Table of contents
Chapter
Topic
Subtopic
Figure
Prologue
Table of contents
Energy for civilization
Civilization evolved via heat and work
World population history
Heat energy
Climate warming in 10,000 BC enabled agriculture.
Bronze Age
3000 BC 1100°C furnace for melting copper and tin
Iron Age
Killick: A 2.2 m well preserved, natural draft, iron smelting furnace
Work energy
Power
Work from water and wind
Early French water powered grain mill
10th century Persian horizontal windmills
Work from Heat
Heat: the kinetic energy of molecules
Heat source, heat engine, heat sink
The Watt Age: Heat in Harness
World population history
Newcomen’s 1712 steam engine
Converting heat to work
Madison: World GDP per capita in 1990 international dollars
Heat to Work to Electricity
Energy IS the economy
Thermodynamics
Earth’s energy system
Economic system
Energy and natural resources create economic activity.
Waste
Embedded energy in goods
Cost percentages of inputs to aluminum production.
Embedded energy in labor services
$1 of Gross World Product requires 1 kWh of energy.
Gross World Product, constant 2015 dollars
World and US heat energy consumption.
World energy intensity, kWh/$, in 2011 dollars
$1 of GWP demands 0.27 kWh(e) of electric energy.
Electricity production by source
36% of heat energy is used to make electric energy.
World electric power demand growth
Developing nations’ shortfall in electric energy use
Each $1 of GWP requires 0.96 kg of natural resources.
US per capita, annual natural resources use.
Lifecycle material mass requirements for electric energy sources
World population
World average energy cost is $0.059/kWh.
Embedded CO2 is 0.21 kg/$.
VW estimate of CO2 emissions from manufacturing Golf autos.
Global energy return on investment (EROI) is 17:1.
Energy return on investment.
GWP dependence on capital, labor, and energy.
GWP dependence on energy in classical and Keen models.
Capital goods investment is 26% of GWP.
World capital formation
Quantifying energy in the economy
Economy’s transformation of energy and natural resources
Economic system insights
Radiation
Radiation misunderstandings
The rise of radiation fear
Wisdom of woman awarded two Nobel prizes.
Excess cancer risk for people irradiated by the atomic bomb
National Council on Radiation Protection hides data refuting LNT.
A-bomb survivors’ exposures < 0.1 Sv caused no excess cancers.
Regulators’ rules
Groupthink
Calabrese LNT flaws: scientific errors
Calabrese “LNT Gate” of unethical behavior
ALARA (as low as reasonable achievable)
Collective person-dose
Regulatory creep
Regulators’ evidence-free reductions in radiation safety limits
Radiation knowledge can overcome fear
DNA strand breaks occur frequently, from metabolism.
2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry awardees
Clusters of DNA double-strand-break sensing and repair proteins
High radiation rate events
Observed health effects of accidental radiation exposures
Radiation therapy for cancer
Rotating X-ray beam focused on cancer delivers up to 80 Sv.
Radiation accident guidance
Hazard from living in an affected area following a radiation release
What level of radiation is safe? 0.1 Sv/month: Allison.
Radiation dose rate recommendation
Radiation rates after historic accidents
St George, Utah: detailed fallout pattern; 50 mR/h = 500 µSv/h
Regulation reform
Nuclear power is safe. Economist July 19, 2022
What about the waste?
Radioactive fission products stabilize hours to years later.
Water absorbs decay radiation
99.999% of penetrating photons are gone in 600 years.
Used fuel casks intercept the harmful radiation.
Holtec HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility
97% of used fuel can be reused in new reactors.
Deep geologic used fuel repository at Onkalo, Finland
Nuclear waste is not a problem.
Severe radiation accidents
Dose reduction factors compared to being outdoors
Further reading about radiation
Nuclear power
Fission
Moderation
Water slowed neutrons, enabling a natural nuclear reactor in Africa.
Decay heat
Conventional nuclear power
Boiling water reactor (BWR)
Boiling water reactor 75 bar 285°C steam turns turbine-generator.
Pressurized water reactor (PWR)
Pressurized water reactor uses155 bar, hotter 315°C water
Westinghouse AP1000 PWR
AP1000,Westinghouse Advanced Pressurized PWR
CANDU reactor
CANDU reactor moderator is D2O, with no large pressure vessel.
Graphite moderated, water cooled RBMK reactor
Russia’s RBMK graphite moderated, water cooled power plant
Small modular reactors
Akademik Lomonosov
Russia’s Academik Lomonosov 70 MWe floating power unit
NuScale
NuScale PWR modules are under water, under ground.
GE Hitachi BWRX-300
GE Hitachi BWRX-300
Holtec SMR-300
Holtec dual SMR-300
New Nuclear Reactors
Fast reactors
Fast reactors fission U-238 products with unmoderated neutrons.
TerraPower TWR-P and Natrium
TerraPower TWR design evolved.
X-energy Xe-100
X-energy four reactor plant generates 320 MW of electricity
TRISO fuel
TRISO balls contain triple barrier, sand-size fuel particles.
China’s HTR-PM pebble bed reactor
TRISO fuel new nuclear technology online in China.
ThorCon 500 molten salt reactor
Oak Ridge National Labs developed a molten salt reactor.
ThorCon 500 is designed for shipyard construction.
ThorCon reactor in Pot in replaceable Can
Importance of low cost
Relative sizes of coal and fission heat sources
Powering up Indonesia
ThorCon in Indonesia
Indonesia electrification speed
Historical nuclear power plant construction speeds
MWh of energy generation added over 20 years, per capita
Building heating
Converting heat to electricity to heat adds costs.
District heating from rejected heat of steam condenser.
Public support for cheap heat
Air conditioning
Developing nations experience the most cooling degree days
Seafuel
Seafuel™ Robert Hargraves
ThorCon 500 fission power plant
Long chain hydrocarbon fuels have the best energy density.
Transportation is fueled by hydrocarbons.
Premium is paid for vehicles’ portable hydrocarbon energy.
Seaside nuke captures CO2, electrolyzes water for H2, makes fuel
CO2 in seawater
A third of emitted CO2 is absorbed by ocean water.
Ocean currents distribute dissolved CO2 worldwide.
90% of ocean water CO2 is in bicarbonate form.
Seaside power plant CO2 opportunity
A seawater cooled, hot, new nuclear power plant
Net zero Seafuel for combustion engines
Sea re-absorbs CO2 removed a year before.
pH swing electrochemistry
Electrolysis, with ion exchange membrane
CO2 via pH swing
CO2 removal by pH swing (Yan)
CO2 removal without bipolar ion exchange membranes (Kim)
US Navy seawater to synfuel demonstration
Nuclear powered carrier might fuel its jet fighters from seawater.
Cost of CO2
Pilot plant for Direct Air Capture of CO2
Hydrogen from electric AND heat energy
Hydrogen from three step Cu-Cl water splitting (Razi)
Hydrogen from hotter, 630°C Cu-Cl water splitting (Razi)
Hydrogen fuel
Russia’s Tupolev-155 with liquid hydrogen fuel flew in 1988.
Hydrogen frees carbon from CO2
Hydrogen frees carbon from oxygen’s bonds.
23 million vehicles run on methane fuel.
Methanol fuel from CO2
Many reaction paths for CO2 + 4 H2 —> CH4 + 2 H2O
George Olah envisioned our economy powered by methanol fuel.
Carbon Recycling International built two CO2-to-methanol plants.
Dimethyl ether fuel
Dimethyl ether can fuel existing diesel engines.
Synthetic gasoline
SASOL Fischer Tropsch plants, Secunda, South Africa
FT process, starting with coal gasification, C + H2O —> CO + H2
Methanol to gasoline
ExxonMobil methanol-to-gasoline process
Haldor Topsoe gas-to-gasoline process
Seafinery
Conceptual Seafinery to convert H2 + CO2 —> gasoline
Cost of Seafuel
Models of octene molecule, formed from CO2 and H2O
Seafuel energy cost is $0.50/kg.
Scale
1.5 kg-CO2/sec seawater flow constrains Seafuel production.
Seafinery output: 15 MW(t) Input: 13 MW(e) + 20 MW(t)
Dangote petroleum refinery
Africa’s largest, world’s newest, Dangote refinery in Nigeria
Shell Pearl gas-to-liquids refinery
Pearl Gas to Liquids plant in Qatar
Global refinery costs
697 global oil refineries, tallies oilmap.xyz
Nearly 700 oil refineries like these power our world.
Energy Transition
Fossil carbon energy
Global CO2 emissions in gigatons CO2 per year
Global temperature relative to 1880-1920
Green energy
Wind turbine energy
Measured capacity factor of 64 US wind turbines over 5 years
12 MW x 40% versus 500 MW x 90%
“The Biden Administration’s Offshore Wind Fantasy”
Solar panel energy
802 MW Copper Mountain solar facility in Nevada
SRECTrade example of Massachusetts solar REC market prices
Home sells excess power, buys it back at night
Solar-idled power plants must start up quickly.
Batteries
Tesla MegaPack, 19.3 MWh, $9,759,770
El Hierro island: 3 wind turbines, pumped hydro, diesel backup.
Lion intelligence
Renewables, fuels, and nuclear energy groups
Green transportation
Energy Gradualism
Plug-in hybrid car gradualism
EV energy sources
Green energy transition costs $69 trillion, $5 trillion/yr
B of A: Green energy transition costs $69 trillion, $5 trillion/yr
McKinsey’s estimate for average energy investments to 2050
Cost of New Nuclear Seafuel energy transition
Energy transitions compared
Conclusion
Public support for nuclear power
Public support for new nuclear power
Energy security
Public education need
Members of environmental groups do support new nuclear.
Energy for developing nations
Energy policy recommendations
Endnotes