Nuclear (Fission) - RescueTheWorld.net

France v. Germany: – A comparison of renewables vs nuclear power, and the ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Thorium Reactors: the most Obvious Solution.

Experts Agree: Nuclear is Necessary
China’s 5 Year Plan: Nuclear EVERYWHERE

Existing Nuclear Power (Fission)
A Forgotten Solution

It’s safe
It’s clean
It’s cheap
We know how to build it now.

Too often existing nuclear power plants, which split uranium for fission power, are neglected as an immediate solution to world dependence on fossil fuels. They are unfairly vilified because of false concerns:

About safety, due to a very few high-profile accidents
Knowing how to deal with radioactive nuclear waste

Safety: But those concerns are exaggerated and over estimated. Compared to all sources of power generation, the nuclear accident record is low. Experience has made safety a high priority. Designers are now more than capable of building reliable plants with redundancies and fail-safe’s, and protection against human error. Similarly, dealing with nuclear waste is less expensive and more reliable than dealing with other forms of toxic industrial waste.

Cost considerations do exist for creating new nuclear power plants. These can be addressed by making nuclear plants smaller and more reproduceable, or cookie-cutter-like. By manufacturing smaller, identical, nuclear plants in volume (as is done for automobiles or modular buildings), the average cost of new nuclear power can be dramatically improved. These Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) already exisit.

There just needs to be a will to invest in this technology.

The earth has ample supplies of uranium. Nuclear power via fission is one of the most powerful bridges to other clean renewables, like the nuclear fusion of the future.

Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
Going online in the early 2020s

Return to Solutions

EXPERTS AGREE – NUCLEAR IS NECESSARY

Experts: The Only Way to Save the Planet Is Nuclear Energy, Jan 2019
Bill Gates: U.S. Leaders Must Embrace Nuclear Energy, Dec 2018
WSJ: Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet. Do the math on replacing fossil fuels: To move fast enough, the world needs to build lots of reactors. By Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist, Jan. 11, 2019. (Small Modular Reactors – SMRs)

Republicans and Democrats Unite to Save the Planet, and No One Notices, Mar 31, 2019 From the JJ Article: On Thursday, Bill Gates tweeted: “Yesterday, a bipartisan group of leaders in the U.S. Senate introduced the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, which establishes an ambitious plan to accelerate the development of advanced nuclear reactor technologies. I can’t overstate how important this is.”

______

RENEWABLES – High Use of Concrete and Steel

Concrete and Steel production is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs). Concrete in highways and buildings, and steel in buildings and vehicles are used in huge volumes. When comparing the climate impacts of renewable energy, usage of concrete and steel is relevant. Nuclear has the least secondary impact on GHGs, and wind power has the most. This is part of the reason experts realize that nuclear is necessary, from an economic point of view, in addition to Renewables.

Concrete: responsible for 7% of all global CO2 emmissions.

Nuclear Fission is a Hard Sell in the US & EU

But it is Charging Ahead in the Eastern Bloc! They recognize that it is the lowest impact energy source, in terms of intensive resource use, like concrete and steel.

___

Some original sources of information on the subjects of Safety and Waste Management are:

A – Climate Change and the Nuclear Option – Download PDF.

author, Matt Lundy, 2018. Quotes from the article by Lundy:

“Even though nuclear energy may very well be the golden ticket out of climate change, many countries are hesitant to adopt it.”
“The threat of disaster, biased media portrayal, and an overall lack of understanding when it comes to nuclear, has scared the (western) public and policymakers away from a potentially planet-saving energy source.”

_____

B – Radioactive Waste Management

The title links to the summary by World-Nuclear.org, outlining great progress on managing nuclear waste, achieved over decades. The state-of-the-art is described. Quotes from the page:

“Nuclear waste is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial waste.”
“Safe methods for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste are technically proven; the international consensus is that geological disposal is the best option.”

.

.
Return to the top

Nuclear vs Renewables in Reduction of CO2 Emissions

data from wikipedia

Germany has shifted electricity generation to renewables; close to 30% of all electric power today is from wind, solar, biomass and hydro. Germany is actively phasing out nuclear. Conversely, France has largely retained nuclear to date, with close to 70% of all electricity generated still coming from nuclear power.

France has performed better in CO2 reductions over the last two decades, with a higher percentage reduction in emissions than Germany. This partly due to Germany’s need to add natural gas power plants, while battery storage for renewables remains too expensive.

Return to the top
Return to Solutions

_______
.
.

Thorium Reactors of the Future.

There is an alternative to atomic power from splitting Uranium. Another, more plentiful element, Thorium, can be used to generate Nuclear power. Best of all:

Thorium reactors use a molten salt process, not high pressure water to control heat. Instead of melting down from loss of cooling, a Thorium reactor will simply stop all by itself. It has passive shut-down, making it totally safe

Thorium nuclear reactor process

from the wikipedia article on molten salt reactors.

Other positive attributes of a Thorium reactor are:

The reaction does NOT generate weapons grade Plutonium
Waste products have a short half-life, unlike Uranium
First developed and demonstrated in 1965 in the US
Current proof-of-concept facility in the Netherlands

Challenges of commercial Thorium reactor design are: (a) to produce cost effective fuel and (b) to prevent corrosion of the reactor vessel (modern materials assist the latter goal).

So, why don’t we have these safe Thorium reactors in operation today? Well, in the cold war of the 1960s, nations wanted massive amounts of Plutonium for massive nuclear weapons arsenals. Thorium nuclear power plants did not produce Plutonium, so they were abandoned.

.

The decision to develop Uranium nuclear power technology exclusively (rather than develop safer Thorium as well) was the height of US, Russian and Chinese (& other nuclear nation) political stupidity. It was close to the stupidity and negligence now being applied to Climate Change by the majority of nations of the earth.

Fortunately, several nations are designing 4th generation molten salt / Thorium reactors today, including China, the Netherlands, India and others. The USA has some initiatives by they are mired in regulations and lack of funding and lack of vision for this obvious solution to Climate Change. Horrific extreme weather will eventually cause both politicians and environmentalists to turn to nuclear power.