billions of years ago (oil, coal and gas) while researching and building nuclear power stations which make us politically independent from foreign tyrants such Chaves, ahemdinejad and gheddafi and mostimportantly provide a stable price of energy, removing the unkown factors that energy price hikes and result in global recessions, creating millons, billions of people poor and desperate, just what the green/red movement wish for.
And there are unlimited quantities of it, right?
If you take your right wing glasses off for a second, you would have figured out that “Greens” that claim to be all for taking action against AGW and in the same time are against nuclear or even against wind mills (because they “spoil the view”) are merely Greeenwashers who have zero basic understanding of the situation humanity is in.
As I like to say, if someone is talking about ecology and growth isn’t mentioned as the root problem of it all, then that person is either utterly clueless about what he’s talking about or he’s deliberately BS-ing you.
My science teacher at high school, Bill Brewer, used to extol the benefits of nuclear power in the 60’s and his enthusiasm was contagious as far as us boys were concerned.
Today I am still a huge fan of nuclear power and the new designs seem to address most of the concerns of the objecting camp. This design seems to be very smart and is another positive step forward.
I understand that the fuel for nuclear reactors is cheaper to dig out of the ground at the moment but that it occurs only in certain parts of the world, we have some here in Zimbabwe for instance, but that it can also be extracted from sea water using established technology.
When you consider that the use of hydrogen in transportation is dependent only on cheap , reliable, methods of generating hydrogen then extensive electrical power at reasonable prices is really the only obstacle remaining. Small, discrete, hydrogen generators could be established in homes, depots, gas stations and so on using the electrical distribution grid. This would overcome the issues surrounding large scale storage and distribution of hydrogen. Likewise better batteries could be charged directly by the grid and used in transportation where appropriate. High -Tech flywheels could likewise utilize the grid for energy storage in transportation.
I advance my opinion not as a means of reducing CO2 ( which it would ) but as a means of removing the risks and costs of depending on oil from , sometimes hostile, foreign providers. It would also reduce particulate and NOx , SO2 etc. pollution and remove the need for offshore/onshore drilling and refining with all of the issues surrounding that.
All in all I see nuclear power as being the solution to a number of issues and as critical mass in public opinion shifts in favor of it we will see a new advance in our civilization.
All dependent of course on those political groupings who see control over our access to energy as a ticket to their continued control over us. Seeing the bizarre Chris Huhne change his radical tack 180 degrees is encouraging in the extreme. . .
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301560/New-nuclear-power-stations-built-2018-promises-Energy-Secretary.html
That’s another utterly ignorant statement right there. The reason there is no famine right now (which isn’t even true, there are hundreds of millions of starving people out there in the world, it’s just that you don’t see them on TV as they are, how should I say it, not very interesting to well-fed people and such news don’t generate high TV ratings) is that we have this tremendous but one-time energy bonanza in the form of fossil fuels and fertilizers to use as an input. Once that’s gone, the yields will go down significantly, especially given what we have done to the soil, which has been basically sterilized and leached out of its nutrients in many of the bread baskets of the world. And all of a sudden there will be a lot of famine because there will be between 7 and 10 billion mouths to feed.
As a graduate of a Marist Brothers high school, i’d like to put my name forward to join the Marist elite that will run the planet.