26 May 2012

Energy Security for the UK, Free of Emissions: It's Up To You!

This video compresses all the technicalities of LFTRs into the crucial advantages over PWRs and Fast Breeders: Safety - Minimal Waste - Affordability - Ease of Manufacture - Speed of Deployment:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkqbxYdadg&feature=player_embedded#!

ThoriumPetition.com is for people of the USA, but the UK also has the expertise and manufacturing capacity to produce factory-built LFTRs. We have 2 petitions going for manufacture of LFTRs in the UK, to give us growth in the manufacturing sector and prosperity we have not seen in 3 generations.


Please spend 20 minutes of your time on this video and then vote as quickly as you can for:

http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/2017457-uk-manufacture-of-liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactors?ref=title


and


 http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20095


10 May 2012

LCAs - You can't get a cigarette paper between LWRs and Wind Turbines!





Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization

The U.S. Department of Energy enlisted NREL to review and "harmonize" life cycle assessments of electricity generation technologies. Hundreds of assessments have been published, often with considerable variability in results. These variations in approach, while usually legitimate, hamper comparison across studies and pooling of published results.
By harmonizing this data, NREL seeks to reduce the uncertainty around estimates for environmental impacts of renewables and increase the value of the assessments to the policymaking and research communities:     http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sustain_lcah.html


Comparison of Harmonization Impacts on Pressurized Water Reactor and Boiling Water Reactor Technologies
Assuming consistent performance characteristics, the median LC GHG emissions estimates were nearly identical for PWR and BWR technologies after harmonization. The median life cycle GHG emission estimates for PWR and BWR technology types are 14 and 21 g CO2eq/kWh, respectively, as published, and 12 and 13 g CO2eq/kWh, respectively after harmonization.

Comparison of Harmonization Impacts on Onshore to Offshore Wind Technologies
The median published life cycle GHG emission estimates for onshore and offshore technology types are both 12 g CO2eq/kWh and 11 g CO2eq/kWh after harmonization. This similarity, combined with the tight distribution for both technology types, suggests that the two technology types may not have significantly different life cycle GHG emissions.

Comparison of Harmonization Impacts on Specific Photovoltaic Technologies
The median as-published life cycle GHG emissions estimate for c-Si PV is 57 g CO2eqkWh; the harmonized median is 45 g CO2eq/kWh. Harmonization reduced the IQR from 44-73 g CO2eq/kWh to 39-49 g CO2eq/kWh, a reduction of 62%. Additional analysis comparing mono-Si and multi-Si technologies, and ground-mounted with roof-mounted systems suggest that these system differences are not key factors in lifecycle GHG emissions from c-Si PV.

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You can run by a LFTR design, or for that matter GE Hitachi's PRISM reactor and know that they only involve a fraction of the material content of an LWR of equivalent power - and, by extension, assume that only a fraction of the energy of construction is used.