En Route To Building The First-Of A Kind LFTR In The UK!

PRISM is not the only reactor that 
can 'burn' our 
plutonium

stockpile.

What a chance this would be to get some molten salt reactor experience. We could scale up the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE), operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) from 1964 to 1969, under the Directorship of a true doyen of nuclear energy, Alvin Weinberg. In the last few months of operation, the feasibility of 'burning' plutonium, as a fuel in the reactor core, was put to the test.


For a pittance of a Government investment, we could get this operationally proven technology up and running in 5 years - after all, in 5 years from funding approval, the MSRE was designed, manufactured and 'switched on', in the days of slide-rules, tee-squares, protractors and compasses - what could we do now, with CAD/CAM and 3D computer modelling and planning?




Has Paul Howarth, The Director of the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), charged with assessing the likely effectiveness of GE Hitachi's PRISM, got the vision and the guts to at least mention this to Ed Davey as a possible alternative?  


This hot salt reactor plant is just 'glorified' chemical plant and the UK has the design and technological expertise and manufacturing capacity to produce this reactor in its entirety. If we could get a couple of years of operational experience on a plutonium 'burning' unit, we'd be within a shout of getting the first-of-a-kind Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) built and, for the UK, this would mean manufacturing jobs, growth and prosperity we have not seen in 3 generations; plus, as a little aside, operators could halve the price of electricity to domestic and industrial users and still make a handsome profit - because you get twice as much bang for your bucks from a LFTR 'fired' power station.

'In Our Time' and Tom Morris - Where are you, when you're needed most?

I stumbled across this old 'plea' of mine from 10 months ago, trying to get Tom Morris to 'do' the story of Wigner, Weinberg and MSRs. I believe now, as I did then, that an IOT programme in which Melvyn Bragg could describe and develop 'the saddest accident of history' would make one of the most memorable IOT programmes ever; it would reveal facts of 20th Century history never previously presented to BBC listeners (or viewers).

Dear Tom Morris,

Suggestions for future In Our Time Programmes.

May I suggest a subject which is paradoxical in the extreme? I speak of a 50 year old, proven technology which can solve many of the worst problems facing humankind, including the cessation of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses emissions and mitigation of population growth.

Experimentation into this technology in the USA, in the early 1950s, revealed that it was militarily ineffective and thereafter, research and development was done on shoestring financing, with low-key attention to the enormity of the potential benefits in the civilian sphere. Even though operational units were producing results which gave rise to great optimism, all work ceased in the early 70’s and all that remained was a paper archive, recording what had been achieved and what the future could hold.

This paper goldmine gathered dust for 30 years, when it was unearthed by an Indiana Jones figure, who poured over every word and discovered a story of political/military in-fighting. The winners went on to give us the world we have today and the losers lost the opportunity to have prevented the past 50 years of escalating greenhouse gasses emissions.

Within the past month, the Chinese have announced their intentions to pursue this technology through a programme of manufacture, and claim all of the associated intellectual property. In the UK, the economics of meeting our future energy needs and carbon targets by using this technology, could be so compelling that we might well be importing Chinese-made units by the container ship full, within a couple of decades.

I’m absolutely convinced this subject would be a perfect topic for In Our Time, with Kirk (Indiana) Sorensen being able to describe the rediscovery of the work done by Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and their dedication to the promotion of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).

With sufficient thorium available to fuel the energy needs of everyone on the planet for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years, at developed-world standards, LFTRs effectively give us all of the benefits of energy from fusion now. The effect LFTRs can have on the future of humankind is immeasurable and hardly anyone knows about it. In Our Time revelations would go a long way to remedying this.

Regards,

Colin Megson.

Martin Durkin - We Need You! Tell the Story of Alvin Weinberg and LFTRs

http://www.martindurkin.com/webform/contact

This is my email to Martin Durkin on 11 November 2011. So far, it has gone unanswered. 

Dear Mr. Durkin,

I am a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) advocate and host the only UK Blog on the topic "LFTRs to Power the Planet":  http://lftrsuk.blogspot.com/

The history of this uniquely safe and affordable nuclear power-generating reactor is a Greek Tragedy because, had it been deployed 40 years ago when the technology was 90% proven on an operating reactor, the world would not be in the polluted mess it is now. Since LFTRs can be used for the manufacture of liquid fuels, Peak Oil would still be in the distant future as hydrocarbons would only have been used for the stuff we need and not just burned for energy. 

Instead, it was side-lined in favour of the Light Water Reactor (LWR) which produced plutonium for bombs; Three Mile Island was a Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) plant, which is a one version of a LWR and Fukushima had the other version, a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR).

The story which needs to be told is that of Alvin Weinberg, under who's Directorship, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was conducted; this operating reactor produced power from 1965 to 1969 and the design is the basis for what we now call the LFTR.

After working on the Manhattan Project, Weinberg joined forces with Admiral Rickover in designing a nuclear propulsion reactor for the Nautilus Class Submarines and it is he who invented and patented the LWR. However, when LWRs were being considered for civil power generation, Weinberg predicted the loss-of-coolant/meltdown accidents (since witnessed at Three Mile Island and Fukushima) and railed against their use. Instead, Weinberg championed the intrinsically safe Molten Salt Reactor (MSR - now LFTR) and for his troubles, in 1972 he was asked to resign from his pursuit of further MSR development at ORNL, by a Congressman in the LWR camp.

Worldwide deployment of low-cost, modular LFTRs, capable of being transported on flat-bed vehicles and container-ships are affordable by the developing world. LFTRs can supply all of the energy requirements of every individual on the planet (at developed world standards), for hundreds of thousands of years, from the near inexhaustible resources of thorium fuel. Thorium is so energy dense that the ground under your feet can supply energy more cheaply than any other fuel - Weinberg described it as "mining the rocks..."

There is no other form of energy supply that is less environmentally destructive and capable of worldwide deployment. We have to dream that the raising of the standard of living of the most deprived and deserving will solve many of the worst problems facing humankind.

This 40 year stasis of a solution to the world's energy woes has brought us to turbulent times of great inequality; if this is not the saddest 'Accident of History', I don't know what is.

Would you consider telling the story, in your much-admired fashion?

Regards,

Colin Megson.

Dylan Ryan of Glasgow, Age 32. Speaks English, and writes it very verbosely indeed.

Read the first paragraph of the 1200 word introduction to his blog ‘daryanenergyblog’ and he seems quite a reasonable chap. Obviously ‘daryan12’ self-described as: Engineer, expertise: Energy, Sustainability, Computer Aided Engineering, Renewables technology is going to answer his rhetorical question: “how do we continue to meet the worlds insatiable desire for energy?”

Read a little bit of the 3300 words of ‘Nuclear Reality Check – Chapter 2’ and there’s no doubt the vitriol, ridicule and selective ‘facts’ and opinions are the characteristic utterances of a typical anti-nuclear campaigner. Read a bit of the 7100 words of ‘Nuclear Reality Check – Chapter 3’ and you get the lot! What this guy doesn’t know about the nuclear industry – what it’s doing and where it’s going – isn’t worth knowing.

Part 8 – The Molten Salt Reactor concept: in 9100 words, Dylan debunks 18 years of work, by Alvin Weinberg and his team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Just a reminder: Alvin Weinberg was a protégée of Nobel Laureate, Eugene Wigner, when they worked together on the Manhattan project. Weinberg won the Enrico Fermi Award in 1980; the Citation reads: In recognition of his pioneering contributions to reactor theory, design, and systems; for untiring work to make nuclear energy serve the public good, both safely and economically; for inspiring leadership of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and for wise counsel to the executive and legislative branches of the government.

The MSR debunker’s level of expertise: What a howler - but you can see how it came about! When the thrill of debunking gets ahead of your brain, it’s easy to put his interpretation of the Wikipedia diagram as the operating fluid of the (Brayton) turbine being ‘a mixture of molten salt and fluoride fuel’ – because it’s yellow (like the core salt in the diagram). From this howler, he concludes by telling the world that the turbine will cost more than the reactor.

But, debunker-extraordinaire, this is how it really works: the (primary circuit) core salt passes heat to a coolant salt, via a low-pressure salt/salt heat exchanger; this non-radioactive (secondary circuit) coolant salt exits the primary containment and passes heat to a high pressure helium gas, via a salt/gas heat exchanger, and it is the helium which drives a closed cycle Brayton gas turbine.

The 3000 word ‘Part 11 – Summary and Conclusions is well worth suffering, as the excitement builds up in anticipation of the sagacious answer to the question posed at the very beginning. In the penultimate paragraph, the question has decayed (excuse the nuclear pun) to: “can renewables close the gap?” and further: “Can we seriously power the world without (neither) fossil fuels nor nuclear power?”

And his answer is – wait for it – wait for it: “I’m going to take the coward’s way out and answer that I honestly don’t know! The answer to that question depends entire on the context in which one asks it (I’m planning a future article where I will tease this one out).” What does that mean? Can’t wait to find out the answer, you little tease you! Only kidding – I don’t intend to read another word of your expert comment!

PS: thanks for the links to ‘LFTRs to Power the Planet’. Any chance you could add your vote to ‘UK manufacture of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors’ on ‘38 Degrees’? We’re down to 86^th now.