Expanding USA Nuclear Power

[raymcginnis]

Now that our USA President has announced that he would like to see us go with new nuclear power plants, I wanted to get the input from peers.

I have not seen any input about this from my peers yet.

In the 1990s this was explored and many companies came up with innovative designs.  I read about all of this, in the journals, and all companies went with the same thing, where a new nuclear power plant would be built in a factory, just like a rocket engine.  It would be just like a battery.  The entire plant would be assembled in say, Pennsylvania and delivered to Utah and just put in place like a battery. 

Now I know that many who would read this will say why not put more energy into solar energy and other alternative energy sources?  I still say that it is way expensive, in spite of the fact that those technologies are all cheaper than they used to be!  Alternative energy will come alive, in the future, I think, but they cannot run even one automobile factory in Detroit yet, much less a whole city the size of Detroit (much less NYC)!

We are so rich though in people who know about this and we need a bridge.  It is time that we trust ourselves.  I say give the companies time to develop what they have gained in this new knowledge, but we need a bridge to keep us going.  We already know how to decommission to the nth degree. 

Let us give all the fast reactors a chance.   

Americans, no matter what party they join, believe in freedom. 

I have seen the basic plant designs and I believe in them, no matter which one becomes a fact of life.

I know that this will cause controversy, but I just had to post my ideas.  I have learn so much from what my peers post on this site!

Let us all talk about this!  What do you think?

[Camella Black]

I personally am in support of more nuclear plants being built. Our government has sat back and waited and debated our energy needs, the various types of energy sources and what they will or won't do to the point that most people could care less.

Consumers keep on consuming regardless of the price of gas, oil or electricity although they keep complaining. How ironic that the largest generation ever, who were going to make all these wonderful changes (remember the 1960's and 70's) are some of the worst offenders.

When I first went to TN a couple of years ago I was amazed at the air quality and I couldn't understand why all the pines were dying, then I read that the enviornment was changing there due to all the air pollution and that soon the climate was going to be close to that of Alabama and that the trees couldn't adapt, what a shame. Do you know that 1 tree provides enough oxygen for a family of 4? I wonder how many trees are dying there?

Then I went to PA and met all the wonderful people in Saxton, a town virtually dying because the SNEC site was closing and they had no jobs. While there I saw a beautiful stream running through the mountains and was amazed at its crystal clean, almost blue color and then I was told it was that way because of arsnic posioning from the old coal mines ...

Every year someone in our area dies in a house fire from using a faulty heater because they couldn't afford regular heat ...

There are places like this all over our country, and there are people who are dying of lung disease and children who cannot breathe because of the air quality and our utility bills continue to climb.

And the consumers keep on consuming ...

[Rad Sponge]

Here's a great research report on the future prospects of nuclear power. It was conducted by MIT School of Nuclear Engineering:

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

With 250 years of projected global coal reserves I do not see BIG COAL going away anytime soon, especially with the advent of "Clean Coal Technology".

[raymcginnis]

Cool post Rad Sponge!  Now I want to read the whole MIT paper!  Is that posted also?  The intro was awesome!

[thenuttyneutron]

I don't think "clean coal" really exists.  The cleanest and most cost effective way of making electricity is nuclear power.  I consider myself to be a rational environmentalist and studied 6 years to earn my degree in nuke engineering and believe more than ever this is the energy source of the future.  We don't have to sacrifice our live style in order to be more responsible with the planet.  I know we can have our cake and eat it too.

The generation 4 reactors are not too far off and this will solve many problems and avert certain accidents that are possible with the gen. 2 reactors.  It is impossible for these reactors to melt down.  The ceramic and carbon construction of the fuel blocks have melting points well above the maximum temperature that could be attained in the worst case scenario, like a LOCA.  It is also very hard for the fuel blocks to be used in a bad way.  The fuel is encased in a tough ceramic shell and the fuel beads are very small. 

I want the electrical industry to move towards using nukes as the base load and using things like natural gas for peak shaving.  Leave the coal in the ground.  Renewable sounds nice but things like solar power are expensive, filthy, and not good enough for large-scale use.  I think solar is one of the dirtiest ways to make electricity!  Look at all the tons of toxic material that is produced.  Nasty chemicals containing gallium, arsenic and other deadly chemicals are produced.  Nuclear waste at least becomes safer with age, after 10 years the stuff has lost most of its radioactivity.

I am just starting my career; I want to end it with the new age nuclear making 90% of the electricity in the cleanest and safest way possible.  I will leave the fossil-fueled auto problem and the coming oil production peak to other people:)

[Rad Sponge]

Ray,

The link I posted should take you to the entire report. It is available in its entirety.

Nutty-N,

You and I and perhaps the majority of the inhabitants of this board know that modern nuclear power is essentially safer and cleaner than most other forms of electrical generation, however I do not think our government (NRC/DOE) has done an adequate job in educating public opinion. The average beer drinking American hears "nuclear" and I bet TMI and Chernobyl comes to mind first along with images of Homer Simpson. Why? Because the average American is an idiot lemming more concerned with which celeb said what rather than the inherent stability and non-proliferable properties of ceramic fuel. Go figure.

This ignorance traces back to the ultra secretive history of nuclear power, but public acceptance was sacrificed and a miseducated public was victimized by politically motivated eco-tards.

Jumping off my soap box...

[bmr176]

Rad Sponge, I couldn't agree with you more.  As an industry we have done a fairly poor job of educating the public.  I am a student at Penn State and am very active with ANS.  Every year we have over 500 high school students vistit our reactor.  this is a very small number on a very large scale, and we are only reaching a very small location in a state that is already (even with the whole TMI thing) fairly open to nuke power.
I heard a statistic that said something like 60% of people feel nuclear power is safe to use but 60% felt their neighbors did not feel the same.
As someone who will be graduating in the next year it is very exiting to hear about companies starting early site permit applications.
I also feel and have had long disussions that a diverse portfolio including nuclear power and alternative sources is the only viable option for our country to take.

[RDTroja]

As an industry we have done a fairly poor job of educating the public.

One thing to remember about our 'industry' is that if you get down to the root of it, we work in the Electricity Industry, not the Nuclear Industry. There is no real 'Nuclear Industry' except as a subset of Electrial Generation. The utilities that own nuclear plants all own coal and oil plants, too. The 'Nuclear Generating Company' is a very new concept and even then they are usually a subsidary of a larger company that also has a Fossil Generation side. Having said that, and remembering that the best way to make nuclear plants look good is to compare them to the alternatives (mostly fossil) there is no motivation for the utilities to tout their (average) 20% nuclear generation when they would have to degrade their (average) 80% fossil to do so.

Once again it boils down to economics. If you tell people how bad fossil energy is in order to say how great nuclear is, the net result would be increased public scrutiny of fossil and likely a new wave of legislation forcing them to clean up or replace their fossil generators. The utilities don't want that, and who can blame them? There is no profit in educating the public.

[bmr176]

There is no profit in educating the public.

I guess I never really thought about it like that.  Coming from the navy money was never an issue, and at a campus research reactor part of our budget is geared towards educating.

[raymcginnis]

If this idea does take off, it will be interesting to see which way it goes.  The 5 fast reactor proposals from the 1990s will take time for testing and development.  They are all on paper now.  To get a new plant in 5 years or less, it would have to be a LWR, with expedited approvals, as President Bush proposed.

For the new fast reactor proposals, I like the sodium cooled, convection flow design by Atomics International.  No pumps is awesome!  With all of the plug and play designs, if there was valve work to be done, getting around inside would be a P in the A.  It would be much more difficult than getting around in an ice condenser PWR or a small BWR drywell like Oyster Creek.  I suppose it would have to be better than a nuke sub though.

All bidders were proposing high enrichment fuels, similar to nuke subs, so there would be no refueling outages.  There would only be maintenance outages.

Nukeworkers interested in new jobs may not be helped so much.  I think that we should all support it though, even if it does not help our careers.

[thenuttyneutron]

I want to see the move to different fuel cycles and advanced reactor designs.  I like the Modular High Temperature Gas Reactors.  These are so safe that in the event of the worst case scenario the reactor will shut down with no operator input and the fuel physically can't melt.  The highest temperature possible in the reactor is below the melt point of the carbon/ceramic fuel blocks.  The efficiency is a little above 50% thanks to the natural gas fired plant technology.  Get one of these on an advanced fuel cycle like a thorium based breeder cycle and I think we can bring the world cheap, clean and safe electricity that is very resistant to malicious intents.  I think about Iran and am not sure what to believe.  With a thorium based cycle we would not have to worry too much about them trying to do bad things.  We could deploy many of these into third world countries and train people to care for them with ease.

Best of all at about 500 MWe per plant and the factory based production these could be deployed with ease and treated almost like batteries in the electrical grid.  After 10 years of burning take it out and replace it.  The old reactor can be salvaged in a reprocessing.  Thorium has a half-life that is huge and Th-232 is very abundant in the earth's crust.

I like the fast reactor concept but want them to research it more.  These fast reactors will allow the use of fertile isotopes as fuels but they must operate in a critical condition.  The ability to use more fuels is good for long term energy solutions.  The problem is that they have a positive temperature reactivity coefficient and therefor are unstable.  I think coupling duel neutron spectrums in the reactor could solve this.  Have the hard spectrum be the primary source of the neutrons and have it at a barely sub-critical mode and then have a low energy neutron emitting seed surrounded by a small blanket of fissile fuel in the center.  If the reactor is running as designed the fissile blanket will provide the additional neutrons to make the reactor critical.  If the reactor gets too hot the slow neutrons from the seed will be raised in energy and the fissile blanket will produce less fast neutrons.  Without the added fast neutrons from that seed blanket, the reactor will become sub-critical and self correct itself.  Now we need to engineer the idea into a real world solution.

[raymcginnis]

I like the Modular High Temperature Gas Reactors.  These are so safe that in the event of the worst case scenario the reactor will shut down with no operator input and the fuel physically can't melt.

Are their Internet or magazine artcles on this that you would reccomend?  I would like to read them.  I don't purport to be able to understand them totally, but I can understand what I understand.  I am an HP engineer, but I have many nuclear engineering contacts.  This would be an interesting subject to discuss with them.

[darkmatter]

Its a tossup as to a sodium design or pebble-bed reactor in my mind. Although it will probably be an upgraded PWR and/or BWR design if the politics allow it.

I like the nuclear space concepts with NASA, it should of happened in the 60's.

[bmr176]

I believe the AP 1000 is one of the designs being considered.
Here is a link with some info:

http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/D2.asp

From what I have heard and understand with my limited knowlege is 1 plant will be able to be built on a site and started up while another plant is being built on that site.  This way companies will be able to get up and running and paying on their investments before the second plant is completed.

[Rad Sponge]

All this great technology should be on the TV every week if not every day on the major networks. I'd like to even see a cable channel funded by the major players for the purpose of educating and debating the fundamental issues of nuclear power.

I'd rather see this than 24/7 coverage of some girl in Aruba (I bet you'd never hear of it if she wasn't a babe) or a shark attack or whichever source of media candy flavor of the day that is hypnotizing America into stupidity.

If any of you upper-up nuclear players are out there, seriously consider my idea of getting some air time to educate the general public of the future of nuclear power.

R/ Sponge

[thenuttyneutron]

Are their Internet or magazine artcles on this that you would reccomend?  I would like to read them.  I don't purport to be able to understand them totally, but I can understand what I understand.  I am an HP engineer, but I have many nuclear engineering contacts.  This would be an interesting subject to discuss with them.

Keep in mind I am fresh out of school and have wonderful dreams for the future.  I just got my BS in nuclear engineering and still know I have a lot to learn about the "real" industry.  I just need lots of experience to go along with my knowledge:)  I understand reality and what I hope for may differ a lot by the time I am old and ready to retire.

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/mhtgr/mhtgr.html

here is a good site. While in school we got a good look at it. These reactors have a slightly harder neutron spectrum than a PWR and would be good for a thorium based fuel cycle. Plutonium could also be burned using this fuel cycle. We can destroy our weapons peacefully and use the existing plutonium at the bottom of cooling pools from around the nation. We just need to set standards for reprocessing and build the infrastructure to do it. I really like the thorium cycle because it reduces proliferation and there is a great abundance of this material. The fact that it can be breed in thermal reactors is nice.


Passive safety

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/mhtgr/passive.html

Here is some info from MIT

http://web.mit.edu/canes/research/anp/hightempgas.html

another site

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=3&catid=711

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/thyd/ne161/ychuan/HTGR.html

These are not new. The NAVY is the main reason why the US built light water reactors in the 70's.

http://gt-mhr.ga.com/6over40.html

http://www.cogeneration.net/Very_High_Temperature_Reactor.htm

Google these keywords and you can find lots of info.

The main Strong points I like for the Modular High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors are:

-Passive safety

-Advanced fuel cycles ( need reprocessing infrastructure and change of current regulations to be realized)

-Factory built to lower cost

-Greater than 50% efficiency on a direct Braton cycle

-He is a nuclear inert material and has very good thermal properties

-Silo based design allows to be built quick, safe and cheap

-Proliferation is greatly reduced

Much work still must be done to educate the public and get the support facilities in place to make this happen.

[raymcginnis]

Keep in mind I am fresh out of school and have wonderful dreams for the future.

Nutty Neutron, new blood is good and modern ideas from college are perfect for this subject.  Thanks for all the links.  I hope you enjoy your new career as much as I have mine!

All this great technology should be on the TV every week if not every day on the major networks.

I agree totally Rad Sponge.  Great post!

I like the nuclear space concepts with NASA, it should of happened in the 60's.

Darkmatter, I agree.  We are just starting the decommissioning of the last Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) facilities.  They were all liquid metal cooled (Na and NaK).  This test facility baffles us.  We are always scratching our heads saying "What the heck was that for?"  All of the old-timers from the 1960s have retired.  They actually shot a working SNAP reactor into space before the program got canceled.  Cool!

[raymcginnis]

Nutty Neutron.  This is a quote from one of our research people who worked with our research reactor program in the 1960's and 1970's.

The only two gas-cooled reactors we built (in the US), Peach Bottom and Fort St. Vrain, had very poor performance.  Britain's only bad reactor accident, Windscale, was with a gas-cooled reactor.  I think they must look really good on paper,  to still survive after that history.  The thermal-neutron breeding cycle with Th-232 to U-233 is not very good if I remember right.  We (AI) tried the Advanced Epithermal Thorium Reactor, and it really didn't go very far.  One problem, or advantage, depending on your view, is the production of U-232 along with the U-233.  That is very radioactive, high-energy gammas make reprocessing much harder than U/Pu, but provides some anti-diversion protection that might be seen as favorable in today's political climate.

Glad to see there are still new NE graduates!