Carl Pope, Executive Director of The Sierra Club - Anti-Nuclear Hogwash on Huffington Post

Carl Pope, one of the predictable opponents to any talk of using atomic fission at an antidote to oil, coal and gas addiction, has published a new propaganda piece rehashing many old and false arguments against nuclear power. You can find it on the Huffington Post under the title of About That Nuclear Revival....

Over many years, I have learned that the best cure for propaganda and misinformation is more factual information repeated as often as necessary to make it stick. As practitioners of advertising and public information have learned, repetition WORKS. That is perhaps one of the reasons that Pope and his friends keep repeating the mantra that the nuclear industry is too expensive, requires too many government subsidies, is vulnerable to terrorist attack, and cannot put aside enough money to pay for dismantling of the facilities.

Pope trots out the tired example of the cost overruns at the Olkiluoto First of a Kind (FOAK) plant in Finland, without bothering to note that the people most closely associated with that project - the Finns - are already planning at least one and perhaps more follow-on plants. (Ref: Finland Nuclear Power Market Analysis and Forecasts to 2015)

He points to the commentary of his friend, Amory Lovins, without mentioning the conflict of interest that the oracle from Snowmass has with regard to his long standing and continuing consulting relationship with oil and gas companies. He even points to the ever reliable anti-nuclear discourses published by Steven Thomas, a man who has been getting paid for many years by organizations like Earthlife Africa to write negatively about projects like the PBMR. (Note: on Atomic Show #138 I spoke with Jaco Kriek, the CEO of PBMR and asked him about Thomas. He told me flat out that Thomas had never visited any PBMR facilities and had never even contacted the company to obtain first hand information.)

Finally, he implies that Senator Lamar Alexander and his pro-nuclear Senate colleagues are proposing that the US government put up the money for new nuclear power plants. The reality is that those Senators are simply trying to figure out how to remove the purposefully erected barriers in the path of private enterprise to build and operate the plants. They recognize the value of the basic technology, know that we have built 100 plants in 20 years already, and want to determine what kinds of policies need to change to enable that to happen again.

If properly structured, there is NO reason for the US government to expend taxpayer funds to encourage the development of a large number of new nuclear plants. I have spoken to enough private investors in the past dozen years to know that there is a great deal of interest in funding new nuclear construction as long as there is not an infinite opportunity for government imposed delays that prevent revenue generation. Many investors have a strong memory of money losing projects like Shoreham and fuel recycling where billions of dollars worth of capital investment was made suddenly worthless because of political decisions by individuals.

We cannot have a situation where projects that have followed all of the rules are not allowed to operate through a stroke of a pen on an Executive Order or by local officials refusing to sign on the emergency response plan. This is one of the reasons that I favor loan guarantee programs - the existence of a co-signature by the government makes it very clear from the outset that government imposed delays will cost the government, not the project financiers.

Having the government put "skin" in the game alleviates many of the concerns expressed by investors about rule changes that devalue their long term investment. (Once again, I warn you - the anti-nuclear forces have political power due to their relationship with the pro-fossil fuel forces. Allowing the government the power to change the rules after the expenditure of a lot of capital puts too much power into the hands of commercial competitors to atomic fission.)

I encourage you to go over to About That Nuclear Revival... and add to the discussion about the value that atomic fission brings to a world with growing energy needs and air pollution challenges.

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Contentious Introduction of Climate and Energy Bill in Senate Hearings

On Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chaired a three part hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee aimed at discussing various aspects of the recently passed Waxman-Markey Bill (formally known as the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009). Judging from the posturing and hard hitting statements of the committee members, the bill is going to get some tough scrutiny before coming to a vote in the Senate. My guess is that any bill coming out of the Senate will bear little resemblance to the bill that barely passed the House on a yes vote of 219 - just one more than a majority of the 435 member House of Representatives.

Update: (Posted at 0256 on July 10, 2009)
It appears that Senator Boxer has realized that there is a considerable amount of work to be done to overcome the strenuous objections expressed in her committee. According to a Reuters story released last night titled, Obama's drive for climate change bill hits delay, Sen. Boxer has put off any new work on the climate and energy bill until after the congressional recess that ends in September. End Update.

If you have plenty of time on your hands, you can watch the full hearing - which covered a total of about 3 hours between the morning and two afternoon sessions - on C-span at SENATE ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC WORKS HEARING ON CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY. If you are a fan of nuclear energy, taking the time might make you feel a bit better about the decision making that is taking place in Washington. Your favorite energy source is getting forcefully introduced into nearly every energy and climate debate, even if there are some people who would prefer to continue ignoring it, hoping it will fade away.

At this hearing I counted a number of strong atomic advocates. The following Senators spoke favorably about the importance of nuclear energy and its emission free characteristics - Alexander, Crapo, Carper, Udall, Cardin, Inhofe, and Klobuchar - some more enthusiastically than others. Among the witnesses, Dr. Steven Chu, and Governor Haley Barbour were very enthusiastic while Lisa Jackson expressed rather grudging support.

Since Dr. Chu is the Administration's point man on energy technologies, the Guardian in the UK provided an interesting interpretation of the hearing's likely outcome in its article titled Obama makes nuclear compromise to pass clean energy bill: Endorsement of nuclear revival suggests president is open to further compromises in order to pass climate change bill.

Both the Wall Street Journal (Climate Fight: The Senate Tackles Global Warming Bill) and the New York Times (Combative Start to Senate Climate Hearings) included blog entries about the hearing, noting that there was more drama and combativeness than is normal in the Senate, which has a reputation as a well mannered club full of collegial people.

There are active comment threads at both of those blogs; if you decide to visit them you may note some familiar names among the debaters.

Not surprisingly, NEI Nuclear Notes posted an entry with a good summary of the key quotes about the role of nuclear in the climate and energy discussion. The Senate Moves on the Energy Bill.

Like Mark Flanagan at NEI Nuclear Notes, I cannot end this post without at least a passing mention of the only anti-nuclear comment that I heard. Senator Barry Sanders (D-VT), a man who waxes lyrically about the value of building solar thermal electric power plants in the desert southwest, stated that his big problem with adding new nuclear power is the "toxic waste" that "no state wants". If I can ever get a minute or two with that senator, I will ask two questions:

• How does he plan to move electricity from solar thermal power plants located in the desert southwest to Vermont?
  
• Why does he think that contained "toxic" waste from nuclear plants is worse than released toxic waste from coal, oil and gas power plants?

I am not optimistic enough to believe that I would get acceptable answers, even if I ever did get the opportunity to ask the questions.

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Aboutnuclear.org

At the recent ANS meeting, I had the opportunity to talk with some people from the Public Information Committee. One shared the above with me - it is one side of a postcard addressed to:

The Outreach Department
American Nuclear Society
555 N. Kensington Avenue
La Grange Park, IL 60526.
Outreach.ans.org

I thought you might enjoy seeing it. Warning - the Aboutnuclear.org website is a work in progress that could use some volunteers to assist in its development.

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Link

CEO Royal Dutch Shell - Lengthy Comment on the Future of Energy That Ignores Atomic Energy

Blatantly ignoring a potent competitor is frequently an effective way to marginalize that competitor. The technique can be particularly useful when practiced by a well known or important spokesman from a position that can be considered to be a bully pulpit.

When the President of the United States uses several minutes during a State of the Union Address to speak at length about a new energy future and lists all available alternatives except one, that makes supporters of that one technology notice the slight. When the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell does the same thing in an op-ed piece in the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), the effect can be similar. It will more focused on the people who typically read that publication and its op-ed pieces.

In a commentary in the July 2009 issue of OGJ titled Industry stands at early dawn of new energy future, Jeroen van der Veer Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell PLC did exactly that. He provided a clear exposition of the challenges facing the energy industry with a significant level of detail about most of the available alternatives.

The only thing he said about atomic energy, which currently supplies more than 7% of the world's primary energy with planned growth in a number of key economies is the following:

Judging from society’s experience with nuclear power and other technologies, new energy sources take at least 25 years to reach significant scale.

I have been involved in the preparation of a number of high level articles, testimonies and briefs in an organization that is roughly in the same size category as Royal Dutch Shell. I am pretty sure that this commentary was reviewed by a number of different stakeholders before it was released. I have little to no doubt that Mr. van der Veer fully intended his editorial slant that quietly warned his associates in the oil and gas industry against investments in nuclear energy as a future source for emission free power.

I believe that he is dead wrong and is ignoring the value of atomic fission at the peril of his company's future. Conversely, perhaps he and his company recognize that value and are pursuing it diligently but are not yet ready to share that with the world.

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US Electricity Production Cost Graph From 1995 - 2008

One thing that continues to befuddle me is the consistently repeated myth that nuclear energy is expensive energy. I want you to take a hard look at the above graph. It is a slightly modified version of the original which can be found buried several layers down at the NEI web site under the heading of Resources and Stats. The major change that I made was to alter the background to make the lines show up a little better on the web.

As you can see, the spread between nuclear energy production costs and coal energy production costs is getting wider with each passing year. As of the end of 2008, the difference between "cheap" coal and "expensive" nuclear was more than 30% with nuclear in the lead. If you cannot read the graph clearly inside the blog post, just click on it to bring up a larger version.

Makes one wonder a bit, doesn't it?

PS - Sorry for my lack of a July 4th post. I was kind of laid up and not able to focus clearly.

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Routine Train Malfunction Causes Deadly Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Explosion In Italy

I mourn for the hundreds of people who have been directly affected by a the fiery explosion on June 29, 2009 that was caused when a train axle broke in Viareggio, a small city on the west coast of Italy, about 100 km southwest of Bologna. The broken axle caused the train to derail and overturn. The train's cargo included contained 14 cars of liquified petroleum gas (also known as Propane, the friendly gas that is often advertised as an electricity competitor for tasks like cooking and heating water).

One of the LPG cars leaked following the accident and resulted in an explosion that collapsed at least five nearby buildings and produced dramatic and deadly columns of flame and smoke. Fortunately, the other 13 cars full of LPG remained intact and quick action by first responders kept the situation reasonably well contained.

According to a New York Times web site (story 10 of 28 in today's World section) article titled Death Toll Rises to 17 in Italy Train Derailment the explosion occurred near midnight in a populated area. The current death toll includes at least two small children; in addition to the 17 people who have already died, 12 of the 34 people who were injured are in serious condition with severe burns. Most of the people affected were peacefully sleeping at the time that the train rumbled through their neighborhood.

My guess is that the train and its cargo were routine guests in the neighborhood; large LPG customers usually have regular deliveries of their consumable product. The research questions I have for Atomic Insights readers are as follows:

• Does your local media consider a large LPG explosion in a populated neighborhood causing significant property destruction and a resulting in a double digit death toll to be newsworthy?



• Are they still providing any updated reports three days after the accident?



• Do you think such an accident will result in any major effort to reroute trains carrying LPG away from populated areas, add safety features to LPG rail cars, or alter plans to build new homes with appliances that burn LPG?



• Do you think there will be any widespread effort to remind people of the obvious hazard of trains pulling cars full of flammable, volatile liquids through an annual series of news stories every June 29th?

Just in case your local media does not provide much in the way of coverage, you can find some pretty dramatic photos of the fire and the derailment aftermath linked from the BBC article titled Italians killed as train explodes.

Update: Posted July 2, 2009 at 1706 EDT - Just in case you believe that lack of dramatic footage or commentary is the reason that such an accident does not get as much play as it would if there were nuclear materials involved, take a good look at this story - Italy train investigation begins.

Update: Posted July 5, 2009 at 1439 EDT - Taiwan News is reporting that the death toll has increased to 22 following the death of some of the injured. Italian train derailment death toll rises to 22. The BBC has a similar story at Italian train crash toll up to 22. Not surprisingly, I am having some difficulty finding similar accident updates in US mainstream media sources.

Aside from my concerns about the very real human suffering taking place without much notice in Italy, one of the reasons that I am personally interested in this accident is that every day on my way to and from work I drive under a rail line overpass that often contains tanker cars full of either LPG or other petroleum products. I frequently get a very good look at the cars as I creep home in rush hour traffic. A crazy "what if" sometimes comes to mind knowing how each car in the line of traffic contains its own little petroleum bomb.

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Ontario and Exelon Both Delay Nuclear Projects While CPS and NRG Continue to Progress

The Associated Press is reporting that Exelon will be delaying its proposed two unit nuclear reactor development near Victoria, Texas. The company attributed the decision to the difficult financial markets and its failure to make the cut for the first round of US Department of Energy loan guarantees. People who have been following this project for some time will remember that Exelon initially proposed building GE ESBWR's on the site, but then changed its plans after a failure to come to agreement with GE on project price and schedule.

That initial selection and later change in plans had to have played a large role in the DOE's evaluation of project maturity and likelihood of success.

What is not stated in the AP article is that the electricity market in Texas has changed considerably in the past year. The dramatic drop in the price of natural gas has resulted in a 40% drop in the retail price of electricity. When you are making a capital investment in a commodity production facility like a large power generating plant, the selling price for the commodity is a big factor in the economic computation. Remember, Texas is a competitive electricity market, not one that is governed by cost of service regulation.

In another bit of nuclear market news, the government of Ontario has rejected the only bid that managed to comply with the 1000 pages of specifications issued. AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) submitted that bid, but the Ontario government spokesman stated that the price came in as "many billions" too high. Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman reiterated his support for nuclear power as a future power source, but also stated that price is an object in the negotiation.

"Our government continues to believe that it is prudent to renew our nuclear fleet, but not at any cost," he told a hastily called news conference yesterday at Queen's Park.

If I was a large company with a newly announced reactor power system that was not available at the time that Ontario initially requested bids, and I had a long established presence in Canada, I would be sending my salesman to visit with Mr. Smitherman to find out just what kind of price schedule would work to land the business.

It is never a good idea to overpay for a project, but it is also not a good idea to underbid the work. It would be interesting to find out just what the market will bear when it comes to building new nuclear plants and whether that price is sufficient to provide a reasonable expectation of solid profits.

There is a more positive news story in the nuclear industry. One of the winners picked for some financial support by the US government for the first round of new nuclear plant construction is the NRG/CPS expansion of the South Texas project. CPS Energy, owned by the city of San Antonio has determined that its ownership in the project will require 5% rate increases every two years as long as it is successful in finding a buyer for a portion of the plant output. If it cannot sell that excess power, the investment in the plant would require a 7-8% rate increase every 2 years. (Those sound pretty modest to me considering the normal effects of inflation.)

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(Disclosure: A small portion of my personal investment portfolio is invested in McDermott International, the parent company of the "large company with a newly announced reactor power system" mentioned above. I just might add to that investment in the future depending on how successfully they take my advice.)

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Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Enamored With Novel Nuclear

The above is a short clip that is part of a longer interview about carbon free power, but it drive home a significant point. Craig Mundie, the head of a $9 billion private high tech research and development organization likes new nuclear approaches.

Hat tip to Reuter's Blogs for the pointer to the story.

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Reactions to Bob Metcalfe's Editorial Suggesting A New Look At Licensing And Manufacturing Small Nuclear Reactors

The Wall Street Journal has published several letter responses to Bob Metcalfe's June 24, 2009 opinion piece titled The New Nuclear Revolution: Safe fission power is our future -- if regulators allow it. You can find them under the title of It's Time to Take Another Look at Nuclear Energy.

I liked the first two letters, which were generally supportive of the idea that it is time to take a new look at the way that the US licenses nuclear reactors. They agree that this new look should take into account the very different physical characteristics of reactors producing anywhere from 10-900 MW of thermal power compared to our existing "standard" plants that produce on the order of 4000-5000 MW of thermal power.

The final letter in the trio, however, came from a predictable source of misinformation, Edwin Lyman of the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists). That is an organization with few scientists specializing in energy production related fields of study but lots of lawyers who are dedicated to slowing down the development of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuel. Not surprisingly, Lyman claims that the process for approving new reactors needs to be slowed down, not speeded up, that energy efficiency and traditional renewables can do the job and that there is no market for small reactors so the NRC should not waste its resources even considering them.

Here is my response to his missive:

Edwin Lyman, a man who has made a career out of criticizing nuclear energy, offers up energy alternatives that are not competitive with any form of reliable, controllable energy. Energy efficiency does nothing to bring power to the powerless while renewable energy in the form of capturing natural flows like the wind, the sun and growing plants is already widely available to people in the developing world. Those "natural" sources have been proven time and again to be insufficient for development. That is why places that have been inhabited for millennia, but without access to affordable supplies of reliable energy are still classified as "developing".

The idea that "there is no market" for small, simple reactors is absurd. For the past dozen years, I have been running a tiny, no advertisement web site describing a conceptual design for scalable reactor power plants.

Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. has received hundreds of inquiries, many of which were from serious, qualified investor and development groups who would love to place an order for a plant. The obstacle to closing any deal is when we tell them that we cannot obtain permission to even build a demonstration unit without paying the US government at least $50 million ($250,000 initially plus $250 for every bureaucrat hour billed to the process - with NO CAP) and going through a process of legal and regulatory reviews that will take a minimum of 42 months.

Even that duration estimate is suspect since regulators have publicly stated that they believe it will take longer than that already challenging (from an investor point of view) 42 months since our technology is not as familiar to them as the technology used in established extra large light water reactors. They ignore the documented history of projects like AVR, Peach Bottom 1, and the currently operating HTR-10 in China that provide the technical lineage of our concept.

OF COURSE the interested market disappears when that obstacle is introduced into the negotiation. The people who have contacted Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. are hard-nosed business people who understand that there is a need for government oversight and permitting processes, but they also quickly recognize that such an unpredictable, open ended, unlimited cost process with a reluctant regulator makes any investment exceedingly risky. In many cases, they need power already and cannot afford to commit resources in the hope that our system will eventually get a license. In at least a half a dozen cases, the investors/developers have let us know that they have purchased large diesel engines or combustion gas turbines and are still interested whenever we have a product they can purchase with a dependable time and cost schedule.

As Bob Metcalfe pointed out, a new paradigm and new process for regulation needs to be introduced in the USA, otherwise the small, modular designs like the one we have been developing since 1991 will be introduced and developed elsewhere. That is already happening, but it is not too late for the US to get into the game.

Americans have an advantage over all other competitors. We have safely operated a large fleet of modular, mobile reactors under a different kind of regulatory regime for more than 50 years and have trained tens of thousands of well qualified operators, supervisors and technicians. I would not recommend adopting the Navy model without change, but it does demonstrate that it is possible to build small reactors in the US and operate them safely almost anywhere in the world. There are few places that have not had an operating reactor pass by and few major ports that have not hosted one.

Companies like Hyperion, NuScale, Toshiba and now Babcock and Wilcox (with their mPower that is founded on experience gained as a supplier to the US Navy) have obviously recognized the same thirst for reliable, distributed power systems that we have found. They are investing large sums of money into simplified designs that rely on passive safety measures to reduce complexity and technical risk. Their machines are based on 50 years worth of development and demonstration projects with reams of technical papers plus real operational experience in power producing units. Lyman's comments should be taken for what they are - the defensive words of a man whose livelihood depends on saying NO when billions of people need a YES to more clean, safe, affordable power, not less.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.

Variable Annual Fee Structure Update

In related news, I spent some time last night taking a look at the posted responses to the NRC's request for comments regarding a proposed new rulemaking on the annual fees charged to nuclear reactor licensees. Once again, I was not at all surprised to see that counselors (lawyers) from Exelon, Duke Energy and the NEI provided opinions that saw no reason to change the current, simplified license fee structure. They acknowledged that the current structure benefits extra large power reactors by charging the same annual fee no matter how large the reactor is. Since they represent the establishment that operates the current generation of "cash cows" they have strong motives for maintaining the status quo. They also suggested that the NRC needs to be careful to make sure that the fees that the established reactor operators are paying do not subsidize new types of reactors.

Aside: The commenters from the established nuclear industry who are worried about subsidizing interlopers ignore the fact that NONE of the currently operating reactors had to pay any NRC license application fees when they were built. The concept of charging regulated industries a fee for the service of being regulated was introduced in the 1980s by the Reagan Administration. (Thank you, David Stockman.) All operating reactors got their initial construction licenses well before that. Most of them had already obtained their operating licenses before regulatory fees were imposed. End Aside

There were, however, a number of supportive comments that provided good technical justification for the need for a restructured system that takes into account the regulatory costs that may very well be different for small, passively safe reactors compared to large central station systems that depend on engineered safety systems, multiple back-up power supplies and a trained force of hundreds of plant operators.

It was a bit amusing to read comments from the establishment talking about the lack of data to be used as the basis for determining a differential cost of regulation. Here is an excerpt from Duke Energy's response:

The NRC should not establish a variable fee structure at this time. As already established in final fee rule 51 FR 33224 on September 18, 1986, Duke is in agreement with the NRC's previous determination that there is "no necessary relationship or predictive trend between the thermal megawatt rating of a reactor and the NRC regulatory costs."

If smaller sized reactors are proposed and licensed in the future, then the analysis and rule change should occur at that time when the magnitude and impact to the fees for all stakeholders is better understood. The financial predictability of imposed fees is very important for proper forecasting and planning of licensee budgets, which will be lessened with variable annual fee structure. The nature of a new variable fee structure itself will require reanalysis annually to determine its costs and sufficiency.

As a guy who has produced several versions of a business plan for building and deploying small reactors and who has pitched that plan to a number of potential investors, I acknowledge that Duke Energy is correct in some ways. Predictability is an important part of budgeting, you have to have a pretty good feel for future costs in order to make good financial decisions.

However, if you can predict with reasonable certainty that a cost is a deal killer, you have a different view of the importance of predictability. Under current law, a 10 MWe power reactor designed to provide all of the electricity and heat needed for small Alaskan fishing villages with local populations of 5,000-20,000 people would have to pay a $4 million annual fee, just like a 1600 MWe EPR built outside of Washington, DC. Since the individual plant for remote villages has to supply both peaks and valleys in power demand, it might operate at an annual capacity factor of 50% (with an availability factor closer to 100% due to the 20 year refueling cycle) to account for the load following. At that CF, the license fee would be about 9-10 cents per kilowatt hour.

That is why small power plant developers need to get this issue on the table now, otherwise there will not be a small reactor industry developed in the United States. I cannot tell you how many times in the past 15 years I have been told that I needed to go somewhere else to develop my ideas for small, safe, affordable, modular atomic power power plants. I have adamantly rejected the suggestion. I have a deep pride in being American, I love what this country can do, and I want to repay what has been given to me through having been lucky enough to be born here and to serve here.

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Steve Kirsch on Huffington Post - Climate Bill Ignores Biggest Clean Energy Source

Steve Kirsch is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has decided to dedicate his life to sharing what he has learned through independent research about important topics - including how to produce useful energy in the most economical and environmentally friendly way. I had the opportunity to talk with Steve several months ago for The Atomic Show #118.

He has just published a lengthy article on the Huffington Post titled Climate Bill Ignores Our Biggest Clean Energy Source that focuses on the potential of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) but that also describes how there are a number of advantages shared by all fission plants when compared to any fossil fuel combustion plant and any conventional renewable energy source.

I highly recommend that you go to that article and participate in the discussion. Steve is there and actively responding to comments with some additional assistance from people like Tom Blees, the author of Prescription for the Planet and Charles Barton from Energy from Thorium and Nuclear Green. You might also find a few responses there from me, but they have not yet been approved.

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Link

Another Blogger for Nuclear Energy - NuclearActive

I want to welcome Dr. John D. Johnson to the world of pro-nuclear bloggers. He has a nicely designed site at NuclearActive.com. Please go over and say hello.

Hat tip to Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat, who pointed to NuclearActive with a recent Twitter post from djysrv.

I have also added Virginia Energy Independence Alliance to my list of energy focused web sites/blogs. This group is a strong supporter of Virginia's growing energy industry including the possibility of developing uranium mining at Coles Hill, the production of modular and large reactors in Lynchburg (Areva and B&W), the construction of a new reactor at Lake Anna, the continued operation of existing reactors at Lake Anna and Surry and the manufacture of nuclear components in Newport News. They are also advocates of off-shore wind, new coal, and increased natural gas drilling, but I guess no one can agree on everything.

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Debating Nuclear Energy in Malaysia

I am still fascinated by the way that the World Wide Web opens up an entirely new way to understand the way the world works and thinks. Of course, my own view is limited by time and by the fact that I only speak English, but it is amazing that I can be rapidly made aware - through the use of scheduled searches by Google Alerts - of a discussion about new nuclear power plants published earlier today in a newspaper on the other side of the world.

Here is a link to an article from Malaysia titled Crosstalk: Is Nuclear the Answer? Quite honestly, I had only a fuzzy understanding of the exact location of Malaysia, but my initial memory was that it is a mostly island nation in the South Pacific.

With the tools at my fingertips, I felt the need for a bit of exploration. Granted - a writer in the 20th century could do some of what I just completed by spinning a globe and pulling a book off of a shelf, but he or she would not have been able to provide the impression of actually flying to the desired location and then zooming down for a look. That 19th or even 20th century writer would not have been able to instantly figure out that the current population of Malaysia was 25,715,819 (estimate for July 2009) or that the stimulus for the nuclear discussion in Malaysia is the growing realization that the country's natural gas reserves are dwindling and coal imports are rising.

So now I know a bit more about a strategically important peninsular nation that borders on one of the world's most important and frequently traveled straits. (I would have known more if I had spent much of my Navy time in the Pacific, but my only tour off of the East Coast of the US was a 20 month stint in Monterrey at the Postgraduate School.) I found out that Malaysia will be getting some assistance in their nuclear feasibility study from South Korea, a country with similar characteristics that has developed a world class domestic nuclear capability.

I also recognize that the discussion about nuclear energy development in that country is being led by at people who have a real understanding of the technology based on three decades of operating a research reactor and even longer experience in developing a large power grid while the opposition stubbornly clings to some rather tired and dated arguments. Go now and read the debate and see if you do not agree.

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Engineering Opinion on mPowerTM from Ted Rockwell

Here is another pithy clip from Ted Rockwell's testimony to the Senate Republican Conference on June 22, 2009. He provides some solid engineering reasons why he agrees that modular reactors provide an interesting alternative to large ones. He is specifically addressing the B&M mPower™ in response to a question from Senator Lamar Alexander, but the comment really applies to a wide range of alternative nuclear system designs that avoid some of the size related problems of traditional central station light water reactors.

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Recycling Does Not Necessarily Equal Reprocessing

A quick thought to share - I frequently talk about recycling used nuclear fuel, but I want to make sure that everyone who reads Atomic Insights understands that does not mean that I advocate the installation of massive facilities designed to tear apart used fuel rods, break them into constituent components and reform them into new fuel rods with similar characteristics as new fuel rods.

In other words, I am not necessarily a strong advocate of large scale reprocessing as the only way to make better use of the energy potential of uranium and plutonium. My use of the term "recycling" is not just a branding exercise - though it is a much more friendly term. I use it because reprocessing has a very specific meaning to me and it includes some real baggage from both an economic and political point of view.

Recycling used fuel does not need to result in release of volatile fission products and it does not necessarily require the use of traditional solvent chemistry.

There are plenty of other ideas for employing the concepts of "reduce, reuse, and recycle" to get a larger portion of the potential energy out of raw material inputs. Molten salt reactors that use fissile material initiators to convert fertile material into fuel, fast neutron liquid metal reactors, epithermal resonance absorption converter reactors, the DUPIC cycle, and traveling wave reactors that act more like a well managed community fire burning large logs are just some of the possibilities.

As my friend Ted Rockwell says - there is no rush. We know how to store used material safely. It will never take up much room or cause much trouble if we just keep doing what we know how to do with an eye on future technology that turns waste into useful materials in a cost effective, environmentally friendly manner.

Someday, I will tell you the story of the barrels of pink plastic regrind at J&M Industries. It opened my eyes to the reality of "one man's waste is another man's raw material."

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