Professor Paul Howarth and the Future of Fast Breeder Reactors in the UK

Is it reasonable to surmise that this individual in charge of this organisation could well dictate the UK's nuclear direction for the foreseeable future?

Will he dictate the timing or even the prospects of UK deployment of breeder reactors?

As of mid-April 2012, no apparent utterances on his opinions of the potential or capabilities of the GE Hitachi PRISM.

This is the situation so far:

Legal Status and Ownership

The National Nuclear Laboratory is a UK registered private limited company in which the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change holds all of the shares through a holding company NNL Holdings Ltd.

Objectives

The Government’s objectives for the NNL are for it to:

• operate as a sound commercial business;
• demonstrate value for customers;
• create a platform for UK and internationally funded R&D;
• ensure the latent value of the UK’s R&D can be demonstrated and realised;
• become an international centre of excellence in nuclear research and development, playing a vital role in cleaning up the UK’s nuclear waste legacy and contributing to the programme of nuclear new build;
• safeguard the UK’s high tech nuclear expertise, facilities and skills;
• ensure the stability of the immature UK civil nuclear R&D market;
• provide a basis for opening up the UK market to nuclear facility operational and clean up R&D; and
• safeguard the contribution that the NNL makes to the West Cumbrian economy and local ambitions to become an Energy Coast.

Professor Paul Howarth
Director of Science,
Technology and Project Delivery,
National Nuclear Laboratory, UK

Vision, Mission, Values:

Our strategic vision is the overarching guide to what NNL aims to achieve:

To be a valued and successful nuclear science and technology laboratory, world renowned for its exceptional staff, cutting edge facilities and excellent value for money.

GE Hitachi - NNL Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

“With our recognised technical capability and long experience in fuel cycle analysis, we are pleased that GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has looked to NNL to provide independent and authoritative input to the potential U.K. application of a PRISM reactor,” said Paul Howarth, managing director of NNL.

 

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April 2012 Issue of Ethos Journal:  Paul Howarth - "Nuclear Future"

".....There are three approaches to managing the UK’s plutonium stockpile: store it, treat it as waste, or use it as fuel. My feeling is that it should be turned into fuel – we should derive the benefit of electricity from it....."

News:  13 April 2012

NNL Managing Director participates in Prime Minister’s top level business delegation to Japan

Managing Director of the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), Paul Howarth, was part of the top level business delegation which visited Japan this week.

The group was led by Prime Minister David Cameron..... During the visit UK and Japanese officials agreed and signed a Framework on Civil Nuclear Cooperation, providing the basis for UK companies to engage in multi-billion pound decommissioning opportunities in Japan. In a separate development, the UK Nuclear Industry Association and the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum signed a Memorandum of Understanding to further industrial collaboration between companies from the UK and Japan.

Paul Howarth said: “I was delighted to be invited as a delegate on this tremendously important trip to Japan. There is clearly a huge opportunity ahead for the UK and Japan to work together to address nuclear challenges across the sector – including the areas of new nuclear build, waste management and decommissioning....”

In keeping a close eye on Professor Howarth's utterances in respect of the Plutonium Question and Breeder Reactor Deployment, I intend to publicise any developments with alacrity.

"....we care about their plight and we want them to join one world...."

David Cameron says to the poorest people in the world "....we care about their plight...." ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13572427 )

UK Official Developmen­t Assistance in 2010 is estimated at £8,354 million. Were the UK to build the first-of-a­-kind Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), it would cost a piddling £300 million. This uniquely safe type of nuclear reactor can generate electrical power cheaper than coal, is free of greenhouse gas emissions and is affordable to developing nations and regions. This move would kick-start investment in the production­-line manufactur­e of transporta­ble modular reactors, capable of rapid deployment­.

If the developed world, where ¼ of humanity uses ¾ of the energy produced, is not prepared to make this technology available to the ¾ of humanity surviving on the remaining ¼ of the energy, then let it reap the polluting whirlwind of huge increases in the burning of fossil fuels. All power to those in the developing world, in their dash for affordable energy from fossil fuel; who, in their right mind, would not want to mitigate 40,000 deaths per day from preventabl­e causes, in the most expedient way possible.

Prime Minister David Cameron: Save £50 billion of our Hard Earned Taxes.

One last gasp effort from me:  I've just created a Downing Street e-petition which, if we get enough votes, can force a Parliamentary debate to manufacture the first-of-a-kind LFTR in the UK and encourage investment in production-line manufacture of Modular LFTRs.

From the best estimates of costs, we can get £50 billion chopped off the £110 billion Chris Huhne has earmarked for spending on energy efficiency, renewables and CC&S. So, please sign this petition and, if you feel so inclined, please write to the PM to suggest better ways of spending £50 billion than spending it on inconsequential renewables and CC&S.

e-petition: Save £50 billion in taxes of the £110 billion carbon target spend

Dear Prime Minister

                                                                                                           21 May 2011.

10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA,

For the attention of the Rt. Hon. David Cameron.

Dear Prime Minister

“I want us to be the greenest government ever”.

A year ago at the DECC, these were your very words and to do this, you are taking a predictable route of giving everybody in the mix a little bit, but inordinately pouring money into the populist option of renewables. This will divert much needed investment away from the NHS and other essential services.

May I propose ‘Plan B’, to take you into realms of ‘greenness’ about which you can only dream, meet our carbon targets ahead of time, take a huge chunk out of our £14 billion or so energy trade deficit and maximize energy independence.

You will not know of the capacity of this home-based resource, but you will be able to raise a green banner behind which every environmentalist can get. Not one extra square inch of our precious land need be sacrificed in accessing this fuel which can provide all of the UK’s electricity needs for the next 50 years and, it will be free of greenhouse gas emissions.

This resource is the lifeless, environmental abomination of fly-ash, with an average thorium content of 17 parts per million. Mining 60,000 tonnes of fly-ash yields 1 tonne of thorium, which can supply 1 GWyear of electricity; this is enough for all the electrical needs of a city of 1 million people for 1 year. Preposterous as it seems, 3,200,000 tonnes of coal have to be imported (£80 million) to supply the same amount of electricity, which means that the energy from fly-ash thorium yields 50 times more energy than the original coal burned.

You will need to spend a piddling £300 million on the first-of-a-kind 100 MWe Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR), which can be available in 5 years and factory produced units rolling off production lines in 10 years. Unlike PWRs (the UK’s new-build nuclear), LFTRs have extraordinary intrinsic, passive safety characteristics, making them capable of surviving a Fukushima level incident unscathed.

Extraordinary courage is needed to do something so revolutionary and such thoughts are likely to be kept away from you. However, I do hope your ‘knowledge filterers’ let you have a look at this data, for no other reason than it being an eye-opening ‘thought for the day’.

I must see what Archbishop Rowan has to say.

Yours sincerely,