Over the last decade, Michael and his colleagues have constructed a new paradigm that views prosperity, cheap energy and nuclear power as the keys to environmental progress. A book he co-wrote (with Ted Nordhaus) in 2007, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, was called by Wired magazine “the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” while Time Magazine called him a “hero of the environment.”

Molten Salt Reactor and origins

Over the last decade, Michael and his colleagues have constructed a new paradigm that views prosperity, cheap energy and nuclear power as the keys to environmental progress. A book he co-wrote (with Ted Nordhaus) in 2007, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism
to the Politics of Possibility, was called by Wired magazine “the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” while Time Magazine called him a “hero of the environment.”

History
Two-Fluid MSBR Core Designs
One-Fluid MSBR Chemical Processing
One-Fluid MSBR Core Designs
Denatured MSR Design Efforts

Molten salt mixtures were imagined for use in nuclear reactors by Eugene Wigner during the Manhattan Project. Successful use of uranium hexafluoride in the K-25 gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built confidence in the use of uranium in fluoride form, and in 1950 a mixture of fluoride salts in liquid form was proposed to solve some of the issues associated with the Aircraft Nuclear Program. A small, proof-of-principle liquid-fluoride reactor was built and operated in 1954 at Oak Ridge, and two years later under the encouragement of laboratory director Alvin Weinberg, a more significant examination began of liquid-fluoride reactors for electrical generation at terrestrial power stations. Weinberg also encouraged the examination of the thorium fuel cycle implemented in liquid fluoride reactors, and this work led to the construction and operation of the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge. The MSRE operated from 1965 to 1969, when it was shut down under the orders of Milton Shaw of the Atomic Energy Commission so as to free up additional funding for the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) program. The molten-salt program continued for another three years at Oak Ridge until it was cancelled in 1972 under Shaw’s orders.

12 January 2021

Agreements announced yesterday between NuScale Power and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to facilitate the development of a project to deploy small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) could lead to the placement of a first order for NuScale Power Modules in 2022.

Nuclear plants in the Netherlands require 570 times less land area than wind... and 370 times less land than solar. //

Nuclear plants in the UK require 2025 times less land than Wind... and 600 times less land than solar //

To power 16 lightbulbs per person in the UK, you would need either...

• 160 wind farms each of 100 square km
• 24 nuclear power plants of 2GW (1 sq km each)
• 3.5x Wales for biomass production (72,726 sq km)
• 8 solar plants of 2x greater London in the Sahara (plus power lines across Spain and France)
  -- David McKay

Princeton’s Net Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure and Impacts charts five challenging, tortuous, investment-intensive paths to “net-zero” by 2050. A presentation that contains 345 slides of text, colorful graphs and wide area maps provides details about the selected scenarios. The Princeton research team promises peer-reviewed journal articles in the near future.

According to sponsor organization promotional materials, the slide deck was released before the journal articles “in recognition of the urgency to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the need for immediate federal, state, and local policy making efforts.” There’s little doubt that the project sponsors and the authors have a strong policy-influence agenda.

All five chosen scenarios involve technology and infrastructure deployments “at historically unprecedented rates across most sectors.” They represent “expansive impacts on landscapes” that have not yet been planned in communities whose permission has not yet been obtained.
Overlooked path

The NZA study ignores a straight, wide, blazed trail. As documented in Goldstein and Qvist’s 2019 book titled A BRIGHT FUTURE: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, several major electricity grids have successfully eliminated coal and been nearly completely decarbonized.

In those grids–France, Sweden, and Ontario–a combination of nuclear power and hydroelectricity did the job. In each case, it took about two decades of sustained effort.

None of history’s successful decarbonization efforts required a complete reordering of the economy. The nuclear energy portion of the country- or providence-wide efforts that now provide reliable, abundant electricity from non-combustion sources that do not dump carbon dioxide to the environment did not result in “expansive impacts on landscapes.”
Electricity can do most of the work

Though electricity is only a part of total energy use, the Princeton study makes the reasonable assumption that decarbonized electricity grids can be expanded to supply the energy services needed to decarbonize most of the rest of the energy supply.

That same assumption continues to work if the electricity decarbonization path includes a successful effort to improve nuclear energy products and projects. Unlike wind and solar, atomic energy is a thermal energy source that can directly supply heat energy useful for industrial processes. Some of the electrification expansions that NZA assumes to be necessary to supply all energy demands might be accomplished more affordably with direct heat use.

In the spring of 1991, I began contemplating ways to combine the benefits of gas turbine power plants with the incredible advantages of nuclear fuels like uranium, plutonium and thorium.

That effort has continued sporadically for many years with many interesting impacts on my life. It was impetus for a small modular reactor start-up company that never gained sufficient traction. It has led to many fascinating conversations and more than a few close friendships.

I thought it would be worthwhile to share an updated version of a concept paper first published on the Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. web site in 1995.

The Hualong One is not only important in Beijing’s attempts to become less dependent on the West for energy security and critical technology, it is also very significant for President Xi Jinping’s environmental goal of making China carbon neutral by 2060

Published: 19 December 2018

The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) presented the linear no-threshold hypothesis (LNT) in 1956, which indicates that the lowest doses of ionizing radiation are hazardous in proportion to the dose. This spurious hypothesis was not based on solid data. NAS put forward the BEIR VII report in 2006 as evidence supporting LNT. The study described in the report used data of the Life Span Study (LSS) of A-bomb survivors. Estimation of exposure doses was based on initial radiation (5%) and neglected residual radiation (10%), leading to underestimation of the doses. Residual radiation mainly consisted of fallout that poured down onto the ground along with black rain. The black-rain-affected areas were wide. Not only A-bomb survivors but also not-in-the-city control subjects (NIC) must have been exposed to residual radiation to a greater or lesser degree. Use of NIC as negative controls constitutes a major failure in analyses of LSS. Another failure of LSS is its neglect of radiation adaptive responses which include low-dose stimulation of DNA damage repair, removal of aberrant cells via stimulated apoptosis, and elimination of cancer cells via stimulated anticancer immunity. LSS never incorporates consideration of this possibility. When LSS data of longevity are examined, a clear J-shaped dose-response, a hallmark of radiation hormesis, is apparent. Both A-bomb survivors and NIC showed longer than average lifespans. Average solid cancer death ratios of both A-bomb survivors and NIC were lower than the average for Japanese people, which is consistent with the occurrence of radiation adaptive responses (the bases for radiation hormesis), essentially invalidating the LNT model. Nevertheless, LNT has served as the basis of radiation regulation policy. If it were not for LNT, tremendous human, social, and economic losses would not have occurred in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident. For many reasons, LNT must be revised or abolished, with changes based not on policy but on science.

Dungeness B nuclear power station, which is in Dungeness nature reserve on the south coast, is home to numerous species and rare habitats. Visitors to this area will find Dungeness Bird Observatory in the shadow of the nuclear power station, and yet this same area is also popular with the Jack Snipe, Sandwich Tern, Peregrine Falcon, Black Redstart, Kittiwake and many more diverse and rare birds. ​Ecologists have found the​ Brown Carder Bee Bombus humilis​,​ a species​ that Buglife and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust get excited about​, ​within 0.5km ​of the power station.​ People also live happily next to the power plant. Despite what the RSPB claims will come to pass if Sizewell C is built, the area around Dungeness power plant is actually teeming with life.

Why is wildlife around nuclear power stations actually thriving?

One reason is that these sites often lead to habitat creation and increased protection, for example reptile mitigation strategies at Sizewell C when it goes ahead. I spoke to independent wildlife consultant Jonathan Cranfield about this. “Nuclear power comes with plenty of room for biodiversity, semi natural habitats and wildlife,” he told me. “The construction of Sizewell C offers significant opportunities for rewilding, habitat creation and management. It’s vital for local biodiversity gains, as it brings with it extensive ecological monitoring, plus clean and reliable power for millions of people. Several power stations around the country are in fact places that rare birds like peregrines call home.” //

On its website the RSPB states that: “our campaigning is underpinned by expert analysis, practical demonstration and conservation delivery — but we campaign as vigorously as we always did to ensure the next generation can enjoy wildlife as we do.” However, their stance on nuclear power shows the opposite to be true.

Just last year the RSPB approved a gas power station on its Saltholme reserve, 100 metres from a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Stockton. The charity appears to support gas, while opposing 30 energy projects in the UK, including onshore and offshore wind, wave and tidal projects, carbon capture storage (CCS) and nuclear.

As the planet warms, we will lose more and more species, many of them birds, unless we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions rapidly. We cannot do this without new nuclear.

Evidence shows that nuclear is much safer than the alternatives that we currently depend upon. The Sizewell B nuclear plant, which I visited this summer for a swim, is a beautiful place that is surrounded by wildlife. It’s rare that we hear the success stories of nuclear and nature, but consider the story of the manatees in Florida that benefited from the warm water around the Crystal River nuclear plant so significantly that when the plant was decommissioned marine biologists worried that the numbers of manatees would decrease.

I have come to accept that my previous advocating for 100% renewables (something that The Green Party, which I am no longer a member of, still does) is not based on science. Germany has invested heavily in renewable technologies while phasing out its nuclear plants, but research has found that it will have the EU’s fourth most carbon intensive electricity grid by 2030. If their energy experiment had succeeded, I’d be advocating for it.

There is abundant evidence showing how hydrocarbon interests have worked to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear power. Since the stories are spread over the 80 year period since atomic fission was discovered to be an incredibly dense source of heat, they can be overlooked or forgotten. For obvious reasons, there has been some effort to obscure the truth so researchers have to dig and keep working to get attention for their findings.

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.

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. Buying friends among groups that campaign for wildlife or for environmental protection is an investment that can provide major returns when it protects hydrocarbon markets from nuclear energy competition. //

Even though industrial civilization depends on energy and fuel supply enterprises are enormous, PROFITS from the business are elusive. It is well known to be a “boom and bust” business. Busts nearly always occur as a result of an overabundance (glut). When supplies exceed demand by just a few percentage points, it doesn’t take long for storage systems to fill up.

When that happens, prices fall precipitously.

Anticipation of a glut from new sources of supply can be enough to cause a substantial market price reduction. Conversely, anticipation of future shortages can produce almost unbelievable cash flows as prices rise when customers build inventories in fear of insufficient supplies.

Nuclear energy continues to pose the threat of making enormous capital investments worth less. When a entire countries like France or Sweden can shift almost all electricity production from coal and oil to nuclear over a 15 year period, it makes bankers, fossil fuel CEOs, sheiks, oligarchs, prime ministers, and others take action to prevent the possibility that others will “get it.”

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.

Ocean waves that grow especially tall a few times during the year, rumbling against the California coast and offering a glimpse into future sea level rise and a reshaping shoreline, according to state coastal regulators.

Those tides rolled up to San Onofre last weekend, where a sea wall stands to protect what nearby communities fear is a man-made disaster in waiting: the decommissioned but still radioactive San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

Explore NuScale's research facilities in a new video.
NuScale's plant design uses an updated, smaller, modular pressurized water reactor.
Researchers study scenarios and working models to identify and mitigate risks.

Today, shortly after giving expert testimony to Congress about energy policy, I had the startling experience of being smeared by sitting members of the United States House of Representatives.

The context was a special House Committee hearing to evaluate a Democratic proposal similar to the one proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, which would spend $2 trillion over four years on renewables and other climate programs.

Congressional interest in my testimony stems in part from the fact that I advocated for a Democratic energy proposal very similar to Biden’s between 2002 and 2009. Back then, the Obama administration justified the $90 billion it was spending on renewables as an economic stimulus, just as Biden’s campaign is doing today.

But then, late in the hearing, Representatives Sean Casten of Illinois and Jared Huffman of California, both Democrats, used the whole of their allotted time to claim that I am not a real environmentalist, that I am not a qualified expert, and that I am motivated by money.

Had I been given a chance to respond, I would have noted that: I have been a climate activist for 20 years; my new book, Apocalypse Never, has received strong praise from leading environmental scientists and scholars; the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently invited me to serve as an expert reviewer; and that I have always been financially independent of industry interests.

But I wasn’t given the chance to say any of that. After Casten and Huffman lied about me, Rep. Garret Graves asked the committee’s chairperson, Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida, to let me respond. She refused and abruptly ended the hearing.

What, exactly, had I said that was so dangerous as to lead Democrats to engage in character assassination and undermine liberal democratic norms? Nothing I hadn’t already said last January when I testified before Congress about climate change and energy.

Back then, I testified that climate change is real but isn’t the end of the world nor even our most important environmental problem. I pointed to the inherent physical reasons renewables can’t power a high energy industrial civilization. And I noted that cheap and abundant natural gas and nuclear, not industrial solar and wind, have been the big drivers of emissions reductions.

I further made the case that climate change was distracting us from a far greater and more urgent threat, which is the global domination of nuclear energy by China and Russia, which could be disastrous for US interests and the future of liberalism and democracy around the world.

Nations that partner with Russia or China to build nuclear plants are effectively absorbed into their sphere of influence. The line between soft power and hard power runs through nuclear energy. On the one side is cheap and clean electricity. On the other, a stepping stone to a weapons program.

During today’s hearing, several Democratic members claimed that renewables today are cheaper than existing grid electricity. But if that were true, I replied, why do solar and wind developers require hundreds of billions of dollars from American taxpayers in the form of subsidies?

The Democrats are basing their climate agenda on what California did. But California’s electricity rates since 2011 rose six times more than they did in the rest of the US, thanks mainly to the deployment of renewables and the infrastructure they require, such as transmission lines.

ThorCon is a thermal spectrum, graphite moderated, molten fluoride fuel salt reactor. ThorCon implements a fully passive approach for Control (reactivity excursions and physics-based passive shutdown), Cool (decay heat removal) and Contain (radioactive material containment) to safely and economically handle possible casualty scenarios. As the molten fluoride fuel salt circulates, it continuously evolves as transmutations, fission product generation, structural material constituents dissolution, salt ingress into graphite pores, off-gassing, precipitation of insoluble species, temperature cycling, etc., occur. ThorCon fuel’s performance is, therefore, a function its current nuclear, chemical, and physical properties and fortunately, dynamic chemical equilibrium is achieved rapidly due to the high operating temperature effect on the kinetic processes. An adequate database of fuel salt property variances with temperature and composition is highly desirable. Measurements of fuel salt properties via sensors, even noncontinuous, will provide near real-time information on the physical and chemical state of the working fluid. Demonstration of the bounding values of the fluoride salt chemistry to include fission product solubility limits and purified salt acceptable impurity levels, facilitates reactor design for safe and economic operations. Similarly, measurements of the fuel salt oxidation state (represented in the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment as the ratio of U+4 to U+3 ions); and heat transfer parameters such viscosity, density, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity, and their rates of change (temperature and composition) are coveted.

A company racing to be among the first to operate a small nuclear reactor in the United States received a vote of confidence from the federal government Friday after encountering recent roadblocks.

The Energy Department approved a $1.4 billion grant to help defray costs for a group of utilities that are the first in line to buy power from the reactors produced by NuScale Power.

In this fray are two entrepreneurs with an updated design for a molten salt fast reactor (MSFR). They are Carl Perez and Ed Pheil, joint owners of Elysium Technologies USA.

Price is one of the big selling points, according to Perez and Pheil. Their 1,200 MWe reactor won’t be pressurized, but it will operate at high temperatures, cutting back dramatically on the balance of plant costs like a containment structure and fuel.

Additionally, and possibly the deciding selling factor, because it will be a fast reactor with a molten fuel, it will be able to use nuclear waste as a fuel and burn it up over time. A fast reactor has an unslowed neutron flux and needs no moderator, like the water in light water reactors.

According to Pheil and Perez, these are the principal selling points of their molten chloride salt fast reactor (MCSFR):

· Fueled with nuclear waste from weapons and other reactors

· Air cooling

· Process heat

· No downtime to fuel

· Lower reactor, fuel, and balance of plant costs

· Doesn’t have to be near a large water source

· A potential source of hydrogen generation at reasonable cost

Initial funding of just $7 million came from visionary angel investors. Now, Perez told me, Elysium’s next round of funding will enable the engineering and licensing of a small, 10MWt demonstration plant, the size determined by Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules.

Design work on neutronics and fuel production has been carried out at Argonne National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory with GAIN (Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear) funding from the DOE

How nuclear stacks up against other energy sources in terms of life-cycle emissions. IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change

This shows that despite the long list of stages at which greenhouse gases are emitted, and based on what researchers have been able to take into account so far, the overall life-cycle emissions for nuclear power are likely to be lower than for fossil fuels.

Nuclear power is sometimes described as being free of greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s true of the nuclear fission reactions themselves. But here is a list of all the stages of the nuclear power cycle at which greenhouse gases are emitted: uranium mining, uranium milling, conversion of uranium ore to uranium hexafluoride, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor construction, reactor decommissioning, fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste disposal, mine site rehabilitation, and transport throughout all stages.

During these stages, greenhouse gases are emitted directly (for instance, by trucks) but also indirectly (such as through the use of materials such as steel and cement, which are manufactured using emissions-intensive processes). //

Quantifying all these emissions is a complicated prospect, but we can attempt to do it using a method called “life-cycle assessment”. The result of one such estimate (with which I agree) is quoted in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (see pages 731-2).

http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch09.pdf //

My review of various estimates suggests that the greenhouse emissions from nuclear power vary from 10 to 130 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of power, with an average of 65 g per kWh – or roughly the same as wind power. For comparison, coal power has emissions of about 900 g per kWh, and gas-fired power about 450 g per kWh. About 15-25% of nuclear’s greenhouse emissions come from building, maintaining and decommissioning the nuclear power plant.