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The illusions of molten salt reactors, science and politics

May 10th, 2013

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Posted by Stephen Boyd

Written by guest blogger Dr. Stephen Boyd

losalamosday LANL

Los Molten Salt? Los Alamos National Laboratories, the anchor of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, to   this day has plenty of nuclear expertise. Some researchers would like to see it add molten salt development.

 

Stephen Boyd PhD spent a week recently touring New Mexico, where he visited the famed Los Alamos laboratory and spoke at a space energy conference in nearby Albuquerque. He’s still buzzing with observations on unwise reactor designs, heroic scientists, flimsy U.S. energy policy, the enormous potential of molten salt and on how things aren’t always as they appear. He treated us to this trip report…

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Appearances are quite often deceiving.  My recent participation in a leading space technologies conference in Albuquerque, and my subsequent meetings with fellow researchers at the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratories affirmed this observation over and over again.  Let me explain…

My colleagues and I have written a paper questioning the use of silicon carbide as a material in fluoride molten salt reactors (MSRs) and in other high temperature reactors.  Many space experts have a keen interest in MSRs, which could potentially power spacecraft and provide energy on “off-earth” places such as Mars and the Moon. I was thus pleased when our paper earned me an invitation to speak at the recent Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS) conference, which tackled the challenges of energy in space head on. The paper is up for peer review in the NETS conference publication.

A quick review for those of you new to the subject: It’s not just the space community that is interested in MSRs. Chemists, physicists and engineers in the U.S. and around the globe have a rekindled interest in them as a safe, efficient, environmentally friendly, CO2-free power source. This type of nuclear reactor, studied extensively (and nearly exclusively) in the U.S. from the 1950s-1970s, differs dramatically from conventional, solid-fuel nuclear reactors.  In a molten salt reactor the nuclear fuel is the salt; the salt is molten (due to the high heat) and used as the working fluid, so the fuel acts its own coolant.  The fluid design provides safety and operational advantages of conventional solid fuel reactors.

China and India are conducting considerable research and development into liquid-fueled MSRs. By comparison, the U.S. Department of Energy is only timidly pursuing the concept. It has helped to fund a handful of projects at universities, and these projects are not exploring full-on molten-fueled reactors. Rather, they are examining molten salts as coolants, while keeping the fuel in a solid form.

BEWARE SILICON CARBIDE

Across the world, government and private initiatives are considering using silicon carbide (SiC) as a structural material for pipes that contain the molten, circulating salts.  Others are proposing it as cladding to coat specialized solid-fuel pellets commonly referred to as “pebbles” in proposed “pebble bed reactors” that would use solid pebble-shaped fuel cooled by molten salt.

Our contention is that SiC is a poor material. In our paper we cite experimental evidence collected over the decades that, we assert, demonstrate this point.  Normally, SiC is an excellent refractory material (a material that retains its structural strength even at high temperatures).

At issue here is the combination of high heat and aggressive molten fluorinating salts. SiC, and silicon-based compounds in general do not perform well at all even at room temperature with fluoride-based compounds. They tend to dissolve, much like salt in water.  At a macroscopic level, some reports have demonstrated no effect.  But remember – appearances are sometimes very deceiving. We assert and cite evidence that if you look at the microscopic level, you will see substantive dissolution of the SiC, reflected in both the disappearance of the SiC, as well as the appearance silicon-based residues in post-facto studies.

Anyone who heard me speak in Albuquerque will hopefully now understand the considerable risks of SiC in an MSR, and will hopefully care enough to act on what may, indeed, prove to be a major design flaw of an all-important reactor.

Certainly, there were plenty of impassioned people gathered at NETS  who could make a difference in pushing forward a clean and sustainable energy future with innovative MSRs playing a big role.

EXCITING STIFFS

But to the casual onlooker, the fervent nature of these individuals might not have been obvious. These avid believers were, after all scientists. For any of you who have attended such a conference, the scene was typical: attendees milling about with staid tones and conversations.

There’s that deception again.  I had a chance to sit in on many of the talks, where one could not help but conclude: Scientists must be some of the most passionate people on the planet (myself included).  We investigate the fundamentals of matter and energy and we use the Three Laws of Thermodynamics, Quantum Mechanics and applications thereof to do so. We explored NETS’ bold theme of conceiving novel forms of energy production for extended human off-world occupation.

AlbuquerqueGreetingsFrom

Mile high meeting of the minds. Greetings from Albuquerque, 5,312 feet above sea level, where scientists from across disciplines gathered with great verve to sort out the future of energy in space.

Talk after talk thrust robust skill sets to the fore: intense chemistry, nuclear physics, engineering and materials science that could deal with the extremes of space, lunar or Martian environments. We debated how to handle unfamiliar pressures, temperatures, and the prolonged absence of maintenance and how to deploy technologies with as few moving parts as possible and build clever nuclear batteries and propulsion.

My three-day stop at NETS at the end of February was just the first half of a trip that was populated all along the way by ardent big thinkers.

I remain grateful and honored to have been invited by an excellent staff scientist at the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) to give a talk and meet with scientists there.  This was truly a dream come true. I was humbled to be there at LANL, where I was standing on the shoulders of true giants: Feynman, Born, Dirac, Oppenheimer, Teller, Seaborg – to name just a few.

My host (a density-functional theorist by training) was the consummate docent.  He arranged meetings for me with a slew of world-class researchers in my fields of interest: materials science, nuclear power-plant design, metallurgy, crystallography, synthetic chemistry.

You see, several goals motivate me.  As an entrepreneur, I remain keen on building an energy company focused on making molten salt nuclear reactors a reality – be they terrestrial or off-world.  I would prefer using thorium as my fuel, However, I am fine with an “interim” fuel such as low-enriched uranium-235, which is available on the world market and well-known as far as its nuclear chemistry and physics profiles are concerned.

THE PRIVATE PUBLIC CHALLENGE

I have free-market concepts in mind, but as a researcher, some experiments with “hot” materials like uranium-235 are simply not feasible in my start-up laboratory – it costs millions of dollars for a combination of reasons including licensing and waste disposal. I was hopeful that LANL – a U.S. Department of Energy lab – might be able to play a role. They have world-class scientists who specialize in a range of materials and coatings that could be safely used within the brutal environment of a molten salt system. Unfortunately, in my discussions with representative from the LANL Technology Transfer Division, I was told that no federal funding at all is available.

I was frustrated, but I quickly realized that I wasn’t the only one.

On my trip to New Mexico, scientists’ consternation with the illusion of Washington’s energy commitment was palpable. On more than a few instances they voiced their frustration with funding limitations, inconsistent rhetoric and a lack of vision on the part of the U.S. Department of Energy and Congress.

Several scientists were stunned at the comparative advances many nations are making in molten-salt reactor research and development.  Canada, Russia, China, the Czech Republic, Australia and India are conclusively ahead of the U.S. and pull further ahead with every Congressional slash, every DoE diversion.

So, what have I gleaned by my interactions with LANL and NETS scientists?  Where are we, as a nation, as Americans, relative to the world? Scientists possess some of the greatest ideas, creativity and sheer gumption with respect to emerging technologies and cutting-edge innovation, as well as what they believe should be studied: sexy science and math problems which simply are not being funded, and for vague and nebulous reasons. Those seemingly staid individuals have the passion, really to save the planet.

Ironically, however, the politicians in Washington who are given to more flamboyance, and to loud “rescue the planet” proclamations, are not as interested. If they were, they would be paying more attention to possibilities of nuclear research and development such as molten salt reactors. That is the flip side of the deceiving appearance: just like those who seem uninspired are full of zeal, those in Washington who appear rhetorically impassioned are actually less interested.

CAUTIOUS CONFIDENCE

I remain optimistic – bolstered by the enthusiasm of the world-class researchers who welcomed me, my ideas, and my chemistry. I remain cautiously confident that the right mix of American entrepreneurial spirit, investment capital, and collaboration with LANL and other government laboratories and maybe even international efforts will foment the momentum so desperately needed to bring humanity’s energy needs (both on this planet and off-world) into the 21st Century and beyond.  I am truly hoping that appearances really are deceiving, as many chemists and physicists view Washington with such abject disappointment.

I truly hope we are wrong about Washington and that the ostensible apathy and lack of direction are, in fact, false, and that the U.S. (with its 22 national laboratories leading the way), again demonstrates the practices that once placed us at the forefront of the world for cutting-edge research.

And, of course, I hope my optimism is not deceiving me.

Photos: Los Alamos National Laboratory from LANL. Albuquerque from itsatrip.org

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Dr. Stephen Boyd is CEO of Havelide Systems Inc. and CTO of Aufbau Laboratories, LLC, both energy IP companies in Blue Point, Long Island, New York. He is also a post-doctoral fellow in the Physics/Astronomy Department of Hunter College in New York City, focusing on chemical energy retrieval and storage. Dr. Body is developing technologies to advance molten salt reactors. He has a PhD in solid state chemistry/chemical physics and degrees in international finance and political science. You can reach him at stephen.boyd@havelide.com or aufbaulabs@gmail.com.

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A simple and “SMAHTR” way to build a molten salt reactor, from Canada

April 12th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

OakRidge MSRE Welding

Welding past, present and future. David LeBlanc will combine features from Oak Ridge’s 1960s molten     salt reactor with the SmAHTR concept, to make his own “Integral Molten Salt Reactor.” That’s not LeBlanc above. It’s a welder finishing up the Oak Ridge MSR over 40 years ago.

The more I watch developments in the molten salt reactor field, the more impressed I am by the variety of innovative approaches.

While every molten salt reactor project I’ve encountered traces its inspiration and probably its basic design to the 1960s Oak Ridge National Laboratory project in Tennessee, the number of modifications that different labs are pursuing is starting to resemble the type of competitive differentiation that defines a free market.

Before I get too carried away, let me acknowledge that MSRs are a long way from the market (although with the right breaks, not as long as some would believe). Thus, it’s admittedly premature to compare them to the thriving technological leapfrogging of, say, the automobile or information technology industries.

But MSR companies nevertheless are in the early stages of trying to one-up each other as they all chase the general goal of building a reactor that runs on liquid fuel rather than on conventional solid fuel, and that provides a host of improvements in safety, efficiency and long-lived waste reduction.

The most recent case in point comes from the newest of the statups: Terrestrial Energy Inc., based in Ottawa Canada, and run by co-founder, president and chief technology officer David LeBlanc.

Dr. LeBlanc is an MSR expert who in January wrote a guest blog here in which he pointed out among other things that it would be in the best interest of the MSR industry to keep designs as simple as possible in order to stand a chance of commercializing within a reasonable time frame.

That advice struck me as sensible, so I made a point of following up with LeBlanc, who incorporated Terrestrial in late 2012 after several years of running an MSR intellectual property company called Ottawa Valley Research Associates.

We spoke by Skype last week, when LeBlanc explained the pragmatic reasoning behind his simplicity push, noting that, “You cannot underestimate the cost of nuclear R&D.”

BURN DON’T BREED

He outlined his plan for simplicity. In keeping with the theme, let me attempt to keep it simple:  Terrestrial Energy is departing from the original Oak Ridge scheme that called for a two-fluid molten salt reactor that would breed its own fuel.  Instead, Terrestrial’s design calls for a single fluid reactor that would “burn” rather than breed. In the nuclear lexicon, LeBlanc’s reactor is known as a “burner” or a “converter”, not a “breeder.”

While a two-fluid breeder would be the “Ferrari” of MSRs, the world cannot afford to wait for its development, given the desperate need for CO2-free energy sources such as MSRs, notes LeBlanc.

Dual fluid breeder MSRs face a number of extra challenges that will prolong their development beyond that of a single fluid MSR. Among them:

  • The infamous “plumbing problem” that vexed Oak Ridge. In a two-fluid design, one fluid continuously breeds fuel, feeding it into another fluid where the nuclear reaction takes place. The pipes and materials that house and separate the fluids are subject to damaging wear and tear.
  • Dual fluid breeders require constant removal of fission products, which are the short-lived radioactive waste products of a nuclear reaction (different from the long-lived “actinide” wastes like plutonium) “That requires a lot of R&D and a lot of capital to develop,” notes LeBlanc, who points out that in the 1960s, Oak Ridge had planned to remove fission products on a 10-day cycle by removing a tenth of the salt each day.

Ergo, LeBlanc’s single fluid approach, which uses denatured uranium – low enriched uranium that is useless for weapons fabrication.

Compared to a breeder MSR, a burner based on denatured uranium has the obvious disadvantage of not running forever on its bred fuel. LeBlanc downplays that, noting a once-through cycle can last for up to 30 years in a single fluid MSR. In addition, the actinides – which are much less than in conventional reactor waste – could potentially be removed at that point and recycled into the next fuel batch, minimizing long-term waste storage needs.

DIAGRAM IMSRvsModularsvsBeetle2 2

Packing a punch. LeBlanc’s high power density design means that his IMSR can be smaller than other modular reactors. Above, he compares a 25 MWe and 300 MWe version of the IMSR to the SmAHTR design, and to more conventional modular reactors from Nuscale and Babcock & Wilcox. He borrows from a famous VW ad slogan. Spot the Beetle – it’s to scale.

Those 30 years, though, would require annual top-ups of uranium. But as LeBlanc points out, the amount would be only about one sixth of the uranium requirements for today’s conventional solid fuel reactors.

Toward the end of its molten salt reactor days, Oak Ridge designed and built a single fluid MSR to run on denatured uranium, along with thorium, called a DMSR.

GET SMAHT

Terrestrial Energy is drawing on that design, but is combining it with principles borrowed from another technology called SmAHTR, for Small Modular Advanced High Temperature Reactor.

The 50-megawatt (electric) SmAHTR is a conceptual innovation at Oak Ridge. It is a small version of the liquid cooled 1500 MWe AHTR  – on which Oak Ridge is collaborating with China  – that places the heat exchange inside the reactor vessel.

SmAHTR and AHTR introduce liquid cooling (molten salts) to high temperature next generation solid fuel reactors such as those that use TRISO fuel – pebble bed reactors – and those that use prismatic blocks where the fuel is embedded in graphite blocks that serve as the moderator. Those reactor designs have in the past typically used helium gas as a coolant, which presents various mechanical difficulties and requires high pressure.

LeBlanc believes that by switching the fuel into the molten salt, it offers many benefits of liquid fuel while retaining innovative features of the SmAHTR design. One such benefit: The reactor generates heat directly in the liquid fuel, which permits higher power density operation. Placing the heat exchanger inside the reactor vessel rather than outside – as with some other MSRs – helps.

That, in turn, will allow Terrestrial to build smaller but equally powerful reactors compared to other small modular manufacturers that are using more conventional solid fuel, water-cooled designs, such as Babcock & Wilcox (see diagram above).

NAME THAT REACTOR

Not to be outdone on the nomenclature front, and in keeping with the MSR industry’s nascent differentiation trend, Terrestrial gives its reactor a unique name: the Integral Molten Salt Reactor, or IMSR.

The IMSR will also include patent pending innovations, on which LeBlanc declines to publicly elaborate.

Another IMSR feature: It will use a core of graphite moderator slabs between which the fuel flows which LeBlanc says, “allows other advantages like tricks to limit the amount of neutrons reaching the vessel wall.” This addresses a problem that developers of liquid fuel fast reactors will find difficult to crack, he notes.

With the right combination of power density and core design Terrestrial could build the IMSR with upwards of six times the electrical output of the same size vessel as SmAHTR. It would require replacing the graphite core every four years. The fuel would reside temporarily in a holding tank during the core swap. That marks an improvement over the SmAHTR concept, which requires a swap of the solid fuel core every four years.

LeBlanc envisions IMSR reactor sizes ranging from 25 MWe to 300 MWe.

As with other MSR startups, such as the Japanese single fluid company Thorium Tech Solution, LeBlanc is undecided on exactly what salt he’ll use.  While FLiBe salt (lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride) is commonly associated with dual fluid MSRs, its lithium isotope is problematic, for reasons I’ll examine in a subsequent blog.

LeBlanc says he is considering alternatives including sodium based salts.

In the long run, he has not ruled out a breeder design or thorium fuel, but for now, he’s focused on the single fluid uranium reactor.

“The burner is less challenging than the breeder,” notes LeBlanc. “It greatly reduces technological and regulatory hurdles.”

His goal is to commercialize the Terrestrial reactor by 2021. With his simple and SmAHTR combination, he stands a reasonable chance.

Photo from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Diagram from David LeBlanc. 

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How thorium can solve the nuclear waste problem in conventional reactors

April 5th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Geoff Parks Horse

Riding the thorium trail. Cambridge senior lecturer Geoff Parks believes actinides could recycle for a long, long time when mixed with thorium in a modified light water reactor.

Thorium mixed with plutonium and other actinide “waste” could continuously power modified conventional reactors almost forever in a reusable fuel cycle, according to a discovery at the University of Cambridge in England.

The discovery, by PhD candidate Ben Lindley working under senior lecturer Geoff Parks, suggests that mixed thorium fuel would outperform mixed uranium fuel, which lasts only for one or two fuel cycles rather than for the “indefinite” duration of the thorium mix.

Ideally, the reactors would be “reduced-moderation water” reactors that work on the same solid-fuel, water-cooled principles of conventional reactors but that do not slow down neutrons as much and thus also offer some of the advantages of fast reactors.

Lindley’s finding, made while he was a master’s candidate in 2011, bodes well for the use of thorium not only as a safe, efficient and clean power source, but also as one that addresses the vexing problem of what to do with nuclear waste from the 430-some conventional light water reactors that make up almost all of the commercial power reactors operating in the world today and that run on uranium.

By mixing thorium with “waste” in a solid fuel, the nuclear industry could eliminate the need to bury long-lived plutonium and other actinides.

Lindley’s work surfaced recently in an article about it in the hard copy edition of Cambridge’s quarterly Engineering Department magazine. An earlier version also appears online.

ACCENTUATE THE NEGATIVE

I interviewed Lindley and Parks recently after the magazine story appeared. They explained the crux of Lindley’s discovery: Uranium/plutonium lasts for only a limited period because after one or two cycles, when the actinide portion increases, the mix displays a “positive feedback coefficient.” In the sometimes counter intuitive world of nuclear engineering, a positive feedback is an undesirable occurrence. To use an unscientific term, the reaction goes haywire.

Parks notes that with uranium, “As the amount of actinides in the mixture increases, you get this tipping point where with the uranium mixed with actinide based fuel  – a key feedback coefficient goes from being negative to being positive, at which point the fuel is not safe to use in the reactor.”

Lindley completes the thought. “The idea is that mixing things with thorium rather than with uranium keeps the feedback coefficient negative,” he says.

In a mixed fuel system, reactor operators would allow a batch of fuel rods to stay in a reactor for about five years, roughly the same as with today’s solid uranium fuel. The fuel would then cool for a few years while the shorter-lived fission products decay, and would then be reprocessed over another year, mixing actinide wastes with more thorium before being put back in a reactor.

And just how long could this cycle continue? “You could just keep doing that forever – until the world runs out of thorium,” notes Parks.

Ben Lindley

Wasting his future. Cambridge PhD candidate Ben Lindley made the discovery that actinide waste will     burn with thorium for an indefinite period, auguring a way to simultaneously generate power and dispose   of nuclear waste.

Lindley’s proposal is the latest possibility to emerge for using thorium reactors to dispose of waste as well as generate power.

As we wrote here recently, Japan’s Thorium Technology Solution (TTS) is proposing to mix thorium and plutonium in a liquid molten salt reactor.  Likewise, Transatomic Power in the U.S. has similar plans, although it is starting first with a liquid mixed uranium fuel rather than with thorium.

Lindley and Parks’ idea differs from TTS and Transatomic in one obvious way: It would allow the nuclear industry to carry on building conventional solid fuel, water-cooled designs. That would be strictly true only in the initial implementation of the technology, which Lindley and Parks say would entail thorium mixed only with plutonium rather than also with other actinides like neptunium, americium and curium. That’s because plutonium is now available from sources such as the Sellafield nuclear waste site in Britain. The other actinides are not as readily available, but would become so as it became clear they could be used as part of a mixed thorium fuel, Lindley and Parks believe.

GO EASY ON THE WATER

Once the other actinides enter the mix, the optimal reactor would be a light water reactor modified to have less water and thus less moderation of neutrons in the reaction process. That, in turn, would allow more burn up of actinides.

Lindley envisions a reactor with about a quarter to half the amount of water as in a conventional LWR – enough to serve as a necessary coolant, but little enough so that the water could not slow down neutrons to the extent they do in a conventional reactor.

“It’s not really a fast reactor, and it’s not really a thermal (conventional) reactor,” notes Lindley. “It’s between the two.”

Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency all have reduced-moderation water reactor designs (RMWR), according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Lindley described them as similar to LWRs but with different fuel assemblies.

The development – and regulatory approval – of RMWRs is one of several challenges facing the deployment of mixed thorium fuel in a water-cooled reactor.

Another is the development and cost of reprocessing techniques for thorium and for actinides other than plutonium (for which reprocessing already exists).

“Splitting thorium from waste or splitting some of the minor actinides from waste has not been done on an industrial scale,” notes Lindley. “There are processes that are envisaged that can do that, that have been tested on a laboratory scale, but never on an industrial scale.”

Another hurdle: Fabricating fuel that as Lindley notes would be “highly radioactive” given the amount of waste that would go into it. “That would have to be done behind a shield,” Lindley says.

Reduced Moderation Water Reactor JAEA

“Light water Lite.” Lindley’s proposal to mix thorium with plutonium and other actinides would work best in   a reduced-moderation water reactor. The diagram above shows a uranium version of an RMWR, from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

All of that will require significant research and development funding –more than what Lindley currently has at his disposal, which consists of university research funds and academic scholarships.  One possible source for additional funding could be Cambridge Enterprise, a commercial arm of the university.

U.S. nuclear company Westinghouse has also been collaborating with Lindley on his thorium research. Lindley hopes to test his fuel at the Halden test reactor in Norway, where Westinghouse is a partner in Thor Energy’s project to irradiate thorium/plutonium fuel.

It will be interesting to see if any of the £15 million that the UK government recently earmarked for nuclear R&D finds it way to Lindley’s project. It’s possible that Sellafield could at least provide plutonium.

FUNDS FROM DECOMMISSIONING?

Given the potential usefulness of thorium as a way of ridding the UK of actinides, it’s not out of the question that funding could also come from the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which has a 2013-14 budget of £3.2 billion and which is responsible for managing nuclear waste, including actinides and shorter lived fission products.

As Parks notes, an ultimate goal for applying Lindley’s discovery “is to come up with a nuclear fuel cycle where the only waste you have to dispose of  is the fission product waste.”

Parks encourages the government to “grasp the nettle” and financially back the thorium research. He and Lindley note that a multiple-cycle thorium reactor would save money in the long run for among other reasons: uranium prices, although low now, will rise; and a mixed thorium/actinide fuel would eliminate costs associated with nuclear waste storage.

“There are economic benefits in the future to investing in the reprocessing and fuel fabrication aspects now,” says Parks. “And you would completely change what nuclear waste means as far as the public is concerned, in terms of the volume of it and how long it’s radioactive for.”

Lindley and Parks say that their technology could take hold in a commercial RMWR within 10-to-20 years.

For that to happen, they’ll have to find the right mix of collaborators and financial backers.

Photos from Geoff Parks and Ben Lindley. RMWR diagram from Japan Atomic Energy Agency

 

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Categories: Economics, Proliferation, Safety, Waste

A plan to turn Japan’s nuclear past into its future with molten salt reactors

March 22nd, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Motoyasu Kinoshita NRKno

Moto-yasu Kinoshita speaking in Norway in 2011. Kinoshita hopes to run molten salt fuel tests at Norway’s Halden reactor.

Japan’s fleet of conventional nuclear reactors remains mostly shut following the Fukushima meltdowns two years ago but a significant aspect of it lives on – its high level nuclear waste.

One company has a plan that would use that waste for fuel in an altogether different type of reactor and thus turn Japan’s troubled nuclear past into a revived future.

Tokyo-based Thorium Tech Solution (TTS) wants to combine the reactors’ waste – their spent fuel full of actinides like plutonium – with thorium, the element that many people believe makes a superior alternative nuclear fuel to today’s uranium.

And rather than use the fuel in conventional solid rod form, TTS would put it into a liquid, molten salt form. TTS’ molten salt reactor (MSR) would thus deliver the classic advantages of an MSR, while also helping Japan deal with its nuclear waste. Compared to conventional solid fuel uranium reactors MSRs are safer, cannot melt down, generate less long-lived dangerous and weapons-prone waste, and are more efficient. All the better if they use thorium instead uranium, many believe.

TTS, founded by the late Dr. Kazuo Furukawa, bases its designs on the work of Dr. Alvin Weinberg, who built a thorium MSR in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

Furukawa started TTS in 2011, soon before his death in December of that year at the age of 84. TTS picked right up where his previous company, ITheMS (International Thorium Energy & Molten Salt Technology Inc.) left off. It aims to build a 160–megawatt electric MSR called a FUJI, and a smaller 7-megawatt model called a miniFUJI (in this case, the word “fuji” implies “the only one” – as in the only solution for a carbon free energy future).

ITheMS, which was run by Japanese politician Keishiro Fukushima with Furukawa as its chief scientist, closed in 2011 after it was unable to secure $300 million it had sought.

MOLTEN IN THE BLOOD

Furukawa, who devoted much of his career to molten salt nuclear research (in the early1980s he worked on an accelerator-drive molten salt system before shifting to the Oak Ridge design), was steeled on making TTS the success that ITheMS was not.

His successors at TTS are working hard to realize that. In a stroke of abject determination, his younger brother Masaaki Furukawa, who is the company’s president, has declared that TTS will build a working prototype by 2018 – not one near the scale of even a miniFUJI, but a tiny primitive version that will produce electricity and prove the concept.

Masaaki Furukawa’s fellow shareholders at TTS include Kazuo Furukawa’s son Kazuro, who is a professor at the Koh Energy Kasokuki higher energy accelerator research group; and chief engineer Moto-yasu Kinoshita.

Kinoshita is also a vice president of the International Thorium Molten Salt Forum and a researcher at the University of Tokyo. We featured him on the Weinberg blog last November from Shanghai, where he was proudly displaying a Chinese language version of Alvin Weinberg’s autobiography, The First Nuclear Era – The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer.

Motoyasu Kinoshita Weinberg Book Halper

The source. Kinoshita displays a Chinese language version of Alvin Weinberg’s autobiography at the       Thorium Energy Conference in Shanghai last November. Weinberg’s MSR design has inspired TTS and other new MSR companies.

I spoke with him  at length this week via Skype, when Kinoshita told me that TTS could begin building commercial FUJIs and miniFUJIs by around 2025.

Obviously, a lot has to happen between now and then, not the least of which will be that TTS has to secure funding.

The company is taking things in stages.

The focus at the moment will require that TTS raise a mere $300,000 – pocket change in the world of nuclear development – to soon test different molten salts. TTS wants to establish which it will use, as it tries to develop a fluid that will not corrode common nickel alloys such as hastelloy and inconel that would form the plumbing in an MSR.

While some competing MSR researchers want to substitute and develop exotic metal replacements, Kinoshita says that TTS is determined to stick with existing materials, an approach he calls “practical and cheaper.”

SEARCHING FOR CHEMISTRY

Instead of material moves, Kinoshita says TTS will apply “chemistry control” to come up with the right recipe of molten salt ingredients that would avoid corroding common alloys.

A typical fluid in MSR designs is a compound known as FLiBe, which is a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. Kinoshita notes that it is the fluid that Oak Ridge National Laboratory used in the MSR it built in the 1960s under the direction of Weinberg (from whom the Weinberg Foundation, publisher of this blog, takes its name; “FLiBe” is also the namesake of Huntsville, Ala.-based MSR company Flibe Energy, another Oak Ridge inspired group).

In fact, Oak Ridge included beryllium to help avoid corrosion.

But Kinoshita notes that beryllium has its own problems.

“It is not easy to use beryllium – it’s a controlled material because of its toxicity,” he says.

And perhaps more to the point in TTS’ plans – beryllium does not get along well with plutonium, which is one of the “waste” elements that would help form TTS’ mixed thorium fuel.

So TTS is investigating other solutions, such as adding sodium to FLiBe. It is also considering another molten salt called FLiNaK, which is a combination of sodium, potassium and lithium.

Kinoshita is confident that TTS will be able to raise the $300,000, which he thinks could come from anti-nuclear weapon groups who would back the idea of destroying weapons-linked nuclear waste.

THE NEXT TEST

TTS could wrap up its molten salt tests by “this year or next,” Kinoshita says.

It could then focus on a bigger project, would require about $5 million: Testing the behaviour of nuclear waste’s transuranic elements like neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium.

For that, TTS plans to burn simulated-fuel versions of molten salts in a test reactor. It hopes to use the Halden reactor in Norway – the same place where Norway’s Thor Energy will soon begin irradiating a thorium-plutonium mix, with backing from Westinghouse and others.

Other possible test sites would be the Nuclear Research Institute in the Czech Republic, and Japan’s currently halted Japan Materials Testing Reactor.

Kinoshita envisions about five years of the transuranic tests. Then begins the heavy lifting of building the MSR and overcoming technical challenges that all MSR developers face.

FREEZING HOT

Among the hurdles: molten salts in MSRs tend to solidify when temperature drop to around 460 degrees C.  Molten salt reactors are meant to operate at somewhere between 700 degrees C and 900 degrees C. That’s much higher than conventional reactors, and is a reason why MSRs can make more efficient use of fuel (higher temperatures burn more fuel). One of the great attributes of molten salts is that they don’t boil easily – thus they can flow as they need to in an MSR system at high temperatures.

But if things cool too much, they solidify, and pipes can burst. So-called “freezing accidents” would not pose meltdown type threats associated with extreme accidents in conventional reactors, but they would destroy the reactor.

Another challenge: TTS will have to develop chemistry to separate waste from fuel within its reactor. TTS is using a single fluid approach, unlike the dual fluid approach under development at other MSR projects. In a dual fluid MSR, one fluid produces fissile uranium 233 fuel from fertile thorium, and feeds that into a second fluid where reactions take place. TTS’ single fluid technology will have to apply a still unproven technique for separating the fissile uranium 233 from the fertile thorium and from wastes.

On the other hand, companies developing the two fluid approach will have to overcome materials challenges – in a typical MSR design, the silicon carbide that separates the two molten salt fluids can fail (which is why Furukawa decided on the single fluid approach in the first place).

All told, Kinoshita thinks TTS can start building commercial miniFUJIs and FUJIs by around 2025.

As for the 2018 proof of concept model? That will be tough, but not impossible. Scientific geniuses are welcomed to apply at TTS.

Photos: Kinoshita in Norway, Aksel Kroglund Persson/NRK. Kinoshita with Weinberg book, Mark Halper

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Emerging markets will help power 30 percent growth in nuclear by 2020

March 18th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Bangladesh Map GreenwichMeantime

Newcomers like Bangladesh will help drive a nuclear revival, says GlobalData.

Is the nuclear renaissance back on?

A new report from London-based business intelligence firm GlobalData would suggest it is, triggered in large measure by a demand for power from emerging markets and from some 45 countries that have yet to deploy it.

“Global nuclear energy generation will climb by almost 30% by the end of the decade, thanks in part to an influx of new nations developing nuclear programs,” GlobalData says in a press release.

It forecasts that 198 new reactors will begin commercial operations by 2020, by which time worldwide nuclear generation will jump to 3.1 million GWh, up from 2.4 million GWh in 2012.

“At present there are around 45 nuclear-free countries looking at adding the controversial power source to their energy portfolio, including the UAE, Turkey, Poland and Bangladesh,” GlobalData notes.

China, India and South Korea will lead the surge, as nuclear generation in the Asia Pacific region will jump from 324,000 GWh last year to 852,000 GWh by 2020, GlobalData says.

ASIAN ACTIVITY

In China alone,the World Nuclear Association (WNA) has identified 79 nuclear reactors either under construction or planned, and another 86 proposed, for a total of about 165 reactors. WNA’s World Nuclear Fuel Cycle 2013 conference in Singapore next month will include presentations from Asian countries not generally known as nuclear energy centers, such as Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Growth in those nations contrasts sharply with some Western countries like Germany, which decided to abandon nuclear power after the meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors following the tragic tsunami and earthquake two years ago.

RENAISSANCE RESUMED

A 30 percent expansion indicates that the nuclear renaissance which was building prior to Fukushima is returning.

The reasons for a nuclear revival are just as compelling now as they were pre-Fukushima: Nuclear provides a low carbon energy to help combat climate change, is not subject to price volatility the way fossil fuels are, and offers a steady supply of baseload power, unlike intermittent renewables like wind and solar.

Such mounting interest should help underpin research, development and ultimately, deployment of alternative forms of nuclear power that can improve on the safety, efficiency and waste of conventional reactors. These would include thorium fuel, as well as reactors built on molten salt, pebble bed, “fast” and fusion designs, among others.

Map from greenwichmeantime.com

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U.S. Energy Dept. in 2nd round of small reactor funding. Does it have a taste for molten salt?

March 15th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Chu Obama Charles Watkins Wiki

“Before I go Mr. President, let me tell you about these molten salt reactors.” That’s a completely made-up conversation. But outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu (l), this week did say that small modular reactors will be key to the country’s low carbon energy future. MSRs are one variety of them.

You might have missed the quiet announcement earlier this week: The U.S. Department of Energy has opened a second round in its $450 million program to fund small modular nuclear reactors, following its grant to Babcock & Wilcox late last year.

In a logical scenario, the next recipient would receive about $227 million, or roughly the same as what B&W is believed to have won.

“The Energy Department will solicit proposals for cost-shared small modular reactor projects that have the potential to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and achieve commercial operation around 2025,” DOE said in a press release.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are much smaller than the gigawatt-plus size of new conventional designs. DOE said it is “seeking 300 megawatts or smaller.”

They auger lower costs because they can be manufactured in more of an assembly-line manner and transported complete to a site, and because they would allow utilities and other end users to add power in increments. They also lend themselves to installation in remote areas where they could provide a less expensive alternative to diesel generators.

CLEAN MACHINES

Another advantage: they can potentially serve as sources of clean heat for industrial processes in factories and oil fields.

Outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu made it clear that they are an important part of a low carbon energy future.

“As President Obama said in the State of the Union, the Administration is committed to speeding the transition to more sustainable sources of energy,” Chu said in the release. “Innovative energy technologies, including small modular reactors, will help provide low-carbon energy to American homes and businesses, while giving our nation a key competitive edge in the global clean energy race.”

The DOE release also says that SMRs will offer “innovative and effective solutions for enhanced safety, operations and performance.”

SMALL, MODULAR AND SALTY

With all that in mind, it seems to me that DOE should take a serious look at molten salt reactors (MSRs) and pebble bed reactors (PBRs), rather than only look at shrunken versions of conventional uranium fueled, water-cooled reactor, such as what B&W is building with its 180-megawatt mPower reactor (utility Tennessee Valley Authority plans to deploy two mPower units by 2021).

“Conventional” SMR companies like Nuscale Power, Gen4 Energy  and Westinghouse could well vie for the next round with small water-cooled reactors. But is this not also a funding opportunity for MSR companies like Huntsville, Ala.’s Flibe Energy and Cambridge, Mass.-based Transatomic Power?

Most MSR designs tick the “smaller” box, and would certainly qualify in the “enhanced safety, operations and performance” category. They are meltdown proof, operate at normal atmospheric pressure rather than at the high pressure of  many water-cooled designs, and they make more efficient use of fuel because they operate at higher temperatures. They also leave less waste, and in certain designs, can use nuclear wast as fuel. DOE’s 2025 target would be feasible.

Transatomic might be counted out if it sticks firmly to its intention to build a 500-megawatt reactor, which is above the 300 megawatt ceiling stated by DOE. But it seems that at their early stage of development, Transatomic could tinker with size.

Flibe fits right into the modular size, as it’s targeting between 10 and 50 megawatts, and up to 250 megawatts.

DON’T FORGET THE PEBBLES

And don’t rule out a pebble bed option, either. Like MSRs, gas-cooled PBRs run at high temperatures. They fit well into small, modular form factors. A DOE-China collaboration ties the two ideas together, as it is looking into using molten salt coolants in solid fuel high temperature reactor (MSRs uses molten salts as part of their liquid fuel mix, as well as for the coolants that aborb the heat of a nuclear reaction and transfer it to a turbine).

In fact conventional giant Westinghouse is the commercial adviser to the DOE-China project, so it could have an interest in applying for funding for an alternative design, although it is almost certainly much further along with its small conventional reactor.

There is plenty of cross-pollinated interest among the various alternative parties that together could build a case for funding alternative nuclear. Westinghouse  - the commercial adviser to the U.S.-China molten salt coolant project – ran the Advanced Reactors track at last November’s American Nuclear Society’s annual winter conference (ANS) in San Diego, where the presentations included molten salts and high temperature reactors.

They also included talks by University of California Berkeley nuclear engineering head Per Peterson (he chaired the 5-day conference as well), who is known for his  interest in pebble bed reactors and in molten salt coolants. Peterson is also on the board of advisors at MSR company Flibe. In fact Peterson chaired the 5-day conference. Massachusetts Institute of Technology research scientist Charles Forsberg, a member of the DOE-China team, also presented in the alternative nuclear track.

Another MIT expert, Richard Lester, is a key adviser to MSR company Transatomic. Lester is the head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, where he is also the “Japan Steel Industry Professor” (I conjure up images of molten salt reactors supplying heat to steel mills when I see that).

A MORE NUCLEAR DOE?

And MIT, of course, is home to President Obama’s nominee for Chu’s replacement as Energy Secretary, the pro-nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz.

These individuals are not all united behind all the same causes and companies, but most of them share a big vested interest in alternative nuclear. It seems as though together, they could raise government interest – and backing – in the area.

Of course they’ll have to find funding elsewhere as well. I could imagine an oil company getting behind the development of a small MSR, for among other reasons, to use as a heat source. Or space agency NASA. The military might also want to invest – an MSR could help domestic bases disconnect from the creaky public grid, as Flibe president Kirk Sorensen has pointed out.

How about venture capital? Maybe. Flibe has added Bram Cohen to its board of advisers. Cohen is the founder of Internet company BitTorrent, where he has experience at raising $40 million in venture capital. Transatomic is getting ready to attempt a “Series A” round of venture financing.

Those possibilities could make a good mix. A DOE award should be a possibility. In the current round it might be a long shot. But so was the moon.

Photo from Charles Watkins, White House photographer, via Wikimeda

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Bill Gates’ excellent case for new types of nuclear power

March 11th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

“Nuclear innovation stopped in the 1970s.”

 

Bill Gates has been making nuclear headlines over the last few days after the told a gathering of international energy executives near Denver that solar and wind technologies won’t cut it as a source of baseload power, and that the U.S. government should fund nuclear research and development.

His remarks were reported by Reuters and have been widely picked up – including here on the Weinberg blog.

I thought it would make sense to bring you some more detail of his thinking. To do so, I’ve reached back to April 2010, when Gates delivered a convincing pro-nuclear presentation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that conveys the same message as his Colorado remarks (MIT is the same university, incidentally, which is home to President Obama’s pro-nuclear nominee for Energy Secretary, physicist Ernest Moniz).

In his MIT speech, presented about a year before the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, Gates advocates not simply for nuclear, but for new, alternative nuclear technologies, such as the breeder reactor under development at the company that the Microsoft billionaire co-founded, called TerraPower. He even gives some lips service to molten salt reactors, even if he doesn’t seem enamored of them.

“Nuclear is one of the directions that we should innovate in,” he says, a little less than four minutes into the clip. “Nuclear innovation stopped in the 1970s. We basically have this sub (submarine) designed thing that was put into Shippingport (Shippingport, Pa.) for the first power generator and we basically built 400 of those that are all kind of custom but not in any interesting way. They’re all LWRs (light water reactors)  and PWRs (pressurized water reactors) and the industry did not innovate much at all. There’s this third generation passive safety AP 1000, but except for that they didn’t do much.”

CUTE SOLAR

Gates points out that the energy per atom from nuclear fuel “is about a million times better than coal or natural gas.” But without the development of new types of nuclear power, the industry will struggle to take advantage of that in an economically competitive fashion, he notes.

Reactors like TerraPower’s and like molten salt reactors can burn fuel more efficiently and safely than do conventional reactors, can use nuclear waste as fuel, and leave less waste.

I encourage you to watch the entire video – it’s less than eight minutes – to hear Gates’ analysis of solar and wind which he calls “cute up to a point,” of the material science problems associated with the “damn neutrons” in his own reactor, and the  even greater materials challenges facing fusion developers.

“If you look at the fusion guys, their neutrons are like a thousand times worse than our neutrons,” says Gates. “Those guys have 14 MeV neutrons – good luck to them.”

As a popular New York sportscaster used to say, let’s go to the video. It was posted by the Washington, D.C.-based  Nuclear Energy Institute, which calls it “I Love Nuclear” (words Gates actually uses). Click anywhere on the image of Gates above to start watching.

Video from NEINetwork via YouTube. 

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Good week for nuclear: Environmental, economic backing from Japan, Bill Gates, MIT and – Obama?

March 8th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Ernest Moniz MITEI JustinKnight

Could he encourage nuclear R&D? President Obama’s nominee for U.S. Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz,     is a pro-nuclear physicist from MIT.

Today calls for a review of the week, and not simply because it’s Friday and the weekend is upon us. Rather, the last seven days have provided several high level endorsements for nuclear power from regions of the world that have been giving it a hard time. Consider these examples:

Japan. One week ago, the Japan Daily Press reported that “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged that nuclear plants that pass the new safety guidelines could restart within the year. This is to ensure maintenance of a stable energy supply.”

It was the latest, and perhaps the strongest indication yet, that Japan will return to nuclear power following the near complete shutdown after the Fukushima meltdowns of 2011 forced the evacuation of over 100,000 residents.

Abe won’t have carte blanche to flip the switches on. Each reactor must first pass new, tougher safety measures. Don’t expect anything close to a complete return to pre-Fukushima days, when nuclear provided about 30 percent of the country’s electricity.  And the anti-nuclear movement has by no means evaporated.  As the JDP noted in a separate article, anti-nuclear protestors are holding weekly rallies in Tokyo.

But the economic and environmental costs of shutting nuclear, as I’ve written several times recently, are mounting. Watch for a significant return by the summer.

Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire yesterday told an international gathering of prominent energy executives in the oil hub of Houston of all places that, as Reuters paraphrased him, “safe and reliable reactors were the best option and dismissed wind and solar energy as less practical.” At the IHS CERAWeek conference, Gates said that nuclear trumps wind or solar because it can supply round-the-clock power. (CERA is the former Cambridge Energy Research Associates founded by Pulitzer Prize winning author and oil maven Daniel Yergin; IHS is the Englewood, Colo. research group that acquired it 2004).

There’s no big surprise here really. Gates is the chairman of TerraPower, the Bellevue, Wash., company that is developing a new type of nuclear reactor meant to replace conventional reactors. TerraPower’s “traveling wave reactor” is a “fast” reactor that breeds its own fuel.

But we haven’t heard publicly from the nuclear Gates for a while. His timing is encouraging, coming amid recent U.S. press reports suggesting doom and gloom for nuclear, and as the country gets ready to install a new Energy Secretary. Speaking of which..

Obama goes nuclear? U.S. President Obama on Monday nominated a pro-nuclear physicist, Ernest Moniz, as the next Energy Secretary. If approved by the U.S. Senate, Moniz would replace the outgoing Steven Chu. Moniz as head of the Department of Energy. Moniz currently heads the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative.

More MIT. A couple of MIT experts, including one from Moniz’ MITEI,  together wrote a compelling case for nuclear power published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Monday. MITEI principal research scientist Sergey Paltsev, and MIT Sloan School of Management Henry Jacoby said that a nuclear phaseout by 2050 in the U.S. would increase carbon emissions and electricity prices, and would shrink gross domestic product.

The consequences would hold true to varying degrees depending on which regulatory path the U.S. takes in terms of restricting greenhouse gas emissions. I wrote a summary of the scenarios on my CBS SmartPlanet blog (the Jacoby and Patlsev analysis was part of a package of stories on U.S. nuclear, some of which presented an economic case that renewables trump nuclear).

One oversight by Jacoby and Paltsev: They made no mention of alternative nuclear technologies, such as the sort that Gates’ TerraPower is developing, or such as thorium fuel or molten salt reactors. These options could further support the economic and environmental case for nuclear, by providing reactor options that are safer, more efficient, and ultimately less expensive than conventional nuclear.

As Gates said at IHS CERAWeek, the U.S. DOE should increase energy research and development.

“We should put a lot more into innovation, ” he noted. “When we get a carbon tax we should put some of that into innovation.”

I agree Bill. And I know some molten salt researchers and some thorium enthusiasts who might like that idea too.

Photo by Justin Knight is a screen grab from the MITEI website.

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U.S.-China molten salt nuclear adviser among vets joining Transatomic board

February 28th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

Transatomic co-founders Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan are MIT PhD students who can readily seek   insight from an expanding advisory board of nuclear veterans.

Transatomic Power, the youthful molten salt reactor company based in Cambridge, Mass., has added four nuclear industry veterans to its technical advisory board,  a move that could help it bring the alternative nuclear technology to market.

The appointments include retired Westinghouse Electric chief technology officer Regis Matztie, who is also the leading commercial adviser to the molten salt nuclear collaboration between China and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Also named to the board were Todd Allen, Deputy Director at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL); Ken Czerwinski, Director of the University of Las Vegas (UNLV) Radiochemistry Program; and Michael Corradini, Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the current president of the American Nuclear Society.

Transatomic, as we noted in September, is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-connected startup co-founded by MIT PhD students Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan, and by CEO Russell Wilcox, who is the former CEO of information technology company E-Ink.

“Atomic energy is an abundant and reliable power source and Transatomic Power has a better way to harness it,” Wilcox said in a press release. “We’re very excited to welcome these four luminaries to our advisory board, and look forward to their contributions as we work to bring this important new technology to market.”

“This is a chance to help the young people in our industry to re-imagine and re-invent the field,” INL’s Allen said in the release. “In this team I see the spirit of innovation that helped give birth to the industry at its start.”

WASTELAND

Transatomic is developing a molten salt nuclear reactor that it calls a Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor (WAMSR). The name reflects Transatomic’s intentions to use existing nuclear waste as fuel, a feature that could help win over nuclear opponents who object to waste legacy.

The company is designing the WAMSR to run on liquid – molten salt – fuel. Transatomic has previously claimed to be “fuel agnostic” towards either thorium or uranium (as has Ottawa-based MSR developer Terrestrial Energy, headed by David LeBlanc), although it mentions only uranium in this week’s statement announcing the board additions (among which there is a fair amount of uranium experience).

Some MSR proponents, like Kirk Sorensen, president of Huntsville, Ala.-based Flibe Energy, believe that thorium fuel best optimizes MSR’s advantages over conventional solid fuel reactors.

Like other MSR companies, Transatomic promotes the technology for being safer than conventional solid-fuel reactors, for producing less waste and for cost advantages.

MSR proponents say they are meltdown proof because in the event of a malfunction the fuel drains harmlessly into a tank, stopping the nuclear reaction and removing decay heat. In conventional nuclear, although control rods can stop fission reactions, decay heat can build into a meltdown if cooling systems fail, as happened at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. MSRs also operate at higher temperatures, thus making more efficient use of fuel. And they function at normal atmospheric pressure, rather than at the high pressure of many conventional reactors.

MSRs could also be manufactured in small “modular” sizes that would permit manufacturing economies of scale and that would allow utilities and other end users to purchase smaller amounts of nuclear generation capacity – in the tens or hundreds of megawatts – compared to today’s behemoths typically rated at well over 1,000 megawatts. Transatomic is targeting 500 megawatts.

A COOL VARIATION

In a variation on the MSR theme, the U.S. and China are collaborating on a high temperature reactor that uses a molten salt coolant (coolants absorb heat from nuclear reactions and transfer that heat to a turbine) but a solid fuel. Full MSRs use molten salts as both their coolant and fuel, mixing uranium or thorium into the molten salt fuel.

The U.S.- China partnership could also lead to joint work on an MSR (China has a separate MSR initiative), or could help inform separate MSR development. Westinghouse Electric, known for its conventional reactors, serves as the collaboration’s commercial adviser, with Matzie as the head of the commercial advisory panel.

Transatomic’s press release makes no mention of the U.S-China molten salt collaboration or of Matzie’s role in it.

Matzie and the three other new appointees join experienced nuclear experts already on Transatomic’s advisory team: Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, where he is also the “Japan Steel Industry Professor”; Jess Gehin, Oak Ridge National laboratory senior program manager in nuclear technology; and Benoit Forget, an MIT assistant professor.

In another MIT connection, Charles Forsberg, a research scientist in MIT’s department of nuclear science and engineering, leads a DOE-funded set of three universities that are developing a molten salt cooled high temperature reactor related to the Chinese collaboration The three are MIT, ithe University of California Berkekely, and the University of Wisconsin.

Photo is a screen grab from a TED conference YouTube video on Transatomic’s website.

Note: This post corrects an earlier version that stated fission continues after an emergency in conventional reactors. In conventional reactors, control rods stop fission, but decay heat continues to build if  the reactor is not properly cooled. Thank you to readers James Arathoon and David LeBlanc for pointing out the error. Corrected around 1:10 p.m. GMT March 2.

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Germany’s energy challenge, part 2: Greenhouse emissions are up

February 26th, 2013

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Posted by Mark Halper

While Germany has been increasing renewables, it has also brought in a lot more of this since deciding to close nuclear power. That’s a coal-fired plant in Datteln along the Dortmund-Ems Canal near Dortmund.

In our previous post, we noted that Germany wants to trim the $1.3 trillion (yes, trillion) in subsidies that it would provide to build renewable power in the wake of the government’s 2011 decision to abandon nuclear power.

Now, the other shoe has dropped in the walk away from nuclear: Greenhouse gas emissions including CO2 rose in 2012 as the country relied more heavily on coal and other fossil fuels – along with renewables – to replace production from 8 nuclear plants that it has already closed. (It plans to shutter its remaining 9 by 2022. Nuclear had provided about a quarter of the country’s electricity before the post-Fukushima decision).

The rise was slight – 1.6 percent in greenhouse gases, and 2 percent in CO2, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety reported on its website (the account is in German; an English version should post soon). But it came came amid slow industrial production.

But the World Nuclear Association calculated that if Germany had left the eight nuclear reactors operating, it would have reported a drop of 18 million-to-34 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, rather than a rise of 14 million tonnes. Thus, WNA says, Germany would have reported its all-time low of 897 million tonnes per year.

Bloomberg noted that Germany emitted 931 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents last year as the use of lignite rose 5.1 percent.

“We must make sure that this was an exception and that it doesn’t become a trend that’s repeated,” Environment Minister Peter Altmaier said in the Bloomberg story.

According to Reuters, industrial CO2 emissions were flat from 2o11 to 2012, while emissions from household and transport use increased. Renewables helped to keep the level from rising above 2 percent.

But as Altmaeir noted last week, it will cost Germany $1.3 trillion in subsidies by 2022 if the country were to continue with its current support program for energy technologies like wind and solar. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has proposed cutting close to $400 billion, which would still leave the government with a hefty subsidization bill of over $900 billion.

As I said last week, if the country were to recommit some modest portion of those funds – say, 25 percent – it could go a long way toward developing efficient and safer nuclear reactors that run on thorium and other alternative nuclear technologies like molten salt and pebble bed reactors, among others.

Photo from Arnold Paul via Wikimeda.

 

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