Subject 1: Re: Nuclear Reactors are going micro.

This is a radically new reactor design with a lot of interesting properties.

I found the patent application with Google patent search.   It’s not that big, so I attach a copy.

To answer Charles’s questions:

You get the heat out with pipes carrying a heat transfer fluid to and from the surface.   No ground water needed.

I believe it’s intrinsically extremely difficult to use this technology to make weapons grade material.

You make electricity with a steam turbine and cooling arrangements at the surface.

The patent application points out that the fact that the hydride fuel is its own moderator whose moderating effect is controlled by the same mechanism that controls the reactor, namely the temperature difference between the fissile hydride core and a   non-fissile hydride hydrogen store, means that the core can be made twice as big as required for criticality. This means that fuel burnup could be as much as 50%. This is a huge increase over current burnup rates of 1 to 3 %, and could dramatically extend refueling intervals.   (Apparently not proposed for the Hyperion product.)

The fuel cycle permits extremely easy separation of low life-time fission products from long-life actinides. All of the actinides can be kept in the purified fuel where they will eventually be burned up in a reactor.   This means that both the volume and half-life of waste can be reduced enormously.

Although proposed for small reactors, this technology could be used for big ones too. It’s a pity it was not invented long ago. It would have changed the whole trajectory of nuclear power.

Too late now, of course.

David

Subject: Nuclear Reactors are going micro; Ok, so what’s the catch?

Steve
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20…

How do you get rid of the heat? Just let it diffuse into the ground? Do you need groundwater flow? No weapons grade is interesting, but it might be partially enriched making it easy to make WG. No moving parts: how do you make electricity with no moving parts? Some kind of fuel cell?

Still, interesting.

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Subject 2: Wind Farms:

Lets see, we just took our class to a wind farm.   You get 1.5 GW machine working 30% of the time for 1 million, so that is $2 million per GW effective.
If this nuclear thing does 20,000 homes that implies (if US) it is 10 GW. for what did they say, 25 million?   That is $2.5 million per GW.
Wind might be marginally cheaper (if I did my math right), a lot less scary, but would need backup.

Charlie

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Subject 3: Interesting conversation between one of ours and a Shell oilman:

There is some data available, but it’s held by groups such as CERA and is only available to subscribers of their various data services.   In one such study “The Cost of Oil”, they analyze lifecycle costs for new oil in a number of countries and environments around the world, looking also at unconventional oil sources (oil sands and shale).

[ph] maybe the friend’s research institution can subscribe.     Do you know if that’s possible?

I can’t share the report or data with you, but in my reading of it and thinking about industry activities in the last few years as oil prices have spiked and then fallen, I’m not sure I know where we are on your curve.

[ph] the energy cost curve and the dollar cost curve follow ‘different masters’ as it were.   What seems to happen is that people coast along not paying attention and then a snag in providing increasing supplies gets the attention of the speculators.   When increased prices do not stimulate increasing supply a price war occurs, breaking all the set relationships and then it collapses in disarray for things to resettle at some semi stable level.       I note that the oil prices plummeted this month, but the food prices did not, for example.       The physical cost of resources follows different learning curves, and that’s what I’m trying to help gather data on.

It’s also not clear whether we can realize we are at a point of diminishing returns until we have moved well past.   Another complexity in oil is that 80% of supply comes from National Oil Companies and they will have very different definitions of diminishing returns than will commercial companies.   What does diminishing returns mean when the “return” is political stability or local employment, or staying in power?

[ph] To me it means that whatever you measure you then study the learning curve *for that measure*.     I think the effort of physical economists to measure some ‘scientific’ value judgment for resources (in place of money denominated market judgments) can work better if putting the scientific judgments down stream of the hard measures.     The better alternative seems to be to look at empirical learning curves using physical measures, and make a value judgments about the implied feedbacks in the systems producing them, as well as use them to read signals of environmental responses.

Some general numbers from my own study and thinking that might bear on this.   In conventional (easy) oil fields, the energy return on investment is very large.   I would say typically in the range of 20-100:1.   This can include some very challenging environments such as arctic or deepwater, but the resources have not been exploited so there are high returns to be had on the energy invested.   As we move down the resource pyramid, these numbers change significantly.   For oil sands developments, such as in Canada, or oil shale developments in the US (not being done yet) utilizing new technologies, the range is more like 3-10:1.   Numbers I’ve heard quoted for ethanol are something like 8:1 for sugarcane, and a range of 0.6-1.3:1 for corn.   The CERA study by the way looks at financial returns that tell a very different story.

[ph] I guess the one I’d be interested in is the curve of changing net energy return rates for new fields and for new   methods to increase extraction.   I understand that some proposals for going back to old fields with new technology are now becoming economic, but that surely must also involve spending more energy to get it done too.   It’s the curvature of the mean change over time that shows the environmental response to efforts for maximizing the resource.

I had an interesting debate in the mid-1980′s with an economist.   At the time, I was Exploration Economics Manager for Shell.   The question was if it takes more than a barrel to make a barrel, but the barrel made is worth more than the barrels used (rising prices and futures markets), is that good business?

Does this help at all?

[ph] Sure, it helps a good bit.     What I’m trying to do is help pin more of this down.     I think the point of vanishing returns is not close to 100% energy extraction cost, though that question does help point to how economists have no model for connecting reality to what they say we can do with it…. :-)         I think the greater concern I have is that when resource supply snags for necessities are hit (whether permanent or temporary), the scarcity drives up the price and encourages investment.         If the system has guessed wrong, and the supply snag is terminal diminishing returns, all the investment really drives is accelerating price increases and wasteful depletion of a critical resource.       It’s that positively negative feedback loop that concerns me.       Do you know of anyone else who has thought about that?

Subject 4: AND THIS IS WHAT GETS PUBLISHED! Stick to the oil drum folks!
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200…

Scientific Community Called Upon To Resolve Debate On ‘Net Energy’ Once And For All

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2008) — “Net energy is a (mostly) irrelevant, misleading and dangerous metric,” says Professor Bruce Dale, editor-in-chief of Biofuels, Bioresources and Biorefining (Biofpr) in the latest issue of the journal published November 7.

Net energy is a metric by which some scientists attempt to assess the sustainability and ability of alternative fuels to displace fossil fuel but recent debate in Biofpr shows that scientists are undecided on its merits as a tool.

Instead, in a series of corresponding articles clearly stating the case for and against net energy, Professor Dale calls for a more holistic approach which takes into consideration issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, petroleum displacement and economic growth, particularly in the developing world. He is calling on the scientific community to come together to help establish, once and for all, parameters by which to calculate fuel efficiency by using not just one, but several metrics that can be used in conjunction to give a fuller picture.

The articles – Net energy: still a (mostly) irrelevant, misleading and dangerous metric, Bruce E. Dale; Net energy and strategic decision making: response to Professor Dale, Franzi Poldy; and Response to Dr. Poldy’s questions in this issue, Bruce E. Dale – are the culmination of the ongoing heated exchange, which has already attracted a huge response, between those in favor and those against the use of ‘net energy’ as a metric.

Professor Dale says: “The election of the new USA president, Barack Obama, who is an open supporter of biofuels will put them very much on the agenda. We need to resolve this issue of appropriate metrics once and for all so we can concentrate on the real task at hand – to deliver viable alternative fuels and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.”

He adds: “Net energy is misleading because it does not give us the whole story of a fuel but instead asks us to make a judgement using a very small component of the decision making process, albeit an important piece of a large jigsaw. When trying to determine whether a fuel is viable or not, we not only need to consider energy in versus energy out but also the overall context such as petrol displacement, land usage and economic growth – this requires a balanced approach with several metrics.”

However, in a corresponding article, Dr. Franzi Poldy, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia, disagrees, arguing that in order for policymakers and governments to make decisions about which fuels are best, they need to have numbers to work with to establish a way of calculating the benefits of potential fuels – net energy is the best way to do this.

He says: “Although net energy is not the whole story about any fuel, it is an important part of the story for those concerned with long-term energy supply at the whole-economy level.”