Thanks. Yes. A revival with some updates, apparently. http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
On Bloomberg, the CEO of BHP Billiton said his company sees no future for thermal (steam) coal in the US, though continuing (for now) in Asia because it lacks abundant natural gas.
It was pretty clear that the author of the ZMEScience piece is not a nuclear engineer, he got quite a few points right, some points were confused and some wrong, especially with respects to safety issues. One point he missed was that the MSRs are thermal reactors, where most of the fissions are induced by neutrons with energies close to thermal levels (0.026eV for room temperature, 0.05 to 0.10eV for MSR operating temperatures), where in fast reactors the fissions are induced mostly by neutrons close to the original energy after fissions (600,000eV).
The key point with the MSBR (breeder, not generic MSR) is the online re-processing of the fuel removes neutron poisons (primarily Xenon and Samarium), which allows for more neutrons to convert Thorium 232 to Uranium 233. The breeder oeration comes from more 233U being created than burned up from fissioning.
The safety issue that's glossed over with the MSR's is that the primary coolant will contain fission products which are intensely radioactive and generate significant heat. An MSBR can reduce that problem by removing the fission products in the processing operation, but those fission products will need to be cooled - these are the same fission products that mandate that spent fuel rods be kept cool.
Another error in the article was why actinides aren't burned up in currnt light water reactors. There are two reasons. The first being that enrichment of the fuel is limited for economic reasons (and some safety reasons) which limits burnup of the fuel due to consumption of fissile material. Second is that LWR is not currently being reprocessed, so there is no way to put the actinides back in the reactor for further burnup.
A missed point is that because the MSRs are thermal reactors, they don't have the material degradation from the fast neutron flux in fast reactors. The rationale for the fast reactors is that fissions induced by fast neutrons produce more neutrons and that the neutron poisons are "poisons" only for thermal or near thermal neutrons.
Yet another missed point about the MSBR, it should be possible to tweak the reprocessing system to separate out Molybdenum. 99Mo is the precursor for 99Tc which is an extremely important medical isotope - I probably woudn't be around to type this if it wasn't for a scan using 99Tc back 10 years ago.
Put me as being ambivalent about the MSBR, though I'm a bit more of a fan of the IFR.
- Erik
P.S. As far as coal goes, I think it would be easier to get the bugs out of the coal fueled Integrated Gasification Combustion Turbine plant than getting the MSBR or IFR into full production status.
I've followed coal production for some time. Though there are some cleaner production technologies-
Gasification-Fluidized bed burning
They seem to be more expensive. Of the two, fluidized bed seems a lot more efficient energy-wise, and can handle higher sulfur coals. The problem with coal is not just Co2, but that the cheaper coal fuels are high sulfur fuels which can cause acid rain hundreds of miles from the very high output stacks.
Control of sulfur is possible but it raises the cost per Killowat hour of the fuel.
At this point, it is simply cheaper to convert to natural gas, which has a far lower contaminant level in a lot of areas, and costs equivalent to coal if environmental effects are taken into account. If you want cheap coal power, jsut use high sulfur fuel and un-controlled burning- we get the black days of China one more time. I doubt this will be allowed.
So, as long as natural gas and petroleum continue their low prices, coal will be on the decline.
Also coming into the picture is Solar and Wind technologies, which are now competitive with coal, petroleum, and gas in terms of cost per Kw/hour, even eliminating state subsidies. Texas is not putting a massive solar plant in place for the same price or lower than a plant. Once the power distribution networks catch up to the production ability, the Southwest can become a major player in the power production world through solar.
Storage and distribution requires high infrastructure investment for the most part. Texas has put in a special set of power towers just to increase said distribution abilities. As power storage and distribution means improve, solar and wind stand to slowly replace coal in many southewest states. It meets both Carbon reduction rules and is far better for the power production environment(the areas teh panels are produced is another matter)
Thank you, Erik, for such an informed response, even if much of it is beyond my understanding.
Schlimm,
You're quite welcome.
I loaned one of my college textbooks to a co-worker as he was interested in the "Thorium" reactor - the book had a 3-4 page summary on the MSBR work done at ORNL. The sobering part was that I've known the co-worker for 15 years (we were working for a different company then) and I got the book before he was born.
May I please bring everyone's attention to a fascinating post here on August 19 by Norm 48327?
You'll note that on that date Norm asked rhetorically why George Soros had just bought a million shares of Peabody Energy. As everyone knows, Mr. Soros is no fool and has made a fine profit more than once in the market. I have to admit, at the time I had no idea, either.
Today, however, I believe I can answer Norm 48327's question.
On August 18, Peabody closed at $1.12 per share, a price it had been at for a little while. The next day, August 19, Peabody closed at $1.40, by my calculations a 20% profit in 24 hours. Today, August 27, after a rather harrowing week for us ordinary investors, Peabody closed at $2.28, in other words, a nice 50.9% profit for Mr. Soros in just 6 trading days.
Gentlemen, I put it before you: How did he do that? Instinct? Sheer technical brilliance? Also, do you seriously think his investment is a long-range one in the future of coal?
I don't know anything nefarious about Mr. Soros, although I'm sure plenty of posters here dislike him because of his politics, but I am reminded of the quote from Honore de Balzac that might apply here as it has many times before concerning other similar speculators and rich men:
"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed."
It may not be that mysterious. Soros may be using the Warren Buffet tactic of "Buying when everyone else is selling and selling when everyone else is buying". Seems to work for Buffett.
So, If Soros bought one million shares of Peabody at $ 1.00 and can sell them at $ 2.28, that's a profit of $1.8 million in a short time. Not a bad day's work no matter how you slice it.
Norm
Norm:
Do you believe it's that simple? Seriously?
You don't answer Why Peabody, and not Apple or Tesla or Caterpillar, or GE or RPM or any of a thousand other companies that didn't see their stocks go up over 50% in a week?
Why doesn't that strategy work very well for you or me?
I'm sure there's much more to it than my simple explanation but I can't read Soros' mind.
NKP guy Some of these posts are startling. What is "degrowth"? Also, if the 2016 election were to result in a huge rebirth in the coal industry, how on earth would the country benefit in the long term? Many of us have grandchildren, do we not? Do you want them living in that world...while you're no longer here to answer for it? The pure and simple fact is that coal usage is way down and going lower because it is the worst possible source of energy. Many of us have rationalized fracking (although I bet almost none of us live in a county with large numbers of waste injection wells; but I do) and as worshippers at the altar of Capitalism we have to recognize that oil is not only at near-historic lows but is likely to stay that way for quite a while. The renewables industry is growing and unlikely to yield to more filthy carbon, so......What on earth is there to like about or defend about the dirtiest, most unhealthy source of energy in the world? On what possible grounds? That the railroad industry will take the consequent hit? That it's somehow a plot by envio-liberals/socialists/communists, etc to kill American industry? Rubbish! The point is that the "war on coal" is, as a NYT columnist noted the other day, actually more like a going away or retirement party. The age of coal is quickly coming to an end no matter how much some will miss it. So far I've just dwelt on coal's uneconomic costs and its costly filth (by the way, I bet none of us live in a coal heated house, nor miss it; guess why?). But I'd ask coal's apologists to consider what the coal industry has done to Appalachia over the past 150 years. How much money (there's Socialism! again) has had to be spent on health for everyone in coal country? Black lung and low age expectancy don't come cheap! Then think about what coal has done to politics and the common weal in those states over the decades. How degraded is the public trust in government or industry? Nope. Sorry. Can't wait to see the end of coal. It'll save money, save lives, save the environment, save people's faith that there can be another way to live. By the way, did you know the solar industry in American currently employs twice as many workers as the coal industy? So long, coal.
Some of these posts are startling. What is "degrowth"? Also, if the 2016 election were to result in a huge rebirth in the coal industry, how on earth would the country benefit in the long term? Many of us have grandchildren, do we not? Do you want them living in that world...while you're no longer here to answer for it?
The pure and simple fact is that coal usage is way down and going lower because it is the worst possible source of energy. Many of us have rationalized fracking (although I bet almost none of us live in a county with large numbers of waste injection wells; but I do) and as worshippers at the altar of Capitalism we have to recognize that oil is not only at near-historic lows but is likely to stay that way for quite a while. The renewables industry is growing and unlikely to yield to more filthy carbon, so......What on earth is there to like about or defend about the dirtiest, most unhealthy source of energy in the world? On what possible grounds? That the railroad industry will take the consequent hit? That it's somehow a plot by envio-liberals/socialists/communists, etc to kill American industry? Rubbish!
The point is that the "war on coal" is, as a NYT columnist noted the other day, actually more like a going away or retirement party. The age of coal is quickly coming to an end no matter how much some will miss it.
So far I've just dwelt on coal's uneconomic costs and its costly filth (by the way, I bet none of us live in a coal heated house, nor miss it; guess why?). But I'd ask coal's apologists to consider what the coal industry has done to Appalachia over the past 150 years. How much money (there's Socialism! again) has had to be spent on health for everyone in coal country? Black lung and low age expectancy don't come cheap!
Then think about what coal has done to politics and the common weal in those states over the decades. How degraded is the public trust in government or industry?
Nope. Sorry. Can't wait to see the end of coal. It'll save money, save lives, save the environment, save people's faith that there can be another way to live. By the way, did you know the solar industry in American currently employs twice as many workers as the coal industy?
So long, coal.
That sums it up pretty well, at least as far as coal goes. We shouldn't wish for the dirtiest, most awful energy source just for the sake of trains. There will still be met coal for a long time to come too, in case anyone really has a massive need to see a coal train. And Powder River Basin will eventually go to 2 tracks (probably in the near future), then 1, and then another abandoned railroad (probably in the distant future).
Unfortunately, our energy policy, or more correctly, our lack of an energy policy, means that cheap gas from hydrofacking is undermining the economics of forward movement in the energy space. Ultimately, we should be looking to electrify home heating, electrify transportation, and generate all that electricity in a clean manner, with some mix of hydro, nuclear, and renewables. Natural gas is undermining not only using electric heat pumps for home heating, but more importantly, nuclear power generation. Nuclear plants aren't being built, because of how cheap gas is. And when it comes down to it, gas is no better than coal in terms of CO2 emissions, even though it is a lot cleaner at the power plant, because gas leaks a lot and emits a bunch of methane while it's being transported.
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