Jack Devanney; CTX Press 2020

This book focuses on the Gordian knot of our time, the closely coupled problems of electricity poverty for billions of humans, and global warming for all humans. The central thesis of the book is that nuclear power is not only the only solution, it is a highly desirable solution, cheaper, safer, less intrusive on nature than all the alternatives.

Just about everybody, including most pro-nuclear folks, accept the fact that nuclear electricity is inherently expensive. Thanks to its remarkable energy density,
nuclear power is not inherently expensive. It is inherently cheap. This book argues that conventional nuclear power should cost less than three cents per kilowatt hour.

But nuclear power is expensive, prohibitively so in most parts of the planet. The reason why nuclear power is so expensive is a regulatory regime which by design is mandated to increase costs to the point where nuclear power is at least as expensive as coal. In such a system, any technological improvement which should lower cost simply provides regulators with more room to drive costs up. This same regime does an excellent job of stifling competition and technological progress by erecting multiple layers of barriers to entry.

Our goal is not just to make nuclear electricity as cheap as coal or gas fired electricity. The goal is to keep pushing the cost of nuclear power down and down, allowing us to replace fossil fuels almost everywhere. Imagine what we could do with 2 cents per kWh power in electrifying transportation and producing carbon neutral synfuels. This can only be done in a harshly competitive environment. We must force the providers of nuclear power to compete with everybody.

If nuclear power is to be allowed to cleave the Gordian knot of electricity poverty and global warming,then we must completely change the way we regulate nuclear electricity. This book makes the case for this change and outlines what the replacement system needs to look like.

The author is the Chief Designer for ThorCon which is developing a molten salt reactor based nuclear power plant. Although the book makes no mention of ThorCon, he has a horse in this race and an obvious conflict of interest.

dedicated to the solution of the closely coupled problems of energy poverty

The Gordian Knot Group

The Gordian Knot Group (GKG) is dedicated to the solution of the closely coupled problems of energy poverty for nearly 2 billion humans, and global warming for all of us. The Group produces studies related to this Gordian Knot. Anyone can view or print the papers with no obligation. In order to download the PDF files, we ask viewers to log in first.

The GKG has published a book titled Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop. It can be purchased from Amazon and elsewhere. You may also download the PDF from here for free by logging in.

A panel of five experts and an experienced moderator addressed the progress being made in creating effective processes to license advanced and non-LWR (light water reactors) at an ANS Winter 2022 panel session titled “Licensing the Future: How the NRC is Approaching Advanced Reactors.” Four out of five of the panelists were cautiously positive and provided descriptions of actions being taken and objectives that are still aspirational. //

Nordhaus then noted that the NRC staff had recently released a Part 53 draft for public comments. He described how the document is 1200 pages long, contains many prescriptive requirements that were cut and pasted from existing regulations, moves ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) directly into the regulation from its current status as the subject of Regulatory Guide 8.10, and adds qualitative health objectives that are firmly rooted in the linear, no-threshold dose model for radiation health effects.

A survey of advanced reactor developers showed that the overwhelming majority of them do not intend to use Part 53, opting instead for either Part 50 or Part 52.

Aside: Though Nordhaus did not mention it, there were numerous critical comments submitted after the draft Part 53 was released. According to Mo Shams’s presentation, the staff had been operating for some time under the belief that they could produce a final rule by 2024, but they have pushed their stretch goal to 2025 as a result of the need to resolve the large number of comments. By the NEIMA law, the agency still has a 2027 deadline. End Aside.

From his point of view, establishing a burdensome licensing process that is not optimized for efficiently reviewing reactor safety results in “down selecting not on best designs or best business plans.” Instead it chooses winners that have the “most patient investors with the deepest pockets or the greatest talent for rent seeking and getting various sorts of federal or government support.”

Nordhaus concluded his remarks by explaining why he and his organization are so passionate about creating an effective licensing process that is focused on enabling regulators that allow radioactive material to be used to protect public health and safety, protect the environment and contribute to the common defense and security of the United States.

Every reactor that we don’t build, license or commercialize increases public health burdens associated with the electrical system. Further results in higher CO2 emissions intensity. It adds to climate risks and also increases economic and geopolitical risks by failing to commercialize economically viable advanced reactors. The result of that is increasing US and global vulnerability to price volatility associated with coal, oil and gas.
-- Ted Nordhaus, the Breakthrough Institute, ANS Winter Nov 15, 2022

You can use this calculator to obtain the heating value of a given mass or volume of hydrogen or other fuels, or to calculate the mass or volume given a certain heating value. Choose whether you want to convert to heating value or to mass/volume, and then choose the fuel type. Then enter the value you want to convert and its units, and click Convert to initiate the conversion.

By the end of the year, Biden will have purged 275 million barrels of oil from the reserve, which has an authorized capacity of 714 million. According to the Department of Energy, the reserve now holds less than 400 million barrels of petroleum, marking its lowest level since 1984. The emergency petroleum reserve, established in the 1970s to prepare the U.S. for a sudden and severe disruption in supply such as a hurricane hampering gulf coast refineries, has been transformed into the president’s personal oil bank to cash in on for political capital. //

Pyle prescribed a legislative fix to the issue as the administration empties the petroleum reserve to save face as the midterms draw near.

“Congress needs to step in and put binders on the administration and make it very specific about what types of uses the releases are for,” Pyle said.

House Republicans have repeatedly sought to intervene. In June, Democrats blocked for the seventh time Republicans’ “American Energy Independence from Russia Act,” which would have placed restrictions on White House use of the emergency petroleum reserve. The legislation would require the president to submit an energy security plan within a month of tapping the emergency stockpile and require the energy secretary to develop plans for replenishment. //

Congressional Republicans tried to restock the oil reserve in the early months of 2020 when the industry was on the brink of collapse from Covid-19 lockdowns. At the time, oil prices had plummeted, and it could be purchased in bulk at a bargain. Democrats, however, obstructed the effort, and now the Biden administration is forced to deal with replenishing millions more barrels at a far higher price. When the Trump administration looked to refill the reserve, oil was trading at less than $24 per barrel. Today, Biden is facing prices between $67 and $72 per barrel, about three times as much as oil cost just two years ago.

When Al Gore, John Kerry and the New York Times gang up on someone, you know a political hit is on. That’s what happened last week to World Bank President David Malpass, for the sin of not turning the international lending institution into an arm of Democratic Party policy on climate change. //

The Journal points out that bringing third-world countries into the first world…

…requires energy, which today is still most efficiently and affordably provided by fossil fuels. Yet Mr. Kerry recently cautioned African leaders against investing in long-term natural gas production, as if they have an alternative if they want to develop.

This is an indulgence in a place like California, which is affluent enough to pay twice what its neighboring states do for energy. //

…it amounts to condemning countries in Africa and much of the developing world to more decades of poverty. //

Kerry may even be consigning poor countries to needless hunger from rising prices and perhaps a global shortage of natural gas for fertilizer. Climate monomania is easier to preach with a sea-side view from a bluff in Martha’s Vineyard than it is from a village with unreliable electricity in the Congo.

As the world is painfully learning, the technology doesn’t exist for a rapid transition to a world without fossil fuels. //

Lectures from Mr. Kerry are hard to take when he travels around the world by carbon-spewing private jet or government aircraft. As for Mr. Gore, he has been predicting climate doom for decades even as he invests in green energy backed by copious government subsidies. And what do they have to show for their decades of climate advocacy? They hold conferences and set unrealistic emissions targets. But the U.S. emissions reductions in recent decades are almost entirely the result of the expansion of natural gas production that the climate lobby wants to shut down.

Is there a way to say “Three Mile Island was scary, but perhaps overblown” without repeating condescendingly that nobody actually died? If so, Stone doesn’t know it. Is there a way to say, “Chernobyl was more a human error than a nuclear power error” without repeating with an implied sneer that no matter how many casualties it caused, it wasn’t as bad as you think it was? Dunno. Stone can’t resist the desire to both-sides his blaming for the political fight against nuclear power in the first place — conservatives are in the pocket of fossil fuel companies and liberals are easily scared hippies — nor to tear solar power and wind power to shreds, just for fun. Honestly, I have no objections to implications that low levels of nuclear radiation never hurt anybody and we should all be noshing on uranium rods like candy canes, but that’s the sort of suggestion — I made up the candy cane part — better delivered by a talking head with a medical degree than in affectless voiceover.

Actually, Stone’s voiceover isn’t affectless. It has the zealotry of a new convert, delivered with the same “I just had this explained to me in a meme!” combination of under-documentation and certainty you would expect from somebody arguing the long-term value of an ape NFT — not somebody telling you that if we don’t reduce emissions entirely by 2050 everybody will die.

In maybe the final 20 minutes, Nuclear finds a purpose. Stone talks to a number of intrepid American scientists and innovators who are trying to make inroads with SMRs — small modular reactors — and other evolutions of the technology. This is finally where Stone stops talking and starts listening, trying to illustrate the merits of what he’s being told. These pioneers are young, thoughtful and in desperate need of support from an energy community that needs its mind opened. Even if this segment of the documentary is a 20-minute commercial for both some small enterprises and some of the largest companies in the world, it feels worthy.

My instinct is that this closing section should be the film — 10-minute introduction and context, followed by 90 minutes of arguments looking to the future. My problem with Nuclear is less that it’s propaganda and more that it should have been better propaganda.

If California, our most populous state, was its own nation, it would rank as the world’s fifth largest economy and boast the highest average household income (outside a handful of “countries” like Monaco or Luxemburg). And, yet, the governor is begging its citizens to stop using their appliances, turn off their lights, and keep their thermostats at a stifling 78, lest they suffer more rolling blackouts, like some junior mandarin in a third-world country. //

California is following in the footsteps of Germany, which over the past ten years closed down most of its nuclear power plants and engaged in a national decarbonization of the economy — energiewende. When reality hit, Germany, and thus the rest of the EU, was compelled to start relying heavily on Russian natural gas as it struggled to transition. Then Russia attacked Ukraine. Rather than falling back on its world-class, environmentally friendly, forward-looking nuclear-energy program, the Germans must now contemplate rationing and historically high prices. If they can avoid this fate, it will only be because the industry has turned back to coal. //

Continued restrictions on reliable, relatively cheap, and portable energy are not only inconvenient, but they also damage growth and opportunity. Decarbonization is objectively immoral. //

Democrats are rigging the market to force you to buy a car that has a 200-mile reach and uses erratic and expensive energy when you already have increasingly efficient models in your driveway and tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of offshore fossil fuels here at home — and much more around the world. We have centuries’ worth of the stuff waiting in the ground. Which gives us enough time to come up with some better ideas. Because, sorry, transitioning away from modernity and into windmills, choo-choo trains, folding fans, and candles isn’t progress, it’s regression. And California is leading the way.

On Monday, about 47% of California’s electricity was generated by natural gas while 19% was produced by imports. Just 21% of electricity generated was produced by renewables, including solar and wind power.

The trend continued Wednesday with natural gas power far outpacing other power sources. (Emphasis mine.)

Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of energy group Power The Future, is not impressed:

This is a man-made energy failure and the blame lies squarely with President Biden, Gov. Newsom and every other proponent of this green failure. California is the poster child of the green movement and the state’s struggling families are paying the price.

Make no mistake, the lights will stay on in the governor’s mansion, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but not in working-class neighborhoods because those who pushed this failure always unplug from the consequences. California’s power failures are nothing less than pure insanity that should be shunned, instead President Biden wants to export them to every state. //

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
US House candidate, CA-03
It appears the only thing that staved off rolling blackouts yesterday was a frantic emergency text telling everyone to stop using power. This is not a sustainable strategy.
1:30 PM · Sep 7, 2022

Is it a coincidence that the people who said Western civilization was unsustainable are making it so?

Susan Shelley @Susan_Shelley
·
How's the electric grid doing in California? It's high noon, and renewables are only producing 32.4% of the state's electricity needs. State officials want to close the gas-powered plants that are currently providing 45.1% of the electricity that keeps the lights on.
3:06 PM · Sep 6, 2022 //

As of 2:50 p.m. Pacific Time, that figure is even more drastic, with natural gas dependence at 47.8 percent and renewable dependence at 29.1 percent.

As policymakers have shifted focus from pandemic challenges to economic recovery, infrastructure plans are once more being actively discussed, including those relating to energy. Green energy advocates are doubling down on pressure to continue, or even increase, the use of wind, solar power, and electric cars. Left out of the discussion is any serious consideration of the broad environmental and supply-chain implications of renewable energy.

As I explored in a previous paper, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,”[1] many enthusiasts believe things that are not possible when it comes to the physics of fueling society, not least the magical belief that “clean-tech” energy can echo the velocity of the progress of digital technologies. It cannot.

This paper turns to a different reality: all energy-producing machinery must be fabricated from materials extracted from the earth. No energy system, in short, is actually “renewable,” since all machines require the continual mining and processing of millions of tons of primary materials and the disposal of hardware that inevitably wears out. Compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.

This means that any significant expansion of today’s modest level of green energy—currently less than 4% of the country’s total consumption (versus 56% from oil and gas)—will create an unprecedented increase in global mining for needed minerals, radically exacerbate existing environmental and labor challenges in emerging markets (where many mines are located), and dramatically increase U.S. imports and the vulnerability of America’s energy supply chain.

As recently as 1990, the U.S. was the world’s number-one producer of minerals. Today, it is in seventh place. Even though the nation has vast mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars, America is now 100% dependent on imports for some 17 key minerals, and, for another 29, over half of domestic needs are imported.

Among the material realities of green energy:

• Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.

  • A single electric car contains more cobalt than 1,000 smartphone batteries; the blades on a single wind turbine have more plastic than 5 million smartphones; and a solar array that can power one data center uses more glass than 50 million phones.

  • Replacing hydrocarbons with green machines under current plans—never mind aspirations for far greater expansion—will vastly increase the mining of various critical minerals around the world. For example, a single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.

• Oil, natural gas, and coal are needed to produce the concrete, steel, plastics, and purified minerals used to build green machines. The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil.

• By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage. //

All machines wear out, and there is nothing actually renewable about green machines, since one must engage in continual extraction of materials to build new ones and replace those that wear out. All this requires mining, processing, transportation, and, ultimately, the disposing of millions of tons of materials, much of it functionally or economically unrecyclable. //

Over the past century, there have been two significant developments. First, the U.S. has not expanded domestic mining, and, in most cases, the country’s production of nearly all minerals has declined. Second, the demand for minerals has dramatically increased. These two intersecting trends have led to significant transformations in supply-chain dependencies. Imports today account for 100% of some 17 critical minerals, and, for 29 others, net imports account for more than half of demand. //

For a snapshot of what all this points to regarding the total materials footprint of the green energy path, consider the supply chain for an electric car battery. A single battery providing a useful driving range weighs about 1,000 pounds.[15] Providing the refined minerals needed to fabricate a single EV battery requires the mining, moving, and processing of more than 500,000 pounds of materials somewhere on the planet (see sidebar below).[16] That’s 20 times more than the 25,000 pounds of petroleum that an internal combustion engine uses over the life of a car.

“I just dissected the Inflation Reduction Act,” Mills said. “Frankly, IRA’s ‘clean energy’ provisions will make you spoil the Earth to save it.”

“I’m listening,” POTUS grumbled.

“I brought you my paper, “Mines, Minerals, and ‘Green’ Energy: A Reality Check.” [1]

“Intriguing,” POTUS mumbled, as he thumbed through its 19 pages and 127 footnotes.

Mills told POTUS that the solar panels, windmills, and electric vehicles that he and congressional Democrats crave would mean mining, refining, shipping, and dumping that would scar the planet but barely nick expected global warming.

“Compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a tenfold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy,” Mills said.

“Continue,” POTUS replied.

• “A lithium EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds,” Mills explained. “Such a battery typically contains about 25 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of cobalt, 60 pounds of nickel, 110 pounds of graphite, 90 pounds of copper, about 400 pounds of steel,” plus aluminum and plastic.

• These substances must be clawed from the earth, Mills noted. This battery’s components would be purified from 12.5 tons of lithium brines and ores of cobalt (15 tons), nickel (3 tons), graphite (a half ton), and copper (12.5 tons). Isolating those commodities involves excavating 250 more tons of dirt and rock.

• Dig, baby, dig: “The mining of cobalt for batteries will need to grow 300% [to] 800%,” Mills said. “Lithium production … will need to rise more than 2,000%,” he added. “The mining of indium … will need to increase as much as 8,000%.”

• That requires power. “The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil,” Mills said. POTUS’ eyes widened.

• Energy-efficient pipelines carry 75% of oil and 100% of natural gas. For green machines, Mills observed, “Using trucks instead of pipelines entails a 1,000% increase per ton-mile in the embodied transportation of energy materials.”

• When green machines die, “[n]early all of them will eventually show up in waste dumps,” Mills noted. A decommissioned 100-megawatt wind farm’s 20 turbines will pollute “fourfold more nonrecyclable plastic trash than all the world’s [recyclable] plastic straws combined. There are 1,000 times more wind turbines than that in the world today.”

Too bad these efforts barely tame global warming.

Copenhagen Consensus Center founder Bjorn Lomborg calculates that the Inflation Reduction Act would decrease expected global temperatures by 0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit to 0.028 degrees Fahrenheit in 2100. Imagine lowering a thermostat from 72 degrees Fahrenheit to 71.9991 degrees Fahrenheit or (best-case scenario) 71.972 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Come on, man!” POTUS snapped. “We have this under control.”

Mills tilted his head in curiosity. From the bottom desk drawer, POTUS pulled a footlong rod.

“This was carved from a chair leg at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, America’s birthplace,” POTUS whispered. “Watch this.”

POTUS stood at his desk and waved the stick over his head. “Presto!”

[1 https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check]

Legislature approves plan to give Diablo Canyon another five years. //

The heatwave itself is expected to be unusual in three ways: It's expected to last about a week, cover most of the West Coast and extend substantially inland to interior states, and it's coming in September, when temperatures usually start to moderate.

It's also coinciding with a 15 day watering ban in the LA area:
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... l-a-county

If there's also an earthquake and a forest fire I think they get a tsunami for free.

Il reste maintenant la question qui nous a amené ici : que se passe-t-il si on roule à 110km/h au lieu de 130km/h ? Cela correspond à une diminution de seulement 15% de la vitesse.

Mais on voit que pour les frottements aérodynamiques (la source principale de consommation), ce qui compte c’est le carré de la vitesse ! En utilisant une vitesse de 110km/h, on trouve une valeur de 42 MJ (au lieu de 60) pour le travail de cette force. Notre total de 72 MJ se trouve donc réduit à 54 MJ, soit une diminution de 25% de la dépense énergétique.

On voit donc que du fait que les frottements aérodynamiques (80% du total) dépendent du carré de la vitesse, une diminution de vitesse de 15% engendre une diminution de consommation de 25%. Évidemment, il faudrait un peu raffiner en regardant la façon dont le rendement du moteur dépend de l’allure, etc., mais une fois de plus ça donne l’ordre de grandeur qui nous permet de raisonner quantitativement.

Solar Panels surface area required to power the world:

how much surface area for solar panels vs. surface area of fossil fuel or nuclear power stations?

Energy costs are expected to rise 80 percent in the UK this winter. //

Cologne’s [Germany] magnificent cathedral — normally lit throughout the night — now goes dark over night. Public buildings, museums and other landmarks — such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin — will no longer be illuminated overnight either….
The southern city of Augsburg decided to turn off traffic lights.

Spain: Congress agreed to temperature limitations — air conditioning no cooler than 27 degrees Celsius, or nearly 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
After 10 p.m. shop windows and unoccupied public buildings won’t be lit.

Italy: Air conditioning in schools and public buildings has already been limited in what the government labeled “Operation Thermostat,” starting in May.
Italy is one of the European countries most reliant on Russian energy.

France: While roughly 70% of its energy comes from nuclear power, France has committed to cutting natural gas consumption as well.
Shopkeepers will now be fined for keeping doors open and air conditioning running, a common practice.
Illuminated signs will be banned between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. //

Russia meanwhile is so confident in its position that it’s burning an estimated $10 million in natural gas every day rather than sending it to the European Union. Putin’s antics have caused alarm among Europeans as they prepare for the annual cold spell that is not caused by global warming, but is actually caused by the tilt of our planet’s axis: //

Fox News host Tucker Carlson took notice, and came with his usual fire on his Monday show:

Last year, only about 6% of Germans used wood to heat their homes, but that has changed dramatically. Demand for firewood in Germany has risen so fast that there is none left to buy. You can’t get it, so desperate Germans are now cutting their own wood, scouring the forests like their ancestors for sources of heat. //

Europe is descending into poverty. Did you know that? Had someone told you that?

We have saved Europe over and over again, with our military forces in WWI and WWII, and with our financial might with the 1948’s Marshall Plan. I don’t have confidence that we can do it again.

Resistance to nuclear power is starting to ebb around the world with support from a surprising group: environmentalists.

The calculations show that a 100 percent renewable electricity grid is affordable. At current costs, it’s slightly more than 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The results also show that achieving 100 percent renewable energy using battery storage is significantly more expensive than using power-to-gas technology.

While the exact set of phenomena that unfold to release energy remains unclear, what was not debated at all was whether the potential to release heat was real. It clearly is, despite the extended difficulty scientists have had pinning down theory and practice. This issue seems entirely settled. Decades of work by hundreds of researchers reporting on their experiments and experiences of heat release “anomalies” have begun to provide a far more nuanced picture of the dynamics and the parametric guideposts that will eventually enable those studying them to narrow in on the controlling aspects. //

Given the potential value of this technology, it is no wonder that dozens of cash-strapped researchers and venture teams have soldiered on for decades. Now that ARPA-e has chosen to continue the work initiated by Google to identify a proof-of-concept design, there is new-found scientific integrity and rebranding to be done. There is also a greater awareness that what set cold fusion back and derailed early efforts was not scientific fraud but rather its far more complex sub-atomic transmutations, its multibody interactions combined with environmental factors such as temperature, pressure and light that varied by selection of component materials. These complexities still need to be sorted out but could potentially provide many viable options for sourcing and construction of systems and thus help to reduce manufacturing costs.