by Robert Bryce
Fusion’s reputation has been tarnished by an excess of hype. Just like fuel cell–powered cars and the hydrogen economy, producing electricity from fusion has been touted as the Next Big Thing for decades. But the hybrid fusion reactors now being discussed are not designed for electricity production. Instead, their main purpose would be the production of fast neutrons, a process that is far less technically demanding.
Those fast neutrons would be used to bombard the most problematic wastes, including plutonium, americium, curium, and neptunium, which have very long half-lives. (Neptunium’s half-life is 2 million years.)18 That bombardment forces the radioactive atoms to undergo fission, which turns them into lighter elements and isotopes that decay much more rapidly.19
The idea of using a fusion-fission system has been promoted by two Nobel Prize–winning-scientists: Andrei Sakharov and Hans Bethe. Sakharov, a Soviet-era physicist who is best-known for his brave advocacy for human rights and freedom, proposed a fusion-fission system back in 1950.20 Bethe, the 1967 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, was German American and worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He advocated the use of the fusion-fission hybrid as a way to create additional nuclear fuel and also saw that model as a method of dealing with high-level nuclear waste, saying it could provide “a great advantage for the prevention of proliferation of nuclear weapons.”21
Here in the United States, scientists from the University of Texas, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Princeton University are leading the push to make the hybrid fusion-fission reactor idea into a reality. Scientists in China are also pursuing the hybrid concept.22 But although the concept shows promise, it’s still just a concept, and it would have to undergo years of testing and development before it could be used in an actual working reactor. Advances in materials science will be needed to make certain that the walls of the hybrid could withstand the extreme heat that would be generated by the new type of reactor. All of that research and development would require Congress to appropriate billions of dollars to multiple research teams over several decades. And that would require bipartisan political support.
And though transmutation offers one option, it doesn’t get rid of all the waste. Even if the fast neutrons produced by the fusion reactor are able to burn the majority of the waste, some radioactive materials will remain, and that means the United States would still need a long-term waste repository. Given all the work that’s been done at Yucca Mountain, that site continues to be a viable candidate. But the government has other options, including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Located near Carlsbad, it began accepting defense-related nuclear waste in 1999.23 The site—which utilizes a salt formation located half a mile below the surface that has been geologically stable for some 250 million years—could also be used to dispose of the waste coming out of nuclear reactors. The only thing standing in the way of that concept: Congress.
Alas, Congress continues to dither. Meanwhile, the United States is missing an opportunity to lead the world in the development of the technologies that could revolutionize the nuclear power sector by finally resolving the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Congress has effectively dictated that U.S. electric utilities must continue piling up spent nuclear waste at the sites where it is generated. But congressional inaction should not hinder the development of new nuclear plants. Fully addressing the challenge of nuclear waste will take decades. The issue is not so urgent that it must be resolved before new plants are built.
Indeed, the new designs for nuclear power plants are so attractive that building more of them makes sense, both economically and environmentally. They have been made safer, more efficient, and, in some cases, smaller. And those new reactor designs may provide a key breakthrough, both in terms of cost and scale.
CHAPTER 28
Future Nukes
FOR DECADES, there was one constant in the U.S. electricity business: growing demand. After the invention of the incandescent lightbulb, America’s booming economy meant an ever-growing need for more electricity. For instance, during the 1950s, electricity demand grew by about 9 percent per year. But thanks to steady increases in the efficiency of the U.S. economy, that demand growth steadily fell during the second half of the twentieth century, though annual power demand growth was still averaging about 1.1 percent by the mid-2000s.1 That growth stopped altogether with the global economic crisis that hit in late 2008, and during the first six months of 2009, U.S. electricity demand actually fell by 5 percent.2
Nevertheless, there is every reason to expect that U.S. electricity consumption will rebound as the nation’s economy and population continue to grow. The Energy Information Administration projects that by 2030, U.S. electricity use will rise by at least 14 percent and perhaps by as much as 34 percent when compared to 2007 levels.3
Nuclear power can, and should, be used to meet some of that new demand—and it can do so by using reactors that are both large and small. It can also meet some of that new demand by using thorium, rather than uranium, to fuel those reactors. More on thorium in a moment.
Al Gore and other critics contend that nuclear power plants only come in large sizes with large price tags.4 Although it’s true that most of the commercial reactors now being used to generate electricity have capacities of about 1,000 megawatts or more, some of the most exciting developments in the nuclear power sector are happening around reactors with outputs of 125 megawatts or less. And those smaller reactors could be used in a variety of locations and applications, revolutionizing the electricity generation business.
Modular reactors could be used in series to displace larger coal- or natural gas–fired generators and could be particularly appealing to remote towns and cities that currently rely on diesel-fired generators to supply their electricity. They could also be used at locations that need highly reliable electric power, such as military bases or large industrial facilities. Modular reactors could be used to help stabilize the electric power grid, as dispersing small reactors over a large power grid could help a city or a utility assure more reliable power delivery.
Small reactors have a long history aboard military vessels. The U.S. Navy has long been one of the world’s biggest users of nuclear power, relying on small reactors to propel their submarines and surface ships. The USS Virginia, for instance, one of the newest attack submarines in America’s nuclear-powered fleet, uses a pressurized water reactor with a total output of about 37 megawatts.5
Using smaller reactors for land-based applications offers a number of advantages, particularly when these small plants are compared with their larger cousins. First, they would cost a fraction of the cost of the larger plants. Second, they could be used as single or multiple units. Thus, if a utility needs, say 800 megawatts of generation capacity, it could buy as many small reactors as it needed to meet that demand and add more in stages. Third, small reactors could be manufactured in a central location. One of the reasons that large reactors are so expensive is that they are, well, big. They must be built at the final location. By contrast, the companies proposing to build modular reactors are planning to use a factorybased approach where the reactors are manufactured and then shipped to their final destination. This approach, which is not quite mass-production, should result in dramatically lower costs. Fourth, the modular reactors are designed to be buried in the ground, which makes them more resistant to any weather- or terrorism-related event.
Now, before you start shopping for a modular reactor at your nearest Home Depot, understand that these designs are still conceptual. None of the companies that are proposing modular reactors have received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their designs.
Among the first modular reactor designs to make headlines was a 10-megawatt idea put forward by the Japanese firm Toshiba. In 2006, it began discussing the possibility of locating a small reactor in the remote town of Galena, Alaska, which relies on diesel-fired generators for its electricity. Toshiba, which owns Westinghouse, claimed that the react
or could produce power for about $0.13 per kilowatt-hour, which would be far cheaper than what the town is paying for power from its diesel generators. Toshiba has dubbed its design “4S” (for super-safe, small, and simple). The reactor would produce enough electricity for about 10,000 homes, and it would be cooled by liquid sodium instead of water. Toshiba has called its design a “nuclear battery” that could operate for up to thirty years without refueling.6
Three other companies—Hyperion Power Generation, NuScale Power, and Babcock & Wilcox—are also vying to build the first modular reactor for the U.S. market. Hyperion, a Santa Fe–based company, is using technology developed and licensed by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hyperion’s 25-megawatt reactor would be about the size of an average hot tub, making it small enough to be transported via tractor-trailer. Hyperion says that it wants to build “about 4,000” of its reactors within the first ten years of production. The units would be encased in concrete, buried underground, and refueled every five to seven years. Hyperion is backed by venture capital money.7
Oregon-based NuScale is also backed by venture capitalists. The NuScale design would produce 45 megawatts of power, a size that the company says would give utilities and other power providers “a way to add and finance new generating capacity in a manner and on a time scale similar to gas turbines.”8 Like many of the large reactors now in use, the NuScale reactor is a pressurized water reactor, but its design is simpler. The water in the system is cooled by natural circulation, thus eliminating many pumps, pipes, and other parts that could fail.
Perhaps the most credible bid to build modular reactors comes from Babcock & Wilcox. In June 2009, the company announced plans to build a modular reactor capable of generating 125 megawatts of electricity. Babcock & Wilcox has a key advantage over Hyperion and NuScale because it already has a long history of manufacturing components for the electricity sector. When Thomas Edison established the first central power plant in the United States, on Pearl Street in Manhattan in 1882, he relied on boilers made by Babcock & Wilcox.9 Furthermore, Babcock & Wilcox is a subsidiary of Houston-based McDermott International, a publicly traded engineering and construction company whose 2008 revenues totaled $6.5 billion.10 Thus, it has plenty of capital available to back what will clearly be a multiyear licensing, designing, and manufacturing process. Babcock & Wilcox already has factories and trained employees with decades of experience building nuclear power components for the U.S. Navy. Hyperion and NuScale do not yet have any manufacturing facilities; nor do they have prior experience in building nuclear components.
Though the designs for modular reactors are promising, they are likely several years away from being licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a process that is notoriously expensive and slow. It will likely be at least five years, perhaps even ten years, before any of the modular reactor companies are able to begin manufacturing their units.
In the meantime, several new designs for large reactors are coming to the market, and they are safer and more powerful than their predecessors. General Electric, Westinghouse, Areva, and Mitsubishi have all submitted design certification applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.11 The agency has already approved a Westinghouse reactor, the AP1000, that is proving popular in other countries because of its simplified design.
Other designs are also showing promise. Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with companies in South Africa, China, and the Netherlands, are working on “pebble-bed” reactor technology that may be even safer than other designs. The reactor uses fuel pellets that are difficult to reprocess, a feature that makes the fuel cycle safer as it reduces the possibility that the plutonium that is left in the spent fuel might be diverted for nefarious purposes.12
In addition to the pebble-bed design, some engineers are working on reactor designs that would be fueled with thorium, an element that sits near uranium on the periodic table. But unlike uranium, when used in reactors thorium would not produce any plutonium, a characteristic that makes thorium more attractive with regard to potential weapons proliferation. 13 Thorium is about four times more abundant than uranium and is easier to mine. Better still, the United States holds about 20 percent of the world’s known supply of thorium.14
The history of thorium-fueled reactors goes back to the days of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. In fact, the first commercial power plant developed under that program, a reactor in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, was initially fueled with thorium.15 India, which holds about 25 percent of the world’s known thorium deposits, has been pursuing thorium-fueled reactors for many years.16 Lately, several other countries have begun looking more closely at thorium, including Canada, China, the United States, France, Japan, Norway, and Russia. Here in the United States, Virginia-based Lightbridge Corporation, a small company that specializes in thorium fuel, claims that it will begin testing of thorium fuel rods in commercial reactors by 2012 or 2013. The CEO of Lightbridge says that his company’s thorium fuel rods can be used in existing reactors without any modifications and that the thorium fuel would be about 5 to 15 percent cheaper than comparable amounts of uranium.17 Lightbridge also claims that the thorium fuel cycle produces far less radioactive waste than uranium.18
Of course, substituting thorium fuel for uranium will take time. Lightbridge and other companies must continue their development work and obtain licensing from nuclear regulators here in the United States and in other countries. But the potential offered by thorium, modular reactors, pebble-bed reactors, and other reactor designs is obvious.19 Furthermore, it’s clear that nuclear power must be part of the energy mix if the world is to achieve any significant progress in cutting the growth of carbon dioxide emissions. In its 2009 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency declared that “nuclear technology is the only large-scale, baseload, electricity-generation technology with a near-zero carbon footprint.”20
If policymakers are going to agree that carbon dioxide is a problem, then, as the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Rhodes has put it, “nuclear power should be central.” In 2000, Rhodes—who has probably written more about nuclear weapons and nuclear power than any other author—along with Denis Beller of Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing in an article in Foreign Affairs called “The Need for Nuclear Power,” concluded that “despite its outstanding record, [nuclear power] has ... been relegated by its opponents to the same twilight zone of contentious ideological conflict as abortion and evolution. It deserves better. Nuclear power is environmentally safe, practical, and affordable. It is not the problem—it is one of the best solutions.”21
Rhodes and Beller made an essential point: The discussion about nuclear power has devolved to the point where it is akin to the debates over some of the most controversial issues of our time. The abortion and evolution debates are ruled by emotion and faith, not rationality. When it comes to nuclear power, the United States must undertake a relentlessly logical approach, one that depends on facts. It must also embrace the development of emerging nuclear technologies such as modular reactors, thorium fuel, and other reactor concepts. If it does so, then nuclear power, as Rhodes and Beller concluded, will undoubtedly be seen as one of the best available long-term solutions to our energy challenges.
PART IV
MOVING FORWARD
CHAPTER 29
Rethinking “Green” and a Few Other Suggestions
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
VOLTAIRE
I STILL REMEMBER the first time I mixed blue paint with yellow paint. The result, of course, was a revelation to my young eyes: green.
Today, more than four and a half decades later, I’m eager to return to simpler ideas about what is, and isn’t, green. Over the past few years, the concept of “green-ness” has become so overused as to become devoid of meaning. As I hope this book has helped to make clear, most, or perhaps all, of the renewable energy push, and in particular, the push for more wind power, is base
d on the bogus notion that those sources are “greener” than hydrocarbons such as oil and natural gas. That’s simply not true.
All the blather about “green” has fostered the delusion that we can get our energy on the cheap, without any environmental impacts at all. Again, that’s just not true. Sure, the idea of wind turbines might have a certain charm, and arrays of solar panels might make our cities and towns look like settings for science-fiction films. And if only we could just get a few coal-fired power plants to belch a rainbow every once in a while, they might look kind of pretty, too. But the hard truth is that energy production is not pretty, cheap, or easy.
Although I have attacked many of the claims about alternative energy, it’s clear that the push for renewable energy has lots of momentum. The industry has captured much of the public’s imagination, and that means that sources such as wind and solar will continue their rapid growth. Between now and 2030, the International Energy Agency expects that some $5.5 trillion will be spent on renewable energy projects,1 and by the end of that period, renewables could be providing 10 percent of the world’s primary energy needs.2 Significant strides are being made in reducing the cost of solar power. In early 2009, First Solar, one of America’s biggest producers of photovoltaic cells, said it had reduced its manufacturing costs to about $1 per watt, a key threshold for economic viability.3 And in August 2009, eSolar, a thermal-solar company, christened a facility in the California desert that the company claims has higher power densities than similar solar projects and does so at lower cost.4
In mid-2009, the desire to find alternative motor fuels led Exxon Mobil to team up with California-based Synthetic Genomics to study photosynthetic algae. The deal calls for the oil giant to invest up to $600 million in the project.5 Although algae-based fuels are many years away from being commercially viable, other alternative energy technologies are making progress. In November 2009, a California-based company, SolarReserve, announced plans to build a concentrated solar farm that will use molten salt to store energy. The company claims that it will be able to store up to seven hours of the project’s solar energy in the form of molten salt.6 Meanwhile, Dow Chemical has developed a solar roof shingle for the residential market that the company claims can be installed just like asphalt shingles to form an array. They are cheaper than conventional photovoltaic panels, Dow says, and could “offset between 40 percent and 80 percent of a home’s electricity consumption.”7 Another intriguing possibility: spray-on solar cells. Researchers in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Switzerland are working on plastic coatings that contain tiny particles of titanium, copper, gallium, and indium. The coatings could be far cheaper than today’s solar panels and could be applied to both vertical and horizontal surfaces.8