Boron nitride nanotube membrane creates power by controlling the flow of electrically charged ions in water //

By pumping the positive ions—like sodium or potassium—to the other side of a semipermeable membrane, researchers can create two pools of water: one with a positive charge, and one with a negative charge. If they then dunk electrodes in the pools and connect them with a wire, electrons will flow from the negatively charged to the positively charged side, generating electricity. //

In 2013, French researchers made just such a membrane. They used a ceramic film of silicon nitride—commonly used in industry for electronics, cutting tools, and other uses—pierced by a single pore lined with a boron nitride nanotube (BNNT), //

Because BNNTs are highly negatively charged, the French team suspected they would prevent negatively charged ions in water from passing through the membrane (because similar electric charges repel one another). Their hunch was right. They found that when a membrane with a single BNNT was placed between fresh- and saltwater, the positive ions zipped from the salty side to the fresh side, but the negatively charged ions were mostly blocked.

The charge imbalance between the two sides was so strong that the researchers estimated a single square meter of the membrane—packed with millions of pores per square centimeter—could generate about 30 megawatt hours per year. That’s enough to power more than 400 homes. //

But creating even postage stamp–size films has proved impossible, because no one has figured out how to make all of the long, thin BNNTs line up perpendicular to the membrane. Until now. //

When the researchers placed their membrane in a small vessel separating salt- and freshwater, it produced 8000 times more power per area than the previous French team’s BNNT experiment. That power boost, Shan says, is likely because the BNNTs they used are narrower, and thus do a better job of excluding negatively charged chloride ions.

And they suspect they can do even better.

The love of cheese is a hallmark of French culture, but there’s a French town that’s gone beyond cheese as a dietary staple and turned it into an energy production staple too. In the town of Albertville, France, a local cheese factory has turned the byproduct of cheese fermentation into energy.

Fluid Fuel Reactors
Edited by
JAMES A. LANE, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
H. G. MacPHERSON, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
FRANK MASLAN, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Copyright © 1958 by

ADDISON-WESLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
and assigned to the General Manager
of the United States Atomic Energy Commission

On 2018-11-16 (November 16 of 2018)
the U.S. Department of Energy
owner of Fluid Fuel Reactors copyright
granted Gordon James McDowell
nonexclusive license to republish
and prepare derivative works.

"Th" is a series of videos about thorium, molten salt reactors & nuclear energy. It exists as a YouTube playlist, which I update to always contain the freshest chapter iterations. "Th" is also an App for iPhone & iPad and Google Play App.

► Wondering what is thorium? Start here with a quick thorium summary: Increasing energy demand. The Challenge of intermittent power sources. Thorium's relationship to heavy rare earths. The energy density & abundance of thorium.

http://thoriumremix.com Today's nuclear reactors can not completely fission their uranium oxide fuel rods, nor fission the transuranics produced during power generation. This waste stream is examined, and compared to that of a Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (Th-MSR) in which solid fuel rods are avoided entirely.

In a molten salt reactor, transuranics are not created at all. And the fission products can be partitioned, thanks to the fuel being in liquid form. This avoids the challenge of fission poisons appearing inside the solid uranium oxide fuel rods.

Nuclear waste is only "waste" because it has not been separated. United State's 70,000 tonnes of nuclear waste is in a particularly difficult form for reprocessing... it is in solid form, trapped in fuel rods.

As today's nuclear industry looks to build more durable fuel rods (to withstand higher temperatures, xenon gas, and not react with water), the flip side is spent fuel will be trapped in tougher-and-tougher enclosures. This does not bode well for recycling. Instead, dissolving the fuel in molten salt offers both improved reactor safety AND easier recycling of fission products.

Why Nuclear Power Should Be Defended"
This speech was given in Los Angeles on March 15, 1980.

Dr. Beckmann's newsletter archives are available at:
http://www.accesstoenergy.com/
Since September 1993, AtE has been written by Arthur B. Robinson.

What happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima? What role did water coolant play in each one? Why do we use water as a coolant, given it has a liquid range of only 100 degrees Celsius?

Today's reactors, which are cooled by pressurized water, were viewed as a stop-gap technology until "breeder reactors" could be commercially deployed. Breeder reactors convert fertile material (such as Thorium) into fissile material (such as Uranium-233). It is not practical to operate a breeder reactor with water coolant, so a new coolant must be chosen. We examine two coolant options (from a field of many): liquid salt, and liquid sodium. What advantages do each have over water? Is one safer than the other?

It’s so strange to see otherwise caring environmentalists ignore climate scientists when it comes to climate change. The world’s top climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Tom Wigley, Dr. Ken Caldeira and Dr. Kerry Emanuel, have all urged world leaders and environmental campaigners to stop their unscientific and ideological attacks on nuclear energy and support its expansion.

Climate scientists have warned that the anti-nuclear position of environmental leaders is causing unnecessary and severe harm to the environment and to our planet’s future by prolonging carbon emissions. Even the Union of Concerned Scientists, admits we need nuclear to address global warming.

U.S. carbon emissions rose in 2018 by over 60 million tons of CO2. Closing six nuclear plants over the last few years, building new gas plants, increasing manufacturing and construction, and increasing gasoline/diesel/jet fuel demand are the reasons for this rise. //

Over the next 20 to 40 years, the Levelized Cost of Energy for an existing nuclear plant is only 3¢/kWh. For an existing gas plant the LCOE is 5¢/kWh, and for an existing coal plant it’s 4¢/kWh. The LCOE for a new gas plant is 7¢/kWh, for a new nuclear plant is 9¢/kWh, for a new coal plant is 10¢/kWh, and for new wind is 11¢/kWh. So prematurely closing any nuclear plant to be replaced by new anything makes no sense economically.

Operating an existing nuclear plant is much more cost-effective than even existing coal and gas plants, and much cheaper than installing any new power plant, even natural gas.

Natural gas stakeholders join renewable energy fans in striking preemptive blows against the Energy Department's much anticipated grid reliability study //

Energy Dept. Grid Study: Oil And Gas Vs. Coal And Nukes
API’s case of nerves over the forthcoming grid study has a simple explanation: API has the interests of its membership at heart, and drillers have a tremendous amount of interest in pushing coal and nuclear energy out of the power generation field in favor of natural gas.

The shale gas boom has put a world of hurt on some local communities but it has resulted in low prices. The industry consensus is that so far, natural gas is the driving force behind coal power plant closures.

Earlier this week API released a study of its own demonstrating that natural gas is a better match for today’s flexible power demands than either coal or nuclear energy. //

“Baseload is kind of a historical term. It’s not really relevant to how electricity is produced today…What you need is dispatchability… and [coal and nuclear] are far slower when you compare them to a lot of the technology natural gas plants have.” //

As for nuclear energy, so far atom power has not been a particular area of interest for President Trump

A tantalizing target for U.S. enemies. //

There are a lot of risks to public safety from this plan. //

On January 18, the Pentagon published a Request for Information on the feasibility of developing a portable nuclear reactor in support of a program known as “Project Dilithium.” The reactor is in response to a 2016 Defense Science Board report that found that fuel and water accounted for as much as 90 percent of supplies sent to outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which in turn exposed U.S. truck convoys to ambush (air-dropped fuel cost as much as $400 per gallon). //

The goal is to provide reliable electrical power to remote forward operating bases and during quick-response humanitarian missions. But the project also raises questions of nuclear security and keeping atomic materials from falling into the wrong hands. //

Noel Wauchope
a day ago
The article doesn't explain why it is "a horrible idea". Where's the rest of this story? //

Jim Laner
a day ago
There are Gen 4 fission (not fusion) nuclear generating technologies emerging that are low pressure, low waste, non-water-cooled, walk-away-safe, factory-built, and non-proliferative that are appropriate for the intended purpose stated by the Pentagon. The world ise about a decade away from their wide scale deployment. Their development is based on actual working prototypes developed at OaK Ridge National Labs. See: Molten Salt Reactor Experiment and do some research. NOT the same solid uranium fueled water cooled units as in today's commercial fleet technology.

Monrovia - Stakeholders in the Energy sector have met in Monrovia to validate the findings of off-grid solar market assessment in Liberia. The Meeting was a one-day meeting that brought together stakeholders in the energy sector specifically solar en //

Out of the 406 million residing in West Africa and the Sahel Region, it is estimated that 208 million inhabitants have no access to electricity, about 70 percent of whom live in rural areas.

The two plants deactivated in 2018 and 2019 generated more than 1,400 megawatts, enough power for more than 1 million homes. //

More nuclear power plant retirements may be on the horizon: PJM, the Pennsylvania-based coordinator of wholesale electricity in 13 states plus the District of Columbia, has already begun planning for the planned retirements of the dual-reactor, 1,813-megawatt Beaver Valley Power Station in Pennsylvania and the Davis–Besse and Perry nuclear power plants that together generate 2,143 megawatts in Ohio.

PJM’s grid, which covers Pennsylvania and New Jersey, had 183,454 megawatts of installed generating capacity available as of May 2019. The company puts the total capacity of the recently retired nuclear plants and the three planned for retirement at 5,387 megawatts, or about 3% of overall capacity. (PJM says its all-time highest power use was 165,563 megawatts in the summer of 2006.) //

The grid counts 11,415 megawatts of new natural gas-fired electricity generation coming online in 2018 and 2019 and an additional 10,514 megawatts from gas expected to go in-service in 2020 through 2023. Operators of those future plants have signed what are called interconnection service agreements with PJM.

"That's sort of a stage at which the projects are likely to get built," Shields said of the agreements.

All told, new gas, wind and solar plants are projected to add 29,097 megawatts to the grid, as 19,037 megawatts of capacity are lost from retired coal, gas and nuclear plants, PJM says. That's a net increase of more than 10,000 megawatts. //

PJM projections show that if all three nuclear plants planned for retirement in Pennsylvania and Ohio go offline, carbon dioxide emissions would rise by about 3.7% above 2019 levels. Other emissions, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, would drop, thanks to older fossil fuel plants shutting down. If those nuclear plants remain online and all or even half of the new gas plants open, all three pollutants would drop across PJM’s territory.

Mark Bailey
a month ago
As an engineer with over 40 years in electrical generation and distribution, including 7+ years actually working in a nuclear power station in the United States, I believe nuclear generation is absolutely essential for renewable energy to be viable. Of the technologies currently available, only nuclear and hydro power are dispatchable, i.e. predictable well in advance of need and not subject to unavoidable interruption. Until renewables solve the storage problem, any source that is not dispatchable requires back up or the willingness to tolerate outages over significant areas of the country. There is also the transport issue. Power lines are harder to get approved and cause more political heartburn than power plants. The move to non polluting sources will also require much more electrical energy to displace fossil fuel home and building heating, industrial thermal processes, and motor driven transportation. Nuclear plants produce more power per unit area occupied and do not cause large numbers of deaths to common and protected bird species.

Our president is a global warming denier, is anti-vaccine, and is a conspiracy theorist. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, being anti-science is never a good thing. When those in positions of power are ignorant of science and hostile to the institutions of science and the methods that those institutions espouse, that is a recipe for disaster. But even a stopped clock is correct twice a day. And even though there appears to be a significant asymmetry in the degree to which our two major political parties take anti-scientific positions, on some issues the political left has it wrong for their own ideological reasons. The two big anti-science issues popular on the left are anti-GMO stances and anti-nuclear energy. The latter was recently brought into sharp relief when Trump signed a, "Memorandum on the Effect of Uranium Imports on the National Security and Establishment of the United States Nuclear Fuel Working Group." //

Nuclear power is the safest form of energy we have, if you consider deaths per megawatt of energy produced.

Nuclear waste can be dealt with, and the newer reactors produce less waste, and can even theoretically burn reprocessed waste from older plants…

This is also the option most likely to succeed. We do have examples from other countries. Germany tried to go completely renewable and closed their nuclear plants, and now have to build coal-fired plants to meet their energy needs. Meanwhile, the countries that are doing the best with low carbon energy are France and Sweden, who invested heavily in nuclear. This is why Bernie’s plan would be a disaster, it would exactly follow the failed strategy of Germany, but on a larger scale.

Light it up //

The consensus among virtually every expert in this field, including scientists who are concerned about carbon emissions and climate change, is that we need more nuclear power (actually, a lot more) not less. And yet there was Warren, vowing to shut down every reactor in the country as quickly as possible. (Washington Examiner) //

You won’t find much of a better example than the one Novella mentions when he compares Germany and France. Germany eliminated their nuke plants entirely, promising to power the nation on wind and solar. They are now rushing to build coal plants because they can’t keep the lights on. France, on the other hand, has significantly increased its investment in nuclear energy and is currently building even more plants. They’re meeting their carbon emission goals and have electrical power to spare. //

Liberals continue to cling to old beliefs based on watching The China Syndrome too many times and summoning up images of Chernobyl and Fukushima. The fact is that when Three Mile Island melted down, it created a God awful mess inside the protective dome that’s still being cleaned up today. But at no time did radiation leak out of that plant in greater amounts than you’d get by spending a day walking around Denver airport.

Chernobyl blew up because the Russians were using a horrible, unsafe reactor design. We don’t build them that way. Fukushima was working fine until it got hit by a tsunami. Yes, you have to be careful and you have to be smart when planning a new nuclear plant. Don’t build them on fault lines or on the coast where the ocean may swamp them. But there are plenty of geologically stable locations where we could start construction.

Concerns about the storage of spent fuel rods are mostly a thing of the past. They were a terrible and valid concern with our earlier reactor models, but the technology has come a long way. //

Why aren’t we building more nuclear plants in America today? Partly because of the politics, but also because we have so heavily regulated the industry that utility companies can no longer afford all of the hoops they have to jump through. New nuke plants under the current regulatory scheme will never be profitable so the energy companies don’t even bother trying. There is a regulatory overhaul on the table that could resurrect the nuclear energy industry (read all about it here), but the usual list of suspects are fighting it tooth and claw.

When earlier this year Tesla’s Elon Musk said the company could soon have batteries lasting for over one million miles, many probably took it as yet another grand promise with less substance than realism requires. Now it seems Musk may have not been exaggerating. //

This second paper builds on that, it seems. It details a “moderate-energy-density lithium-ion pouch cell chemistry” that, according to the authors, should serve as a benchmark for other researchers. Those other researchers will probably appreciate it because “cells of this type should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) and last at least two decades in grid energy storage.” //

The paper is open to anyone interested in reading about how this new and improved battery works. Why? Because, as one former member of the Dalhousie University team told Wired, Tesla patented an even superior battery before the paper came out. The carmaker announced it had received a patent for a battery very similar to the one described in the paper, with team leader Jeff Dahn listed as one of its inventors.

An obscure technology from the past has the potential to change the world's future.

Estonia looks at small modular reactors to keep its energy independence //

Back in 2005 the technology was ready but there wasn’t a customer that was ready,” said Rita Baranwal, the U.S. Department of Energy’s top nuclear power official. “That’s part of the reason these concepts had been shelved.” //

Fermi has raised funds from local investors who see potential for the startup to run the reactor without state backing or financial aid from utilities. The country will need the extra source of power to meet more unreliable flows of electricity when Estonia and the rest of Baltic region synchronizes its grids with Europe instead of Russia from 2025.

But with northern and western neighbors in Germany, Denmark and Sweden replacing thermal plants with wind and solar generation, Baltic electricity flows could become more dependent on the weather. Small modular reactors are being designed to ensure power supply at those times when the sun doesn’t shine or the air is still. //

New demand from countries like Estonia is accelerating the American licensing process for the technology, the DOE’s Baranwal said in an interview. Testing of the first licensed units won’t begin until early next decade in the U.S., with commercialization only years later.

Meanwhile Estonia will have to depend on its oil plants, making up 85% of the nations power supply and making Estonians the European Union’s largest per-capita emitter after Luxembourg. With the price of carbon having more than tripled last year the country’s state-owned utility Esti Energia AS has had to put employees on forced leave due to rising costs.

Kallemets insists that modular reactors are worth the wait as building natural gas plants would make the nation dependent on Russian fuel and that wind turbines will never be able to fully cover demand on windless winter days when imports from rest of Europe are limited.

US politicians first came up with the idea of an oil stockpile in the early 1970s, after an oil embargo by Middle East nations caused prices to skyrocket around the world. Members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries - including Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia - refused to export oil to the US because it supported Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

The war lasted just three weeks in October that year. But the embargo - which also targeted other countries - lasted until March 1974, causing prices to quadruple worldwide from about $3 to nearly $12 per barrel.

Pictures of cars queuing up at petrol pumps in affected nations became some of the defining images of the crisis.

The US Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act in 1975. It established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the event of another major supply problem.
What is the reserve?

At present, there are four sites where oil is stored: near Freeport and Winnie in Texas, and outside Lake Charles and Baton Rouge in Louisiana.

Each site has several man-made salt caverns up to a kilometre (3,300ft) underground where the oil is stored. This is far cheaper than keeping it in tanks above ground, and safer - the chemical composition of the salt and the geological pressure prevents any oil from leaking out.

The largest site at Bryan Mound near Freeport has a storage capacity equivalent to 254 million barrels of oil.

The reserve's website says that on 13 September there were 644.8 million barrels of oil held in these caves

According to the US Energy Information Administration, Americans used 20.5 million barrels of petroleum a day on average in 2018 - meaning there's enough oil to keep the country going for about 31 days.