Guest essay by John Popovich
“Too cheap to meter” is typically attributed to Strauss, but “The Concise Untold History of The United States” includes the following on Pg. 155 (In December 1953, Eisenhower had unveiled his “Atoms for Peace” program in a speech at the UN, mesmerizing the thirty-five hundred delegates. He Promised “energy too cheap to meter,” at home and abroad.) Did Eisenhower go off script before Strauss? Is this part of the “untold” history of the United States?
The lure of free energy offered by atomic power caused many scientists to propose schemes that today seem hopelessly naive; I am old enough to have read some of them.
One of the vexing problems with fusion power plants is plasma facing materials. Not even the collective exuberance of fusion proponents can solve this problem. I am not a student of nuclear power but to give you an idea of the problems magnitude from a student of the subject: From Wikipedia “Plasma-facing material”:French Nobel laureate in physics, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes said of nuclear fusion, “We say that we will put the sun into a box. The idea is pretty. The problem is, we don’t know how to make the box.”[15]
If any nuclear proponents on WUWT have solutions to this problem they should pursue them as it would greatly improve the prospects for fusion power.
In my youth I read a proposal for nuclear power plants that would use large underground cavities to store liquid water and steam heated by small fission or fusion explosions; something that we know how to do. The cavities which can be created by salt solution mining or by underground nuclear explosions would also seem attractive for using the heat from spent fuel rods and nuclear waste. Others may know why this scheme is unattractive. It may be that some solutions are too crude to warrant serious consideration or threaten to take money from the fusion cartel.
Locating nuclear power plants on ships seems attractive for regions near rivers or oceans. The U.S. has manufactured nuclear powered submarines and surface vessels for ~60years with a good safety record. A few floating nuclear power plants are being constructed and may offer an attractive way forward. Heat exchanger cost is greatly reduced and emergency passive cooling is more easily accomplished. Plants can be modular and standardized for efficient mfr. in a factory environment and transported to provide power where needed.
New nuclear power plants will have to compete with natural gas combined cycle power plants which have a much lower capital cost, ~twice the thermodynamic efficiency, and a large amount of low cost natural gas available from horizontal drilling and fracturing. Twice the thermodynamic efficiency means half the sink side heat exchanger cost and half as much heat dumped to the environment. Fuel costs as a proportion of total utility cost are decreasing.
Part one of the essay is here
I remember the “atoms for peace” meme back in the ’50s more than I do hiding under desks . And cheap nuclear plants were clearly feasible if you could fit one in a submarine .
Popular Science would have cover illustrations of one or another peaceful use — like blasting out a harbor where one was needed .
I only just learned that the Russians really did blast out a lake : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chagan .
I never really know what to make a press releases such as the one linked below regarding fusion by inertial confinement at the Z machine at Sandia. Can’t tell if its PR to try and maintain funding, or a promising result. I do know the thing produces some startling effects such as causing the screen image on a CRT to bounce around in my classroom at Sandia back in the late 90’s.
https://share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/fusion_instabilities/#.WPe1pogrJPZ
Thorium based molten salt reactors are indeed a very attractive proposition. However, there’s a new kid on the block!
The old joke about Fusion always being 30 years away has been turned on its head. The problem, as many have pointed out, is keeping plasma at 100 million degrees in a bottle but this has been solved. High temperature (liquid nitrogen) superconductors are now commercially available. Not only do they super conduct without needing liquid helium as a coolant but more importantly they carry on doing so in a high magnetic field strength environment making it easier to keep the plasma stable. This means fusion reactors can now be built much smaller than the experimental ITER experiment which is to all intents and purposes now out of date before it’s even finished. (In my opinion.)
The latest and to my mind, most promising design uses a molten salt blanket which captures neutrons and more importantly contains Lithium which the neutrons turn into Tritium. (A breeder reaction.) The Tritium is then returned to the plasma to join the Deuterium there to feed the fusion reaction. The molten salt is pumped through a heat exchanger to run a gas turbine. (Cheaper to build than a steam power station although in a commercial plant both techniques could be employed together if the economics suggested it should.) The molten salt is called Flibe from its constituents: (F Li Be).
Both Deuterium and Lithium are relatively abundant so fuel cost would be low and probably insignificant compared with general running costs.
In the light of this it’s no small wonder that the Chinese are sticking with coal for the time being since as we all know, in spite of what Al Gore tells us about Mann made Global Warming, we won’t be water-skiing in Lower Manhattan during rush-hour any time soon. i.e. there is plenty of time to carry on with coal until this technology comes on stream. (And if for some reason it doesn’t molten salt fission would definitely be the way to go.)
Of course, on our side of the pond, that hasn’t stopped our ‘clever’ politicians from buying a huge, splendid, expensive and soon to be obsolete, fission power station known as Hinckley because of the ‘climate crisis’ from, yes, you’ve guessed it, the Chinese. Clever the Chinese.
Perhaps, on your side of the pond, someone should be having a quiet word in someone’s ear about something called running for a second term because the truth will out.
Expect to see all sorts of unlikely unexpected new adherents to the Global Warming crisis in the near future as they try to protect their technologies.
For those who think I’m making this up as I go along (I wish I was that clever!) here are two links.
The first gives an overview. The part on Tokamaks starts at 38:24. I suggest you first watch the beginning to get a feel for the basics before skipping to the Tokamaks when your head starts to hurt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk
This link is more engineering based but gives a better idea of how it all works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkpIVBAxBS4
“Randy Bork
I think nuclear will always be attractive just from the total energy aspect, but the technological challenges arise from that same property. Getting energy from breaking a chemical bond at the rate of 3.6eV per molecule versus breaking a nuclear bond offering energy at 8 MILLION ev.”
Actually the energy relased from a one fission U238 is about 200 mev (Strong Interaction), in addition the fission products (2 or more) releases energy of about .01 to 2 mev(weak- interaction
The phrase “too cheap to meter” brings back memories, and some truth.
I remember listening to my Dad and other adults in 1960 talking, and laughing, about that phrase “too cheap to meter.” They were all in the energy business in one form or another, including utilities such as electricity and natural gas. The government official that speculated about electricity “too cheap to meter” was clearly not serious, nor was he taken seriously by those in the industries.
The fact was, even then, that energy was only a small part of the price of a utility. Natural gas had the gas itself as only a fraction of the delivered cost, with transmission through high-pressure gas pipelines constituting another substantial fraction, then pressure reduction and distribution as another fraction.
Electricity, too, had the traditional three parts to the retail price: generation, transmission at high voltage, and transforming plusdistribution at much lower voltages.
What was also clear even in 1960 was that retail price for industrial electricity was 1.1 cent per kWh, as can be confirmed by examining the US Energy Information Agency Annual Energy Review for 2012, Table 8.10.
What a nuclear plant must do, to compete with a coal-fired plant even in the 1960s, was replace the coal-burning portion of a power plant with a nuclear-powered system. The nuclear steam supply system, or NSSS as it is known in nuclear circles, had to only a small amount more than the coal-based boiler system to account for the much lower cost of nuclear fuel compared to coal as fuel. The big question was, can a NSSS by built at the same cost as a coal-fired steam supply system? The answer, even back then, was absolutely not.
For starters, the NSSS had to have larger pumps to circulate much more steam since the steam would be saturated and not superheated. Next, the reactor required expensive alloy metal. Then, a containment building was required. Next, emergency cooling systems were required. Even the cooling water system, the condensers and associated pumps, had to be larger to account for the greater steam rates.
The only thing the nuclear plant had as an advantage was a supposed endless supply of very cheap fuel.
Of course, all of that came to pass and nuclear plants cost far, far more than a comparable coal-powered plant.
But, no one in the industry who was serious ever believed the statement “too cheap to meter.”
And of course the cost of dismantling a nuclear plant at the end of its life is vastly greater…
UK firms involved in this at present have found costs vastly exceed the payments expected…
German power companies yet to dismantle their reactors are worrying about the cost
What about the cost of disassembling a windfarm Grifter, including removing the tens of thousands of concrete from the foundations, removing all the pylons from the power lines and making good all the network of access roads?
Ah, but nobody bothers about that, do they?
As I recollect, there are currently around 14,000 of the things, abandoned and just rotting, poisoning the environment and creating massive eyesores.
But hey, you don’t give a flying dog’s testicle for the environment really, do you?
You just draw a few quid for fronting up for spivs like Al Gore, “Sir” Reg Sheffield, Chris Huhne and John Gummer by lying on blogs, and who cares what happens out there in the real World.
For catweazle — actually, we upgrade the older, inefficient and worn out wind turbines with modern, efficient ones. There’s a booming business in wind farm upgrades. Plus recycling income from the materials in the ones removed.
The wind across the site hasn’t changed, it’s still as good as ever. Better wind turbines are installed to harvest more free energy from the wind.
You could look it up; it made the news.
Here’s an article on BP upgrading many of its wind turbines in the US.
“The updates involve swapping out aging equipment, such as gearboxes, drive trains and blades, while keeping existing towers and foundations. BP expects the upgraded technology to improve efficiency and reliability while increasing overall energy output.”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2017/02/bp-weighing-upgrade-of-us-wind-turbines.html
This is but one of many, many such upgrade projects.
Technology on blade efficiencies, mechanical and electrical improvements, even tower heights or tower spacing can all be modified or improved to give better economics. The big advantage to an upgrade is much of the infrastructure is already in place and needs zero investment. That would include the power transmission lines.
And then there is the cost of insurance. In Great Britain there is a government cap on liability so in effect there is no insurance for a Fukushima style event. If this was honestly done and the actuaries got to work on real risks the cost would probably be through the roof. Better to stick with coal until molten salt or fusion reactors come on stream in my view like the Chinese.
Of course there would no longer be a Great Britain if it had a natural disaster like Japan. Michael would be buried in burning ruble until he drowned in the tsunami. Radioactive contamination would be the least of his worries.
The US industry is self insured. The public has never had to pay a dime for an accident at a US nuke plant.
Since I am not scum sucking, ambulance chasing California lawyer like Roger, I do not know what the ramifications would be in the US.
I once rendered assistance to a boater in California who was under the influence. After getting him, his date, and boat to a marina; he thanked me and gave me his card. He was a personal injury trial attorney. My responsibility to render assistance should have been to call the coast guard.
Now, the old fashioned way of getting rich in America is to sue someone.
When Roger or Michael grabs his chest with a heart attack, he wants some x-navy nuke power guy to remember his CPR training. There is real risk in the world but it is not from radiation from a nuke plant.
Retired Kit P as a retired electrical engineer I’m aware that radiation from a fission plant is not a problem. Indeed I read somewhere that a coal-fired plant, depending on the coal its burning, often releases even more radiation into the atmosphere! My point is cost. Britain has gone from being the world’s super-power before world-war one to a few submarines, a hand-full of surface vessels and a national debt which on a per capita basis is probably worse than that of the US. It’s done that on fission which is something like 3 or 4 times the cost of coal and as a result we’ve seen our heavy and strategic industries move to communist China and elsewhere where coal is still king.
… and now we’ve just started building a huge new fission plant, because of, according to the nice lady running our country at the moment, the climate crisis!
I’m all for nuclear if it can deliver energy cheaper than coal. I think that molten-salt reactors might do the trick. The fuel is cheap and the plants are small. They operate at very high temperatures which makes them thermodynamically more efficient than coal or fission. The technology is already proven. Oh and they’re fail-safe. If they lose power they simply stop working!
Having said that though I think fusion will eclipse them all due to the invention of liquid nitrogen cooled superconductors that (and this is more important) tolerate a very high magnetic field strength. This new breakthrough now makes it possible to sustain plasma at a steady state. Scroll up to my first comment and check out the links. They’re doing some exciting stuff at MIT!
Finally, back in the day, as a light infantry officer in the South African defence force I know to keep myself fit which is why at 70 I still bench my own body-weight and regularly run 10 miles although I will admit I’m not that quick and could no longer do this with a Bren-gun and spare ammunition! When my time comes and my heart attacks me or some such as I know it must, I have 5 children and 6 grand-children (and counting) to carry the family flame. My oldest grandson is 13 and already 6’ 4”.
Oh and we already have a tsunami here in the you kay. They wear pyjamas and night caps in the day-time, speak in strange tongues and love their explosives.
Griff, yes decommissioning costs far more.
Omaha Nebraska recently closed the Fort Calhoun reactor early due to unending operating losses.
Now April 18 2017 news article reports an additional US$ 1 billion will be charged to customers to cover the decommissioning.
Omaha World Herald has the story.
Neglecting the fact that the money has already been collected for the decommissioning fund and set aside.
Of course Roger know that which makes him a liar.
“I am not a student of nuclear power but…”
How stupid is that! People who bother to study a subject are much less likely to say stupid things.
Electricity from most sources is too cheap to meter. The purpose of the meter is so government will get its share.
Coffee is too cheap to charge for. Come to my house and coffee is free. Bring your bill electric bill and I will explain why your electricity is too cheap to meter.
The cost of electricity to make a cup of coffee less 1 cent and the coffee beans maybe 5 cents. Sit down in a restaurant, coffee is $2-4 and ice water is free. It takes more electricity to make ice.
So if you made a decision on each use of power for each family member is just too cheap to not use. If each cup of hot coffee , cold glass of soda or bottle of beer that each family member enjoyed each day for 30 days came with a bill separated by product and the associated cost of electricity what would you say?
Electricity is too cheap to meter!
The retail cost of a long hot shower is 25 cents. That includes the salaries of engineers like me. Operators of shift, security, maintenance, nuclear fuel, decommissioning and containment buildings, everything. Your power is delivered with 999999 reliability.
Thanks for all the suggestions on how think you can do it better than the power industry. What I want to know is what you do for a living. I sure I can come up with a few suggestions on how to do things better.