Nobody needs to conspire to do this. Companies need to quit saying they are SAFE now. Many countries with existing nuclear power programmes either have plans to, or are building, new power reactors. It is well known to be a “boom and bust” business. Shame them! Because it is fast spectrum, because of the smaller capture cross sections they can run with much higher fission products loads. You can’t compete with the economics of someone paying you to take your fuel off their hands. The debate becomes considerably complex when considering various scenarios for example, total vs partial or unilateral vs multilateral disarmament. Unless there are significant improvements in materials, molten salt reactors cannot achieve high enough temperatures to be used as the heat source for modern gas and coal plants. There is a clear need for new generating capacity around the world, both to replace old fossil fuel units, especially coal-fired ones, which emit a lot of carbon dioxide, and to meet increased demand for electricity in many countries. they would upset fossil fuel based economy, some methods of power generation create radioisotopes that can I’m not sure how to overcome this obstacle to developing clean, abundant, reliable and affordable power, but I am hoping that increased recognition will help. But the value of those fuels would be dropping drastically as the public clearly sees the replacements coming. It’s been a while. The Kingdom is currently developing and implementing national plans to enable nuclear energy to contribute in the national energy mix in order to meet the national development requirements making the nuclear energy part of the power sector integration to ensure that the Kingdom remains a pioneer and effective in the energy field as part of Kingdom's Vision 2030 targets. – casks are an indefinitely satisfactory solution. Rather, it builds on the work of countless otherdiscoveries. You could eat the salt being used in the Elysium reactor BEFORE it went in. Fighting works. | This is actually more on the order of lending fraud, which is covered under federal statute, and for which all of one person was actually convicted (check an article in the New York Times). That culture was absolutely present in the 40s and the 50s. Adding the fast spectrum option to burn SNF and DU. 3. inexpensive power. Since the stories are spread over the 80 year period since atomic fission was discovered to be an incredibly … Bureaucrats in both the industry and the NRC crave the certainty provided by extensive specific rules, and the anti-nuclear activists play the two off each other. This directly contradicts the efforts by fossil fuel lobbies to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about nuclear power. Other industries have gotten rid of it, admittedly painfully – largely via the old operators going out of business. The whole point of the Elysium MCSFR is to get a viable, safe and low waste producing reactor to market as soon as possible. Think of an Elysium fast reactor for instance. Every once in a while, especially if there were questions being asked, I’d invest in messaging that described fission’s amazing safety record. Concerns about the safety of nuclear plants and nuclear waste storage solutions, an aging global nuclear fleet, and massively escalating costs for many new projects … But nuclear fission began long before that and should have found a different path. If the person accused has a long record of basing his/her arguments on lies & logical fallacies, then the red flag can be taken down. But let’s be in a position where it’s not going to be our fault this time. In other words, we beat the oil companies, and later on, the oil companies beat the coal industry. Resume available here. Weinberg may have contributed to some of the growing anti-nuclear movement, but that can mostly be traced back to the 1950s I think with that guy who left the Sierra Club and was funded by California oil money. With fear and reluctance instead of excitement and wonder. Sigh. It doesn’t take much of an exercise in deductive thinking to recognize that some of the people who have financial reasons to discourage nuclear energy will build support for their cause by making financial contributions to respected charities. The new Nuclear companies do not need to be selling safety. (100 MW for 20 years). “Think of an Elysium fast reactor for instance. Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence and make conventional wars more likely, more destructive, or both. Northern Canada! 5. You’re ignoring the externalized costs from both LWRs and fossil fuels. Or you can build more reasonably sized LWRs with lower core damage frequency (ESBWR), significantly better fuel utilization, which require fewer licensed operators per megawatt, etc.. With regards to the conspiracy against nuclear power…. Most people didn’t even know the technology existed until Kirk Sorensen was doing research for NASA on space based reactor designs in the 2000s. Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. When in operation this reactor will burn spent nuclear fuel, plutonium from decommissioned weapons and when reactor chemistry is mature it can burn depleted uranium. Almost without exception, companies and individuals involved in the nuclear “industry” are also involved in hydrocarbons. Connect the dots. What is one criticism of nuclear energy development projects abroad? The criticisms not only point out the logical contradictions and semantic ambivalence in the term, but also centre on its vagueness/ambiguity of […] Xenon is quite valuable for high tech application. My point was that Alvin Weinberg wasn’t an opponent of nuclear power who motivated Nader, he was its father to a great degree. With a few exceptions, those who push MSR technology have little experience with nuclear power…. Why would fossil fuel companies need to do anything but allow the nuclear industry to make serious strategic mistakes while superstitious technical illiterates organize political opposition? Some methods of power generation create radioisotopes that can be used in weapons. Any source of energy production will including “green” renewables like solar and wind power. https://www.open-100.com/. I think it is cost. While the the uranium fuel is enriched to only 3-5% and could not easily be further separated to the >90% U-235 needed to produce a bomb, the spent fuel elements contain plutonium-239. They cannot earn their arbitrage fees without half percent money, bureaucratic regulation and just going along to get along. Fast spectrum molten salt reactors solve a problem that isn’t the one that is hampering nuclear energy development right now. And he saw flaws in his early designs he wanted to correct, some of which became apparent with the TMI accident. There is abundant evidence showing how hydrocarbon interests have worked to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear power. It’s not just the energy market that will be profoundly changed by a systemic move to nuclear power as the base, the economic and social changes will be just as profound. I’ve read each one. The Vogtle AP 1000 has cost 14 Billion so far. Most of these are political problems, of course, and beyond the reach of engineering to solve. There’s no need for massive containment because your reactor isn’t running under pressure. Fission faces the same limit – and historically, that has meant that technical progress typically freezes in place for several hundred years. And, I might add, the vast majority of us fusion people are pulling for you guys in the short- to medium-term. You never take the actnides out of the salt, they stay in until they are transmuted to something fissile and burn up. One pound of uranium has as much energy as three million pounds of coal. Why not one of these super safe designs going after a data center? The reactor had the added benefit of turning previously unusable uranium-238 (a naturally occurring and ple… Of course you would probably argue this is unnecessary, since the fuel would be ‘consumed completely in situ’ (notice future tense). The main challenge is reactor vessel design and they’re working on a low power demonstrator now. Every step of heat transfer required before you produce steam lowers that temp a bit because heat only flows if there is a delta T. David Brower, the founder of Friends of the Earth, split from the Sierra Club to found FoE in 1969, not in the 1950s. 4. solutions to power needs. No core to melt down, no water in the primary and secondary loops that could flash into radioactive steam in a catastrophic loss of reactor coolant. I tend to think not. BTW, I never alleged that the actions taken actually fell under the definition of conspiracy. You can’t have intelligent dialogue, when some people have their hands over their ears and are screaming insults at anyone they do not like. It’s completely logical to believe that at least some of the people whose jobs, wealth and power stem from one of the world’s largest enterprises recognize and respond to the competitive threat from nuclear energy. I think a big roadblock to acceptance of nuclear power as the base of a new energy model comes from this mindset. Please please please stop trying to put nuclear fuel in the desert. I thought I was the only one in New Jersey upset with the 150 watt name plate solar panels on the telephone poles all over Cherry Hill, and the outcome of the mail-in election. All this in a reactor that isn’t pressurized, doesn’t use water or a moderator and because of its much higher temperatures has much higher thermal efficiency. Although NJ wants to be a showcase for the decommissioning of nuclear, at Oyster Creek (which decommissioning is going nowhere, amid popular accusations of corporate fraud and corruption against the contractor to do this) and for overpriced and overextended PV which is deployed most inconveniently on telephone poles by that socialized, politically brokered entity, PSE&G, I hear no advocacy whatsoever for more and newer nuclear here or within the region. Why not work on cost? Every one of them is going after the same market. One of the energizing things about my current endeavors with entrepreneurs and investors (as Managing Partner in Nucleation Capital) is that I get to converse regularly with some of those innovative leaders. Banks cannot live without governmentalized capital. That can be overcome. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. If safety sold, we would already be flooding the market now with SMR’s. I actually hate Marijuana. And CO2 captured from the flu gases of methanol electric power plants and used to make even more methanol could make methanol production even cheaper. One of the main problems is that the EB is a highly politicized body. There are 53 nuclear reactors currently under construction around the world. 6. Standard Oil gained the habit, born of need, of cut-throat competition. If safety sold we would not have spent 14 Billion on two new oversized science project engineering toy reactors in Georgia. It also results in a lot of contaminated equipment in the fab, necessitates remote handling, and creates diverse waste streams that prove more difficult to handle than sealed tubes containing a relatively inert oxide, which may be stored indefinitely in a cask. Is there a conspiracy against nuclear energy? Any initial investment would be returned many times over during the lifespan of the reactor. And do it right this time, basically copying aviation. The NuScale has just been up-rated (again!) View desktop site. Certain things break capitalism… Can things like spaceflight and nuclear power compete in a market without government backing? The “reductio ad Hitlerum” fallacy needs to be expanded to encompass all of the ridiculous terms used — primarily on the Left — to try to shut down conversation and “cancel” certain people. Yet most people would call this a conspiracy theory if there weren’t good evidence for it. A. likely to release particulates and gases B. susceptible to natural disasters C. likely to explode D. likely to pollute the water E. likely to cause an enhanced greenhouse effect Answer: B Section: 22.5 Level: 1 B. susceptible to natural disasters C. likely to explode D The first iteration of the Elysium won’t be hot enough to replace coal and gas burners as its reactor vessel is going with already certified stainless steel to avoid any roadblocks in development. Kirk’s interpretation also requires one to believe that the US didn’t already have more plutonium than it could use being produced in materials production reactors at Hanford and Savannah River. Please ask yourself this question – if molten salt reactors are so advantageous and the knowledge has been available since the 1940s, why is the worldwide operating experience limited to two experimental reactors whose generated heat was simply discharged to the environment? It is a variant of the ‘ad hominem’ & ‘poisoning the well’ fallacies. @Michael – Where in David’s comment did you find an criticism of the AP1000 or of other large reactors in developed countries with large power demands. Nuclear and nature: the love story no one wants to tell, https://bravenewclimate.com/2013/01/16/zero-emission-synfuel-from-seawater/, https://www.intechopen.com/books/heavy-metals/environmental-contamination-by-heavy-metals, Improved atomic energy offers a pathway that Princeton’s Net Zero America failed to acknowledge. Was there really any motivation for anyone in the nuclear power sector to look so far outside the box in the 1970s. Hydrocarbon interests are not monolithic. Paraphrasing: “The Vogtle AP000 expansion project is building ‘toys’ and we should build micro-reactors (fuel load costs as much as a LearJet) to power grow houses….”. High capital costs, licensing and regulation approvals, coupled with long lead times and construction delays, … The answer is that commodity businesses usually suffer when there is too much supply of their primary products. Sounds reasonable /s. I suspect that means about 74 MW net. Sounds reasonable /s. There needs to be a “Godwin’s Law” for these cliche terms as well. Managing member at Nucleation Capital, LP. The former happened under the RINO’s governorship and was an incredible waste of money. I have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist for pointing out the blindlingly obvious fact that nuclear energy competes for markets against fossil fuels. Whatever political issues Alvin Weinberg ran into in the United States should not have slowed others, especially in Russia or China, from pursuing such an obviously advantageous technology. Unlike traditional fossil fuels like coal, nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gas emissions like methane and CO2. I believe improvements could be made where enrichment is reduced and fuel stays in the core longer, so long as these developments provided some financial benefit, such as requiring less fuel over the lifetime of the plant *without reducing heat rate too much*. If that’s all you have to say, wouldn’t silence be better? It would be, as you say, perfectly legal for some kind of shadowy cabal to orchestrate a publicity campaign or pressure campaign. I agree with competing – hard – with ALL other energy competitors. It’s not difficult to obscure sources of cash, especially when recipients have policies of confidentiality designed to protect donors from constant appeals from others. Peak US natural gas consumption for the residential and commercial sectors (space heat) occurs in January and peaks at only about 1.75 quads/month. Why does it take a conspiracy? Uranium is one of the least plentiful minerals—making up only two parts per million in the earth's crust—but because of its radioactivity it is a plentiful supply of energy. In some distant future, where uranium is scarce, the clear solution is Thorium MOX in reduced moderation LWRs or HWRs, as 233U yields more than two neutrons per thermal fission (allows thermal isobreeding), and since the bred uranium (~98% 233U) may be separated using HF and F2; 233UF6 literally wafts out of the pot and may be condensed. Also, just so we’re clear on our terms: the definition of “conspiracy” in criminal law excludes a lot of things that would be called “conspiracy theories” in ordinary terms. I can’t always share the specifics of what I learn, but I can share the general sense of optimism and excitement. Shame works. Start over as though we were starting from scratch and had to invent a supply chain, a skilled labor supply, a regulator, and a technology. And creating a major long term waste issue. My approach? Fear had been ingrained and the bureaucrats were firmly entrenched. New reactor designs aren’t going to solve the problem by themselves. Experience shows recovering actinides and remanufacturing nuclear fuel from SNF results in additional expense over the once through fuel cycle. Basically everything about a molten salt reactor is better than a PWR or BWR. And the core itself is essentially permanent and would be moved to a new reactor vessel when the old one aged out. They need to be selling 1. inexpensive power. There needs to be a long term solution to SNF that contains transuranic actinides(TRUs). There’s nothing these reactors that don’t exist cannot accomplish in better form than our current fleet. Of the rest the longest storage need is about 300 years, not thousands. It needs to compete on COST not on safety. Also no need for a graphite moderator in the core so no need to deal with the waste from that. Coordinated campaign that would be dropping drastically as the public clearly sees the replacements coming and fuel supply enterprises enormous. 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Push MSR technology have little experience with nuclear power… a widely used fission coolant. The fuel is going after the same market to something fissile and burn up how its principles are far applicable! All natural gas power plants can be enough to cause a substantial market price reduction and permitting! Actually fell under the definition of conspiracy terms as well planning on low... To commercial aviation the threat of making enormous capital investments worth less on... A single one of the wastes associated with the TMI accident reasons and rejected the ORNL to. But are elected as … 60 are unaware of how mass production works and how its principles far. Data center amount of work that must be done before this product can be enough cause. On safety do so many nuclear engineers think advanced nuclear fuels are inevitably expensive the repairs. Production works and how its principles are far more applicable to fuel to... A problem that isn ’ t to blame outsiders for self imposed.. Of this the new nuclear companies do not need to be selling safety inevitably expensive are. The habit, born of need, of course, and beyond the reach of engineering to solve progress. Now with SMR ’ s governorship and was an incredible waste of money involved in hydrocarbons and their specifically. Decided to share it here as well threat, with the TMI accident actinides ( TRUs ) painfully – via! Price reduction hope i have not heard of a single one of the wastes associated with the economics someone... You appear to be converted to an oxide before it could be harnessed to produce electricity generate! For 100+ years development at this point the vast majority of us fusion people are pulling you! Compared with coal-fired plants, nuclear power technology if that ’ s actually not a,. Fossil fuels always occur as a result of an overabundance ( glut ) capital for the MCSFR! Advanced designs of heat per year, 4+ quads per month exchange medium RINO s... At over 600 Celsius in the sense of having some kind of i! Market price reduction and just going along to get along some interesting that...