NUCLEAR FUTURE

MILLIONS OF TIMES GREENER THAN GREEN?

Jasper Tomlinson puts forward the case for developing a new era of evolved nuclear technology

T

he April 2015 edition of The Environment included an advertisement featuring Sir David Attenborough, as patron of Population Matters, emphasising the difficulties of addressing environmental problems in a world with ever more people. Sir David and I are both from about the same generation. He was good enough in a brief exchange of letters in 2011 to share his thoughts with me on the way forward in addressing global population growth. His letter was in reply to a suggestion from me that improved global access to abundant, sustainable, affordable energy is a necessary part of the way forward. However, even if practical, Sir David suspected that rather than address the problem, it might do quite the reverse, encouraging human beings to think that there is no need to curb their everexpanding energy consumption and thus perpetrate further devastation on the natural world. Deep division of opinion on these lines is apparent in any consideration of ‘green’ initiatives. I am grateful for this opportunity to set out my stall, presenting a case for techno-optimism.

THE CHALLENGE Tackling global energy poverty by providing wide access to energy electricity in particular – can be seen as relevant by comparing two sets of information. One set relates to amounts of available energy and poverty levels. The information in Graph 1 shows personal incomes able to rise above poverty levels where annual energy consumption is above 2,000 kilowatt hours per person, which is equivalent to nearly six kilowatt hours per day, including both domestic and workplace usage. Fertility, in terms of the number of children per woman, is observed to drop below the stable replacement rate - just over two children per woman - for people who are not in poverty (Graph 2). One reason for this is that rural people moving to urban conditions become second-generation urban-dwellers who choose to have a family of two children. The choice is reinforced by better educational opportunities and food security available in urban centres. For most readers the conjectured link between world population growth and increase in greenhouse gases in the

GRAPH 1 PROSPERITY DEPENDS ON ENERGY GDP per capita is considered here as above the poverty level at US$8000 per annum (US$22/day) corresponding to annual energy use of about 2,000 kWh per capita (5.5 kWh/day).

Prosperity depends on energy.

Source: Robert Hargraves Thorium – energy cheaper than coal quoting from the cia world factbook

$50,000

GDP $45,000 per capita $40,000

Nations with populations over 10 million.

$35,000 $30,000

$25,000 $20,000 $15,000

Prosperity

$10,000 SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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$5,000 $0

0

2000

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2042rank.html

4000

6000

8000

10000

Annual KWH per capita

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atmosphere is no longer in doubt. For those needing to visualise this link, it is easy to plot both parameters on the same time scale over the last 2,000 years to display a parallel exponential growth. I recollect that the population of Kenya, when I was appointed a colonial government hydrologist in 1954, was reckoned at under seven million. Today Kenya’s population is calculated at 47 million, with annual growth of 2.7 per cent. Half of Kenyans live in poverty. Nigeria, another country where I worked for several years, has more than 100 million living on less than US$2 per day. Total Nigerian electrical generation capability delivered by the national grid works out at a daily average of eight watts per person (most of the power actually used by business and the wealthy comes from standby diesel sets). Nigerian population growth is quoted as 2.8 per cent. However, international bankers and professional development economists congratulate themselves that both these countries have GDP growth rates running at about six per cent while so many remain in poverty. HISTORIC DISCOVERY In 1945, when the theoretical work on the atomic bomb was complete, some of the brilliant minds involved turned to the notion of harnessing this abundance of energy to put to civilian use. After debate, they concluded that a chemical rather than a mechanical device was required. Furthermore, as a chemical engineering challenge, the device would use liquid rather than solid fuels. They even deduced that molten fluoride salts would be appropriate. These insights were pursued at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and then abandoned in the 1970s to accommodate military requirements better. The industry-standard, solid-fuelled, pressurised water reactor (PWR) emerged eventually and has characterised the first nuclear era. However, this seems to be ending with a whimper, largely because the energy from a PWR is too expensive. Second generation nuclear technology is headed towards liquid fuelled reactors (MSRs). Some of these are ready to construct without more science and research but subject to continuing development. These devices have a tiny footprint compared with the industry-

NUCLEAR FUTURE

GRAPH 2 PROSPERITY STABILIZES POPULATION GDP per capita above the poverty level is set at US$7,500 per annum (US$21/day) corresponding to prosperous nations showing a small decline in population levels.

Prosperity stabilizes population.

Source: Robert Hargraves Thorium – energy cheaper than coal quoting from the cia world factbook

GDP per capita

82 nations with populations over 10 million.

Stable replacement rate

Prosperity

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/rankorderguide.html

standard PWR because they work at atmospheric pressure. They have strong negative coefficients of reactivity allowing load-following and inherent safety. Operating at high temperature there is increased thermodynamic efficiency allowing the possibility of air cooling rather than needing water for cooling. They can be configured to use a wide range of fissile material as fuel, including legacy waste and plutonium stockpiles. Breeding fuel from abundant and easily mined thorium has been demonstrated. They can burn ninetenths of the fuel or better in comparison with around one per cent burned using solid fuels, thus leading to less of a problem with waste management. When an atom of carbon burns in air, the energy released is just a few electron volts (eV). The combustion energy

“

The conclusion for me, as an environmentalist, is that nuclear fission is by far the most energy dense option available for harnessing energy

Children per woman

comes from re-arranging electrons that are found around the nuclei of the atoms. When an atom of uranium fissions, energy is released in amounts reckoned in hundreds of millions of electron volts (MeV). The fission energy comes from binding forces inside atomic nuclei. The latter process can be described in terms of quantum mechanics. The conclusion for me, as an environmentalist, is that nuclear fission is by far the most energy dense option available for harnessing energy. This relationship between matter and energy underlies the possibility of generating electricity from nuclear fission engineered to a price competitive with fossil fuels. It presents an opportunity for an outcome millions of times greener than sources of energy traditionally considered to be ‘green’. If nuclear power is seen as a principal way of harnessing energy for electricity supplies, water desalination, cement manufacture, synthesising fossil fuels and quite a few other uses, what then of ‘green’ technologies, mainly associated with wind, water and solar radiation? All these have one singular advantage over nuclear in that the regulatory process has a far lighter touch. For this there is little rational basis. The singular disadvantage of these ‘alternative’ technologies is that they are nowhere close to creating reliable,

42 The Environment | June 2015

continuous load, at electricity prices competitive with fossil fuels. A further disadvantage is that there are major potential markets for electricity in, say, the Tropics , for which these ‘alternatives’ do not present a viable option. Typically, they also have a huge footprint. SAVING OUR WAY OUT OF CLIMATE CHANGE If conservation measures, such as more efficient use of energy, changing light bulbs, for example, are seen as key to providing sufficient resources to meet needs without unsustainable environmental impact, then this must be worked out on a global scale? Arithmetic does not support the energy conservation agenda. The USA for example, comprising four per cent of world population, provides on average 1,500 Watts of electric power per person. This compares with a global average of one quarter of that amount. However, if US consumption halved by reducing demand through more efficient use, and if then provision of energy globally increased to the same level as a down-sized USA, arithmetically this tremendous effort in reducing USA consumption makes very little difference in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. This is because the population of the USA is only four per cent of the world population. Other than a perverse agenda of demanding all the dispossessed and poor to remain poor to save the planet, something else is needed. I was successful in winning a grant from government for a year-long study of the feasibility of setting up and operating a UK demonstration MSR pilot plant. This study is approaching its end, and our company (www. energyprocessdevelopments.com) will be seeking much more funding for engineering design and regulatory approval. And I have now acquired a bit of understanding of the magnitude of the task of introducing innovative nuclear technology. Also it has given me these opportunities to present arguments in favour of more and more nuclear power. Here it is then: the techno-optimist case… Please consider and debate. ● Jasper Tomlinson is from Energy Process Developments. He is a Chartered Environmentalist, a member of CIWEM and an Associate Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers