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.
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Thorium is good, and the molten salt reactors can have excellent passive safety (The 60’s design had a plug of salt that if over-heated (or uncooled) allowed the thorium to drain into a dish where it could no longer achieve criticality).
But don’t give up on Uranium and breeder reactors – they are actually a better long term bet, and the only technology that mankind needs to give us power till the sun dies.
1kg of uranium in a reactor can produce about 400000kWh electricity (about $20000 electricity at 0.05/kWh). For conventional reactors you need 8kg of uranium to produce 1kg of enriched reactor fuel (creating 7kg of depleted uranium) , but a fast breeder uses all the uranium, plus eventually any depleted uranium that might be laying around, and produces orders of magnitude less long-term waste.
But the key is that Japanese have developed tech to extract uranium from seawater for $250/kg – an inexhaustible supply given plate-techtonics and erosion that requires no mining . Uranium is far more abundant and accessible in seawater than thorium will be in the long term.
So $2000/kg for reactor fuel from seawater in current plants, and $250/kg for future breeder reactors, either giving $20000/kg worth of electricity… forever.
There are already several million tonnes of depleted Uranium sitting around that can be used in fast breeder reactors – enough to supply US electricity for about 100 years.
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
More at
http://www.infowars.com/enviroment-eugenics-quotes/
From the US Department of Energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_cost_of_electricity_generated_by_different_sources#U.S._Department_of_Energy_estimates
Total system levelized costs (US/2008) for new power plants per megawatt/hour:
Advanced Nuclear – $119
Biomass – $110
Who in their right mind is going to invest in a nuclear power plant when biomass generation is already cheaper, in its infancy, and the price per megawatt is plummeting rapidly as the technology improves? People with money to invest usually didn’t get that money by making stupid investment decisions. Nuclear power generation is history. Stick a fork in it. It’s done. A non-starter. A money losing proposition with about as much future as the horse & buggy had when Henry Ford started mass producing automobiles, the Pony Express after the invention of the telegraph, the gas streetlight after General Electric started building the modern electrical grid, the vacuum tube after the invention of the transister, ice production and distribution after the invention of refrigeration heat pumps, video cassette tapes after the invention of DVD, floppy disks after the invetion of the CD-ROM, photography using film after the invention of the CCD camera, the rotary pulse dial telephone after the invention of the push-button tone system, and so on – the list of new technologies first displacing then replacing older technologies is endless. Nuclear energy is SO 1970s’. It ain’t coming back.
The US has allegedly spent $70+ billion trying to prove AGW. If the money had been invested in Thorium research, the US would be a world-leader in this branch of nuclear power. Instead, the US is sprinkled with stupid wind turbines that make some landscapes look like pin-cushions.
Off topic – sorry, but this made me laugh…
Latimer Alder at Bishop Hill has christened a new title for the Teams’ esteemed Climate scientists: ‘Climatologits’.
Sums it up nicely for me.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/1/30/teacher-training.html#comments
Anthony:
This is a great post. Thankyou.
But, sadly, the important point is made by etudiant at January 30, 2011 at 5:55 pm who points out that the US has lost its expertise in nuclear technology. Indeed, I add to that by pointing out that – for the reason that etudiant explains – in the West only France now has significant expertise in commercial nucear technology for large scale power generation.
Regaining that lost expertise in nuclear technology requires education and training of nuclear engineers which cannot be conducted overnight, and after that those engineers will require decades to obtain an adequate pool of operational experience.
Also, all energy technology has risks, and thorium reactor technology is no different from any other in this respect. But misanthropic ‘greens’ have a campaign policy to overstate risks while downplaying benefits of all useful energy technologies (e.g. AGW, ANWAR, etc.). So, there is very likely to be opposition to any RD&D (i.e. research, development and demonstration) program for any nuclear power program. Indeed, an example of such opposition to thorium power is provided by Stephen Rasey at January 30, 2011 at 6:05 pm.
Hence, an adequate RD&D program for thorium power may not be possible for decades in much of the West.
So, it seems that we in the West now have only two options that are practically available to us while we act to regain the needed expertise in nuclear technology; viz.
1. Let the Chinese develop thorium reactor technology then buy it from them
and/or
2. Pay the French to develop thorium reactor technology under contracts that let the rest of us utilise the results of their RD&D.
All very sad, so very sad.
Richard
‘Dave Springer says:
January 31, 2011 at 12:32 am
You might be in denial but the people who put their money at risk to build these hideously expensive things are not buying into it. Follow the money.’
France may disagree with you.
Dave Springer says:
January 31, 2011 at 12:32 am
Much of the “cost” of nuclear is virtual, not real. For instance in the planning and contruction of the Sizewell B reactor in the UK, the appeals process took 20 years, propelled by the environmentalist circus that surrounds anything nuclear or indeed any technology more recent than the 18th century. The gross fallacy of the zero threshold radiation carcinogenesis model – just as corrosive a fallacy as CAGW – deliberately cripples the nuclear industry by imposing belief in fictitious radiation risk at very low dose levels. Large volumes of totally harmless material (in some cases less radioactive than the human body) has to be treated as uniquely dangerous or satanic for thousands of years.
Snap out of this superstition and nuclear power is not that expensive.
Interesting to hear all those castigating the Chinese for their lack of innovation and using the US man on the moon as a reference.
You forget that most of the US rocket technology was obtained from Werner von Braun, the Nazi scientist who had developed the V1 and V2 rockets which tormented London in the war.
Basically China does not innovate right now because it’s faster and lower risk to copy. When they get to the cutting edge, I expect their scientists to be as innovative as ours.
This is a great development. I’ve been banging the LFTR drum for awhile. It is the nuclear energy that is most appealing from a green perspective. It is safer to operate, cheaper to build, produces orders of magnitude less nuclear waste, the waste it produces decays in several orders of magnitude less time than conventional nuclear power plant waste, thorium is abundant and cheap, the fuel is utilized 2 orders of magnitude more efficiently, terrorism threat is way lower, operates at near normal air pressure (enabling much cheaper and smaller plants).
My guess is that the Chinese are trying to stampede us into figuring out the intricacies of LFTRs so they can steal the technology from us via corporate and academic espionage. Scientific espionage is the cheapest way to get new technology, millions of times cheaper than doing the R&D yourself. Hope this motivates the USA to work on LFTRs because it would be great for the USA and the world to get LFTRs commercially viable.
Dave Springer says:
January 31, 2011 at 12:32 am
“and hasn’t grown since then with fewer and fewer new reactors under construction every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_Power_History.png
”
That chart ends in 2007. Here’s data from Sept 2010:
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm
442 reactors in operation, 65 under construction.
Wikipedia might need to update their artwork.
“Instead, the US is sprinkled with stupid wind turbines that make some landscapes look like pin-cushions.”
Wind turbines are now called bird processors.
Adding to Colonel Sun
January 30 2011 11:27 pm
Producing depleted uranium for weapons a major reason for rejecting thorium power, these bombs have been used extensively in Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan,
http://nwoobserver.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/depleted-uranium-radiation-resulting-from-nato-bombings-in serbia-high-incidence-of-cancer/
The other major reason is the usual follow the money trail, who owns the uranium in the West? The US share of electric power from nuclear has risen from 11% in 1980 to around 20%accounts by 2008.
And the bottom line as always, screw the people to put more and more wealth into the control of the few. Cheap thorium power plants for every householder a pipe dream if the lengths they’ve gone to demonise cheap coal are anything to go by..
The problem here is that unfortunately, for the most part anyway, western political elites are essentially the product of ignorant universities whose speciality centres around producing nonentities. These people absorb absurd notions that remain strong enough to exclude any form of practicality in favour of an endless, fraudulent and elaborate fantasy.
Examples of this include the ideal of human equality, or more properly its perversion, for in reality there is no such thing, either physically or intellectually. I know beyond any doubt that there are millions and millions of men and women in this world, both young and old who are far more intellectually capable than I could ever hope to be. The same can be said for physical prowess, however you care to measure its charactistics.
The upshot I suppose really is do we have an answer, a way out of the determined course that can only lead us further down. Frankly the response must be no, at least not while much of the population thinks government is the answer. As Ronald Reagan reminded us, ‘Government is not the answer to the problem, it is the problem.’
Clearly Barack Obama is not up to leading America out of its plight, in truth the only ones who can are its people, however far too many are not yet ready to shoulder the necessary burdens that will begin the process of reversing decline. That can only begin when a real majority see modern elites for what they are. Self serving weaklings without principle or strength to make tough decisions, only then, perhaps, will it be seen that a bright future can only be constructed by healthy and enduring dose of reality and plenty of effort.
The criticisms made of US energy policy apply just as much if not more to British policy. Britain built the world’s first nuclear power station, the Calderhall station at Sellafield in 1956.
Sellafield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Calder_Hall_nuclear_power_station
In 1999 British Nuclear Fuels acquired the American nuclear power company, Westinghouse Electric Company, but in 2006 it sold it to Toshiba and now there are no British owned companies with know-how to build nuclear power stations.
Most of the existing nuclear power stations in Britain are rapidly approaching the end of their planned lives. When they are being de-commissioned we will also be shutting many of our conventional power stations to meet CO2 reduction targets agreed with the European Union.
It is painfully obvious that unless something is done very soon there will be major energy supply problems in Britain in the not too distant future. The government’s reponse is to TALK about building some new nuclear power stations and thousands of wind turbines. However they have ruled out subsidies for nuclear power while being willing to spend huge sums on wind turbines that do not work in conditions like we experienced recently when we had the coldest December for 100 years.
By the time the chickens come home to roost the present lot of politicians will be out of office (I nearly wrote “out of power”) anyway so why should they worry?
Most of the people high up in the Chinese government have science and engineering backgrounds. Most of the people high up in the US government are lawyers.
johanna wrote:
Dave Springer said:
Innovation in engineering just doesn’t come out of China
——————————————————-
Just hold that thought, Dave, while the West continues its relative decline.
This kind of racist jingoism and complacency is reminiscent of the last throes of the British Empire, on which the sun was never going to set because of the inherent inferiority of people in the Colonies.
Why blame the British for Dave Springer’s remarks? Most British people know perfectly well that for most of its very long history China had an outstanding record of innovation. Gunpowder, the compas, printing, and paper money are just some things that were invented in China. It was a British scientist and historian, Joseph Needham, who did most to make it clear how great the West’s debt is. His main work, which is being continued by others, Science and Civilisation in China now runs to 27 volumes.
If Joanna knew more about history she would realise that the saying “the sun never sets on the British Empire” described its geographical extent. Unlike previous empires it spanned the globe and therefore there when it was night in one part it would be daytime in another part.
Rudyard Kipling, the poet, novelist and short story writer is often regarded as a typical imperialist but he foresaw the decline and end of the British Empire in his poem Recessional.
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Recessional.htm
I quote the first and third verses below.
God of our fathers, known of old–
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine–
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
If could quote other passages from his writings that show that the arch-imperialist Kipling had a much greater respect for the abilities of the peoples of the Orient than some of the commentators on this blog who seem to think Chinese history began with Chairman Mao.
Tom Lehrer said it all (both on space and China). Go to 1 minute 50 – it’s a shame Tom isn’t still writing, he could apply his tale to Soros.
re last comment: Sorry, 1.30 or so in this version.
@MDR says:
“January 30, 2011 at 9:16 pm
If thorium reactor technology is supposedly ready to be plucked off a shelf and inserted into someone’s power grid, and given the huge demand for energy, why has no one worldwide done so? (I don’t believe there is a working thorium reactor anywhere.)
Is it a cost issue? An issue of dealing with unwanted byproducts? A distribution issue? An engineering issue? A physics issue? There must be a stumbling block somewhere. What is it?”
Don’t you know your own history?
All power generation by nuclear energy stopped dead in development in 80’s but the processes started in the 70’s.
The irony being that it helped further coal and oil.
So, essentially, the lack of development is due to policy design and so by rules and regulations and not for the lack of wanting or lack of money.
But maybe you would’ve invested in power generation that was supposed to be dismantled in a generation? :p
I believe that in ten years time China and India would be selling LFTR’s to the USA and Europe, just because the USA refused to develop the technology that was already achievable way back in the 60’s. Due to that decision, we are today sufferring from further stupid political decisions, effectively and artificially inflating the price of energy in such a way that this is now out of reach of the poor of the world and hard to get by the lower-middle classes. It is not yet too late for the US to take the Thorium road to cheap and reliable energy; all it takes is for the President to pull his socks up and take the energy bull by the horns instead of by the tail.
This is really funny. Folks who’ve never sat on a tractor, shucked a single ear of “field corn” or prayed for rain, or prayed for no rain or ran a combine think that putting “bio” in front of energy someone makes it “renewable”. Ignorance is great but growing stuff to make fuels is so close to unreal that it’s borders on stupidity. Compare the land use for, say, 100 nuke plants compared to grabbing that old Ferguson and riding off into bio-makin’ land. It’s really funny. Oh, and those wind choppers seem to be about as good a device as the old vegi-matics but for birds. I’m all for extinction of birds. They simply ruin the finish on our SUVs. Just think we can collect the bits o’birds and feed them into that biomass energy compactor. I’t be all automated – zillion of miles of conveyors. Why, we can even put seed corn on the top of each windmill to attract them. What we could do is take our surplus biomass and, through diligence, save it. I believe it’s called coal. Can you image how much surplus biomass we can store for the next winter? Must be simply staggering. We can even send it over to the Brits to keep them from freezing. Say, maybe we can dry it using solar lamps? It’d cut down on the shipping. Just think. We’d almost eliminate our trade imbalance with China since there’d be no ships left over after biomass becomes the energy commodity it’s destined to be. Man, just a perfect solution!
The fact is, today, nuclear power is competitive. And it works. And it works a lot. When you see France plowing under their vineyards and harvesting biomass for energy you’ll know that biomass wins the race. Any non-biased study of greenie energy has always shown it’s just not worth the effort. And, for example, the Brits have shown how really, really stupid it is to foist windmills as replacements for good old power plants.
Sadly, we won’t see nuke plants in the US in our lifetimes. So, that leaves us with natural gas. Oh well, since our gas reserves will last a few hundred years it seems we’ve plenty of time to convert to nuclear and just manufacture our hydrocarbons.
Dave Springer:
Your trolling of this thread is becoming annoying. As others have pointed out, everything you have posted here is blatant nonsense.
Now, at January 31, 2011 at 1:12 am you assert:
“Who in their right mind is going to invest in a nuclear power plant when biomass generation is already cheaper, in its infancy, and the price per megawatt is plummeting rapidly as the technology improves?
[snip]
the list of new technologies first displacing then replacing older technologies is endless.”
Biomass is a “new technology” that is “in its infancy” so can be considered to be among the list of new technologies first displacing then replacing older technologies“!!!??
Are you mad? Biomass has been used since mankind first discovered how to use fire: it was the original fuel.
And all the other technologies you advocate are also merely the latest developments of technologies which have been used for thousands of years.
So, I will explain the basics of the issues of energy supply to you so you can go back under your bridge and stop disrupting this thread with your silly assertions.
The energy supply increased immensely when the greater energy intensity in fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine. Biomass, animal power, wind power and solar power were abandoned because the laws of physics do not allow them to provide as much energy as can be easily obtained from using fossil fuels.
And none of those displaced technolgies is a “new technology” that is “in its infancy”. What would you consider the newer technology of the steam engine to be: a fetal technology?
Energy supply enables the growing of crops, the making of tools and their use to mine for minerals, and to build, and to provide goods, and to provide services.
Material Science limits what can be done with the energy. A steel plough share is better than a wooden one. Ability to etch silica permits the making of acceptably reliable computers. And so on.
People die without energy and the ability to use it. They die because they lack food, or housing, or clothing to protect from the elements, or heating to survive cold, or cooling to survive heat, or medical provisions, or transport to move goods and services from where they are produced to where they are needed.
And people who lack energy are poor so they die from pollution, too.
For example, traffic pollution has been dramatically reduced by adoption of fossil fuels. On average each day in 1855 more than 50 tons of horse excrement was removed from only one street, Oxford Street in London. The mess, smell, insects and disease were awful everywhere. By 1900 every ceiling of every room in Britain had sticky paper hanging from it to catch the flies. Old buildings still have scrapers by their doors to remove some of the pollution from shoes before entering
Affluence reduces pollution. Rich people can afford sewers, toilets, clean drinking water and clean air. Poor people have more important things they must spend all they have to get. So, people with wealth can afford to reduce pollution but others cannot. Pollution in North America and Europe was greater in 1900 than in 2000 despite much larger populations in 2000. And the pollution now experienced every day by billions who do not have the wealth of Americans and Europeans includes cooking in a mud hut using wood and dung as fuel when they cannot afford a chimney.
Adoption of the use of fossil fuels provided that affluence for the developed world. The developing world needs the affluence provided by the development which is only possible at present by using fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The greater energy supply provided by adoption of fossil fuels enabled more people to live and the human population exploded. Our population has now reached about 6.6 billion and it is still rising. All estimates are that the human population will peak at about 9 billion people near the middle of this century.
That additional more than 2 billion people in the next few decades needs additional energy supply to survive. The only methods to provide that additional energy supply at present are nuclear power and fossil fuels. And the use of nuclear power is limited because some activities are difficult to achieve by getting energy from the end of a wire.
If you doubt this then ask a farmer what his production would be if he had to replace his tractor with a horse or a Sinclair C5.
So, holding the use of fossil fuels at its present level would kill at least 2 billion people, mostly children. Pleasenote that reducing the use of fossil fuels would kill more millions, possibly billions. The only possible significant reduction to use of fossil fuels is afforded by increased use of nuclear power and that potential reduction is limited.
That is not an opinion. It is not a prediction. It is not a projection. It is a certain and undeniable fact. Holding the use of fossil fuels at their present levels would kill billions of people, mostly children. Reducing the use of fossil fuels would kill more millions or billions and only increased use of nuclear power could reduce the number of those killed.
Improving energy efficiency will not solve that because it has been known since the nineteenth century that improved energy efficiency increases energy use: as many subsequent studies have confirmed (google Jevons Paradox if you do not understand this).
Fossil fuels and nuclear power are the ONLY viable energy supplies capable of meeting our needs for the foreseeable future.
A return to use of biomass, animal power, wind power and solar power is not a possible option.
So, go back under your bridge and stop your trolling behaviour on this thread. As my above explanations demonstrate, your comments only consist of silly nonsense that distracts from rational discussion.
Richard
Lonnie Schubert says:
January 30, 2011 at 9:13 pm
…
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.
LPPhysics.com , focusfusion.org .
5 years to licensable prototype for global distribution and use.
5¢/W, 0.3¢/kwh.
Keep your extremities crossed!
P.S. The outfit is entirely financed by private “qualified investors” like this guy:
http://unreasonablerocket.blogspot.com/2010/11/ways-to-save-world-and-more-rockets.html
That means you do your own investigation, and have serious money to play with. The largest single backer, AFAIK, is the Abell Foundation (Baltimore).
No gubmint money or ‘cratic strings. Yay!