
Risky, we-can't-fail, all-or-nothing science - naish
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/09/26/f-strauss-outreach.html?ref=rss
======
raganwald
This is a huge, huge article for startup folks to read. It starts a little
slowly, but after that my interest grew with each paragraph until the
conclusion, which was 100% spot-on.

~~~
streety
"As background, fusion is the physical principle by which the sun produces
heat and sunlight as it fuses together hydrogen atoms, not to mention being
the _chemical_ reaction that unleashes the H-bomb's lethal and terrifying
force."

On reading this I was doubting the value of the article. I shall continue . .
.

edit: Later on there is also the following

The exhibit "tried to explain to people how the reactor would work, why it was
a good thing ( _no radioactive waste left after the reaction_ , for one, and
no greenhouse gases are produced) and why it was hard to do."

I'm getting out of my depth here but it was my understanding that thermal
fusion releases large numbers of neutrons which lead to the containment vessel
to slowly become radioactive. I would love to be corrected.

~~~
jmackinn
You are in fact correct already. One of the research goals of ITER is to
experiment with different materials being subjected to the neutron flux in
order to determine the radioactive byproducts and their theoretic half-lives.
They are also proposing that the neutrons be used to facilitate the production
of tritium from lithium and hydrogen as well as using the neutrons as the main
source of energy output for the system.

While the article is extremely interesting I find that costs and time periods
for this kind of science are misrepresented. Not that $5 billion isn't a lot
of money, but it is on par, if not lower than many other energy projects. The
Alberta Tar Sands alone have had more than $30 billion invested in the past
decade. It also does not come close to the investment originally made into
fission power production and continually made to produce next generation
reactors. Without 'risky science' we don't move forward. Our efficiency may
increase; a better stone for making axes means a tree can be cut faster, but
by making great leaps forward in science, we may no longer need the axe, or
even the tree. The ITER, the LHC, the Manhattan Project, are (were)
investments in our future and the future of science and understanding. While
some of these projects may fail, the cost of not trying is far greater.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_It also does not come close to the investment originally made into fission
power production and continually made to produce next generation reactors._

The difference is that there is no place in the market for fusion reactors. In
light of the existing half-billion-year [Edit: half- _trillion_ -year] fuel
supply for fission reactors, the drive to create fusion reactors is
nonsensical.

~~~
jmackinn
I believe the same argument was used for why we should just stick with oil.

The energy density and potential output is far higher (theoretically) with
fusion than with fission. You may also want to check your figures on the half
a billion year fuel supply. At current rates of use, uranium fuels will last
about 1000 years. Thorium is an alternative option for fission power; however,
this is yet unproven in large scale deployment. There is also the fact that
fusion reactors will produce far less high-level (long half-life) radioactive
waste.

50 years ago, and even today, critics believed that there was no place for
fission power but now it appears to be our greatest alternative to providing
base load power over hydrocarbon based plants. The uses of fusion technology
are not only limited to power production either. Fission power has resulted in
advances in materials, medicine, the understanding of basic atomic science.
There is no doubt that properly understanding fusion will lead to many
advances in other fields.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_The energy density ... is far higher (theoretically) with fusion than with
fission._

Is that true by volume of fuel? By weight, the energy density is only 4 times
as high (D-T)
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_density_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_density_in_energy_storage_and_in_fuel)).
By volume, the density of uranium/thorium might very well be typically higher,
since uranium/thorium is a heavy-metal, and therefore notably dense.

For convenient fuel storage, the deuterium and tritium might be temporarily be
converted to water. I'm not going to do the math right now, but I think it
would be interesting to see how that compares volumetrically to
uranium/thorium energy density.

    
    
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_The ... potential output is far higher_

Please clarify.

    
    
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_At current rates of use, uranium fuels will last about 1000 years._

There are more than 40 trillion tons of uranium in the earth's crust (mostly
in the continents, and mostly near the surface of those continents):

<http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution>

The world currently uses ~60,000 tons per year of uranium. <http://www.world-
nuclear.org/info/reactors.html>

~60,000 tons/year / 60x breeder-factor / 2.5x thermal-efficiency improvement =
400 tons/year fuel use. 40 trillion tons of uranium / 400 tons used/year = .1
trillion years of uranium.

Thorium is available in the crust at some 4 times the ubiquity of uranium = .4
trillion years of thorium.

Adding the uranium and thorium together gives us .5 trillion years of fission
fuel.

    
    
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How did you come up with _1000_ years? Even limiting ourselves to the mere 9
billion tons of uranium/thorium present in seawater would provide 20 million
years worth of fuel. ...And that supply is constantly being replenished by
rivers, and by the seabed (the uranium/thorium suspended in the oceans is in
equilibrium with that on the seabed -- if some is taken out, it is creates
disequilibrium that can be relieved by the seabed uranium/thorium dissolving
into the seawater).

~~~
jmackinn
Here are the energy densities in MJ/kg: Deuterium-Tritium fusion - 337,000,000
MJ/kg Nuclear fission (of U-235) - 88,250,000 MJ/kg Natural uranium (99.3%
U238, 0.7% U235) in fast breeder reactor - 24,000,000 MJ/kg Enriched uranium
(3.5% U235) in light water reactor - 3,456,000 MJ/kg Natural uranium (0.7%
U235) in light water reactor - 443,000 MJ/kg

The higher output is a function of the higher energy density.

Your numbers may be correct about how much uranium there is in the earth's
crust but you are missing two very important points. Only a tiny fraction of
the uranium is in concentrated enough deposits to allow for economic recovery
of the mineral. This and the fact that U-235, the fissile isotope of natural
uranium, occurs in only 0.711% of uranium containing minerals leaves only
enough uranium with reprocessing for the next 1000 years.

[http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/ENF_Exploration_drives_ura...](http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/ENF_Exploration_drives_uranium_resources_up_17_0206082.html)

Thorium required a breeder reactor in order to produce the U-233 necessary for
fission, and as stated in another comment, these reactors are still in
experimental stages and have a much lower level of operational safety record.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_Only a tiny fraction of the uranium is in concentrated enough deposits to
allow for economic recovery of the mineral._

Given that that very point was addressed at the link I provided, one might
suspect that you did not visit it before answering.

It is not merely 40 trillion tons of uranium that are in the crust. It is 40
trillion of uranium that is also economically-recoverable. Why is nearly all
of the uranium in the crust is economically-recoverable? It is because the
energy density of uranium is so high. The same goes for thorium.

~~~
jmackinn
On the contrary the article you provided did not once mention the words
'economically recoverable'. What you are looking for is the _reserves_ of
Uranium in the world. Reserves, in mining means the amount of ore that can be
economically removed from the earth. For those numbers please refer to the
link that I listed previously. If the percent of uranium oxide in an ore is
less than 0.1% (by weight) then it is not economical to mine.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_Reserves, in mining means the amount of ore that can be economically removed
from the earth._

No, it doesn't.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ajuliansimon.com%2Fwrit...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ajuliansimon.com%2Fwritings%2FUltimate_Resource+reserves)

~~~
jmackinn
Julian Simon was a professor business administration, not a mining engineer.
Those articles refer to scare tactics presented in terms of resource scarcity
by environmental fanatics. He says nothing about the definition of a mineral
reserve. But I can help us with that.

 _Reserve definition

Reserve definition is undertaken to convert a mineral resource into an ore
reserve, which is an economic asset. The process is similar to resource
evaluation, except more intensive and technical, aimed at statistically
quantifying the grade continuity and mass of ore.

Reserve definition also takes into account the milling and extractability
characteristics of the ore, and generates bulk samples for metallurgical
testwork, involving crushability, floatability and other ore recovery
parameters.

Reserve definition includes geotechnical assessment and engineering studies of
the rocks within and surrounding the deposit to determine the potential
instabilities of proposed open pit or underground mining methods. This process
may involve drilling diamond core samples to derive structural information on
weaknesses within the rock mass such as faults, foliations, joints and
shearing.

At the end of this process, a feasibility study is published, and the ore
deposit may be either deemed uneconomic or economic._

from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_exploration>

~~~
DabAsteroid
For resources to be counted as reserves, they have to be found. If no one
bothers finding more resources, the resources that lie in wait are not counted
as reserves. Here is some finding-cost data:

<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html>

 _the finding costs of crude oil have averaged around US$ 6/bbl over at least
the past three decades. When finding costs of the two fuels are expressed in
terms of their contained energy value, oil, at US$ 1050/MJ of energy, is about
300 times more expensive to find than uranium, at US$ 3.4/MJ. Similarly, the
proportion of current market prices that finding costs comprise are lower for
uranium. Its finding costs make up only 2% of the recent spot price of US$
30/lb ($78/kgU), while the oil finding costs are 12% of a recent spot price of
US$ 50/bbl.

By these measures, uranium is a very inexpensive energy source to replenish,
as society has accepted far higher energy replacement costs to sustain oil
resources._

    
    
      .
    

If those finding costs were considered too high, one would additionally have
to hope that no one would be able to find the sea, or that if anyone _were_
able to find the sea, that they would not be able to figure out how to extract
uranium from it for, perhaps, only several hundred dollars per kg -- something
which in fact has already been done, and which is being improved-upon by
current research conducted by Japan and India.

~~~
jmackinn
Current extraction from sea water runs over 4 times the current spot price for
Uranium. It is currently an UNECONOMICAL way to get Uranium.

Please reread the original article I linked to regarding the 1000 year supply.
It actually deals with undiscovered reserves.

 _In addition to these identified resources, the category of uranium that
could be expected to be found based on the geologic characteristics of known
resources has grown by 500,000 tonnes to 10.5 million tonnes.

The data comes from Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand - often
known as the Red Book - published every two years by the OECD Nuclear Energy
Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)._

from: [http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/ENF_Exploration_drives_ura...](http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/ENF_Exploration_drives_uranium_resources_up_17_0206082.html)

~~~
DabAsteroid
_It is currently an UNECONOMICAL way to get Uranium._

The word "currently" is important here. It means that the statement containing
the word is irrelevant in the long-term. Resource supply-size increases
exponentially to linear increase in price. How high of a price increase can
the market accept? The current uranium prices contribute about .2 cents per
kWh of electricity produced.

<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html>

Multiplying the uranium price by 10 causes it to contribute only 2 cents to
the cost of each kWh of electricity produced. That is before further fuel-
efficiency advances are applied, which the higher fuel prices would
incentivize.

    
    
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Do you mean to suggest that at some $1,000/kg, it would not be possible to
profitably extract some 60,000 tons or more of uranium per year from seawater?
What about at $2000/kg? $3,000? $4,000? $5,000? We can keep going, since fuel-
efficiency of the plants can continue to be improved. $6,000? $7,000? $8,000?
$9,000? $10,000?

Where is your cutoff for economic seawater uranium mining?

    
    
      .
    

_Current extraction from sea water runs over 4 times the current spot price
for Uranium._

That would make it cost less than a penny per kWh. Are you meaning to suggest
that the electricity market would not accept a fuel-price of under a penny per
kWh?

~~~
jmackinn
It's good to know that there are other people who are great promoters of
nuclear power (I am a huge fan), but you're not reading your sources very well
(the last article you linked to put the cost of uranium as nuclear fuel at
0.5c/kWh at a spot price of $53/kg), your math is full or errors and you
clearly haven't researched exactly what goes into taking uranium from the
ground and using it to produce power, or the related fields, such as energy
production and consumption in general, mineral exploration and mining, or
waste management. You fail to take into account production levels (which are
currently only about 65% of consumption), an increase in uranium demand (based
on new and proposed build will double by 2020), increased costs of actual
mining and transportation of the resource just to name a few, or the effect of
mining and extracting ever bit of uranium from the planet. There are limits to
fuel efficiencies increases and as well to the economic viability of nuclear
power. This is why it's a good idea to invest in new technologies now, such as
fusion (the whole reason this discussion began). Sure we can take every last
particle of uranium out of the Earth's crust and ocean's but I think we can
spend our time, energy and effort doing something more productive. Uranium and
thorium are finite resources and no amount of water extraction will make them
not so. We once believed oil would last us forever and we have come to realize
that this is not so. Let's not make the same mistake by promoting
unsubstantiated and irrational ideas that nuclear (fission) will last us for
half a trillion years when very educated and informed people who are actual
experts put the number at 1000 years. As a nuclear enthusiast, I'm fine with
the 1000 years because I hope that by then we have something better that
nuclear (fission) to get our power from.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_It's good to know that there are other people who are great promoters of
nuclear power (I am a huge fan)_

Please keep your bigotries to yourself, and don't speak for what mine might
be.

    
    
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_you're not reading your sources very well (the last article you linked to put
the cost of uranium as nuclear fuel at 0.5c/kWh at a spot price of $53/kg)_

That would be the total cost of the fuel after conversion, enrichment, and
fabrication. The U3O8 cost of $472 is .264 of the total cost of $1787, which
indeed works out to less than 0.2c/kWh (about 0.131c/kWh, actually) if
$1787/kg of fabricated-fuel works out to 0.5c/kWh.

2007 fabricated-fuel costs at U.S. nuclear powerplants were 0.47c/kWh.
[http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/cost...](http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/costs)

    
    
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_your math is full or errors_

Please provide at least a single example of any math errors I might have made.

    
    
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_We once believed oil would last us forever and we have come to realize that
this is not so._

Indeed, there might only remain some 70,000 years' worth of oil.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=oil+70000+dabasteroid>

Is there reason to believe otherwise?

