Guest essay by David Archibald
The good and the great are uneasy about the state of the world. They know that our current standard of civilisation has been made possible by cheap fossil fuels that will run out one day. And then what? Their experiments with solar panels, with mirrors, with windmills have been disappointing. And it is dawning upon people that 70 percent of the protein we eat has its origins in fossil fuels.
Our current dominant nuclear technology of burning U235 in light water reactors is inherently unsafe and produces a lot of waste while doing so. And it uses only 0.2 percent of the nuclear fuel available to us.
The situation is summed up in this blog comment:
So biofuels will power the mining of phosphorus and the manufacturing of nitrogen via the Haber Bosch process to fertilize crops to make biofuels to mine phosphorus etc etc and as well create surplus power for our appliances and food requirements. Sounds like a perpetual motion machine to me. If you think solar power can replace oil (power our industrial civilization) and have enough surplus power remaining to mine the elements needed for the manufacture of solar panels, make solar panels, and maintain solar panels then I think you’re living in a dream world. Magical thinking at its finest.
In other words, solar panels are cheap only because the diesel and coal used in their making are very cheap. So the Breakthrough Institute has announced the formation of Breakthrough Energy Ventures to fund the development of new technologies that will provide reliable and affordable power. The funding available is $1 billion, provided by private individuals. In part, global warming is a religion that elites believe in and try to impose on the rest of us. So the first order of business for their new venture is to genuflect to their god with the prime requirement that the new technologies they will invest in “have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least half a gigaton.”
They have their screening processes for evaluating projects put to them but I can save them a lot of trouble. There is only one technology that can save civilisation – the thorium molten salt reactor, written up on WUWT here, here and here. If that technology produces power at $0.03 per kWh then liquid hydrocarbon fuel could be produced at about US$120/bbl equivalent. The molecule most likely to be used as an energy carrier is dimethyl ether (DME) which has an energy content and handling characteristics similar to those of propane. Civilisation could continue at a high level indefinitely.
Thorium has been wilfully neglected. How that came about is shown in the following graphic:
Fission of uranium was first demonstrated in Berlin in 1938. The following day, physicists at Oxoford University were brainstorming on how to make a fission-based bomb. That kind of development pace continued for three decades. Early work on how to run a thorium molten salt reactor was conducted at Oak Ridge in the mid-1960s. Then that work was terminated in favor of plutonium breeder reactor research which in turn was killed off. And nothing much has happened since, until a Chinese engineer read an article in the July, 2010 issue of American Scientist and the Chinese research effort into thorium molten salt reactors was initiated.
There are literally hundreds of different nuclear reactor designs and a range of fuels can be used. There is also a basic division on how to approach fission with consequences for inherent safety, handling and processing of fission products, and operating and decomissioning costs. That basic choice is either having the fuel circulate or having the coolant circulate, illustrated in the following graphic:
The first commercial reactor for power generation was commissioned in in 1958 in Shippingport, Pennsylvannia. It used a uranium-burning, lighwater reactor from a cancelled aircraft carrier. All subsequent commercial power reactors have the coolant circulating.
Over the last decade, governments around the world have spent tens of billions of dollars on all sorts of schemes to make energy from anything other than fossil fuels. They have tried everything except the only thing that will work. When the new administration comes into power, they will stop the waste of billions per annum on green nonsense. It would be wise to put aside a little bit of what is going to be saved and apply it to the only thing that will work.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare.
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Nuclear vs. wind energy afety in fact, not in theory. And wind carnage on wildlife is
unspeakable
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lachlan-markay/2011/03/17/inconvenient-truth-wind-energy-has-killed-more-americans-nuclear
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Wind-Energy-Eagle-Deaths/2016/05/05/id/727407/
Safety
I read the opening post, the title of which I copied below, with interest a day ago.
..Nuclear Breakthrough Needed
..Guest Blogger / 15 hours ago January 7, 2017
..Guest essay by David Archibald
And then I read this off the wire, a dispatch from a few days ago:
<i<JANUARY 05, 2017
Researchers at … are reporting that they have successfully replicated “over unity” amounts of thermal energy (heat) for …'s most advanced [hydrogen-based] reactor test systems based on controlled low energy nuclear reactions (“LENR”). Researchers at … conducted a series of third-party tests of … ’s … LENR reactor test systems from March to December 2016. Dr. …, principal investigator and Manager of the Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Program, was assigned to …'s testing of ..’s LENR systems and conducted all of the third-party validation work.
AND it makes me wonder, WHY the big ‘disconnect’ (not ONE mention of anything close to this class of future product or subject) on this board when concerned about future sources of energy?
.
.
(Note: I removed specific info for a reason: to ‘protect the innocent’ you might say at least for the first round of responses.)
.
LENR has been known to be real for several years, shown experimentally in two basic ways. Weak force per Widom-Larsen theory. That Brillouin’s HHT is now over unity is not surprising. The issue is that it needs to be at least 5-7x over unity to be commercially viable. With the earlier low temp system they were only able to show ~2.5x. Wrote the whole cold fusion confusion (Rossi E-Cat fr@ud) and LENR science plus Brillouin up in 2012 The Arts of Truth. Whether the ‘new’ LENR physics can be usefully harnessed remains a very open question. Just like Lockheed skunkworks strong force high beta fusion claims.
HWGA.
Intimation that a fr a ud is being perpetrated on SOMEBODY.
PLEASE, name the harmed party, if you can, ristvan. JUST one. These accusations have grown old.
I am thinking you may be:
a) WELL beyond your prime in mental agility in reading and understanding a proper experiment which Rossi has had performed (pending review of data) and Mills has demonstrated recently, or
b) You may be beholden to some industry or group who would stand to lose money or marketshare SHOULD these devices pan out and prove practical.
I would encourage anyone else to DO their own due diligence BUT be forewarned there are those like ristvan who are decidedly AGAINST this new technology SOLELY on the ‘maths’ and equations set down on paper, experiments and third-party tests and demonstrations of their concepts be damned!
CLEARLY ristvan chooses abstract theory over demonstrated lab results and field trials.
With respect to Rossi E-cat, Darden and the other investors in Industrial Heat who lost $11 million. There are currently three lawsuits in process.
With respect to Mills hydrino, at least the non-exclusive licensees who bought 8MW worth of ‘CIHT’ elctricity generating licenses in his 2008 incarnation.
You need to research more before commenting. Both scams covered (along with 4 others) in a single chapter of The Arts of Truth. Complete with references and footnotes. Carefully and thoroughly documented so there can be no possible legal repercussions from the exposed fraudsters.
And Jim, there are NO confirmed successful experimental results from either Rossi or Mills. Please cite one. Rossi’s spent fuel provided the wrong copper isoptope ratios. His cable in setups can be spoofed two separate ways depending on two or three phase, none were ever checked. The Rowan result from Mills ‘metal’ is a classic chemical Raney nickel reaction. None of Mill’s devices have ever been shown to produce sustained energy as claimed. Please study up on this stuff before repeating nonsense.
So the word “fraud” is censored? Hmmm.
I note that some here say we can burn used nuclear fuel in MSRs but extracting unwanted byproducts would be a problem.
The problem starts well before then. To get ‘used’ uranium fuel you have to reprocess it.
You would be ill advised to attempt to use an old fuel rod (uranium pellets encased in alloy). We have had a history of fuel rods splitting, bulging etc. It is a known problem area.
So we reprocess the fuel rods – see here for a description of THORP, the UK reprocessing plant at sellafield.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Oxide_Reprocessing_Plant
It will be closing down once current contracts expire.
Reprocessing nuclear fuels is difficult and messy, removing products that ‘poison’ the chain reaction is difficult.
I suspect it will be a very long time to get a complete workable and effective Thorium fuel cycle in place.
Unless of course we have a Manhattan style project.
https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/17/01/p8873213/berkeley-clean-technology-company-announces-breakthrough-for-lenr-power
The rest of the story…
My, but aren’t we ‘flying close to the sun’ today?
Copenhagen Atomics doesn’t think it is a problem. In fact a wasterburner is part of their business plan.
http://copenhagenatomics.azurewebsites.net/pdf/CA_Whitepaper2014.pdf
US researchers fundamentally solved used fuel reprocessing over 2 decades ago with the pyroprocessing / electro-processing technology of the Integral Fast Reactor. The IFR did not need pure fuel with all ‘unwanted byproducts‘ removed.
Video: Roger Blomquist of ANL (Argonne National Lab) on IFR (Integral Fast Reactor)
The Integral Fast Reactor had a working fuel cycle. It was an integrated / closed cycle, meaning nothing went in or out for the life of the plant. I don’t know the details of the metallic fuel rod it used, other than its thermal coefficient of expansion made thermal runaway impossible. It may also have simplified the prevention of poisoning, as it didn’t require the separation of various components (i.e. it didn’t make plutonium available).
…what mark4asp said…
Thorconpower.com is commercializing the molten salt reactor technology demonstrated at the ORNL with essentially no modifications.
Terrestrial Energy is designing a slightly modified version of the same with a novel passive heat removal system.
Both are targeting uranium fuel today, with a transition to thorium breeder designs if/when uranium gets expensive.
The first is being demonstrated in Indonesia. The second is targeting Canada as their first market. If they can get the DOE to pay for their NRC application, they might try to build one in the US. Best case scenario, we’ll have one here in 20 years. The first unit in Indonesia is expected to be in service in about 5 years.
Everything you say is correct, except ” dominant nuclear technology of burning U235 in light water reactors is inherently unsafe” which is nonsense.
Nuclear power is safer than any other large-scale form of energy generation, despite Chernobyl and Fukushima. It has killed fewer people per terawatt generated than hydro (Google the Chinese dam disaster in the 1970’s, the casualties of which if you include the aftermath of the immediate flooding approached Hiroshima, not Fukushima).
https://www.scribd.com/presentation/54904454
In terms of human deaths you would be correct. But both Chernobyl and Fukushima made large areas of land uninhabitable by government fiat. And both have been very expensive clean-ups. So why take that risk when with a molten salt reactor would never allow anywhere near the amount of radiation to escape that an LWR can since all the radioactive elements will be bound up in salt?
But the great advantage is efficiency. A molten salt reactor can burn up nearly all of the thorium and uranium and a typical light water reactor burns up about 1%. And the LWR runs on U235 which is as rare as platinum. Thorium is 400 times more plentiful than U235.
It is not the safest possible. Apart from availability, I can’t see any advantage the LWR has over molten salt or liquid metal cooled reactors. A LWR still threatens the possibility of widespread radioactive contamination which scares everyone. Molten salt and liquid metal cooled reactors eliminate that threat.
Oh yes, I’m very fond conceptually of liquid metal cooled reactors, particularly the Pb-Bi cooling pioneered by the Russian navy and used in the Alfa class subs. It makes my self-declared environmentalist friends faint dead away by combining two of their favorite boogeymen: radiation and heavy metals. 🙂
The metallurgy wasn’t there in the beginning to inhibit corrosion due to O2 content in the lead, but the concept is being revived by (among others) Gen4 Energy.
Bill Gates’ project:
http://www2.technologyreview.com/news/412188/tr10-traveling-wave-reactor/
There’s also a standing wave variant, in which the fuel is moved around under robotic control.
One of several 4th gen fission ideas. He tried to get the chinese to support a pilot. They opted MSR instead.
What about heavy water reactors like CANDU? They are already approved and can burn thorium in place of uranium.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm
Thorium Fuel Cycles
There has long been an attraction for fuel cycles using thorium as a thermal breeder of fissile material (U-233). Thorium is three times as abundant as uranium in the earth’s crust, and U-233 is valuable as a fissile material due to its high value of fission neutrons produced per thermal neutron absorbed (eta).
Existing CANDU reactors can operate on thorium fuel cycles, with comparable fuel-cycle costs to the natural-uranium cycle and with improved uranium utilization. While ultimate efficiency is achieved with a self-sufficient cycle that relies only on bred U-233, economical once-through thorium (OTT) cycles can greatly extend uranium resources.
Several options have been identified for the use of OTT in CANDU reactors (Milgram, 1984), and on-power refuelling is the key to successful exploitation of this material. Two general approaches have emerged: the “mixed-core” approach, and the “mixed-fuel-bundle” approach (Boczar, 1998).
In the “mixed-core” approach, a number of “driver” channels provide the flux requirements for a fewer number of “breeding” channels filled with thorium-oxide fuel. This is the conventional CANDU-OTT strategy, and has the potential to be competitive, in terms of resource utilization and economics, with both natural-uranium and SEU fuel cycles (Milgram, 1982; Dastur, 1995). Complex fuel management is required to handle the different characteristics and residence times of the two fuel types.
In the “mixed-fuel-bundle” approach, thorium oxide is contained in the central elements of a fuel bundle, and SEU is contained in the outer elements. Although uranium utilization and thorium irradiation are not as good as in the “mixed-core” approach, uranium utilization is improved over the natural-uranium cycle (but not SEU), with comparable costs. Fuel management is much simpler than in the “mixed-core” approach, and refuelling rates are about a third of that required with natural uranium (Chan, 1998).
An extension of the CANDU-OTT cycle is the “direct self-recycle” of the thorium elements bearing U-233, into new “mixed-bundles” containing fresh SEU elements. This is an excellent example of a proliferation-resistant fuel-recycle option (Boczar, 1999).
In the long term, the CANDU reactor is synergistic with fast-breeder reactors (FBRs), where a few expensive FBRs could supply the fissile requirement of cheaper, high-conversion-ratio CANDU reactors, operating on the thorium cycle.
Thorium fuel cycles have additional benefits beyond uranium resource extension. Both the thermal conductivity and melting point of thorium oxide are higher than that of uranium oxide (by 50% and 340ºC, respectively). Thorium oxide is chemically very stable, does not oxidize, and creates fewer minor actinides than uranium. Even with the existence of economical uranium fuel cycles, thorium can be used to simultaneously extend resources and create a “mine” of safeguarded U-233 for future exploitation.
The worlds first commercial nuclear power plant was at Calder Hall, in Cumbria in the uk, and opened in 1954.
While molten salt has theoretically higher efficiency for steam generation than heavy water CANDU reactors, one should not ignore simplicity and proven track record. CANDU reactors are relatively simple and can also burn spent fuel from existing light water reactors as well as thorium.
Canada and China team up on AFCR
23 September 2016
An agreement in principle to form a new joint venture to develop, market and construct the Advanced Fuel Candu Reactor (AFCR) has been signed by Canada’s SNC-Lavalin, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and Shanghai Electric. The reactor reuses used fuel from light water reactors.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Canada-and-China-team-up-on-AFCR-2309164.html
Yeah, but the only builds, if any, will be in China. Didn’t think our current governments would give the go ahead for a new plant. Minor miracle they gave the go ahead for refurbishment in Ontario.
Guess even our liberal Government was smart enough to see that taking thirty percent of our generation capacity off line when they have already shut down all coal plants was not viable. Wind and Solar certainly are not going to make up the shortfall.
Proven track record? When and where?
New technology has become available in producing heavy water at lower costs than the Girdler process..
Excellent pitch! The world continues to ignore the benefits of a heavy water moderated system. Basically, it burns ANY fissile rock without enrichment. The magic being one extra neutron in the deuterium atom. GK
If the government had really believed in high risk AGW it would have started building nuclear plants twenty years ago.. Wind and solar will never be competitive as most need standby equipment for when there is no sun or wind, that is not counted in the cost..
Although LFTRs sound attractive enough that they should be explored, there are problems as many have pointed out above. All new nuclear power stations seem too expensive due to government regulations and all require the gov. to pick up the insurance. Being able to burn the accumulated rad waste is a large advantage. Breeder reactors are still banned in the US I believe.
They are not the only potentially fail safe solution. China will be bringing on line two commercial advanced pebble bed reactors late in 2017. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600757/china-could-have-a-meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactor-next-year/.
I like the thought of more smaller power plants rather than a few big ones.
It is a pity that DOE is so committed to Tokamaks that there is no money left over for more promising solutions. ITER is now projected at $25 billion and will never be an economic solution.- in the 2070s(!)
Why not at least look at other designs like the Polywell that only needs $35 million to build a demonstrator? There are several others.
I remain optimistic about LENR. Earlier this week SRI published a news report saying they had independently verified the Brilouin’s reactor worked. http://brillouinenergy.com/science/experimental-results/
If that works, Rossi;s QuarkX probably does as well. He promises a demo, possibly with water calorimetry, in February. BLP’s SunCell is supposed to have a prototype mid 2017.
Having many small reactors, keeping the government out of it and eliminating the cost of power distribution is the on;y route to much cheaper energy.
As almost the lone proponent of LENR on this site I feel it is rather like the AGW “consensus” where biased people simply will not look at the evidence.
LENR is real physics; whether it can be commercialized is an open question. Rossi’s new QuarkX is just a small E-Cat. The whole Rossi E-Cat thing is an easily proven fr@ud. Rossi claimed catalytic cold fusion of hydrogen plus nickel into copper. Mill’s new Brilliant Light SunCell is his latest Hydrino machine. It is the latest reincarnation of what used to be called Blacklight Power. It is also a fr@ud; hydrinos do not and cannot exist. Both explained at length in The Arts of Truth. Other partial explanations elsewhere in subcomments to this thread.
HWGA.
And ristvan cannot name even a singe ‘harmed party’ by any degree of fr a ud and after HOW many years?
So, who may be the fr a ud here, ristvan? Ante up or …
My, I listed specific financial Rossi and Mills victims by name upthread. Do keep up.
I am keeping my fingers crossed. I have a great trust in Pons’s and Fleischmann’s integrity. Attempts to reproduce their results mostly failed; the effect may only occur under a very narrow set of conditions. I don’t find SRI’s verification very convincing; they only found “up to several watts” of additional heat. That could be coming from unanticipated chemical reactions or calibration errors. Let’s be cautiously optimistic.
CG, I researched this and explained it in AoT. While head ot MOT strategy, myself and the CTO sent our best quantum physicist, Jim ‘phonon’ Jaske to France to their post Utah lab funded by Toyota. Jim reported back that there was a real new physics phenomenon, but it wasn’t reproducible and could not be literal cold fusion. 2012 book discussion explained why, based on experiments from Navy’s SPRWAR. There are two approachs to a repeatable LENR solution: NASA MEMS plasmons, and Brillouin’s surface phonons concentrated by the AC skin effect as first postulated by Nobel Physics winner Julian Schwinger. LENR will eventually make a rich historynof science example. Which is why it is in the same ‘recognition’ chapter as Wagoner’s continental drift theory.
Adrian – I think you will find many here who are open minded about LENR. However, this site is reluctant to discuss it openly for fear of losing what credibility is left after opposing consensus climate science.
I agree, that the fear of loss of face, should NOT prevent discussion of LENR advances and development. More discussion is needed on a possible theory explaining the phenomena is required. Dismissal out of hand is ignorant and not the scientific method. IMHO GK
If I’m not mistaken, France has had most of it’s power from nuclear reactors for decades.
Anybody hear a French Three Mile Island or Chernobyl?
Sounds like thorium reactors would make such events even less likely here than they’ve been in France with the “old stuff”.
What’s the hold up?
Not enough elites can siphon funds off an economically viable energy source?
A genuinely energy independent America (or UK or Australia or Japan or…) doesn’t fit in a global-control agenda?
The best bets right now would be on LENR (aka cold fusion).
In the past year we seen a number of new replications of this technology, and Stanford Research Institute after 9 months of independent testing of Berkeley based Brillouin LENR devices has confirmed they work and produce energy!
We talking about table top working nuclear devices WORKING NOW!!!
Press announcement here:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/01/prweb13961529.htm
Given that Airbus started filing patents last year on LENR, that we see several replications of LENR occurring in China, Russia and Japan, and now the above from SRI in the USA, then LENR likely has a better change then LFTR or Lockheed’s compact fusion reactor.
LENR is ALREADY shown to produce excess energy, and the above verification of LENR reactors working and producing heat is just another feather in the hat in terms of verification the excess heat that Pons and Fleeshman saw 30 years ago.
So above shows ALREADY working devices – so bets are that LENR the best choice for a future energy and that’s where investments should be going.
Regards,
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
I take it you didn’t read my post just two above yours.
You were both “beat to the draw” as we are like to say in Tejas …
Doug Huffman had even posted a link.
LENR is real, but it is not cold fusion. Fusion involves the strong force, and very high temperatures are required to overcome the Coulomb barrier. This presents the confinement problem. Cold fusion is literally impossible. LENR involves the weak force per Widom-Larsen theory. No Coulomb barrier to overcome. Its real physics, now with good experimental evidence as well as explanations for why Pons Fleischman was so hard to replicate. Whether it can be commercialized remains open to question.
ristvan: “Fusion involves the strong force, and very high temperatures are required”
Demonstration of an old-school perspective; since you know no other, correction, cannot possibly conceive of any other method or means by which this is accomplished.
You are the very definition, sir, of staid thinking.
I do not purport to know by what or which means this is accomplished, but, take note that I also do not make definitive statements of this nature either.
_Jim, I thought you wanted to discuss a fusion, not your hurt feelings.
ristvan,
You have no proof that the E-Cat is a fraud. You are just parroting the consensus that says cold fusion doesn’t work. There is plenty of proof that it does work. It has been replicated. Rossi took IH to court, not the other way around. Do you really think a fraudster would do that?
The QuarkX , from what little is known, is quite different from the E-Cat. The idea that the reaction converted Ni to Cu is long dead and was probably a deliberately misleading clue to start with. You should really do some homework before spouting misleading libelous statements.
I don’t know if hydrinos exist but Mills GUP explains a number of problems in quantum physics so you are foolish to dismiss that without having read it yourself..
Jim, you do know Coulomb’s law? Like charges repel, opposite charges attract. All nuclei are protons (most also have neutrons, hydrogen being the exception. They are positively charged. Hence the Coulomb barrier. Overcome only when temperature (vibrational energy ) exceeds about 100 million K depending on confinement system. The Sun’s is simple gravity. Thatnis definitiv and can safely be stated, even calculated.
Rossi’s spent fuel sample contained the wrong copper isotopes for hydrogen nickel fusion hot or cold. Falsified statement. Mill’s claim to have detected mathematically impossible hydrinos using XPS is also palpably false; XPS cannot detect hydrogen or helium.
Try addressing the message rsther than the messenger. FYI, I hold 13 issued US patents, several based on a fundamental revision (with multiple experimental proofs) to an energy storage conventional physics wisdom almost 70 years old, that was just wrong. Not senile yet. You need to be more skeptical of extroadinary energy claims without extraordinary proof. Or, by all means invest in Rossi and Mills. They thrive on people like you.
Ristvan: “hydrogen being the exception.”
Hydrogen with a neutron is commonly called deuterium, also known as “heavy hydrogen.”
Oh, did I forget to mention tritium ?
AA, actually, I published three separate specific reasons why it is”in 2012 The Arts of Truth. And, Mill’s GUT-CQM is math nonsense; one of its many defects is that it is not Lorentz invariant. That by itself is fatal to Mills hydrino BS.
Read my long referenced dissections of these plus several other equally hairbrained surficially plausible energy schemes. Do not assume I am espousing any consensus position. I am a hardbitten skeptic who checks everything personally, with enough math, science, and legal chops to feel confident in what gets published. Especially when my book calls out people by name as scamsters.
You might enjoy the book. Takes on class room size, standardized testing, EPA MPG, and hundreds of other artful nontruths (even the book title is an example of its theme). Final long extensively referenced example chapter is climate change. Was critiqued by Lindzen (I went to MIT for a full day in person) 6 months prior to publication.
RB, should have said ordinary hydrogen. Blog comment slight imprecision while watching Dolphins lose to Pirates. I am well aware of deuterium ‘heavy water’ and tritium. Is part of the LENR cascade to ‘quatrium’ (joke reference to the great old novel The Mouse that Roared) that results in 3He plus net LENR energy. Explained the Widom-Larsen physics in the ebook without using any math, for laymen.
Ristvan
“actually, I published three separate specific reasons why it is”in 2012 The Arts of Truth. And, Mill’s GUT-CQM is math nonsense; one of its many defects is that it is not Lorentz invariant. That by itself is fatal to Mills hydrino BS.”
AA/ You give no link. How do you explain that Mills gives a far more accurate estimate of many fundamental values than QM and can forecast the arrangement of complicated molecules?
QM has a number of problems that are glossed over. It fails to provide any clue to visualize matter and is probably why there has been so little progress in physics for thirty years.
“Read my long referenced dissections of these plus several other equally hairbrained surficially plausible energy schemes. Do not assume I am espousing any consensus position. I am a hardbitten skeptic who checks everything personally, with enough math, science, and legal chops to feel confident in what gets published.”
AA. Still no link.
“Especially when my book calls out people by name as scamsters.”
AA. I know there are a lot of scams. There are also scientific discoveries that are ignored because scientists didn’t learn about them at school. Everybody knew Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were wacko for claiming ulcers were caused by Helicobacter pylori, Right?
Fusion in LENR does take place but not by the same route as with hot fusion. It has been replicated.
In Rossi’s case the energy comes from transmutation rather than fusion.
AA, repeating my book references is boring. Maybe buy it?. You want more, concerning Lorenz invariance specific to Mills try Rathke, N. J. Physics. 7:127 (2005). He, likely unlike you, is actually a degreed astrophysicist. A book footnote.
So, as a physicist, I was curious, and tried to visit the “hydrino.org” site, but apparently that now takes you to the commercial site: brilliantlightpower.com, which actually says that the hydrino (as Rud described) is a “smaller” hydrogen atom, owing to a lower energy state of its electron (in conflict with quantum mechanics as currently formulated), but further says that their hypothetical hydrino is dark matter…really?
According to CERN, “Unlike normal matter, dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic force. This means it does not absorb, reflect or emit light [my translation: i.e., ENERGY], making it extremely hard to spot. In fact, researchers have been able to infer the existence of dark matter only from the gravitational effect it seems to have on visible matter.”
The whole hydrino proposition sounds more than a bit quack-ish in my opinion, as not only does it not fit in the current paradigm (which is fine, because advances in sciences are, in part, about breaking down entrenched – but flawed – paradigms), but does not seem to answer the questions that motivated the hypothesis of dark matter. I.e., it seems to simply take advantage of the fact that we have not as yet identified dark matter, but by associating their hypothetical hydrogen state with the mysterious, but reasonably respected (still hypothetical) dark matter, they add legitimacy (at least in the non-technical public’s eyes) to their hydrino, while completely ignoring the whole reason dark matter was originally hypothesized.
Ristvan,
“repeating my book references is boring. Maybe buy it?.”
On the other hand, you could try answering my question
>>LENR cold fusion.
Right, and that’s why I used LENR (aka: cold fusion).
Everyone here uses the term greenhouse gas, but we all know that the greenhouse effect is 100% different then how a greenhouse gas works! A greenhouse does not increase heat due to some CO2 or gas trapping heat, but the fact that the enclosed box prevents convection. In other words, if you open windows and allow air flow in a greenhouse then temperatures will equalize with the outside. So the term “greenhouse gas” is a false term since that’s not how a greenhouse works! (A greenhouse works on preventing convection!) Yet we use the term every day to describe greenhouse gases like CO2. So it is the wrong term, but side used.
And I thus much used LENR as the better term then cold fusion. However there’s still “wide spread” knowledge of the term cold fusion being applied to LENR – so it was in this context I used the term. And I figured others would jump in thus allowing me to keep my post shorter and save me time (so much for that idea as I am now having to point out the above!).
I also avoided Rossi in my comments since he is tanged in lawsuits right now. If Rossi has working devices, then he will simple dig himself out of his own hole – so whatever happens will be Ross’s great doing or un-doings.
I do think low pressure reactors (molten salt) are something that we need and should peruse. Canada built about 7 “pot belly” low pressure reactors in the 1970’s. Some were going to be used to heat northern hospitals. Energy Canada was working on a Sterling engine to be pared with such reactors. Most of these pot Belly reactors (which are self-regulating) are being de-commissioned. Even the boiling of the water slows down the reaction – they are super simple, and very smart in designs to self regulate. The nuclear reactor in the basement of the Pharmacy building at U of Alberta still runs today – and it been running since 1978 – about 40 years!
That is 40+ years of near ZERO maintains – I believe it rated for up to 20kw of energy. These types of reactors are so simple – and very easy to build!
I would much say that if LENR don’t pan out, then pot belly and low pressure molten salt reactors are CLEARY the way forward, since such reactors can be sized for heating a house or a large hi-rise buildings.
So low pressure reactors are safe, run for decades without maintains required.
I think LENR has more potential to change the world since such devices can be made VERY small and light – and don’t require nuclear material like LFTR, but even non thorium pot belly nuclear reactors make sense if LENR somehow does not win this energy race – the fact that Canada had several low pressure reactors running for 30+ years with near zero maintains shows how benign and wonderful nuclear energy can be.
Right now, the bets go to the dark horse is LENR. Why ANY article can ignore LENR as a future energy source tends to point out that such articles are without merit.
Russia has pilot liquid-sodium reactors on the grid & producing for some time — latest is a much larger version:
http://www.powermag.com/russian-fast-reactor-connected-grid/
Liquid sodium reactors have most of the same capabilities/advantages of molten salt.
beng
Yes they have – for a diagram of it see:
https://neutronbytes.com/2016/11/05/russias-bn-800-reactor-enters-commercial-operation/
They seem to have cracked liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactor design and operation where no one else has. Keep an eye on Beloyarsk BN-800 to see how reliable it turns out (grid connection at full power in November 2016). They are now selling it to the Chinese – the world’s first case of commercial sale of a liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactor. (Its a pool type.)
“governments around the world have spent tens of billions of dollars on all sorts of schemes to make energy from anything other than fossil fuels. They have tried everything except the only thing that will work.”
Obviously!
If they used a solution that works, they wouldn’t have a justification to distribute billions of dollars of other people’s money to their friends and supporters. That’s Modern Government 101.
Like the ITER fusion project which now won’t start up until 2025 and needs another $5.6 billion on top of the last cost estimate of $20.0 billion.
Original start-up was 2020 with a total cost estimate of $5.6 billion.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-iter-idUSKCN1271BC
Proving that TOKAMKS are uneconomical for power generation.
TWR
“or we could just off 6 billion people”
-Paul Ehrlich
Thorium might be the future of the US, given that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allowed the Russian consortium, Uranium One, to buy half of the US’s uranium holdings.
David Archibald
So – are you or someone else going to submit a bid to Breakthrough Energy Ventures on behalf of the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor as an energy solution?
LppFusion.com
Superior to and far cheaper than all the above.
“There is only one technology that can save civilisation – the thorium molten salt reactor”
No system of power generation, no matter how reliable or efficient, can save humanity unless the electrical and telecommunications grids are shielded against CMEs. Even that may not be able to save civilization from collapse beyond recovery if a global epidemic disrupts transport of food and raw materials.
The public has been warned about the magnitude of this threat on and off for years now, but there’s no sign of even an attempt to find a solution. This debate is like the orchestra playing while the Titanic goes down.
The real threat is that humanity is hopelessly over-extended and increasingly vulnerable to any number of cataclysmic events, thanks to globalization and just in time fabrication and distribution.
DA,
From 1971 for 3 decades I was involved in the early stages of the nuclear fuel cycle and did extensive reading and some research. This does not make me an expert today, but it does allow an overview that incorporated dominant earlier thinking by people with knowledge and hands-on.
That said, I cannot see the preference to push Th over U.
The cost of fuel from each is not large and not so different that it accounts for very much of the final cost. The known abundances of Th and U ores are well known and adequate. Both Th and U fission produced products whose gross emissions are roughly comparable. There might be some argument about the bomb-making potential of the U stream.
You seem to imply that public acceptance is so far against U that a change to Th is a cheap facelift that will foll the public or assuage some fears. In my olden days, we took no notice of such social propaganda by making correct technical choices. Could never see a need to pay out money to make the general populace less agitated, especially as they were not the ones who would get to keep the money.
What is the dominant reason for the mention of Th, Th, Th over and over? Cheers Geoff.
“Geoff Sherrington January 9, 2017 at 1:50 am
There might be some argument about the bomb-making potential of the U stream.”
And that is why it will never happen in usual lifetimes.
Nitpicking – “The first commercial reactor for power generation was commissioned in in 1958 in Shippingport, Pennsylvannia.” – The first commercial reactor for power generation was at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England which was opened in 1956.
The heavy water CANDU is the safest reactor in the world an can run on Thorium.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_fuel.htm , first commercial reactor 1962.
Please can we have some sanity. Why are we nuclear supporters so obsessed about nuclear becoming the only answer. It is not green, when you add all energy to build plant and decommission and dispose of waste. I am not a typical green but a young father who knows people who work with children and families still suffering after effects of Chernobyl. The land around the area is still contaminated and will be for thousands of years. The cancer incidence for young people in that area is rocketing and so why would I want a nuclear power plant to be built anywhere at all near my family when there is even minute risk of accident. Also from what I read a lot if nuclear plants are nearing end of life sore waste to get rid of which is going to be a headache for future generations. As well as that I live in the UK and it frankly terrifies me that we are allowing foreign nations to build nuclear in our country. China is not allowed to build any infrastructure in US due to security concerns and the French and EDF are nearly bankrupt plus on of their supply companies is being investigated for fraudulent inventories and possible faulty parts. Add to this potential terrorist attacks. Frankly renewables aren’t perfect but they are not likely to kill me like a nuclear disaster. I would rather have a safer slower rollout of renewables with a flexible grid. Finally the comments about costs of renewables compared to nuclear are really a joke aren’t they. At least here in UK and elsewhere I hear nuclear is massively subsidized through back door and with lots of studies being completed it would be far cheaper if you compare like for like subsidy wise to create energy from renewables than nuclear. Renewables is also dropping in costs where as nuclear is rising. Example of this is Hinkley Point here double original price of subsidy guaranteed for 35 year after build. This is meaning us tax payers are paying a massive extra cost to subsidize this and for my son and his potential family to curse and have to pay for this in future. Studies say renewables far cheaper to achieve this. I’m sorry I can’t see one reason why I would want anymore nuclear anywhere just not worth it. Spend this money on cleaning up current nuclear problems and further renewable investment and grid balancing
The purpose of power plants is to make lots of electricity.
http://www.industcards.com/ppworld.htm
If you can not find an example of your power plant on this link it is just a fantasy about the future.
My experience with making lots of electricity is using LWR. This discussion with few exceptions demonstrated a total lack of understand of nuclear physics and thermodynamics.
The reactor core of the nuclear cruisers I served on in the 70s were the size of a refrigerator and powered the ship for 20 years. The commercial LWR I work from 1980 to 1915 were somewhat bigger. The largest had a output of 1600 MWe.
For many years, 20 % of US power has come from LWR. The only barrier to making more is the price of fossil fuel. Transportation is the main limitation for fossil fuel.
While LWR are small, boilers for fossil fuel plants are large. A LWR requires a truck load of fuel assemblies per year which is mostly packing material. A coal plant of the same size requires a mile long coal train per day.
The whole discussion of waste products from power plants is just silly. Both coal plants and nuke plants store waste on site. I do not recommend eating fission products or coal ash. Why wood you.
The biggest misconception of LWR is that core damage results in a dangerous situation. Because reactor core are compact, they can be placed in containment buildings. They are hang around safe. In Japan and TMI, workers continuously occupied the site.
Significant core damage has occurred at 4 LWR. Not one picture of a stray dog suffering from radiation sickness.
It boils down (excuse the pun) to transferring a lot of heat to convert energy to electricity. With coal you get a mountain of ash. With fission you get fission products.
The alternative is warm beer and keeping a milk cow in the backyard for fresh milk.