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.
There are large reserves of Thorium in Idaho. Similar (possibly larger) deposits exist just north of the border in British Columbia (Canada).
Only two problems. The enviros won’t let it be mined in the US and in BC its illegal to mine it.
Why do we keep having to reinvent the wheel? Has everyone forgotten why we spent so much research money on breeder reactor technology back in the 1970’s? It was because we knew that if the U.S. actually built all the commercial nuclear power plants we had on the books at that time, the entire U.S. supply (in the ground) of fissionable uranium would be used up in 20-30 years and we would then be reliant on outside sources.
On a world-wide scale, the race to develop commercial breeders (or fusion as an alternative) was even more urgent because had the entire world gone nuclear for power production we would rapidly havegotten “past the point of no return” when the entire world supply of fissionable uranium would have been exhausted before the breeders could have done their job of creating a perpetual supply.
Breeders were never commercially realistic because of the “plutonium problem”. I’m ignorant on the thorium cycle, but I suggest that before everyone goes bananas on the subject, we make sure it doesn’t lead to a dead-end similar to the fissionable uranium cycle.
David claims
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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.
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Sort, real skeptical about this. Show us the money trail.
David enthuses
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I am a thorium nut as well as a coal-to-liquids (CTL) proponent.
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I would like to believe this.
BUT
The last design for a thorium reactor presented here had a molten salt transfer loop.
I would make a wild guess and suggest that molten salts are seriously corrosive. If this guess is correct it makes for some seriously challenging technical problems. As in it would eat the pipe work in nothing flat.
From a pure energy standpoint your argument makes sense, but it makes little sense in the real world where politicians cannot deal with opening a national location to store nuclear waste and the greens have the ability to drag any nuclear plant therough multiple environmental studies and then the nuclear agenicies have such onerous rules on building the pkants that the costs ALWAYS shoot through the roof (this is why they are not built here, not that power companies do not want them).
Your argument is also grossly simplistic in ignoring many other options outside those currently in major use, such as oil sands. As oil prices go up oil sands became very economical to acquire oil from thus place a top on oil prices over time, screwing up you simplistic economic arguments.
A futurist you are not…
Here’s one of you problems David, although there are many more. Oil sands require no change to our energy infrastreucture either, namely you make good old gasoline from them in the end, not some new fuel.
Oil sands projects do not appear overnight, but as they do they will increase the capacity for oil output greatly, the real question will they keep pace with demand in the long and short term. In the short term we will get price spikes, but will we in the long term? Who knows as there is huge oil sand capacity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
The cost per barrel needs to $75/barrel to make this viable. New technologies may reduce that though, and even lower the price of oil over time:
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002981.html
The model forwarded by Archiblad also completely ignore infrastructure changes. Think about how much infrastructure is out there to refine, move, and use oil and gas from pipelines to ports to accept it to refineries to pipes to move refined product (e.g. gasoline) etc. You can’t flip a switch and change energy sources – another reason we will stick with oil to the bitter end.
Electric cars are more likely than any other technology to lower demand – why? They are cheaper to build (although the parts are currently pricier) and the infrastructure is in place to deliver electricity.
“Proven technology” .. are you kidding me? .. the only thing the Leaf and Volt have proven, is just how poor and expensive electric vehicles can be, and talk about not being cost effective. sheesh… Not even to mention the problems with depletion of rare-earth metals and other such exotic materials and fabrication necessary to make electric vehicles practical. Electric vehicles have been around since the early 1900’s, and yet they still cannot compete on any level with combustion propulsion vehicles. Talk about “fairy tales” .. one would think that 100 years of development would be ample time to develop a “practical” technology, but it hasn’t yet happened with electric vehicles. And don’t get me wrong, I would dearly love to see electric vehicles work, be economic, practical and most of all, kind to our environment, but thus far they fail short on ALL accounts.
Sorry, try again…
Chris F says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Commercialisation will take about $1 billion, and a bit of vision.
R. Shearer says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:14 pm
When the US standard of living starts declining due to energy costs, a whole lot of unpleasant things will be jettisoned, including the Sierra Club. Eventually the Sierra Club will be thanked for stopping those 139 coal-fired power plants – the coal has a better use in CTL plants.
Deekaman says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:39 pm
I gave a presentation to an aviation conference in Hong Kong a couple of years ago. The chief salesman for Airbus told me that the French AGW effort was led by an Areva executive. I have heard similar for the UK.
geo says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:43 pm
I am an oilman and a sceptic, and I can tell you that the oil industry rolled over and played dead on this issue. Even Exxon signed on to the voodoo cult when Lee Raymond retired. Here in Australia, the oil industry has been actively promoting AGW so they could displace coal in the power market with natural gas. The LNG market is now going to suck every spare molecule out of the country at the oil price equivalent and they needn’t have bothered. But the AGW scare they contributed to is taking a long time to kill.
highflight56433 says:
January 1, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Yes, I am a proponent of the two fluid molten salt breeder reactor. The thorium route has one thousandth of the high level waste of the light water reactors. Radiation falls to the original ore level after three hundred years, not the 1.3 million years of the light water route.
Mustafa says:
January 1, 2011 at 8:06 pm
From coal in the ground to power at the wheel, the CTL route is more efficient than power generation/transmission/battery. Similarly, CNG vehicles are a more efficient use of natural gas than burning natural gas in turbines and recharging batteries. There is a role for electric vehicles and possibly a big one, but they make most sense when charged from nuclear or hydro power. Otherwise you would keep your fossil fuel as a gas or liquid.
Geoff Sherrington says:
January 1, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Thankyou Geoff. You reminded me. The CDIAC is the contribution from the US nuclear industry to the AGW effort. That is why it is based at Oak Ridge, one of the two main US nuclear labs. Some of the stuff they do is risible, such as doing plant growth experiments at enhanced CO2 levels and using ozone to suppress the plant growth. Otherwise the results would be too good.
Puckster says:
January 1, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Actually there is thorium for millions of years of use.
Thorium may be great…who knows since there are no commercial thorium reactors. Uranium fission reactors are a well known technology available right now. There is plenty of uranium available the only thing lacking is the will. People are worried about the spent fuel…only due to pure ignorance and the ability of a few to whip up fears of the unknown. Having been the operator during several fuel loadings on both BWR’s and PWR’s I know something of the process.
Nuclear is a good source of cheap power, but the only way to wean ourselves off of imported oil is to do away with the ICE. Beamed microwave energy…another proven technology. Line the interstates with MW transmitters and have vehicles with mast mounted power receivers. Yeah we may kill a few birds, but the envro’s don’t care about them anyway (see windmills).
Diesel trucks will still be needed for a while since they need more power than is possible to transfer with todays technology. Give me 5 years and a trillion dollars then sit back and watch…
Before getting too enthusiastic about electric cars, you may wish to browse through:-
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/hybrid_cars
An interesting slant on solar and coal (especially for the Brits who are subsidising this whilst the UK Coal Industry goes down the pan.):-
http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/germany-talks-solar-but-goes-coal/
What alternative fuel is there that I can pump into the tank of my Buick, other than alcohol, which is just wastefully burning food and less efficient than gasoline?
So far the alternatives are less efficient than gasoline, getting less distance from the same volume of fuel. They also cost more to produce and use more energy to produce than gasoline.
Using solar energy to grow genetically engineered algae to produce alcohol or oils suitable for diesel and turbine engines solves the energy cost, but that still leaves out all the gasoline engines. Let’s genetically engineer some goop that excretes 92 octane gasoline, at a retail price of $2 a gallon, including taxes.
Meanwhile, stop this nonsense of fermenting corn and grains into alcohol.
So, where will all that coal and natural gas come from? Are you thinking of mining it from Jupiter, just as the IPCC folk seem to intend?
Anthony, through all these years of WUWT, you have always failed to recognize that the fossil fuel galore is an AGW fabrication. Without it they can’t through around the +6º, +7º, +12º figures they like. Publishing a braindead post like this is paying an important service to the IPCC, the HS Team, the Hadley Centre and the like.
Though almost three ears old, our proposal on the IPCC dreamcasts is still up.
Happy 2011, may it bring enlightenment.
Aside from BigNuke’s alleged support for AGW (I can refer to support from individuals but not sure about the Industry itself), and the well known claim that all us nasty Deniers are in the pocket of BigOil (cheque STILL hasn’t arrived), are you aware that we are also catspaws of Osama Bin Laden?
One for Climate Craziness of the Week, Anthony?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20101231/lf_ac/7503666_how_global_warming_denial_aids_terrorists
Happy New Year to one and all. (Excepting the ecotard trolls.)
I dont think the majorities in the western democracies should listen too much to the greens. They protest here in Norway even when we want to expand our hydro resources. That tells me that they are really against humanity.
There are wast thoeium deposits in Norway. Farmers could easily build their own small hydro plants.
All the regulations is the problem.
jtom said:
“The magnets used in electric vehicles make heavy use of rare-earth elements. The prime source of such material is China. China has ALREADY declared that it will tighten the limits on its rare-earth exports.”
It is feasible to build efficient electric motors without the use of rare-earth elements. The rare-earth elements allow the motors to be smaller and lighter. Most industrial motors do not use rare-earth elements. The lack of rare-earth elements is not a game changer for electric vehicles.
We have lots of rare-earth elements in America. The reason we get most of them from China is that they are expensive to process.
China is a problem only in the short term.
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.
I have no evidence but I made the following point on this blog two years ago.
A few months after the 3 Miles Island Nuclear disaster a relatively unknown scientist called Hansen was given a platform in front of Congress to present a relatively unknown and unproven theory about the effects of CO2 on climate. I do not know much about the US but my guess is that one does not get this sort of opportunity without some powerful lobbying. After 3 Mile Island the perception in government and the general population was that Nuclear was no longer safe. If I had been in the Nuclear industry at the time I would have had to do something to change that perception and there would have been no better way of doing that than proving that the alternatives were not safe either.
So I have nothing to implicate the Nuclear industry in the scare but I believe they would have been betraying their shareholders if they had not actively promoted it. Unless you change the law to say that companies can only support things that they know to be absolutely in the interest of truth and society’s wellbeing then we cannot complain.
So, although I have fought against global warming hysteria for 10 years now, I am still happy to let the very people who I think started it win out. Who cares, if we end up with a sustainable clean and cheap source of power into the future as a result? I am not sure about thorium, because the devil is always in the detail, but on the surface it looks great. At least we would be investing in something that has some real value rather than investing in ways to tax people.
I am sorry but I left Chernobyl out of my last post. Hansen was put in post just after Three Mile Isand but it was a few months after Chernobyl that Hansen’s presentation to Congress was made. Three Mile Island might have led to the end of the growth of the US Nuclear industry anyway but Chernobyl threatened to put the lid on the coffin.
Mustafa says:
January 1, 2011 at 8:06 pm
“I love fairy tales. The next technology break-through is always around the corner!
Have you wondered why no one has built a commercial thorium reactor? Maybe, because it is not economically practical.”
Mustafa, your statement is not informative as you have not presented any evidence for it.
Here we go again – always good for a laugh
An energy independent future
I like the idea of energy independance, sadly the UK Gov’t is driving for the opposite for us. Now where can I invest in Thorium?
Finally someone going in the right direction. The bottom line is if you have energy you can manufacture/process just about any hydrocarbon you wish. Using existing technology, if you have electricity, you can “recycle” the atmosphere for the raw materials need for hydrocarbons – namely hydrogen, oxygen and carbon (think dry ice and electrolysis). It’s all just one form of “synfuel” using technology that’s been around since Hitler made the mistake of not locating Germany over a petroleum reserve. All produce increasingly “cleaner” forms of hydrocarbons. Thus, really “clean” gasoline with zero (0%) contaminates. And the nuclear path is “sustainable” (dry ice, electrolysis) for a few billion years.
Oil’s price per barrel today makes synfuel within reach based on cost. Given no cost difference, one would seem to want to opt for the smallest environmental “footprint” which would make nuclear anything the winner. Better to build one nuke plant, of whatever type, than kill all those soon to be endangered chopped up birds sacrificed at the alter of CO2 worship.
Of course nothing like this will happen in your lifetime unless the States assert their power under Article V. As some have noted, you can count in generations how long it will take with the current Federal system to double our nuke power generation.
Better to go to Panama, build dozens of synfuel nuke powered plants and sell the US the fuel it needs. The greenies would be a tad happy having shut down the US while you’d be happy on the profits you’d make.
Some people call for US energy independence but have no practical idea of how that could be achieved. Others, strangely, rail against the concept.
Yeah cuz free trade is a bad thing and only an odd person with strange ideas would oppose trade protectionism.
Go [snip ~ language! ~jove, mod]].
The main argument for thorium is that it is more abundant.
However, thorium power plants don’t exist because of technical issues – uranium is simply easier to react.
Far from clear that it is a conspiracy issue.
Secondly besides the fact no functional thorium power plants exist outside of laboratories, the method by which thorium is to be theoretically commercially viable is via a thorium breeder plant. This sounds cool but in reality even uranium breeder plants are few, produce all sorts of nasty weapons grade products/waste, and just are nowhere as economically beneficial as theory would have it.
Lastly one huge issue with nuclear power is the waste. Not the physical aspects of it, but actually the accounting. To be clear I am not against nuclear power per se – but the method by which nuclear waste is treated is exactly like toxic mortgages: if you play games with the models and numbers, you can make a collection of toxic mortgages seem harmless. And while loads of toxic mortgages may irradiate a bank and an economy, loads of toxic nuclear waste irradiate in considerably more permanent fashion.
Again, not a problem that cannot be solved, but there is gigantic potential for abuse of how nuclear waste is accounted for – the companies operating nuclear power plants have a gigantic financial incentive to minimize the true lifetime costs of safely handling nuclear waste.
LazyTeenager says:
January 2, 2011 at 12:14 am
“I would make a wild guess and suggest that molten salts are seriously corrosive. If this guess is correct it makes for some seriously challenging technical problems.”
Technical problems…………We can do it!
Understanding Engineers
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, ‘It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.’
Another said, ‘No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.’
The last one said, ‘No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?’