Gas Cooled Small Nuclear Reactors -- The Slayer of EROEI, The Death of Peak Oil

DOE ORNL Small Modular Reactors PDF
In an earlier article, we detailed several incredible energy breakthroughs which would be made possible by abundant, cheap, high temperature process heat from nuclear reactors. We demonstrated how the concept of EROEI would be made obsolete and how peak oil could be turned into a distant sour memory.

Industry is doing its part to develop scalable generators of heat and power (PDF via Brian Wang), at increasingly affordable prices. It is the US government -- in particular Obama's NRC under Jaczko -- which is gumming up the works. By delaying the licensing of safe, advanced, world-changing nuclear technologies, the Obama administration is adding to its damnable record of overall energy starvation.

Short List of SMRs from World-Nuclear
It is impossible to overstate the importance of cheap and abundant process heat for the transition to a more abundant society -- in terms of energy, fuels, food, chemicals, materials, and more.

With plentiful process heat provided at temperatures between 700 C and 950 C, a person could kill peak oil and have plenty of energy left to power industry and a broad spectrum of industrial processes.   Specifically, one could:

1. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in oil sands (PDF)
2. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in coal to liquids and gas to liquids (PDF)
3. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in shale oil kerogens 
4. Provide abundant industrial process heat for production of fertilisers, refining fuels, making plastics, etc 
5. Split CO2 into CO to use as a hydrogen carrier 
6. Overturn conventional fears of EROEI and Peak Oil 

Those things, and many more, will be accomplished by next generation gas-cooled high temperature nuclear reactors. Helium gas coolant will run gas turbine generators at high temperatures, which provides electrical power at higher efficiencies than older steam cycle generation systems. And as mentioned above, the higher temperature process heat will find a wide range of practical uses in industrial processes and energy production. _Source

With combined heat and power, versatile, portable gas-cooled SMRs can go to where the resource is in a timely fashion. Instead of requiring ten years to build and implement -- like conventional nuclear reactors -- the smaller, cheaper, safer, and more versatile SMRs can be built and installed in under 2 years.

With all of these advantages, one has to wonder why any benevolent government would stonewall the development of this technology.

Refurbished Former Paper Mill in Maine to Send 500,000 Tons of Torrefied Biomass to Europe Each Year

Over the next 10 months, the team at Thermogen will engineer the plans for the mill to house the necessary infrastructure for five to six Rotowave units, each of which can process 100,000 tons of woody biomass per year. The torrefied product will then be shipped to Europe, Cyr said. _Biomass

Image Source

Torrefaction of wood creates a type of "bio-coal" which is more energy dense, water resistant, and more easily co-fired with coal, than ordinary wood pellets or briquettes. The Rotowave technology used in the Maine torrefaction plant

The technology, created by U.K. firm Rotowave Ltd., uses a series of simultaneous electromagnetic frequencies in combination with a ceramic drum to maximize heat transfer throughout every biomass particle in the unit, making the process of pyrolysis used to turn woody biomass into a biocoal product more efficient. Richard Cyr, senior vice president for Cate Street Capital, said the licensing agreement between Rotowave and Thermogen happened after years of extensive research and planning, and by November 2012, Thermogen hopes to have roughly six Rotowave torrefaction units up and running at a biomass facility in Maine.

...While the goal of the company is to export its biocoal product by the end of 2012, Cyr also said the Rotowave technology has never been scaled up and the facility in Maine will act as a testing ground for the microwave technology. Cyr, however, isn’t at all concerned about the uncertainty surrounding a commercial version of the technology that, according to Rotowave, creates a product that has a bulk density of 750 kilograms per cubic meter, energy density of 18 gigajoules per cubic meter, and an electrical output of 6.67 megawatt hours per ton.

...The Rotowave process can reduce moisture content to less than 4 percent by weight and increase the energy content in the biomass by 30 percent, according to the company. The process is referred to as a Targeted Intelligent Energy System, and overcomes the inhibiting effect of thermal conductivity in biomass by using the microwaves to interact with the bimoass’ molecular structure. So, the company explains, “the size of the particle has no influence on the reaction time or on the degree of pyrolysis which is aimed exclusively at attaining the necessary increase in calorific value of the solid.” _Biomass

NewBiomass
The above chart illustrates the superior energy characteristics of torrefied wood when compared to ordinary wood pellets. Another way of looking at torrefied biomass is as a clean and renewable type of coal, which can be produced anywhere that biomass can grow.

More about torrefied wood:

Grinds Similar to Coal. Torrefied material grinds similar to coal. It can be ground in many existing facilities, easing its integration into existing coal facilities. By comparison, wood pellets are difficult to grind, effectively preventing their use in most existing coal plants without the addition of specially designed grinding and handling equipment.


Burns Similar to Coal. While torrefied wood is a renewable, carbon neutral resource, it burns similar to coal. Certain volatiles and other compounds (hemi-cellulose material contained in wood) are largely eliminated in the torrefaction process, making torrefied materials easier to co-fire in power plants originally designed to use only coal. The change in the chemical composition of wood during torrefaction not only increases the energy density, but also improves the manner in which the wood burns in a coal gasifier, permitting more of the energy to be converted into electricity. This makes the energy content of torrefied wood more valuable. By comparison, wood pellets contain volatile organic compounds that release smoke when burned. These volatiles can create slag or ash in existing coal power plants and restrict the use of wood pellets in such plants. _NewBiomass

Thomas Malthus Neglected to Factor In Human Ingenuity

Thomas Malthus was an 18th century English scholar and clergyman. His theories on population growth have led several generations of academics to predict mass starvation and the doom of civilisation, but to no avail. The global human population continues to grow, for now, due to human ingenuity.

Can there be “unlimited progress” in food production? Not sure. But Malthus would never imagine that, with 6 billion more people than in his day, we have a holiday dedicated to handing total strangers handfuls of free food. Utterly non-nutritional food at that!

You can’t really blame Malthus for getting this so wrong. Long-term forecasts are right devilish. Example, the London Times columnist who predicted in 1894 that by 1950, London would be buried under 9 feet of manure likely died before he could have any egg on his face. (Though, no doubt, he had enough time to surmise that the horse-dropping build-up was going awfully slowly.) There was no way for him to know in a few short years, the combustion engine would make horse-drawn transport a cute relic for honeymooners.

And that’s how these long-term forecasts go. The peak oil date certain (the point at which oil production hits an apex and starts falling) has come and gone multiple times over the past decades. Yet, since the concept of “peak oil” was first popularized by Marion Hubbert in 1956, the amount of oil we produce has increased vastly. So too has the amount of known reserves in the ground. There was just no way for him to predict we’d be drilling in thousands of feet of water—or “fracking”! (Heck, in 1956, “frack” was still what polite Dads said after their thumbs got in the way of their hammers.) Or that we’d even have the technology to find the oil (or gas) to deep-water drill (or frack).

The popular 1968 book the Population Bomb posited that in the 1970s, hundreds of millions would starve to death. The theory was that if food production is growing at X rate and the population growing at much faster Y rate, that could pose quite a problem. But then, along came Norman Borlaug, who invented high-yielding, disease-resistant dwarf wheat. (Thank goodness Norman’s mom wasn’t a Malthusian.) Now, dwarf wheat may make those who shun “frankenfoods” mad, but it also meant the emerging world’s burgeoning populations didn’t all starve.

...I don’t care what it’s on—economies, capital markets, wheat yields, hemline trends—long-term forecasts are fraught with peril. And ones that underestimate humanity’s ingenuity and ability to problem-solve are particularly faulty. Yes, pockets of the world face famine—usually in regions with corrupt, despotic governments. But overall, the world hasn’t outgrown its ability to feed itself. Someone invented the steel plow, the tractor, the threshing machine, better fertilizers. Handily, someone also discovered penicillin, the pasteurization process, the Polio vaccine and DDT so we have a better shot at getting past age 5. (And the iPhone too, so we can live, not starve and be entertained all the while.) Malthus didn’t think about the iPhone anymore than he thought about dwarf wheat or the MMR vaccine. That doesn’t make him a bad person, just rather unimaginative. _Forbes

Humans are suffering from a scarcity of ingenuity, inventiveness, creativity, imagination, vision, wisdom, and practical competence. The fact that the global average population IQ of humans appears to be in decline is not exactly a comfort to Al Fin social analysts.

But the tools of knowledge acquisition, correlation, and conversion to practical devices, are getting better. That means that fewer persons can accomplish much more than in the past. That is a fortunate trend, given the progressive march toward the Idiocracy occurring within the mainstream.

Explosive News: Waterless In Situ Extraction of Oil Shale Kerogens

Eco-Shale Technology

The EcoShale™ In-Capsule Technology involves heating mined shale in a closed surface impoundment, or capsule. The process relies on conventional mining and construction methods and produces a bottomless oil product that requires no coking. The process produces a shale oil with a much higher concentration of middle distillate than West Texas intermediate crude. Two synthetic shale oil products are produced: (1) prompt oil of approximately 29 API gravity; (2) condensate oil of approximately 39 API gravity. The oil and condensate produced with this process have no fines and have very low acid numbers.

The technology requires no process water, protects groundwater and vegetation, uses low temperatures for heating and allows for rapid site reclamation.

The resultant product is a high quality feedstock with an average 34 API and no fines. The process also results in synthetic natural gas production allowing for energy self-sufficiency. _EcoShale

...the Uinta Basin is the site of the massive Eocene Green River Shale formation – potentially the largest reservoir of unconventional petroleum in the world. With total reserves estimated at up to 1.3 trillion barrels, and ultimately recoverable reserves of 800 billion barrels or more , this formation holds three times or more the amount of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves. Unlocking this formation would change the energy outlook of the nation – and of the world – for a century or more.

Today, TomCo has announced that it has awarded contacts toward the development of this resource. _Source

World Oil
Reserves of oil shale kerogens in the western US states is massive -- far larger than the huge proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Now a technology exists which can liberate these vast trapped energy reserves without using water or contaminating groundwater. Using this waterless in situ approach, the scenic appearance of these majestic western drylands will be unaffected, and the environmental quality of the region will be preserved.

The use of nuclear process heat from gas-cooled reactors is yet another waterless in situ approach to the environmentally sound liberation of oil shale kerogens. Raytheon's microwave approach -- powered by nuclear generated electricity -- is yet another viable approach to the valuable resource.

It is almost impossible for most persons to envision the economic impact of the introduction of these vast energy resources into world energy markets. Far more resources are devoted by the Obama administration to shutting down the liberation of North America's vast energy stores, than to making the production of energy cleaner and more economical.

Mr. Obama's approach has always been one of energy starvation, rather than energy facilitation. That is just one of the several nearly insurmountable obstacles to prosperity which the US economy currently faces, and for which Mr. Obama can take direct credit -- if only he would.

Cross-posted and adapted from an article posted to Al Fin

Process Heat from Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactors Changes Everything

With plentiful process heat provided at temperatures between 700 C and 950 C, a person could kill peak oil and have plenty of energy left to power industry and a broad spectrum of industrial processes.   Specifically, one could:

1. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in oil sands (PDF)
2. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in coal to liquids and gas to liquids (PDF)
3. Unlock the trillions of barrels oil equivalent in shale oil kerogens 
4. Provide abundant industrial process heat for production of fertilisers, refining fuels, making plastics, etc 
5. Split CO2 into CO to use as a hydrogen carrier 
6. Overturn conventional fears of EROEI and Peak Oil 

Those things, and many more, will be accomplished by next generation gas-cooled high temperature nuclear reactors. Helium gas coolant will run gas turbine generators at high temperatures, which provides electrical power at higher efficiencies than older steam cycle generation systems. And as mentioned above, the higher temperature process heat will find a wide range of practical uses in industrial processes and energy production.

Conventional fears about EROEI and peak oil will be overturned since the energy used to produce hydrocarbon fuels, fertilisers, plastics, and other products of industry and energy, will come from the high temperature heat effluent of nuclear reactions -- of which there is no conceivable near term shortage.

These promising prospects are all vulnerable to political misbehaviour, stupidity, and incompetence. The forces of faux environmentalist lefty-Luddism are strong in governments of the developed world. Energy starvation and carbon hysteria are powerful influences among governmental and inter-governmental policymakers. If industry and commerce are starved of energy -- whether by political design or by political incompetence -- continued economic decline is likely.

Choose wisely at the ballot box.

Adapted from an earlier article on Al Fin, The Next Level, and cross-posted to Al Fin