
Towards a Navy Corps of Nuclear Engineering - robg
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2010/02/towards-a-navy-corps-of-nuclear-engineering.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+professorbainbridge%2FsheN+%28ProfessorBainbridge.com+%C2%AE%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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carterschonwald
This is actually a pretty reasonable idea. There are several considerations
that need to be worked out first. Specifically:

1) there are few programs in the entire US which have nuclear engineering
degrees (MIT has one, I believe fewer than 10 others do too), a topic
requiring a sufficiently broad range of skills that its almost like a fusion
[sic] of solid state physics (for robust materials), electrohydrodynamics (to
understand anything relating to fusion and plasma), numerical computing
(analytic solutions to realistic PDEs is a funny idea sometimes), as well
complete case analysis of all possible risk and failure modes via
probabilistic model building (there is in fact dedicated software used to
handle the complexity of these models). In short, do we have the educational
capacity to train the people needed?

2) at least with how current nuclear regulation is structured (which would
presumably have to change), technically any new reactor designs that get
approved are "exemptions" to a general ban, so theres actually a lot of time
spent finaggling approval via a somewhat insidery process.

3) I want fusion thats commercially viable! :). The idea of having energy
become functionally free and what would then be possible boggles my mind, and
I don't think anyone can fully comprehend the myriad subtle ways in which the
world would immediately change. Also, while in practice dealing with fission
products/waste isn't that bad (and its much more contained than waste from
conventional power plants), it is logistically tricky to manage both the waste
and all the people who worry about the waste.

~~~
DaniFong
Carter,

Where did you get the idea that fusion power is functionally free?

The fuel you burn is nearly free, but you also use up a ton of material and
make it radioactive so it's hard to recycle. The structural and shielding
elements of the reactor will likely degrade (for we haven't tested this) on a
similar timescale to the degradation of wind turbines, solar collectors, and
the other components in the balance of the plant.

The heat from the sun and at the core of the earth is functionally free, in
the same sense: the question is how expensive it is to get it out! I've never
seen a really reasonable and measured study of what commercial fusion _might_
cost to produce power.

~~~
lutorm
Indeed. Plus the thing about fusion power is that likely these plants will be
absolutely massive, which raises issues about: * single point of failure *
huge transmission needs * very large start-up cost, likely banning developing
countries from using it.

All of these issues are much alleviated with distributed power like solar or
wind (or the mini-reactors suggested by this article), which makes me think
it's preferable.

~~~
sketerpot
One of the encouraging things about IEC fusion and dense plasma focus fusion
is that they're supposed to be something you can do with smaller facilities,
and construct incrementally. What you said certainly applies to more
traditional fusion methods, though. We've already seen the economic problems
of huge power plants with recent nuclear reactors: they're so darn _big_
nowadays that financing them is a huge headache.

------
wingo
This is crazy. No one is doing anything about the commercial waste, and this
fellow wants to bring military-trained engineers in to create more waste?

To this date there are tanks full of liquid waste at military sites that
people are concerned about touching in any way, because no one knows what's
inside them, and there's the possibility that disturbing the contents might
create a fissile mass.

I've got a better idea. Stick the corps on cleanup and have them report back
when finished.

[edit: Just to be clear, I don't argue from an uninformed position. I do have
a BS in nuclear engineering.]

~~~
pwhelan
That is because of the fuel types used. The Navy is using cheap fuel from the
weapons program, which provides more than enough power and fuel for their
needs. However the cities would likely use a Thorium reactor, which can easily
be made to not produce weaponizeable (sp?) byproducts. I refuse to believe
that France can handle itself with fission plants and we cannot. We must not
allow irrational fears to drive policy and we must stop the use of fossil
fuels to provide the majority of our power.

I say gimmie a few hundred fission plants, a new electrical grid, and electric
cars & trucks. Our greenhouse gas emissions will go way down and our geo-
political strength will rise.

~~~
pwhelan
Oh, and it would provide a spark for nuclear studies in the US which could
give us an edge in energy production. I would love if the wind would provide
for all our power needs, but fission is a great transition method. Use it
until we can get fusion or viable solar/wind/bio power.

~~~
DaniFong
There's a good argument out there that wind can be considerably less expensive
than coal with good energy storage and good transmission.

<http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/energy.pdf>

I haven't seen anything like that for nuclear.

~~~
sketerpot
In the US, nuclear power is already cheaper than coal because we get most of
it from old plants that have already paid for their construction costs, so now
we're just paying operating and maintenance costs. Now imagine how much the
situation would improve with any of these way of decreasing nuclear costs (in
order of increasing radicalness):

* Mass-production of modular conventional reactors, like China is gearing up to do with AP1000 plants.

* Mass-production of smaller fourth-generation reactors, such as pebble beds (again, China is doing this) or some of the various breeder reactors, like the Hyperion Power Module.

* The same as above, but with Brayton-cycle gas turbines instead of steam turbines. This leads to simplified reactors and higher thermodynamic efficiency and quite significantly lower costs.

* The same as above, and then you stick them on a boat. This lets you float them to wherever they're needed, and the sea-water handles their cooling needs without costly cooling towers, and they can provide water desalination with waste heat. A nuclear aircraft carrier is already providing large amounts of fresh water to Haiti, and other countries are having serious water problems, and would pay good money for this. More here:

[http://finger-tree.blogspot.com/2009/11/floating-nuclear-
pla...](http://finger-tree.blogspot.com/2009/11/floating-nuclear-plants-for-
cheap-power.html)

* Liquid fluoride thorium reactors. I love LFTRs; they're so damn _beautiful_ that I'd recommend having a look at them just to appreciate the cleverness. They can be made at any size, they're self-regulating, they can load-follow beautifully, they can use supercritical CO2 turbines for cooling, the waste is tiny and becomes safe after about 500 years, and the fuel supply is enormous.

~~~
DaniFong
But how do the costs of any of the above compare to the cost of building a
wind turbine? Even taking the fuel and operations and maintenance cost to be
free, how does one compare the capital cost against other renewables where you
don't pay for fuel?

If you use a Brayton-cycle gas turbine for a nuclear reactor, for example, now
heat exchange to the gas becomes the biggest issue. And even the most
optimized gas peaker turbine plants cost $500/kw.

~~~
sketerpot
The capital costs per kilowatt of average power generation are surprisingly
good for nuclear. I don't have time to look up the figures now (sorry) but
last time I checked, wind was more expensive to build average capacity than
nuclear, even when you compared the cost of _just_ the wind turbines with the
_complete_ cost of nuke plants.

> If you use a Brayton-cycle gas turbine for a nuclear reactor, for example,
> now heat exchange to the gas becomes the biggest issue. And even the most
> optimized gas peaker turbine plants cost $500/kw.

Heat exchange to the gas is an issue, but it's the sort of issue that nuclear
reactor designers have a lot of experience solving. The Chinese pebble bed
reactors, for example, are cooled with helium gas, and they don't seem to have
much trouble with that.

As for the cost of the turbines themselves, in general Brayton-cycle gas
turbines are cheaper than steam turbines, and supercritical CO2 gas turbines
are remarkably small, so they'll probably be cheaper than the conventional
ones. Even conventional gas turbines would work, though.

Of course, when competing with natural gas burners, the fuel cost is a huge
issue. Natural gas fuel costs are vastly higher than those of nuclear plants
(per kilowatt-hour, of course).

I'm not sure I answered what you were saying, but I hope I covered something
interesting.

~~~
DaniFong
Prof. Marc Jacobson of Stanford pegs the cost of wind power at an amortized
cost of wind at 3 - 4 cents per kwhr. There are independent indications that
they're around 3.5 - 4 cents per kwhr. Nuclear can compete with that? Last I
checked it was around 12 - 20 cents per kwhr...

<http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/energy.pdf>

