Correct me if I’m wrong, but this article seems predicated upon a ‘peak energy’ belief system? Peak energy is a myth. Breeder reactors can provide all the abundant, reliable, clean electricity we could need, and that can revolutionise the transport system as well.
Breeder reactors burn the actinides in nuclear waste. For laypeople like myself, that sounds like gobbledegook. But when it’s broken down into English, it’s a startling fact that I wish I had known decades ago. Put simply, the longer lived radioactive stuff in nuclear waste can be burned to supply abundant clean electricity, and the final waste only has to be stored for about 300 to 500 years. Easy!
Before you scoff, China will mass produce breeders cheaper than coal in just 8 years!
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/06/china-seriously-looking-at.html
But there’s already a history of them.
There are 2 main types of breeder reactor.
1. Fast Neutron reactors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor
A famous prototype Fast reactor was the American EBR2, an Integral Fast Reactor prototype that reprocesses all its waste on site.
“Costing more than US$32 million, it achieved first criticality in 1965 and ran for 30 years. It was designed to produce about 62.5 megawatts of heat and 20 megawatts of electricity, which was achieved in September 1969 and continued for most of its lifetime. Over its lifetime it has generated over two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, providing a majority of the electricity and also heat to the facilities of the Argonne National Laboratory-West.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II#Integral_Fast_Reactor
Russia had the old BN-350, and then built the Bn-600. Note: the Japanese paid Russia a billion for the technical specs on their old BN-600, and “The operation of the reactor is an international study in progress; Russia, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom currently participate.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor
They have now build the BN-800, and have exported the plans to China who will be building their own soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
Russia are building the BN-1200 soon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
The French had the massive 1200MW Superphenix until ignorant activists shot RPG’s onto the site and Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt closed it down again. What a waste! The French could be breeding up all their own nuclear ‘waste’ into fuel again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Closure
2. Thermal (slow neutron) reactors run hotter
My favourite thermal reactor is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor which CANNOT ‘melt down’, as it is already a liquid. China has an enormous LFTR project.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542526/china-details-next-gen-nuclear-reactor-program/
Thorium is currently a massive and expensive waste problem from mining all those rare earths that wind and solar rely on. But if we can burn thorium, wind and solar and nuclear can all be friends. We can have the best of both worlds. Various future breed
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No, it is not predicated on “peak oil” (etc). The peakniks’ theories have been answered by the cornucopians, who have supplied the right answer……….to the wrong question.
Starting with fossil fuels, they will not “run out”. But what they are alreay doing is becoming more expensive, not necessarily in USD, GDP etc but in the ratio between gross energy accessed versus net energy after deduction of energy consumed in the access process. Renewables are improving on this ratio just as fossil fuels are worsening, so these are converging – but not at levels equivalent to the abundant, low-cost resources of the past.
Just as I don’t predicate my thinking on peakism, I don’t buy into much of the technical solution answer either. Taking fusion, we have been trying this since the 1920s. ITER is proving hugely expensive, and seems a very long way from achieving even technical demonstration – correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the ratio of energy in/out still around 70%? I’m familiar with a lot of the scientific claims about nuclear, but also with the views of those equally qualified who say it can’t be done. Fusion, for instance, could “put the sun in a box” – but we still don’t really know how to build such a box.
I’m not qualified to assess these new technologies – they might work, and be scaleable. But both scale and time are against us. The overall fossil/renewable output-to-cost ratio is rising exponentially. This has undermined economic growth, to the point where we’re “faking it” using debt. If these new technologies are going to work, they need huge investment from what I term “the legacy economy” – and it’s hard to see where that investment comes from in a global financial system that is already in very deep trouble.
Above all, I’m open-minded – but sceptical.
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Forget fusion for now. EROE (Energy Returned over Energy Invested) of nuclear fission is just fine. Splitting the atom gives us 2 MILLION times more energy than splitting the chemical bonds of fossil fuels. So the EROEI of nuclear power — even with the enormous energy costs of mining and refining uranium, building an enormous concrete containment dome over the reactor core, etc etc etc — is still very high because 2 MILLION times more energy is actually significant! 😉 So nuclear is around 75 times the energy it took to build it. But here’s the deal. That’s calculated on a once-through fuel cycle. Once you start talking about breeder reactors, everything changes. Breeders get 60 to 90 times the energy out of the same amount of uranium! Do the math. 75 by 60 is HUGE for an EROI!
And time? France built out their 75% nuclear grid in about 15 years. Dr James Hansen is *the* climatologist that diagnosed our climate problem. Unfortunately, no one wants to listen to him about the solution.
He says:
1. Believing in 100% RENEWABLES is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. He’s aware of all the ‘studies’ that say we can do 100% renewables, but still thinks storage is ridiculously expensive and cannot do the job.
http://goo.gl/8qidgV2. The world should build 115 reactors a year*
http://goo.gl/Xx61xU
On a reactors-to-GDP ratio the French *already* beat this build rate back in the 70’s under the Mesmer plan. 115 reactors a year should be easy for the world economy. France did it *faster* with older technology, and today’s nukes can be mass produced on an assembly line. Also, GenIV breeders are coming that can eat nuclear waste and covert a 100,000 year storage problem into 1000 years of clean energy for America and 500 years for the UK with today’s levels of nuclear waste. Read the free book that Dr James Hansen recommends, Prescription for the Planet, at the link below.
http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/P4TP4U.pdf - https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2017/09/05/energy-economics-miixing-debt-apples-with-energy-oranges-can-trump-make-america-great-again-maga/
Energy Economics , Miixing Debt Apples With Energy Oranges. Can Trump Make America Great Again ? #MAGA
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2016/01/re-branding-dissent/
Re-branding Dissent
I am one of those who thinks that democracy is being destroyed. I know its fashionable to play cynical one-upmanship and say – ‘we’ve never had democracy’, or, ‘it was destroyed long ago’, but that game aside, I think its worth actually thinking about how, many forms of democratic expression, effective dissent and peaceful self-determination are being buried.
In “The Next Crisis” I argued that the Global Over-Class have decided that Democracy is a threat to their wealth and power and have more than likely given some thought to how best to neuter it while appearing to do no such thing. I suggested they would wish to keep the outward form of democracy, so as to keep us reassured and entertained, but remove any substance from it, leaving us with an empty but colourful stage show.
In part two of the series, I offered a list of the various ways this could be done (a sort of manifesto for the Over Class or, as I have called them elsewhere, The Disloyal and noted how many of those things were clearly already underway.
For example item three of the manifesto said,
3) professionalized Governance. Democracy can be and must be neutered, and an effective way of doing this is to insist that amateur, elected officials MUST take the advice of professional (read corporate) advisors. Expand current law to enforce this.
If this seems monstrous now, their argument, I suspect, will be that in an increasingly crowded, interconnected and globalised world we can no longer leave critically important decisions in the hands of the uneducated, in-expert and amateur. We must, of course, still be free to choose but must, from now on, be helped to choose ‘wisely’. And how can we choose wisely if we aren’t given wise choices to choose from? Oh, the Orwellian beauty of it! No prizes for guessing who will decide what is and what is not wise.
How to prevent debate while claiming to be in favour of it.
When I look around at the state of public discourse in ‘the West’ what strikes me is that everyone says they want to have a reasoned and rational debate but say that the reason it doesn’t happen is because the ‘other side’ is irrational and so they can’t be debated with. The ‘other side’, their opponents say, always avoids the debate, is never willing to just answer a reasonable question and generally just refuse to have the debate they claim to want. Does this resonate with you?
#153. One for the sceptics Nothing to fear but fear itself the economy as an energy transformation machine. #Nafta #RossPerot #WrongkindofGreen #EnergyEconomic #8thwaytothink #ConquestofDough #ObjectiveKhunts #GrubStreetJournal #OIP #Alexanadria
via #153. One for the sceptics
#153. One for the sceptics, Nothing to fear but fear itself the economy as an energy transformation machine. #Nafta #RossPerot #WrongkindofGreen #EnergyEconomic #8thwaytothink #ConquestofDough #ObjectiveKhunts #GrubStreetJournal #OIP #Alexanadria
7. Hidden behind increasingly desperate (and dangerous) financial manipulation, the world as a whole has been getting poorer since ECoE hit 5.5% in 2007. As more of the EM economies hit the “downturn zone” (ECoEs of 8-10%), the so-far-gradual impoverishment of the average person worldwide can be expected to accelerate.
- Who is your Average person worldwide? With Political Mathematics ( Statistics) it is important to define terms. Who is your constituency, Tim? Who are Agenda 21 and 2030 designed to raise up and at whose expense?
ESCHATOLOGY END TIMES PROPHESY
CALVIN SAID Belloc characterised the Reformation as
´´a rising of the rich against the poor´´,
´and indeed Calvin had written the unfortunate statement:
´´The people must always be kept in poverty in order that they remain obedient´´.
8.This calls for a thoroughgoing review of energy policy, and it seems bizarre that a system which can provide financial support for the banking system cannot do the same for the far more important matter of energy.
A healthy Dose of Bucky Fullmeister is what is needed vis the Production function for modern Industry and Industrial Agriculture also a look back into the concepts of Localism and Subsidiarity.
GFC2, Ephemeralisation, Doing More With Less. Bucky Fullmeister and Circular Economy.
rogerglewis Uncategorized June 7, 2018 9 Minutes
Ross Perot passed away the other day. NAFTA and the new Trade Deal obsession should be added as a lens through which to see the trajectory and direction of motion here, I believe the Words of FDR “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”.
https://twitter.com/Huerts31/status/1179926627612004358
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1179908480322289664