Will Work for Research Grants

I have discovered when looking for a solution to our energy needs that there is no easy answer. Before I began my research I had this idea that nuclear power was an ultimate form of energy that would completely replace fossil fuels and the only aversion to its expansion was the persistent cold war fear of anything nuclear. However, I ascertained that nuclear power, as it is used today, has many drawbacks and should only be used as part of an overall energy strategy not as a replacement for all other sources of energy.

Even after all my research I still feel as though I couldn't tell someone why we don't use more nuclear energy in this country. I can give plenty of  examples of why I think there is an aversion towards nuclear power in America but i cannot say with any certainty what the actual reason is. I can easily point to nuclear waste as one possible reason we don't rely solely on nuclear power but it is clear in my mind that it is not the only reason. It is also difficult to turn away from more familiar sources of energy no matter how bad they are for the environment, especially with the current abundance of fossil fuels that exist in this country.

The most astounding thing I did discover was the amazing potential of Thorium reactors and I still wonder, and will continue to wonder, why our nation isn't funding research into this rather spectacular source of energy? More research needs to be done into all sources of energy that originate from the atomic nucleus because that nucleus contain more energy than anything else on earth. The forces that hold the nucleus together are strong enough to hold positively charged particles together and it isn't even the repulsion between like charges that causes radioactive decay it is another force that is strong enough, in certain situations, to break this nuclear glue. The point that I am trying to make is, that every atom in the world contains large amounts of energy in its nucleus that can potentially be harnessed. The problem is that most of the time it requires more energy to be break apart a nucleus than the amount of energy that would be released, so it is not a viable source of energy. It is those rare fissionable materials, like Uranium or Plutonium, that require very little energy to harness the power that sits at the heart of every atom.

Some of the forces in a nucleus.
Source: General Chemistry: Principles, Patterns and Applications

The four forces of the Universe
Source: Passion for Science

Nuclear energy has tremendous potential as a source of viable energy but extensive research needs to be done to find a safe and efficient way to harness this energy. The research into nuclear energy needs to be funded because of its promise as a safe and green source of energy for this country and the world.

By the Power of Thor-ium

For a while now I have been briefly mentioning Thorium reactors (Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors or Thorium Molten Salt Reactors) as an alternative form of nuclear energy. Thorium solves many of the inherent problems of standard nuclear reactors and is not some untested technology, a reactor was operated successfully for 5 years starting in 1965 but was shut down due to lack of funding. As I began to do research on Thorium reactors I repeatedly wondered, why aren't we using this technology?

Source: www.snorgtees.com

There is a great TED talk about Thorium reactors called Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel by Kirk Sorensen (please spend the ten minutes to watch it.) In it, Kirk Sorensen describes the qualities of a Thorium reactor, how Thorium is four times more abundant than Uranium, is safer than a standard high pressure nuclear reactor and can provide for the world's energy needs with a relatively small amount of Thorium, compared to fossil fuels and Uranium.

Again, why aren't we funding or using this technology? It does sound too good to be true, so I am slightly skeptical. In his TED talk Kirk Sorensen gives as much information as he could but due to the complex nature of Thorium reactors it was an impossible task for him to provide a thorough explanation in ten minutes. I am left wondering, how do Thorium reactors work? What makes them safer than the standard nuclear reactor that is in operation today?

I found my answers in the article Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors: An old idea in nuclear power gets reexamined (pdf) by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir from the July-August 2010 edition of  American Scientist. The article discusses the history of Thorium as a nuclear energy source and how it operates, including the inherent safety of liquid Thorium reactors. It also covers why we use Uranium-235 based nuclear power and how Thorium reactors do not provide for the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The article did help to answer one of the overarching question I had about Thorium, why didn't we jump on this technology when it was first proved to be viable? The answer is: it doesn't create nuclear weapons. One of the by products of a standard U-235 fission reaction is Plutonium-239, an isotope that is used in the manufacturing of thermonuclear weapons, and the United States during the cold war was manufacturing A LOT of thermonuclear weapons. At the time a nuclear power plant that was not assisting in our nuclear proliferation was not something worth funding. I discovered that Thorium reactors are safer because they don't create highly radioactive spent fuel rods, in addition they require power to stay operational. This is safer because in the case of complete power loss the reactor simply stops functioning and power is not used to control the nuclear reaction, which cannot get out of control due to the fundamental nature of liquid fuels. The article made the abundance of Thorium more evident, it states that, on average, a cubic meter of the earth's crust contains enough Thorium to provide for a person's energy needs for ten years.

Thorium is 4 times as abundant as Uranium.
Source: www.wnd.com

The article and the TED talk are two sides of the same coin as they both provide information about Thorium reactors, although the article is more thorough. The article does provide data that demonstrates that there is still nuclear waste produced but in smaller quantities that are significantly less radioactive. Both present liquid Thorium reactors in a positive light as a solution for our global energy needs, the TED talk also presents it as a solution for our galactic energy needs.

Even after all my research I am still left wondering why we are not using any liquid Thorium reactors? We're not even doing any publicly funded research. On the surface it appears to be the answer to many of our energy needs but by no means is it the "magic bullet" for our energy crisis. The solution needs to be a balanced approach using as many non-fossil fuel energy sources as possible.



(Also, today is the anniversary of the first test of a nuclear bomb back in 1945.)

The Nuclear Waste Problem

One of the complications of nuclear power as a major energy source is that it produces some very dangerous waste. Even I have to admit that this is an immense drawback for nuclear power and until there is more research conducted on the repossessing of radioactive waste, it will be a byproduct of nuclear power.

Again I turned to NPR to develop a basic understanding of the subject, this time I found a story from March of 2011, What Are Spent Fuel Rods? by Joe Palca. The story presents a basic description of how fuel rods work and how they are stored at the reactor when all the fissionable material is used up. The spent fuel rods sit in a huge pool of water until they cool down enough to be transported to a disposal site or a reprocessing plant.

Let's go Swimming.
Source:  http://politically-confused.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/japan-alarm-over-spent-fuel-rods.html

I was merely looking for information on the basic process of what happens to a fuel rod after it has been depleted but ended up discovering the dangers of nuclear reactors in earthquake prone areas. Any sort of incident in these earthquake zones that damages the ability for these storage pools to function properly would be potential catastrophic. If during an earthquake, or other disaster, power is disrupted there is no way to cool the pools of water and they will eventually evaporate leaving the fuel rods exposed which will lead to airborne radiation when the casings melt. This scenario is usually covered by various fail-safes and contingency plans but all the plans in the world can't quell the public's fear of potential disasters. This leads me to wonder what happens to the fuel rods after the cooling process because at this point you are left with radioactive isotopes with really long half-lives (millions to billions of years.)

I ended up stumbling upon a report done by the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission that was published in May of 2002 titled Radioactive Waste: Production, Storage, Disposal.(Yet another PDF.) This report covers how the many types of waste are stored and disposed of in the United States. It describes how much waste is produced and the regulatory limits of public exposure during transportation and storage. In the section for High-Level Radioactive Waste it covers the construction of the Yucca Mountain Storage site in Nevada, a long term storage project that is now cancelled.

The report contains some interesting information but makes me ask why did we give up on putting all our high-level waste in a mountain that is in the same area we used to test atomic bombs? After crunching some of the numbers they have given in the report we produce around 3,000 square feet of high-level waste a year and this waste needs to be properly stored, the question is, where do we store it?

Yucca Mountain, Middle of Nowhere
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/energy.html

In nuclear power we have a huge source of energy with a low carbon footprint but with an enormous downside, long term radioactive waste. Are there other ways of getting the energy contained within an atomic nucleus that doesn't produce dangerous waste? Is there a way to produce a safer nuclear reactor? Can the public still embrace nuclear power even though it can be potential dangerous?

A Low-Carbon Alternative

Upon starting my research I came to the realization that there is quite a bit of information about nuclear energy, unfortunately much of it is biased. From research projects of nuclear advocacy groups to the hyperbolic doomsday claims of environmentalists, it has been a difficult time finding unbiased information that is not filled with the actual physics of nuclear fission.

Shortly after deciding on the subject of nuclear energy I heard an interesting story on NPR on my drive to work which was conveniently enough about nuclear power. Going to the NPR website I found the story I heard on the radio, which was Film Rankles Environmentalists By Advocating Nuclear Power by Richard Harris. The story discusses the documentary "Pandora's Paradox" by Robert Stone which is about nuclear power and the environmentalist movement. It continues the conversation of the growing energy needs around the world and the use of nuclear power as a low-carbon source of energy. The story also includes the individuals who are still critical of nuclear power as a solution for the world's energy needs.

The point I'd like to draw from this story is that there is a burgeoning discussion taking place amongst environmentalists about nuclear power being a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. Nuclear power being a low-carbon alternative actually makes perfect sense with a little understanding of science (comparing combustion reactions to nuclear fission.) Now this made me wonder, how low are the effective carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels or other low-carbon energy sources?

This answer would be more difficult to find because of the prevalence of nuclear advocacy groups but I found a study done in June of 2011 for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology titled Carbon Footprint of Electricity Generation. (This is a pdf.) This study gives estimates of carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour of energy produced for the total life cycle of an energy source. The life cycle includes all aspects of the energy production including manufacturing, transportation, and possible extraction of fuels. The study showed that nuclear power had a lower average "carbon footprint" than many other low-carbon energy sources and significantly lower than fossil fuels.

Source: Carbon Footprint of Electricity Generation

This means that nuclear power gets more energy for their carbon emissions which is not surprising considering the amount of energy that is put out by a single nuclear reactor in a year, which is around 7.5 billion kilowatt hours. The sheer amount of energy produced from a nuclear reactor makes up for the rather intensive enrichment process and that the fissionable isotope U-235 is only 0.7% of all naturally occurring Uranium. I'm not going to get into the carbon emissions of transporting and storing nuclear waste at this time but it is included in the life cycle from the study. Needless to say the large amount of energy that comes out of nuclear fission easily makes up for the carbon emitted in production and storage.

After all this information about nuclear power I wonder why do many environmentalist still not think nuclear power is a viable alternative to fossil fuels? Is it nuclear waste that stops them from embracing another viable source of low-carbon energy?.

Why don't we like Nuclear Power?

My first encounter with nuclear power, along with many in my generation, was in a little town called Springfield. A place where the fish have three eyes, the power plant is run by a greedy old man and the control room is under the watchful eye of a loveable oaf. I am, of course, referring to The Simpsons and the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant which has had relatively few incidents considering the nature of the show. It wasn't Chernobyl or Three Mile Island that would be my first experience with nuclear energy but a cartoon where fuel rods bounced around the streets and nuclear disasters were averted by an inanimate carbon rod. This kind of fun experience effectively eliminated the fearful element of nuclear power that has existed in previous generations. I have developed such a positive view that if there were to be a nuclear power plant built in my community I wouldn't be protesting or screaming "think of the children!" I would be relaxing, happy in the knowledge that my electricity would be coming from an object that has more potential energy than anything else on Earth, the nucleus of an atom.

Look at all that potential energy
Source: www.nscl.msu.edu

So that brings me to a question I often dwell on, why isn't nuclear power more prevalent in America? As a country we have finally come to the consensus than fossil fuels are not good for the environment and are now desperately looking everywhere for "green" energy but our search seems to be neglecting nuclear power. We have the technology to make it almost 100% safe and have developed newer types of reactors that don't rely on fissionable material, such as Thorium molten salt reactors (which I'll cover another day.) In my search for answers I will be lucky enough to have sources such as The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the European Nuclear Society to provide information for me to delve in to and there is quite a bit of new research on nuclear physics coming out all the time so I'll never be without data on this subject.

Why aren't we #1?
Source: www.euronuclear.org

I also tend to wonder why we, as a nation, do not use nuclear power as a larger portion of our total energy production like other countries do? I'd also like to find out why nuclear power isn't as popular as coal, natural gas, wind energy, or any of the other "green" energy sources. There has to be a reason why nuclear energy isn't more prevalent in this country.