EnergyBiz Leadership Forum Keynoter says Waste Issue Can Be Conquered
America is up for the challenge of leading the world in energy technology, says a leading expert in business and energy innovation. Nicholas M. Donofrio, a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, says that the United States will be able to assert its technological leadership developing the next generation of safe, reliable nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power plant construction is undergoing a global resurgence, particularly in China. A program of federal loan guarantees is intended to spur a nuclear renaissance in America. But many industry experts say that for nuclear to take off a business case must be made for it free of government supports.
Donofrio, the lead keynote speaker at the 2011 EnergyBiz Leadership Forum, Feb. 27 - March 1 in Washington, is a 44-year IBM veteran and serves as an IBM fellow, the company's highest technical honor. From 1997 until his retirement in 2008, he served as executive vice president of innovation and technology.
Donofrio recently discussed the energy frontier with EnergyBiz. His comments, edited for style and length, follow.
EnergyBiz: Some believe we're losing our edge in energy innovation and the Chinese are increasingly developing cutting edge technologies in nuclear power and renewables.
Donofrio: One of the things you can't ever take away from us is that we're a very innovative country because our people are free to be who they want to be and to do what they want to do. That's what's going to keep this country ahead. China has the lead in a number of these energy issues. We'll be more innovative. We'll be more creative in the way we deal with this.
EnergyBiz: Where to we start?
Donofrio: We can bring nuclear energy back. We need it. It's the only base load replacement we have for fossil fuel. I'm all for wind and I'm all for solar and I'm all for hydro but in the end that's not enough to replace the base load of fossil fuels. That's what this country has got to come to realize. We've got to use 21st century techniques and ideas to build up the nuclear industry. We can build what I call a super PLM structure focusing on product lifecycle management for the nuclear industry from beginning to end. So the only way you can build it correctly is with the entire lifecycle in mind. You hear lots of people talking about manufactured nuclear power plants and modular nuclear power plants, modules that click in and click out, modules that are totally self-contained and replaceable. You scale not by building new and unique footprints but by just simply scaling the footprint that you build in a manufacturing facility.
EnergyBiz: Is the federal government leading the way?
Donofrio: There are signs of hope in the new current administration. They've done lots of wonderful funding efforts. They've got a nuclear energy simulation hub running right now and Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the lead integrator for that. So we're going to get a lot of ideas out of it over the next 3 to 5 years.
EnergyBiz: For the record, what is the problem with fossil fuel?
Donofrio: Well, we're going to run out of it. It's non-replaceable. People talk about kicking the can down the road. That's the biggest kick the can down the road I've ever seen and nobody wants to say that. Secondly, it seems to be destroying our environment and you've got to do things to deal with that. For those two reasons alone it seems to me that nuclear is the answer. It's green. If I can convince you it's safe why wouldn't you start to think about it differently?
EnergyBiz: Can we solve the waste issue?
Donofrio: There's absolutely no doubt in my mind. There are so many different things that are being thought of and innovated on here. What we need to do is to continue to invest in those innovations.
Continue the conversation with Nicholas Donofrio at the 3rd Annual EnergyBiz Leadership Forum, the most influential gathering of power industry executives in the United States. Visit www.EnergyBizForum.com for more information.
The Integral Fast Reactor, which was prototyped at Argonne Laboratory in the mid-90's would have increased fuel efficiency and reduced waste by an order of magnitude. Once finished, it would have burned most of the waste of older reactors, thus reducing waste issues for them, as well.
Unfortunately, the republican congress was looking for programs to kill and the Clinton administration was short-sighted on nuclear technology. So, the program was cut. However, I have heard that the technology has now been picked up and is once again in development.
Thank you very much for the article.
http://www.turnonthesun.com.au
Nuclear energy is an interesting option to respond to rapid energy growth, because of public concerns for pollution, global warming, and energy security. However, nuclear energy production has external costs that the industry cannot bear. In addition, nuclear energy has benefits that producers cannot appropriate such as: low carbon emission, reduced dependence on foreign oil. The proponents of free market theory oppose government intervention into the industry so that market mechanisms and application of general law can determine the fate of the nuclear industry. According to them, government interventions create distortion to the market equilibrium. On the other hand, proponents of market failure theory support regulation and government policy to take into account social benefits and social costs of the nuclear energy. Because of the externalities with nuclear energy, nuclear power producers need government intervention to increase nuclear energy market penetration. Nuclear energy industry is not able to compete in a free market regime. In spite its many advantages over other sources of energy, nuclear energy is subject to enough market failure characteristics. Producers cannot appropriate in a free market environment the potential external benefits of nuclear energy; the low operating cost of nuclear energy should be counterbalanced against high external costs such as catastrophic accident risks, proliferation risks; market mechanisms are ineffective at internalizing the external costs and benefits of nuclear energy production, because of the transaction costs, the asymmetry of information between the stakeholders, and the split incentive that favors risk-taking behaviors by energy producers. In addition, the industry cannot support the high financial costs of nuclear projects due to the high development and operation risks. Therefore, assuming the overall benefits, government control by regulatory statutes and incentives are effective ways to promote nuclear energy penetration. This conclusion seems to be in agreement with casual observations that suggest the proposition for an empirical study about the link between global nuclear energy penetration and degree of government intervention.
Till today we have not mastered the fire control.
Till today we see lot of fire accidents and loss due to that.
Fortunately the loss is limited.
This is not the case with Nuclear Power Plant.
Any mistake knowingly or unknowingly lesds to a big disaster.
Even if there is no mistake, natural calamity may lead to disaster.
Why should we have any disaster at all?
Let us all be disaster free.
What does it matter if our progress is slow?
Any way it was slow for so many years in the past.
What happenned at FUKUSHIMA , japan?
Let us spend more on conservation of energy and reduce carbon footprint.
Conclusion is that Nuclear Power is not the answer.
P.J.LAKHAPATE
What if our growth is slow is a little ridiculous..
When first steam engine was built people were so scared that they criticized the invention!!!
Having said that i do not advocate for NUCLEAR energy harnessing...
But our view should be in much oriented towards new ways of safe harnessing but not complete seize of usage!!
"Walk away" safety, pebble bed & other innovations are within our grasp.
Smart Grids, net metering incentives, futher reduce demands for base loads.
Given the the worst case of the current reactors in Japan, this will showcase remediation technologies.
The utility of high-P manure char as in situ sorbents of heavy metals in conjunction with biomass chars to stimulate MYC & plant growth for phytoremediation, offers a unique set of tools for both concentration & vitrified sequestration and binding toxic agents uptake in the food cycle.
Note that Japanese Biochar Association - (JBA) have worked on project for the bioremediation of radioactive substances with some specialists in the field, and have some data that show that various soil inhabiting fungi, including some edible mycorrhizal fungi, will take up the substances like cesium.
The members of JBA and the Mycorrhiza Research Society in Japan are already working together with the Japanese government and other researchers in order to stop the contamination of foods as much as possible (after the spring crops).
The basic approach would be to grow mushrooms on contaminated wood (or any other type of cellulosic materials), harvest them, carbonize (rather than combust) the mushrooms, the heavy nucleotides end up trapped in the Biochar structures
Biochar Sorption of Contaminants;
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010...
Dr. Lima's work; Specialized Characterization Methods for Biochar
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010...
And at USDA;
The Ultimate Trash To Treasure: *ARS Research Turns Poultry Waste into Toxin-grabbing Char
http://www.ars.usda.gov/IS/AR/archive/jul05/char07...
The International Biochar Initutive ( IBI News letter) has some new work;
Uchimiya, Minori, Wartelle Lynda H., Klasson Thomas K., Fortier Chanel A., and Lima Isabel M. (2011). Influence of Pyrolysis Temperature on Biochar Property and Function as a Heavy Metal Sorbent in Soil. Journal Agric. Food Chem, 2/2011.
First of all you must define what kind or flavor of nuclear is being advocated. The reactors from the 60's are mostly water cooled reactors. The Fukushima are boiling water reactors. These reactors are of obsolete designs, the technology didn't stand still during the 60s for reactors either.
The current design approved by the NRC is the passive cooled light water reactor, it has proven safety features that negate the flaws of past designs. and Three Mile Island came no where near a meltdown, that was just extremists pot banging to fear monger the real facts of the disaster. their motto is: Any which way you can, even if it lies!
These passive LWRs are 3rd gen design. The 4th gens don't require water except for steam generation except where the Bryton cycle is employed. There is no danger of loss of coolant as the medium used has such a high specific heat that circulatory pumps are not required. These new designs can burn up the waste from the BWRs and LWRs. The new design produced less waste that is short lived in half life duration. They can use Thorium, Uranium and Plutonium for fuel. And if you thing that nuclear plants can detonate like bombs you have little understanding of nuclear technology, the fuel is only 4% enriched! And with nuclear you can manufacture the liquid fuels needs for transportation.
PV solar and wind might seem green because the fuel is free but it's actually not. they both require 100 x the infrastructure costs for nuclear hence they are subsidized over 50 times what nuclear or coal plants are. All this infrastructure requires tons mining and processing, something only coal and nuclear can provide, plus the motors require rare earth materials, mostly from China. Solar panel production plants are the largest energy consumers for thier thermal smelters of the silicon ingots. And they both are intermittent so they require fossil backup, there just isn't any efficient storage technology available for them. So their footprint on land usage is also 100 times that of either coal or nuclear plants.
Finally, so called green energy is so expensive in the rich countries that manufacturing jobs have to be exported to make it near affordable in these countries. It's not really green in china with all the dependency on coal. Oh, didn't they tell you that their green energy program is mostly window dressing for the stupid conned Westerners so they can manufacture more of this crap for the green-neck gullible?
People who look at renewables for replacement are like newly employed kids who get unreasonable credit and a no money down ARM on a house they would normally not be able to afford, it all seems so good at the time. It's the RPS stupid! Power companies are being strong armed by regulations to supplement their infrastructure with costly wind and PV solar farms that normally would not be employed as they are not sustainable! it's just on big con game from the ENRON days pushed by the likes of Al Gore. What you will end up with is a shared 35 square foot living quarters like I had when i was in the military with communal showers and eating facilities, that's the future of green energy! Unless your one of the elite bureaucrats, then you might actually get the luxury of a house!
So you green-necks who advocate this crap should go past the mantra and DO SOME REAL RESEARCH! Ultimately fusion would be the real non polluting energy source but that looks to be at least 20 years down the road for a pilot energy plant, the NIF plant just produced a scaler amount for a brief second, not better then a controlled thermonuclear contained blast, even though it wasn't a bomb.
http://www.energyoutlet.com
http://www.reflectgreen.com