Guest post by David Archibald
Ira Glickstein’s post promoting clean coal has prompted me to offer a few slides from a presentation I had prepared. One of the things that gets me about clean coal is that the same people who are urging restraint are quite happy to halve the life of our coal reserves.
My thesis is that the rising oil price will drive inter-fuel substitution to the highest value markets, which are those transport applications that require a high-density liquid fuel with good storage characteristics – essentially diesel and jet fuel. Coal will be substituted for oil into the transport fuels market. That in turn will make it too valuable to burn for power generation, in which nuclear will substitute for coal. I am a thorium nut as well as a coal-to-liquids (CTL) proponent. The nuclear industry has financed a lot of the AGW hysteria, as they saw this as the only way they could sell nuclear plants against coal. They needn’t have bothered. At the current oil price and above, coal is diesel that is waiting to go through a CTL plant. At US$120 per barrel, it becomes worthwhile to close existing coal-fired power generation and replace it with nuclear, taking the hit on the capital charge of the idled coal plant.
Some people call for US energy independence but have no practical idea of how that could be achieved. Others, strangely, rail against the concept. So, here follows a plan for US energy independence by 2020. The technology exists and it is costed and affordable.
Nuclear energy is a proven industrial technology. Check with France. According to world-nuclear.org France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.
It is building its first Generation III reactor and planning a second.
About 17% of France’s electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.
Also check in with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, DOE, and the US Navy for additional information.
Deekaman says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:39 pm
I’m a big fan of all things nuclear, and I like your plan but I’d like evidence that the nuclear industry is financing (alleged) AGW hysteria.
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I don’t know about financing the hysteria, but mega-utilities like Duke and Entergy with a nuclear component in their generation mix were sure pushing cap and trade in Congress…
@ur momisugly Mustafa 8:06
Ummm, maybe the shrieking monkeys of the anti-nuke hippy movement encapsulated in the EPA? Maybe the rabid fear of nukes engendered by the Big Oil people, who realise that the supply of cheap energy is gradually slipping out of their grasp?
Maybe the Big, Big Oil powers of the Middle East do not like the prospect of neighbourhood mini reactors.
Mustafa, got to admit that I lost you when you referred to the Chevvy Volt as an example of ” extended range electric vehicles” . The range of the Volt is the basic problem.
Once we suck dry the world’s light crude, we can then focus on cost-effective local nuclear power generation. The Middle East is royally screwed.
Sorry, the quote from Mustafa was:
“Have you wondered why no one has built a commercial thorium reactor?”
After much reading it seems thorium is the future, more chemical processing (good paying jobs) but a plus in every corner. Current reactors require less daily handling but in reality they are more costly especially environmentally due to the long half-life byproducts. Nothing is free but we all live in a real world, pluses and minuses. Go nuclear, the U.S. is dying without it. Read about it, it is rather safe and the technology is decades old. The test reactor would shutdown every weekend and dump the core due to nothing but personal preference (laziness), never a problem, now that’s impressive!
I’m also a thorium nut, and was unaware of the possibilities of thorium fluoride, however thorium does have some problems.
The major US rare-earths mine at Mountian Pass California was shut down by environmental regulators because it spilled thorium contaminated water onto a dry lake bed. Normally the thorium is supposed to spill into the dry lake bed by eroding off the mountain where they mine it, but once man has touched thorium it apparently becomes a toxic heavy metal. This still stumps me, as I have a bedroom chock full of thorium in the form of vacuum tubes and thoriated tungsten welding rods.
Regarding coal to diesel, it’s much easier to convert coal gas to methanol (with a copper catalyst) and then to Dimethyl Ether (with a gamma-alumina catalyst). The steps can also be combined to produce DME in one step.
DME’s vapor pressure, energy content, and combustion characteristics make it virtually identical to propane for storage and use, but it’s also a better diesel fuel than diesel fuel is. The only engineering issue for an engine is that DME doesn’t act as a lubricant for the valves. The Chinese are already running some buses with it. It should be fairly trivial to convert trains from diesel to DME, with a converted propane tank car behind the engine. DME can also run turbine engines and when mixed with propane it can also run gasoline engines.
For further advantage, DME can be converted to octane via dehydration using ZSM-5 zeolite, which is the Mobil process.
Mustafa,
I think you’ll find that the main reason that Liquid Thorium Fluoride Salt reactors aren’t being built is that a political decision was taken back in the fifties to promote U cycle systems that would produce Plutonium as a by-product. At that time the alternative Integral Fast Reactor technology was sidelined. That decision was clearly seen as desirable (at that time) for a bunch of strategic reasons.
In addition to the Oak Ridge discourse above, you can find some really good background reading, viewing and links at Prof Barry Brook’s site: http://bravenewclimate.com/category/ifr-facts-and-discussion/
cheers.
Thorium is a “yet to be tapped” resource. What is needed is a large, commercial demonstration of the technology. This is something Canada’s CANDU program should have demonstrated, a long time ago. Now we all must wait and observe India’s program.
Mustafa
The Chevy Volt has a revised battery range of 25 miles prior to the engine taking ove. Let’s say you take a 30 mile round trip, are you going to plug the car in when you return home, or let it idle in the driveway to recharge the battery?
Either way, you need electricity from oil/coal/Uranium…….etc.
Or else, again, plug in to a dedicated green power source, wind/solar…etc. that is weather dependant.
50% of US oil is imported from Canada. Read Ezra Levant’s FANTASTIC book “Ethical Oil” and then tell me liquefying coal makes sense. I assume our southern friends don’t equate importing oil from Canada with that from the middle east, Venezuela, Sudan, Nigeria and the likes. Remember, ALL future risk expectations are built into the price of oil. That includes supply, political, substitution, etc. Let subsidy free economics dictate which way we go.
OT – could someone explain why this site is unformatted in Firefox yet is formatted in IExplorer? It only started in the past day.
BTW it also happens with other wordpress sites
Yes, thorium sounds good. Another option is discussed in this article from the blog resilientearth which explains a similar concept developed by a New Mexico based company. Unfortunately they can’t get NRC approval to build and deploy this design in the US so they’ve take it to China and deploying it internationally. The NRC needs to be disbanded and replaced by agency interested only in sound technical designs that solve the US’s energy needs without excessive regulation(strangulation).
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/americas-atomic-folly
Great article absent one major (in my tiny little mind at least) point.
Coal to Liquid to replace oil and then thorium power generation to replace coal fired power plants is even more economical if you consider one additional factor. Coal is one of the best sources of thorium there is. It can be extracted from fly ash, and my assumption being that it could also be extracted in the CTL process, you don’t even need to mine thorium. Just get it from the coal in the first place.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
Having worked in the nuclear industry and later on CTL albeit over 30 years ago, I admit that SASOL have a working system using Lurgi slagging gasifier technology but it is far from being commercial: the plant was originally built and continues to operate at a loss for political reasons.
Thorium plant is a largely unproven technology which would take 30 years to develop into commercial reality: if it could be. Whereas the PWR is well proven and there is no shortage of fuel. But personally I think its future does not lie in big baseload stations but in the equally well proven small scale, 10 MW or so, sealed reactors which can be mass produced very cheaply at capital cost per MW [including generating plant] of about one third that of large scale units. Faster load following over a wider range without the risk of cold slug failure and the ability to automatically gang up units across a widespread network make this solution commercially attractive.
But the USA doesn’t need any of this at the moment. It has ample supplies of natural gas.
For domestic or industrial heating and cooking etc. this can be burned directly. Dual phase gas/steam turbine plant for electric generation is very well proven, fast to build, with a capital cost a fraction that of coal or nuclear.
Moreover natural gas synthesis into liquid hydrocarbons, sometimes called GTL, is also well proven and relatively cheap and further produces a highly refined and very pure product compared to using coal as a feedstock. Costs are much lower, the industry, which already has far more GTL capacity than Sasol’s CTL capacity assesses commercial cost including cost of capital at between $40 to $50 BBL and the product is of course far better controlled and purer than the best refined petroleum even from low sulphur feedstock like Brent.
What is really holding back the development of these resources to provide cheap and abundant energy is a political, commercial and environmental nexus.
There is plenty of private capital ready to build the energy infrastructure needed and the engineering and technology to do it. But as long as it remains a political football to played for the profit of a few and the mulcting of the mass of the people it is not going to happen.
Kindest Regards.
An interesting interview by IEEE with Dr. Sinha who heads India’s Mumbai nuclear development program.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/qa-thorium-reactor-designer-ratan-kumar-sinha/2
I wasn’t aware of this:
Sinha “The supply of uranium is not perpetual. With the rate at which nuclear programs are growing worldwide, it is projected that by 2028 any new power plant will not have a guaranteed lifetime of uranium supply. So, one has to go for recycling as well as thorium. I don’t see any shortcut as such.”
An initial downside to Thorium:
Sinha: “Thorium has a much lower neutron multiplication rate than plutonium, and hence you cannot achieve power levels in a reactor as high as with plutonium. When burned, thorium initially acts like a blotting paper for neutrons and keeps absorbing them. But this exercise also means it is getting enriched and converted into U-233, which will pay dividends later on.”
Nuclear companies that support AGW hysteria:
Two letters: GE
People will start to get the importance of energy independence (or at least being as independent as possible ) in the next 24 months as demand for oil in China & India outpace our collective ability to supply it & the price of liquid hydrocarbon soars.
In the past, US demand / economy / politics was always the prime driver on price & the concept of energy independence wasn’t very relevant to the US – what the US did economically or politically largely controlled the price. Not so any more. China & India will be in control via their ever increasing demand & drive all our prices up & we will have no control over it. Our destiny will not be in our control. Then the concept of energy independence will sink in with the American public & politicians – we can not control our destiny with out a large degree of energy independence.
How do you think ever increasing fuel prices will effect the economy? It will be a continued drag – so this is about more than just the price of oil – it is about our overall economic well being. It could become a defining concept to US society sooner than most can imagine. We won’t have the luxury of picking & choosing what energy sources are preferred – we will need & want them all.
As an exploration geologist whose job is to find new hydrocarbon resources & looking at what is going on worldwide in terms of what resources are being found & developed vs. what is going on as far as demand, I think you can take this idea to the bank. This is precisely why you see the oil companies of these emerging economies scouring the world and buying up resources which would be considered marginal by historic standards – because they understand where supply & demand are going & they are positioning themselves so they are not left without supply. Too bad the US doesn’t have the same foresight.
So, when your price at the pump skyrockets over the next 24 months, don’t blame the dreaded “Big Oil” – blame China, India & your government for lack of foresight for developing an energy independence plan , as this situation that is coming is patently obvious to most anyone in the business right now
What makes people think our country will make it to 2020 in its current form?
Is a commercial design ready?
Are architectural documents finished?
Are sites selected?
How many plants are needed? X?
Are environmental impact statements finished for all X sites?
Have any regulatory agencies (local, state, Feds) signed any necessary licenses?
Have all NIMBY court cases been concluded favorably?
Is financing in place for X plants times cost per plant?
Can X plants be built simultaneously? Or only a few at one time?
Is France (high nuke infrastructure) energy independent? Why not?
. . .
. . .
As these plants begin to supply energy, will other types see a drop in price?
Place your bets.
How many of these plants will exist in the USA in 2020?
~~ None;
<= 5
<= 100
more than 500
What is X?
I am a strong supporter of nuclear power and have had a lifetime’s experience in its development. There has been a great deal of hysteria whipped up over the impact of radiation on life. The precautionary principle, whilst properly employed in the industry’s infancy, has resulted in the present day (in my view) overly cautious impact regulations.
I can thoroughly recommend Prof. Wade Allison’s book “Radiation and Reason”, as providing a modern analysis of the problem.
Prof. allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford and says :-
” I have no axe to grind, I have no links with the industry, I just want the truth out there. So many people have been under a misapprehension for so long. The book is based on recent scientific data that are now established and it brings good news – but are people of the world ready to re-examine past assumptions in the light of current science? It is important that they do, because, without nuclear energy, the future for mankind looks bleak.”
I should add that I have never met Professor Allison and have absolutely no connections with the book, (look on Amazon) other than as a reader.
I see that I am about to make myself very unpopular by throwing a little cold water of reality all over this issue.
(1) Why are all you good American people so concerned about energy self sufficiency?
Are you not aware that the USA is the most powerful country in the world?
Not by a little bit, but by a huge amount.
You talk as if your country was frightened.
World trade is good for your country and for the rest of the world.
If you can produce power in its various forms more economically than by importing it, then go on, make it domestically.
Otherwise import.
(2) I am not an expert about the relative cost of various methods of energy generation.
I do know that it takes much time and great cost and investment to get new major industries off the ground.
(That after all is much of the stupidity of the AGW hysteria).
And doesn’t your government and your foreign trade balance have, how can I put it kindly, some little defecits that need attention?
This seems hardly the time to go further into hock to develop new methods when you already have much working sunk investment in very effecient existing facilities.
My prediction is that the sources for electricity and transportation in 2020 will not be too different than today – the mix will change, but in as yet unknowable ways.
But self sufficiency (or CO2 free) by 2020?
Wheeeeeeee!
It’s only a short ten years away.
Coal liquification is fraught with problems, not the least of which is that it’s energy intensive. As the cost of crude goes up, the cost of coal liquids goes right up along with it. Add the high capital cost of the liquification plant and you don’t have much to work with. The process typically creates large quantities of toxic waste that require incineration or disposal. Last time I checked, there were about 50 different CTL processes. Most of them are hopelessly inefficient.
Mustafa says: “…we can use coal to generate electric power ( a known technology) to power electric or extended range electric vehicles (also known and proven technology).”
Satisfactory electric vehicles are NOT proven technology. They’ve been oversold to the public and supported by endless quantities of propaganda. Honda hybrids are particularly prone to problems. The dealers install new control software that is supposed to fix the problem, but often turns out to be just a form of hand-waving to get the owner back out the door. Replacement batteries, with labor, are about $3,000 to $4,000. You could buy a lot of gasoline for that. Or even a real car.
My impression of coal to anything else (gas or liquid) is that it was plagued with problems such as requiring coal that has few impurities. Otherwise, you end up with a huge sulfur & heavy metal contamination, especially important for some catalyzed reactions. So, I’m highly skeptical of its immediate practicality. Are there real-world performance numbers for any industrial-scale production?
One of the most important things about building nuclear plants is very simply this: have as few plant designs as possible. This is the reason nuclear power is much cheaper in France than in Britain, where just about every nuclear plant is a unique design.
In France, economies of scale in having similar plant designs has resulted in huge operating and capital cost savings. As for using thorium as fuel, its supply is inexhaustible, but the technology is still a very long way from being commercially proven.
Fears of the world running out of uranium are largely unfounded, as with every commodity, long term supply is largely a matter of price. Few geologists have looked for uranium since the late 1970s and hence there have been only a few discoveries since that time.
http://www.explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html
And then there is H3 (Helium 3).