Oliver Tickell - A Semi-Informed, Strong, Unshakable, Renewables Advocate.

This is the 'Briefing' document authored by Oliver Tickell, April/May 2012.     Thorium: Not ‘green’, not ‘viable’, and not likely


This is a facebook  comment, by a staunch LFTR enthusiast, whose sagacity on matters scientific and, in particular, nuclear is evident from every utterance:   


Robert Steinhaus 

Thorium (dis)information - (Semi-informed Thorium hit-piece from a strong, unshakable, renewables only point of view).

The report is semi-informed, and raises many challenges, economic and technical, to Thorium molten salt technology. While most (all) of the disinformation could be rebutted by a skillfull informed advocate , it would require a fairly lengthly document/presentation to do so. As it stands, all of the document's many claims based on half-informed disinformation and untruths serve to "muddy the water" and introduce fear and uncertainty into public discussion of future nuclear energy planning.

You could try to do a point by point rebuttle of all of the false claims but I am not sure the public would want to read that. Maybe combining a point by point rebuttle document with a public debate might be more effective at dispelling this misinformation.




This is a Claverton Energy piece, and it is obvious that, editorially, they are also vehemently opposed to nuclear energy:     Claverton Energy Article


This is a comment I tried to tack on to the Claverton Energy piece, but it seems to be in suspended animation, awaiting moderation (I fear it will never see the light of day):  


This Briefing just can't get away from continually mentioning the benefits of LFTRs over 'conventional' nuclear - that's PWRs for all of the soon-to-be 'New Nuclear'.

There is tacit acknowledgement of explosion-free operation, impossibility of core meltdowns and minuscule amounts of waste, which decays to background radiation levels in 300 years. Now don't these three benefits pull the rugs from under the vitriolic anti-nukes? And, wouldn't these same facts quell the very doubts, among the public at large, that hold back widespread acceptance of nuclear energy?

In a world of declining hydrocarbon resources, where developing nations will fight (let us hope diplomatically) to improve their standards of living (meaning energy use) and developed nations will fight (ditto) to maintain or improve their standard of living (ditto), it is imbecilic to believe that a spaghetti-like interconnection of windmills and squares of plastic will maintain peace, stability and law and order.

Such conditions could be rushing headlong towards the children of today's young parents. The decision makers of that generation need to appreciate that, in simple arithmetic terms, it is possible for breeder reactors to supply all of the energy needs (including carbon-neutral liquid fuels and ammonia - as feed stock for nitrate fertilisers to feed 9 billion) of every individual on the planet (at developed world standards), until the end of time (from inexhaustible sources of thorium and uranium fuels).

The only conclusion those decision makers will need to reach is - will those reactors be LMFBRs or MSBRs?    Breeder Reactors it is - but will it be---Fast or----Thermal?

David Cameron Could Halve The Price Of Electricity

"The Greenest Government Ever"

Will I get a reply?

I'll let you know!

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

This is JAPAN we're talking about!

Japanese nuclear fuel cycle under review

18 April 2012
Japan is evaluating a wide range of nuclear fuel cycle options as part of the larger reviewof the future role of nuclear power within energy policy, a government minister told the annual meeting of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum.

".....Five options are being considered, one scenario involving direct disposal of light-water reactor fuel after use, two scenarios where this is reprocessed and with fuel materials recycled as mixed-oxide fuel. Two more scenarios look at the use of fast reactors and fast breeder reactors....."

".....This review will quantify the amount of plutonium and used fuel generated by each option as well as looking at broader impacts such as energy security, the international perspective, and the impacts of the changes resulting from each of the potential policies.


Separately Japan is reviewing its Basic Energy Policy, which may recommend nuclear's contribution to electricity be targeted at either 0%, 20%, 26% or 36% for the medium term....."


--------------------------------------//-------------------------------------


Now I'm a betting man and:   Japan - the need for energy security - breeder reactors - 36% nuclear contribution - all go hand-in-hand.

I can forsee where the politics is going:  persuing energy security; the imperitive of keeping the lights on for the Japanese 'way of life'; the clamour for an emission-free electricity supply; the demonstration of dumping PWR and BWR technologies because of their safety frailties - all nicely leading into a programme of deployment of inherently safe, fast breeder reactors, with enough 'home-made' fuel to power Japan for a century or two!

Any one prepared to give me any decent odds on this 'outsider'?

THE ENERGY REVOLUTION - LA GUILLOTINE FOR HYDROCARBON ENERGY

The Tumbrel takes Energy from Coal, Gas, Oil 
and PWR Reactor to their Deaths.
Public Funds for  Wind, Solar PV and 
Other Renewables are aboard.

The wheels of the Tumbrel grind into motion, with its payload of doomed energy technologies. Along the way, investors will be clawing at their former milch cows to get their money out; politicians will be telling how 'it's time to move on'; most of the crowd will be listening to the scores, texting or talking on smartphones; a few will be thanking a variety of deities or other things, that the day has come at long last!  

It's only a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), but may this move be the defibrillator applied to the heart  of UK manufacturing. We have the expertise and capacity to manufacture plant and equipment for Breeder Reactors which operate at atmospheric pressure.

Who cares at this stage that they use solid fuel and that they're unnecessarily huge. We're on our way to renewable energy at affordable prices and free of greenhouse gas emissions.

We're on our way to using plutonium stockpiles and stores of long-lived nuclear waste, which at the moment do nothing but soak up immense expenditure; while we're doing that, we're able to provide valuable electricity for a few centuries, without digging anything else out of the ground.

We're on our way to burning up masses of existing 'nuclear waste' (in fact it's valuable fuel), leaving only minuscule amounts of left-over waste, which decays to background radiation levels in 300 years and this can be safely and cheaply stored.

We're on our way to a Reactor Technology to displace Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs), which is currently the foremost nuclear technology to generate electricity. This rids us of the burden of high pressure operation, with its 'driver' potential to eject radiotoxic substances upwards and outwards into the environment.

We're on our way to rapid deployment, by virtue of modular construction and factory-made units capable of transportation on flat-bed trucks. We eliminate the constraint of single-sourcing of PWR pressure vessels - only Japan Steel Works have the capacity. Breeder operation is at atmospheric pressure and any plant and equipment required can be multi-sourced.


But best of all - we're on our way to a foothold for LFTR technology. The advantages over fast breeders are irresistible:  Elimination of solid fuel - the bane of accidental high temperature excursions - with meltdown potential ever-present. The greatly reduced fuel payload, with all that means in terms of muting one of the most potent anti-nuclear arguments and reinforcing the safety message to the public at large. The greatly reduced reactivity of coolant salts over liquid metals - a very saleable safety bonus.

 

Breeder Reactors will become embedded as the only renewable, clean, emission-free way to equitably meet the future energy needs of everyone on the planet. 


This will include the birth of a global Hydrogen Economy, for the manufacture carbon-neutral liquid fuels, from atmospheric CO2 for all of our transport needs, and the manufacture of ammonia, as feed-stock for nitrate fertilisers, from atmospheric nitrogen, to feed a burgeoning population. 


During this period, which can be reasonably envisaged as into the 2020s and 2030s, LFTRs will start to dominate demand as public perception of their inherent, passive safety gains more and more  credence. There's every chance that LFTRs will send other breeder designs the way of video tapes. 


If only the UK could get into the manufacturing race as a front-runner, we would see scientific activity, manufacturing employment, growth and prosperity last witnessed 3 generations ago.

1986 - US MEDIA'S COVERAGE OF CHERNOBYL SHUTS OUT FUKUSHIMA-TYPE ACCIDENT AT AMERICAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT!

26 years ago and only 3 weeks before Chernobyl, a US reactor underwent a Common Mode Failure of the type which devastated the Fukushima-Diiachi reactors. 70 scientists and technologists were jammed into the reactor control room in, what ordinary folks would have considered, a suicide pact. At that point, the Common Mode Failure occured and nature took its course.

 In Dr John Sackett's word:  ".....the worst accident that could befall a nuclear power system, that worst accident is a complete loss of electric power to everything, back-up as well, and failure of all the safety systems that shut the reactor down...."

  

Left - Darrell Pfannensteil, Shift Supervisor
Centre - Dr John Sackett, Director
Right - Dick Lindsey, Director of Communications

This is exactly what happened at Fukushima-Diiachi -  after all of the electricity from the reactors themselves was turned off, along came the sunami and knocked out all of the back-up systems. The result was a catastrophe.

Darrell Pfannensteil was issuing instructions to his plant operators as the event occured. He had told colleagues beforehand that he was not scared of this type of accident occuring, so what was his response? In his own words:  ".....we got to watch the forces of nature shut the reactor down.....we'd found a reactor that could protect itself....."

 Later, Darrel's experience of working on EBR-II, lead him to draw a comparison with the predominant nuclear reactor used for power generation, the Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR). ".....I did have experience - about 6 years - on pressurised water reactors.....if I [n]ever see another pressurised water reactor, it would not bother me. This is the technology to go with....."

After 33 years of dedicated, productive work, the political decision to shut down EBR-II was made and in September 1994, Dr Sackett recollects that:  "....when I had to go to the operating crews and tell them we'd got the order to shut EBR-II down.....the reaction amongst all the crews was - doesn't the country realise what they're losing here?....". Near to tears, he goes on to say:  ".....I remember directing the shut-down---and the scram---and just silence...."


You witness men saddened by their knowledge of what the world has turned away from and bemused by the decades lost before we all have to accept the deployment of breeder reactor technology. And what of the planetary desecration that has been allowed to happen in those decades? When these vociferous anti-nuclear activists are finall silenced, will they still puff out their chests as they plug in their electric cars, but then will they also switch on the light in their air conditioned living room, turn on the TV and wrap-around sound system, sit back and think about those wasted decades? Probably not.

All of this can be seen on :  http://vimeo.com/35261457

URANIUM RULES OK!

Doesn't it stink to high heaven?

Is the NNL independant? - Does David Cameron love Nick Clegg?

The Bishop of Hereford spotted it. But Lord Marland trots out the usual platitudes knowing full well that the vested (URANIUM) interests behind the NNL and Professor Paul Howarth (see his letter below) will hold sway.

Nothing - NOT A SINGLE PENNY - of taxpayers money will be spent on assessing the benefits that LFTR research and development could mean to UK economic growth, manufacturing jobs and prosperity.

There is a Christian and Church of England perspective on such deviousness. Maybe it's time the Archbishop of Canterbury took an interest in a technology that the British manufacturing industry can readily accomodate. More importantly,  at half the price of equivalent PWRs, LFTRs are affordable by the developing world - with all the implications of:  

                          affordable energy = reduction in population growth.   

Radioactive Nuclear Waste from LFTRs - There's Almost None!

I failed to spot this 14 June 2011 comment to my 09 January 2011 post, about a couple of excellent articles from two of the foremost LFTR proponents Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir: 

Anonymous said...

Excellent article; One question: Fig.6 , the decay graphs is hard to reconcile with the 330 years decay to one 10,000th of waste from the LWNR

Similar graphic information is available from:  LPSC. the Laboratory of Subatomic Physics and Cosmology that published this paper, in July 2001: Nuclear Energy With (Almost) No Radioactive Waste. It is a comprehensive analysis of fast/thermal spectrum reactors and solid/liquid fuel reactors. It channels the wide-ranging data to thorium fuelled, thermal Molten Salt Reactors (aka: LFTRs), as producing less, even orders of magnitude less, radiotoxic waste than the others.

The original Homepage is:  http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/gpr/french/index.htm

The translated Homepage is:  http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Flpsc.in2p3.fr%2Fgpr%2Fgpr%2Ffrench%2Findex.htm



This graph, from the paper, shows that in the 300 to 500 year period, MSR waste is indeed 4 orders of magnitude less radiotoxic than PWR waste. This is the crucial comparison, in respect of the UK's new-build reactor programme.

Adding the line of background radiation level (natural uranium ore) shows when the waste can be regarded as safe:

LFTR actinides are safe after 150 years and the fission products, which are (approximately) common to LFTRs and PWRs are safe after about 500 years. This graph is available from another article by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir on an American Physical Society website:  http://aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/201101/hargraves.cfm