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The Nuclear Energy Option
The Nuclear Energy Option
The Nuclear Energy Option
Michael Dittmar
source www.iaea.org 4
source www.iaea.org 6
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Like with oil reserves ... country numbers never seem to decrease!
How are costs of uranium resources/ mining dened? Shouldnt the uranium resource/dollar numbers change because of ination and higher oil price?
Real question for commercial nuclear energy production is: Do we know how to extract uranium fast enough?
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160000
120000
100000
60000
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R e q u i r e m e n ts L o w e r
source: S. Kidd, the global uranium market 4th Uranium Newsletter 17-19 Jan. 2007 14
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ITER says within 30 years, the electricity could be available on the grid! (BBC news 21. Nov. 2006)
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Nuclear Fusion Illusions (IV) Four major barriers to fusion energy on our earth
Commercial energy production requires a steady state 1 GW(e) power plant operation, running for years not for minutes! The ITER timeline: a 0.5 GW(thermal) 400 second pulse in 2022! High temperature and high neutron ux resistant material unknown! Such neutron resistant material can not be developed/tested with ITER! Tritium handling: Running a hypothetical 1 GW(e) reactor burns about 200 Kg of tritium/year. (ITER experiments require a few Kg) External tritium sources can provide only a few kg per year, world tritium inventory by 2027 at best 30 kg! The impossible self-sustained tritium breeding chain.
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Quote I: There is NOT a single experiment yet in the fusion environment to show that the DT fusion fuel cycle is viable. Quote II: Tritium supply and self-suciency are Go-No Go issues for fusion energy, as critical NOW as demonstrating a burning plasma Quote III: What should we do to communicate this message to those who inuence fusion policy outside DOE?
(Brieng to DOE Oce of Science on Fusion Chamber Technology on behalf of the US Fusion chamber community June 3, 2003) 22
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country Australia Kazakhstan Canada South Africa USA Brazil Namibia Russia Usbekistan world world (thorium)
reserves [tons] (UIC Sep. 2006) 1.143 000 816 000 444 000 341 000 342 000 279 000 282 000 172 000 116 000 4.743 000 4.500 000
reserves [tons] (UIC June 2005) 1.074 000 622 000 439 000 298 000 102 000 143 000 213 000 158 000 93 000 3.537 000
production [tons U] 2006 7593 5279 9862 534 1672 190 3067 3262 2260 39429
myth about thorium? The UIC report 75 (2006 and 2005) says: In the earth crust, thorium is three times as abundant as uranium)
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Predictions: Workshop on alternative Energy Strategies for the year 2000, MIT Press 1977 (Global 2000 Report) and EIA Report (2004). (1 Quad = 1015 Btu = 1.055 1018 Joule = 2.93 1011 KWh) Demand based predictions for the energy use in the year 2000 were completely wrong! What does this tell us about todays demand predictions?
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Ten tie Ro d po Ac i emen s r n fo th d iin toc n tr c th Next S ta v a ma f h ev ts ta ti g r m e ecso o s ut e tep Desg in Co s u tin n tr c o Op a o er tin Ap l a o p i tin c o r u ts f es l
DEM O ( GW th) 2
PROTO ( . GW e) 15
Demon trati of a referen l actiati s for s on ce ow v on teel DEM O S earchfor hg er p ih erforman materi sfor P ce al ROTO Demon trati of was man emen an recy ig s on te ag t d cl n Demon trati of s s on afetyman emen ag t Demon trati of l en i men i act p ti s on ow vron tal mp oten al
0
En io . S f vr n & a ety
1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0
Extracted from: ie Year Asesmen Rep rel to th s eci c p ramme: Fv s s t ort ated e p fi rog Nu ear en ycov n th p od 1 9 - 9 9 J n 2 0 cl erg erig e eri 9 5 1 9 u e 0 0
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DEMO- the demonstration Step (2020?2040?) Fusion Power: 2000 MWtherm Net electricity production Tritium self suciency High reliability of operation
PROTO- the prototype power station (2040?2060?) Electric Power: 1500 MWel Improved commercial electricity production 34
Why hopes are high for the deuterium-tritium fusion chain? Lowest temperature combined with highest fusion cross section!
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From the computer imagination to reality? Well known and well hidden tritium problems I
ITER Tritium supply mainly from CANDU heavy water reactors (shutdown 2020-2025?) Accumulated Tritium about 20 Kg (after 30 years), current price 30 Million dollar/Kg Normal ssion reactors make Tritium 2-3 Kg/year, projected cost 200 Million dollar/Kg Optimistically guessed required tritium breeding ratio TBR = 1.15 (for a 5-10 year doubling time), and 1.3 for a one year doubling time! (Sawan and Abdou assume an uncertainty for this number of 30%!) 3-D computer simulations of hypothetical FW (rst wall) and breeding blankets (various versions of Li plus Be or Pb neutron multipliers) indicate an achievable (TBR) of 1.15 (uncertainty could be in the 1-3% range)
for details see: M. E. Sawan, M. A. Abdou, Fusion Engineering and Design 81 (2006) 11311144 and www.fusion.ucla.edu/abdou) 38
From the computer imagination to reality? Well known and well hidden tritium problems II
Simplied neutron lithium experiments show that computer simulations systematically overestimate experiments by a factor of 1.14 (or more?) (Quote from the publication: the large overestimate is alarming) Computers do not know about tritium extraction and transfer eciency and radioactivity protection. Computers do not know about needed heat transfer mechanism and material aging! (They even assume impossible First Wall thickness for ITER) TBR experiments can not study high neutron ux! (neither with ITER nor anywhere else!)
for details see: M. E. Sawan, M. A. Abdou, Fusion Engineering and Design 81 (2006) 11311144 and www.fusion.ucla.edu/abdou)
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