President Obama in his recent SOTU address said that “this is our generation’s sputnik moment” referring to the need to use science and technology to develop cheaper clean energy (among other things). It seems the Chinese were listening because last week they announced a focused effort to achieve technological leadership in thorium molten salt reactors.
From EnergyFromThorium
The People’s Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology, it was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) annual conference on Tuesday, January 25. An article in the Wenhui News followed on Wednesday (Google English translation). Chinese researchers also announced this development on the Energy from Thorium Discussion Forum.
See the Press report (Chinese) below along with partial translation:
http://whb.news365.com.cn/yw/201101/t20110126_2944856.htm
(partial google translation follows)
“Yesterday, as the Chinese Academy of Sciences started the first one of the strategic leader in science and technology projects, “the future of advanced nuclear fission energy – nuclear energy, thorium-based molten salt reactor system” project was officially launched. The scientific goal is to use 20 years or so, developed a new generation of nuclear energy systems, all the technical level reached in the trial and have all intellectual property rights.”
What is a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”? Please see this previous WUWT post on this technology.
Currently there is no US effort to develop a thorium MSR. Readers of this blog and Charles Barton’s Nuclear Green blog know that there has been a grass-roots effort underway for over five years to change this. The formation of the Thorium Energy Alliance and the International Thorium Energy Organization have been other attempted to convince governmental and industrial leaders to carefully consider the potential of thorium in a liquid-fluoride reactor. There have been many international participants in the TEA and IThEO conferences, but none from China.
Will the US accept the challenge or allow the Chinese to dominate advanced nuclear technology too? Using a technology invented in the US 40 years ago no less!
This isn’t a “Sputnik moment” Mr. President, it’s a “shit or get off the pot” moment for US energy policy. The US excelled at the space race, partly because of the swift kick in the pants that Sputnik provided. Perhaps this announcement will be the embarrassment like Sputnik for the US government that will compel them to finally do something about our energy future besides tilt at windmills.
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Thanks to Charles Hart for the tip and info gathering.
I recall when the US had a LMFBR (Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor) program, called Clinch River, in TN. About $20 billion in 1973 dollars were eventually spent with little to show for it. Great stuff. The primary coolant circuit was liquid sodium. There could be no leaks whatsever, because it was coupled to the secondary circuit (powering the turbine) full of water. But –
[rxn: Na(l) + H2O(l) -> violent hydrogen explosion].
But they never found a technology to build stainless steel boilers that would not leak. The Senate took more than a decade to finally kill that Pork Monster. And it didn’t come back because coal is cheaper. “The Market has spoken, now shutupa your face!”
Well put Anthony. The Administrations fascination with expensive, impractical energy sources is legendary.
We need an administration who is grounded in reality, not this one with their heads, well, lord knows where – in the clouds or up their collective keesters (sp?).
I wonder if China had as many environmental NGOs as we do, if they would have had a harder time getting this started? I say this because of recent reports of democracy being a hindrance to progress in the US vs how good the Chinese got it. I think part of our problem is NGOs.
http://on.wsj.com/hbwlCB
What do they mean by “clean energy”?
It is an indirect way of saying fossil fuels are not clean.
It is an indirect way of saying the CO2 released from fossil fuels is a pollutant.
As the CO2 that is released by fossil fuels is identical to that used by plants to produce their food, CO2 is not a pollutant so is use of fossil fuels.
With millions living in the dark, what the world needs is “cheap energy”!
Anthony:
“REPLY: Pull your head out of your butt for a moment and realize that this liquid salt thorium technology is 40 years old. They can get it out of textbooks. They don’t need “advanced” technology, only the will to use what’s sitting on the shelf.
The USA doesn’t have the will. While we are screwing around with windmills and sustainability, the Chinese are taking what should have been used years ago and applying it while laughing at the green folly of the west. – Anthony”
Criminy. Who pissed in your wheaties?
It’s actually 50 years old. The US was researching MSR technology in the early 1960’s for potential use in nuclear powered long range bombers. Try a google scholar search like I did to see who was doing what and when. The only operational thorium MSR reactor in the world was a 7.5mw research reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratories that ran from 1964 to 1969. If you think the reactor design is unclassified and anyone can “get it out of a textbook” you’re naive. The chemistry and physics is well enough described but there’s huge friggin’ leap from theory to practice. Similarly, in my area of expertise, microprocessor architecture is well described in the literature but you aren’t going to see any innovation there that worries Intel or AMD. Innovation in engineering just doesn’t come out of China and don’t think for a moment thorium MSR doesn’t require a whole heap of engineering to get to commercial operation. Research reactors don’t have to run at a profit. The chemistry involved in the single-liquid thorium fuel cycle is neither simple nor economical. Even the U.S. who at ORNL has the only practical experience with this type reactor estimates it will take 20 years to get a first commercial plant operating. If it takes the US 20 years it’ll take China 50 years. Someone has their head up their butt but it isn’t me.
If we need Education on Nuclear Engineering for our students, send them to schools in France on a Scholarship. America is famous for squandering a lead on technology and having to play “catchup”, usually at a high cost.
As Anthony pointed out, the technology is a few decades old. It will be a lot “cleaner” than all those coal plants. Imho, what the Chinese see is their dependence on foreign fuels is intolerable so they’re kicking off their nuke power industry. If they can gear up significantly, they’ll have energy sufficient to manufacture their hydrocarbons — also using technology that’s decades old. This move should have been an obvious next step to the West since China has been quietly going around the globe buying up resources it needs today and will need to expand in the future. If they solve their energy production and convert to synfuels production, they’ll just be following along with what the folks at Los Alamos wrote about a few years ago.
And thorium is so abundant no one really knows how much of the stuff is lying around. Mines in the US (for example, in VA) can’t even give the stuff away.
Split atoms, not birds!
Dave Springer,
You’re all wet on this. I would take us 50 years to get it going, with the kind of leadership we have. It’ll take them 5. Same with going to the moon again. It’ll take us 30 years. They’ll be there by the end of the decade.
Of course, give a private company an incentive to do it (and protection from the parasitic class), and it would all be done in six months.
While we’re twiddling our thumbs, the Chinese are putting in new reactors like we’re putting in windmills.
An other point about nuclear energy, there is a lot of uranium and some thorium in sea water. Technologies to filter it are still expensive, but the resource is huge.
A simple search with “uranium sea water” gives plenty of results.
Dave,
Any oriental-looking people working at AMD or Intel? I suspect the Chinese have more than just what is in the textbooks on microprocessors. I suspect they know everything AMD and Intel know. It’s just a matter of does it fit in their plan to put resources to this now when they can buy the stuff like commodities on the open market (although, they probably have to pay a few pennies per thousand extra to get around any lingering export restrictions).
Anthony this is what we are up against with Obama. Read it and weep for America the EPA will enforce this with no concern for the future. Pray the Republicans have the B***S to reverse the green madness!
USA FED ENERGY COMMISSION STATED: THE US DOES NOT NEED NUCLEAR OR COAL POWER – OUR POWER REQUIREMENT CAN BE MET WITH WIND, SOLAR AND OTHER RENEWABLE SOURCES
Wed May 6, 2009 12:59am BS
(Reuters) – The nation’s top power industry regulator on Tuesday suggested that U.S. utilities don’t need to build big nuclear or coal-fired power plants to fill the nation’s future power supply needs.
Instead, Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said future electricity demand growth can be met with a low-emission supply from wind, solar and other renewable sources, combined with more efficient use of all sources of electricity.
“We have the potential in the country, we just have to go out and get it,” Wellinghoff said at a briefing with reporters at the American Wind Energy Association’s conference in Chicago, monitored by telephone.
Wellinghoff’s vision of a U.S. future based on renewables and smarter electric use has been challenged by big U.S. electric utilities, who insist that they need to build nuclear and coal plants to provide “baseload” power to keep the grid supplied.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/05/05/us-utilities-awea-wellinghoff-idUKTRE5447HI20090505
“Perhaps this announcement will be the embarrassment like Sputnik for the US government that will compel them to finally do something about our energy future besides tilt at windmills.”
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Preach it!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Dave Springer says:
January 30, 2011 at 5:56 pm
“Yeah right. Advanced Chinese technology is an oxymoron. If they can’t buy it or steal from the United States they ain’t got it.”
Dave Springer says:
January 30, 2011 at 7:21 pm
“Innovation in engineering just doesn’t come out of China and don’t think for a moment thorium MSR doesn’t require a whole heap of engineering to get to commercial operation.”
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Sounds like China copies our engineering, and sells it back to us.
At a profit to them, and the company that revealed their manufacturing techniques.
It’s all about cheap labor.
What will happen, when we produce more (subsidized) college graduates than can be employed? Or have we already?
At some point, somebody needs to produce, something.
Well look what the US (and the UK) could have done if it had not wasted the billions on climate change “research”.
“The US excelled at the space race, partly because of the swift kick in the pants that Sputnik provided.”
Don’t forget the important role the Canadian Engineers played in the Apollo program after the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was suddenly canceled. Most of them went to NASA. Apparently, they already had the plans of the lunar module.
India has been doing work on thorium cycle reactors for a while, because they don’t have a domestic source of U235, they do have a lot of thorium… India’s thorium cycle reactor design uses a pressurized heavy water moderator, probably derived from the CANDU technology (because AECL has been doing similar research going back decades).
Perhaps O’sputternik will rise to the occasion and announce the solar powered windmill?
I’m with Barry Brooks on this – Australia has “bucket loads” of Thorium (in addition to its already established bucket loads of Uranium).
Australia should be going “balls out” to inherit the US technology and advance it to production standard, especially if the US hasn’t got the wherewithall to do it…
The Canadian heavy water CANDU reactor technology is thorium capable, we have to be in this race. Low tech expensive green energy will strangle us economically.
John F. Hultquist says:
January 30, 2011 at 6:19 pm
“. . . and have all intellectual property rights.”
I’ve been reading at the site linked to by Anthony (Nuclear Green Blog, and from there – others). This is a 40 year old concept that has been investigated and tested in the United States. The people of the USA ought to have some claim to parts of the intellectual property, and I suspect other nations with active research. Is that not so?
President (“lost in space”) Sputnik may be able to learn about this. Both houses of congress should pass legislation to make it happen. B.O. would then be faced with a need to respond.
The life of a patent is 20 years in the US. If the technology is 40 years old, it is unlikely that intellectual property is a real issue.
re; windmills and green technology
Windmills have a place. Where there’s adequate wind they produce electricity that’s cost competitive with nuclear energy and it doesn’t take 20 years to build a windfarm. They’re ready to go today and public resistance from the environmentalist whackos and NIMBY hotheads is minimal. Texas is putting them up by the thousands. The problem with windmills is essentially limited suitable locations and lack of ability to adjust supply to meet demand. But where and when they work they feed into the grid and allow on-demand power plants (read fossil fuel powered plants) to throttle down. One nice thing about wind power is, unlike solar, the wind keeps blowing at night.
I stand by my prediction that the big winners will be photovoltaics and biofuels. Nuclear will be never be cheap enough or safe enough unless some fringe-science low temperature fusion which has no theoretical explanation is discovered by trial and error. Trial and error is how high temperature superconductor R&D is proceeding (no theoretical guidance) so I won’t rule it out since HTSC is real but breakthroughs of this kind are unpredictable. Photovoltaics are solid state electronics with no spooky unexplained theory of operation. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t follow the path of every other solid state electronic gimcrack beginning with the transister 50 years ago and get progressively less expensive to manufacture. Halving the manufacturing cost twice will make them competitive with combined cycle natural gas fired turbines which is the cheapest (by far) thing going right now and also squeeky clean and green to keep the CO2 and nuclear waste nutjobs happy – they’ll have to work overtime to find something to bitch about. PV of course won’t replace all conventional electrical generation due to availability and storage issues but it’ll take over a lot of the load from conventional on-demand sources when the sun is shining. Biofuels are the most near-term practical energy source. Ethanol from corn is something of a boondoggle as corn is too valuable as a food crop to divert for transportation fuel. The primary benefit of the exercise was to get a handle on biofuel logistics and drive the automakers into producing E85 engines capable of running on anything up to 85% ethanol/gasoline blend. Currently most gasoline is a 10% ethanol blend which is the most that an unmodified gasoline engine can tolerate. Electric vehicles are a total boondoggle without a single redeeming feature aside from making morons like Bill Maher feel like they’re doing something heroic to save the planet. As a practical matter the race is on to find, breed, and/or genetically modify extant microbes to go in one easy step from air/water/sun/nutrients straight to ethanol and biodiesel. There are pilot plants using recently discovered algae species right now that are close to unsubsidized cost parity with gas and diesel cracked from crude oil. If oil rises much over $100/bbl they will be at parity right now. The exciting thing is these microbial biofuel producers are in their infancy and can easily see a ten-fold improvement in the next decade which makes them almost free compared to oil and unlike electricity or hydrogen as transportation power sources biofuels are a seamless drop-in replacement for fossil transportation fuels.
By the way, I just finished reading a wonderful interview of Vinod Khosla, billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who in 2004 founded Khosla Ventures, and angel investing company focused on innovative alternative energy technologies. Khosla is only interested in things which are both cleaner AND cheaper than extant technologies – if it doesn’t hold out a solid promise of being less expensive than extant technologies he isn’t interested in it. Like me, he considers “green” to be nice but the primary consideration is cost. Raising the standard of living for everyone in the world can only be accomplished by less costly sources of energy. Making energy more expensive solely for the purpose of low-carbon footprints will just add to the suffering the world rather than reducing it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=in-search-of-the-radical-solution
Quote from article:
“The most interesting area is the one people have soured on the most: biofuels.”
Khosla has that right. Anyone who is up-to-speed on state of the art microbiology and genetic engineering knows this and luckily venture capitalists like Khosla are betting heavily on it.
Anthony, I agree with your sentiment. Perhaps, but I am not optimistic. Nuclear will win. PWRs, BWRs, and thorium varieties are inevitable, and we are likely to go back to molten metal breeders like EBR-II. When we built it, we lead the world. Then NBC called it a “fleecing of America,” and it has been all down hill from there. http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/index.php/dr-john-sackett/171-operating-and-test-experience-for-the-experimental-breeder-reactor-ii-ebr-ii
While I think nuclear power will dominate all electrical production within a few decades, I have little hope that the West, save for France, will have a leading role. The Chinese and Japanese are likely to race in the lead for many years.
I learned what I know doing research for materials for fusion reactors. Don’t believe anyone that tells you we will have fusion energy before your grandkids have grandkids. Cold fusion, polywell, or some other variety, perhaps, but I believe it will take an unpredictable genius breakthrough before any such becomes commercially viable.