Carnival of Nuclear Energy 35

NEI Nuclear notes has the 35th Carnival of nuclear energy

Steve Aplin indicates why it is urgent for the western countries to develop clean cheap energy to not end up having expensive energy and expensive salaries, because competition will then put more pressure on salaries.

Energy from Thorium looks at a two articles about Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors including one by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir.

Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors has ten thousand time less nuclear actinides (nuclear waste)

The article about Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors including one by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir is here

Can LFTR power be cheaper than coal power?

Burning coal for power is the largest source of atmospheric CO2, which drives global warming. We seek alternatives such as burying CO2 or substituting wind, solar, and nuclear power. A source of energy cheaper than coal would dissuade nations from burning coal while affording them a ready supply of electric power.

Can a LFTR produce energy cheaper than is currently achievable by burning coal? Our target cost for energy cheaper than from coal is $0.03/kWh at a capital cost of $2/watt of generating capacity. Coal costs $40 per ton, contributing $0.02/kWh to electrical energy costs. Thorium is plentiful and inexpensive; one ton worth $300,000 can power a 1,000 megawatt LFTR for a year. Fuel costs for thorium would be only $0.00004/kWh.

The 2009 update of MIT’s Future of Nuclear Power shows that the capital cost of new coal plants is $2.30/watt, compared to LWRs at $4/watt. The median of five cost studies of large molten salt reactors from 1962 to 2002 is $1.98/watt, in 2009 dollars. Costs for scaled-down 100 MW reactors can be similarly low for a number of reasons

Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors Development status

A number of LFTR initiatives are currently active around the world. France supports theoretical work by two dozen scientists at Grenoble and elsewhere. The Czech Republic supports laboratory research in fuel processing at Rez, near Prague. Design for the FUJI molten salt reactor continues in Japan. Russia is modeling and testing components of a molten salt reactor designed to consume plutonium and actinides from PWR spent fuel, and LFTR studies are underway in Canada and the Netherlands. US R&D funding has been relatively insignificant, except for related studies of solid fuel, molten salt cooled reactors at UC Berkeley and Oak Ridge, which hosted a conference to share information on fluoride reactors in September 2010.

Developing LFTRs will require advances in high temperature materials for the reactor vessel, heat exchangers, and piping; chemistry for uranium and fission product separation; and power conversion systems. The International Generation IV Forum budgeted $1 billion over 8 years for molten salt reactor development. We recommend a high priority, 5-year national program to complete prototypes for the LFTR and the simpler DMSR. It may take an additional 5 years of industry participation to achieve capabilities for mass production. Since LFTR development requires chemical engineering expertise and liquid fuel technology is unfamiliar to most nuclear engineers today, nuclear engineering curricula would have to be modified to include exposure to such material. The technical challenges and risks that must be addressed in a prototype development project include control of salt container corrosion, recovery of tritium from neutron irradiated lithium salt, management of structural graphite shrinking and swelling, closed cycle turbine power conversion, and maintainability of chemical processing units for U-233 separation and fission product removal. Energy Secretary Chu expressed historical criticism of the technology in a letter to Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) answering questions at his confirmation hearings, “One significant drawback of the MSR technology is the corrosive effect of the molten salts on the structural materials used in the reactor vessel and heat exchangers; this issue results in the need to develop advanced corrosion-resistant structural materials and enhanced reactor coolant chemistry control systems”, and “From a non-proliferation standpoint, thorium-fueled reactors present a unique set of challenges because they convert thorium-232 into uranium-233 which is nearly as efficient as plutonium-239 as a weapons material.” He also recognized, however, that “Some potential features of a MSR include smaller reactor size relative to light water reactors due to the higher heat removal capabilities of the molten salts and the ability to simplify the fuel manufacturing process, since the fuel would be dissolved in the molten salt.”

Other hurdles to LFTR development may be the regulatory environment and the prospect of disruption to current practices in the nuclear industry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will need funding to train staff qualified to work with this technology. The nuclear industry and utilities will be shaken by this disruptive technology that changes whole fuel cycle of mining, enrichment, fuel rod fabrication, and refueling. Ultimately, the environmental and human development benefits will be achieved only when the cost of LFTR power really proves to be cheaper than from coal.

I contributed three articles:
A research institute in China recommends that China should ‘keep a clear head’ on nuclear power, concentrate more on Generation-III reactors and keep its new build ambitions for 2020 to around 100 GWe instead of 120 GWe.

How I see the world decarbonizing energy generation. 4 nuclear wedges by 2030. What would need to be 700 GW for a wedge in 2050 need only be 400-500 GW in 2030- longer time to avoid carbon.

All 58 of Electricité de France’s (EdF’s) nuclear power reactors are currently connected to the grid at the same time – for the first time in six years. 2010 production, at 408 TWh, was 5% up from 2009. In 2011 EdF is capable of producing 4200 MWe more on average in December and January than in 2009. An annual investment of around €3.5 billion ($4.5 billion) is needed for the modernization program to lift french nuclear generation to 460 TWH by 2014. Brazil orders 4 reactors.

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