HTGRs: One Revolutionary Key to an Abundant Energy Future

The importance of cheap, plentiful, high quality industrial process heat cannot be overstated . . .

Here is a short link list of some things that you can do with cheap, virtually unlimited high quality process heat:

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 -- including biomass to liquids and gas hydrates to liquids -- will be accomplished by next generation gas-cooled high temperature nuclear reactors.

A group of far-sighted companies, including AREVA, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, Entergy, Graftech International Ltd., Mersen, Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada, SGL Group, Technology Insights, Toyo Tanso Co. Ltd., and Westinghouse are pursuing the development of a true next-generation nuclear technology referred to as the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) for the past few years. Without too much technical detail, HTGRs are helium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with robust ceramic-coated fuel that operate at temperatures at or above 750 Degrees Celsius (1400 Fahrenheit) where conventional light water reactors operate at temperatures less than half that. In short:

The design is intrinsically safe. It requires neither active or passive systems nor operator interventions to remain safe, thereby allowing co-location near major industrial facilities.
High temperature output that allow direct substitution for fossil fuel use in industrial process heat applications.
Much higher efficiency leading to lower energy cost, making it competitive with natural gas in many places of the world today without any price for carbon. _NGNPAlliance_via_NBF

NGNPAlliance Home Page

4 Page PDF HTGR Description w/ Images

The image above matches different industrial processes with the level of heat required. Since HTGRs can provide abundant heat up to 850 C or 900 C, all of the lucrative processes listed in the image suddenly come within economical reach -- once HTGRs are perfected, licensed, and mass produced in factory-built modular units.

The image above provides thumbnail images of different processes that will become more profitable with the abundant availability of high temperature, high quality process heat.

Why do we at Al Fin Energy continue to emphasise the importance of HTGRs? Because if the US government had devoted half as much attention to developing and perfecting the mass production of safe, relatively inexpensive, and reliable HTGR modules -- instead of wasting hundreds of $billions on intermittent unreliable forms of energy -- the "energy crisis" would have been solved by now.

The fact that this has not been done, reveals for a certainty that government is not serious about providing inexpensive, clean, abundant energy for industry and society at large. Government energy policy is instead based upon more corrupt and ideological motivations, which delay the era of energy abundance unnecessarily.

A Steady Scientific Progress that Makes Advanced Biofuels Inevitable

Everyone likes to abuse biofuels. Doomers, greens, anti-greens, fossil fuelers, nukes, what have you -- they all hate biofuels and discount the viability of renewable fuels and chemicals.

But science is relentless, once it bites into an idea. And the idea that one can eternally grow one's own fuels, chemicals, polymer feedstocks, lubricants, fertilisers, etc. is a seductive idea.

Below are two new approaches to unlocking the abundant energy contained inside biomass, particularly the polysaccharides in biomass -- cellulose, hemicellulose, and xylans.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led by Dr. James Dumesic have developed a streamlined process for converting lignocellulosic biomass into chemicals or liquid transportation fuel. Using gamma-valerolactone (GVL) as a solvent, they converted the cellulosic fraction of lignocellulosic biomass into levulinic acid (LA), while at the same conditions converting the hemicellulose fraction into furfural. This is followed by conversion to GVL; essentially, the team is leveraging GVL to produce GVL, which has potential as an inexpensive, yet energy-dense, “drop-in” biofuel...

This process allows for the conversion of hemicellulose and cellulose simultaneously in a single reactor, thus eliminating costly pre-treatment steps to fractionate biomass and simplifying product separation. Pretreatment and extraction or separation steps can account for up to 30% of the total capital cost of a biofuels production plant. _High Yield Conversion of Cellulose and Hemicellulose

A 30% reduction in the total capital cost of a biofuels plant can mean the difference between ultimate profitability, and ultimate bankruptcy.

So much for cellulose and hemicellulose. Now for xylans:

After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant biomass material on Earth, and therefore represents an enormous potential source of stored solar energy for the production of advance biofuels. A major roadblock, however, has been extracting xylan from plant cell walls. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have taken a significant step towards removing this roadblock by identifying a gene in rice plants whose suppression improves both the extraction of xylan and the overall release of the sugars needed to make biofuels.

The newly identified gene—dubbed XAX1—acts to make xylan less extractable from plant cell walls. JBEI researchers, working with a mutant variety of rice plant—dubbed xax1—in which the XAX1 gene has been “knocked-out” found that not only was xylan more extractable, but saccharification—the breakdown of carbohydrates into releasable sugars—also improved by better than 60%. Increased saccharification is key to more efficient production of advanced biofuels. _RDMag

60% improvement in conversion to useful sugars? Not bad for a start.

These are all preliminary lab results, which will have to be improved and ultimately scaled to industrial production.

But the long-term viability of advanced biofuels from biomass depends upon more than better conversions of biomass polysaccharides to cheap sugar feedstocks. The entire supply chain of cheap high quality biomass must be made robust and reliable, and much cheaper energy inputs to the industrial processes are needed.

Cheap natural gas can help, but why use natural gas to convert biomass to fuels and chemicals, when you can simply convert the natural gas directly to fuels and chemicals?

No, what is needed is cheap, abundant, high quality process heat -- the kind of heat provided by high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactors (HTGRs). In fact, HTGRs will facilitate a wide range of liquid fuels and chemicals processes -- and generate electrical power to boot. Don't forget cheap desalination of salt water.

As soon as the gang-greened governments of the advanced world grow out of their juvenile energy starvationist phase, humans can begin to generate an abundant future of energy, food, limitless clean water, and all the high quality feedstocks for a global scale -- and beyond -- advanced civilisation.

The mindset of abundance vs. the mindset of scarcity: Which would you choose?

Regarding Nuclear Power: Japan May Not Be as Stupid as Germany

Japan's government is suggesting that it may not be ready to shut down its nuclear power plants by the year 2040, as was previously suggested.

The Japanese government backtracked Wednesday on its aspirations to go nuclear-free, refusing to give full cabinet approval to a plan to phase out nuclear energy by 2040 following sharp criticism from the pronuclear business lobby.

Japan's Economy Minister Motohisa Furukawa told reporters that the cabinet has decided to take the nuclear-free plan unveiled last week "into consideration" when formulating the country's long-term energy policy rather than giving the entire plan formal cabinet approval. _WSJ

Europe is a stronghold for the irrational green dysfunction, but few other parts of the world have become quite so deranged and divorced from reality.

Nuclear power is set to grow over the next four decades even after Japan shuts down its reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency says.

Global installed capacity is set to rise to at least 469 gigawatts of energy by 2050 from 370 GWe today, according to the IAEA's most pessimistic scenario. Nuclear capacity may reach as much as 1,137 GWe in a more favorable investment climate, the Vienna-based agency said.

There are presently 435 nuclear reactors in 30 countries worldwide, according to the IAEA. Sixty-four additional nuclear power plants are under construction. _NorthJersey Bloomberg News

The technology of nuclear power continues to advance, leading toward advanced reactors which are cleaner, safer, cheaper, more scalable, and more reliable with longer useful lifetimes.

General Atomics is working hard to develop one such type of advanced nuclear reactor:

The EM2 uses helium to cool the reactor and directly drive the turbine with gas heated to 856 degrees Centigrade — more than twice the light water temperature. The helium will turn an enclosed turbine at an incredible 6,000 to 12,000 revolutions per minute for 30 years before the reactor has to be shut down. By contrast, conventional reactors have to be shut down and refueled every 18 months.

...The EM2 is designed to produce 240 megawatts of electricity, but a smaller 71-MWe version will come first. The cost of EM2 electricity is expected to be about half that from today's water reactors. Most light water reactors are in the 1200-MWe range.

...It will use uranium as a starter fuel, enriched to 12 percent of fissile uranium 235 to get a neutron flux going, but after that it will burn nuclear waste or depleted uranium. It will effectively eliminate the nuclear waste issue and multiply the power gained from uranium fuel by a factor of 262 times over today's water-cooled reactors.

The essence of a fast reactor is the high energy of the neutrons, ergo their ability to react with the fissile material left in nuclear waste and depleted uranium. Being a fast reactor, EM2 will both burn up nuclear waste and generate enough radioactive "seed" during its operational cycle to refuel another reactor. _WHChronicle

With new nuclear technologies such as the EM2 coming along, the way will soon be clear to burn conventional LWR waste and/or depleted uranium for fuel. In addition, the ability to use high temperature heat for both electrical generation and for industrial processes will free up hydrocarbons for more lucrative uses -- such as the creation of high value chemicals, lubricants, polymers, fertilisers, jet fuels, and other materials.

Societies have been steeped in dysfunctional philosophies of resource scarcity and unlikely eco-catastrophe. Instead, children should be trained to develop their problem-solving ingenuity in ways that will make resource scarcity most unlikely and costly eco cleanups unnecessary.

Instead of indoctrinating our young in negativity -- as the green lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgiast stasists are apt to do -- we should be training them to use their minds in positive, creative, and productive ways. But then, if that were to take place, 90% of college administrators, politicians, attorneys, lobbyists, environmentalists, and other parasites, would be out of work.

Is $115 / b Oil an Overcooked Price?

Oil prices hit a staggering $115/b yesterday, an amazing number given Chinese growth fears, abject German failures in the euro zone, and flat-lining growth in the US. The core reason prices hit a three month high, is not because of fundamentals, but because oil traders erroneously believe that Israel will go to war with Iran in October to choreograph its ‘nuclear putsch’ in time for US presidential elections. _Forbes

It looks as if big international traders are once again grasping at straws in order to move oil markets. Economic news is almost universally bad -- signalling reduced demand on virtually all fronts. Sometimes big traders have to make things happen, even if nothing wants to happen on its own.

$115/b oil is a one way bet on Israeli strikes on Iran. It plainly has nothing to do with US oil consumption down by 1.1%, unemployment rates above 8%, and more importantly, six consecutive quarters of dampened Chinese growth. The upshot; when the fuse doesn’t light in Iran...it’s only going to be a matter of time before fundamentals kick back in and prices correct. That raises the thorny question for producer states of how far prices could plummet.

...The lower prices go, the more likely political unrest creates serious supply disruptions affecting physical supplies as producers go offline. That would obviously put a radically new spin on what ‘cyclical’ means as far as price and political instability is concerned, but when we look across producer states, it’s hard to find any major players not sitting on a powder keg of political risk these days. That applies to some of the core producers in the Middle East, Eurasia and Latin America, as well as some of the smaller players that are likely to get caught in the cross-fire first.

...traders willing to fly much above $115/b will get burnt at the top of the market right now... _Matthew Hulbert in Forbes

An artificial inflation of oil prices does nothing to help demand for oil, which is what will drive oil production in the long term.

Like most mainstream media analysts, Hulbert says nothing in this analysis about the active political suppression of energy production in the US, Australia, and several nations of Europe. He says nothing about the incompetent negligence of oil fields in Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, and several other nations where oil production is nationalised. He says nothing about the disruptive conditions in Africa and parts of the Middle East which artificially suppress oil production far below potential levels.

All of those things -- and much more -- should figure into any elementary analysis of current oil prices.

Such basic omissions and oversights provide a vague hint as to why more an dmore people are beginning to think of the "mainstream media" as the "skankstream media." I am not pointing a finger at Hulbert, so much as at the general milieu in which mainstream analysis is floating.

The technology which would make most of this discussion moot -- advanced generation high temperature gas reactors -- is being stalled in all phases of research, development, and potential production.

This technology has the capacity to speed the transition to "the electrical age" by providing the essential energy bridge which will allow such a large-scale transition to occur with minimal economic disruption.

With high temperature gas cooled reactors, several trillion boe from unconventionals become available in an affordable fashion -- competitive with conventional oil. This is important, if a society is in the middle of an important infrastructure transformation such as a large-scale conversion from a hydrocarbon economy to an electrical economy.

Big wind and big solar -- the intermittent unreliables -- cannot survive without massive government supports. They are destructive of any society which chooses to depend upon them, as Germany is soon to discover.

Only advanced nuclear is able to support advanced societies over the long run. But a transition to newer generations of safer, cleaner, cheaper nuclear power will take decades. The key to the transition is to use high temperature gas cooled reactors as an intermediary between the hydrocarbon age and the electrical age.

As soon as Matthew Hulbert and his colleagues in the mainstream begin to catch on to these deeper currents of transition, the sooner their readers will understand what is at stake.

Residual Oil Zones -- Up to 100 Billion Barrels Oil in US

Billions of barrels of oil that could increase domestic supply, help reduce imports, and improve US energy security may be potentially recoverable from residual oil zones, according to initial findings from a study supported by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.

Residual oil zones, called ROZs, are areas of immobile oil found below the oil-water contact of a reservoir. ROZs are similar to reservoirs in the mature stage of “waterflooding,” in which water has been injected into a formation to sweep oil toward a production well.

In the case of ROZs, the reservoir has essentially been waterflooded by nature and requires enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies, such as CO2 flooding, to produce the residual oil.

DOE estimated in 2006 that ROZs could contain 100 billion bbl of the 1.124 trillion bbl of technically recoverable oil in place in US reservoirs (OGJ, Mar. 13, 2006, p. 30). _OGJ_via_Peakoil.com

The actual amount of ultimately recoverable oil in the US is likely to be far higher than the official 1.124 trillion bbl of technically recoverable oil estimated by the US DOE. But that is the way it always seems to be: there always seems to be much more oil & gas in the long run than was first estimated.

UTPB will further delineate the presence and size of ROZ areas in the Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico using geophysical well logs and well test data, core and fluid samples, and water chemistry data. Researchers will also determine if 3D seismic can be used to identify the higher-quality portions of the ROZ resource to assist small oil producers in the Permian basin and other US ROZ basins.

According to OGJ’s 2012 worldwide EOR survey, US CO2-EOR production is 350,000 b/d of oil (OGJ, Apr. 2, 2012, p. 57). Nine industry ROZ CO2-EOR pilot projects in the Permian basin of Texas account for 10,000 b/d of oil. Results and findings from DOE-supported research should help to increase recovery from this domestic resource and create American jobs, the Office of Fossil Energy said. _OGJ _ via _ PO.com

Advanced methods of oil recovery are being developed every day, increasing yields, reducing ultimate costs, and pushing back peak oil doom with every new innovation.

Once the widespread use of cheap high quality heat from scalable and site-based high temperature gas cooled reactors (HTGRs) becomes available, I would not want to be known as a peak oil doomer in public. Oh the humiliation!

Nuclear Waste More Precious than Gold

Often mistaken for nuclear waste, the spent fuel that's left in a power reactor after the production of electricity is valuable and plentiful. But in our blindness to the enormous energy potential of uranium and plutonium in the 70,000 tons of spent fuel that the Department of Energy says is stored at nuclear power plants in the United States -- 1,500 tons in Tennessee alone -- we are missing an opportunity to recycle nuclear materials into clean energy.

While the cost to produce nuclear-generated electricity, on average, is less than power from a natural gas or coal plant, it might be even cheaper if the reactor fuel were made from a combination of uranium and plutonium. Such is the case in a number of European and Asian countries that extract nuclear materials from spent fuel and chemically reprocess them to produce a so-called mixed-oxide fuel known as "MOX." The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration says that about 30 power reactors in countries like France, Belgium and Great Britain now make use of MOX to generate electricity. _Power-Eng

We currently use less than 4% of the energy in nuclear fuel, and put the rest into storage of various types. This is extremely wasteful use of uranium, but even so nuclear fuel is cheap when compared to coal, natural gas, and oil. Imagine how much more economical nuclear power would be if we extracted 98% of the energy in the fuel, instead of wasting most of it?

After a hiatus of nearly four decades, it's now possible to foresee the day when spent-fuel processing is revived in the United States. But for the time being, MOX for use in TVA power reactors will come from another source -- surplus weapons-grade plutonium from the U.S. stockpile. A facility to blend oxides of plutonium and uranium is being built at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina. Once plutonium is turned into MOX, it is no longer useful in making weapons.

Construction of the MOX facility was launched after the United States and Russia signed a landmark disarmament agreement to eliminate 34 metric tons of excess plutonium on each side. Although that's a fraction of the weapons plutonium that either country has in its stockpile, the agreement provides for the elimination of additional quantities in the future.

As more nuclear weapons material is destroyed, and money from its sale is used to strengthen nuclear security, there is less risk that plutonium in Russia's stockpile might be stolen and used by rogue government or terrorist groups to make bombs. And it will help reduce the danger of nuclear proliferation, making the world a safer place.

The fact that spent fuel at U.S. nuclear plants isn't being recycled is shortsighted. If it were reprocessed into MOX, utilities could use the nuclear-generated electricity it would provide to replace aging coal plants and to meet growing demand for power. _Power-Eng

The Obama administration's pet nuclear obstructionist -- NRC chief Jaczko -- has successfully blocked almost all development of nuclear energy during Obama's tenure thus far. As a result, the US will be stuck with fossil fuels for a lot longer than would have otherwise been necessary.

Energy is the lever that multiplies the output of human personal effort to give us our unprecedented productivity and prosperity. Energy builds economies. Whatever its shortcomings, the bonanza of fossil fuels we inherited has given us our present living standards.

...I have been scrutinising alternative energy developments for nearly half a century. It is 35 years since my first letter to The Age attacked the myth that solar, wind and tidal energy are somehow ‘free’. I was involved for 20 years in managing R&D related to the resources industry. Taking ideas and innovative technologies to commercial success is tough. The financial discipline of the private investor is an essential ingredient, so I am especially wary when governments get involved in picking winners. _EnergyCollective

The above is excerpted from a piece written by resource expert Dr. Tom Biegler. Like Al Fin, Dr. Biegler is a sceptic of the intermittent unreliables such as big wind and big solar. And like most intelligent analysts of energy, he wonders how much more resources governments will waste on the futile pursuit of intermittent unreliable forms of energy.

The way forward is clear: In the short to intermediate term, we will have to enthusiastically develop the abundant stores of conventional and unconventional forms of hydrocarbon energy. In the late intermediate and long terms, we must develop advanced nuclear fission technologies capable of extracting almost all the energy contained in uranium, thorium, and bred plutonium.

As an added bonus, nuclear process heat from high temperature gas cooled reactors will economically unlock vast unconventional hydrocarbon resources which may otherwise have been too expensive to develop. This huge extra resource will aid the balance between chemical energy, electrical energy, and heat energy, and should pay dividends for tens of thousands of years.

Sometime in those tens of thousands of years, humans should be able to invent an affordable, safe, clean, workable form of nuclear fusion.

Advanced Lessons in Profitable Oil Sands Production

Canadian oil sands production is headed upward, thanks in large part to increasing efficiencies of in situ production methods.

WSJ Advanced Oil Sands

...oil companies... are experimenting with technologies that could unlock even more reserves from what is some of the world's heaviest and stickiest petroleum. The new technologies could also drive down the cost of producing oil in Canada.

One consortium aims to get oil flowing to the surface by sending radio waves from huge antennae pushed through wells deep underground—adopting technology first developed for the U.S. government to eavesdrop on underground bunkers.

Another company is working on inserting electrical heating coils into wells to melt the oil, while other firms are tinkering with petroleum-based solvents they hope to pump into wells to get more oil out.

All the experimentation is aimed at improving a standard method of oil-sands extraction: so-called steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD.

...SAGD quintupled the amount of bitumen that may be possible to recover in Canada, and helped lift Canada's overall recoverable oil reserves to No. 3 in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

But those reserves are only a 10th of the 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen found in Canada. Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board estimates there are also more than 400 billion barrels of bitumen trapped in carbonate rock formations in Alberta, mostly in a large formation called the Grosmont that stretches across the center of the province.

"If we postulated that 25% of that can be recovered, Canada could move to No. 1" in world oil reserves, said Glen Schmidt, chief executive of privately owned Calgary energy-technology company Laricina Energy Ltd.

...Basic SAGD technology uses two horizontal wells drilled parallel to each other, one above the other. Natural gas is used to boil water into steam, which is injected underground into the top well. The steam heats and softens the bitumen, separating it from the sand, causing it to drip down to the bottom well, which sucks it back up.

Laricina is part of a consortium including large Canadian energy companies Suncor Energy Inc. SU -0.96% and Nexen Inc. NXY +51.82% that is testing replacing the steam with an antenna, developed by Melbourne, Fla., telecommunications-equipment manufacturer Harris Corp. HRS -1.24% After being fed down a well, the antenna blasts out heat, warming the bitumen.

..."If we eliminate steam, we eliminate potentially 60% of the cost of a facility, which is huge," he said. The technology could be ready as soon as 2019.

...Harris and other antenna designers try to reduce electromagnetic heat as much as possible to improve the efficiency of a radio antenna for communication. Harris "realized that we can take our antennae and instead of using them for communications, we can use them as a source of electromagnetic energy that generates heat," Mr. Covell said.

Athabasca Oil, another big Canadian oil producer, is testing a similar electric-heating technology to unlock bitumen from carbonate rock. The company inserts electric coils, made of the same material as heating elements on a stovetop, into wells. If tests are successful, Athabasca plans to start a commercial project for its technology by 2018.

Laricina and several other companies are also testing adding light hydrocarbon solvents to steam in SAGD wells to boost output. The solvent dilutes bitumen, making it easier to flow.

_WSJ

The bottom line is that oil sands producers are learning how to reduce the cost of in situ extraction of bitumens, while also increasing the overall yield.

Breakeven prices may approach $50 a barrel for some approaches, and yields may improve by 30%. How quickly all of this happens will depend in part upon global oil demand over the next 10 years.

Using nuclear power and heat to economically produce oil sands (PDF)

Substitutes for Crude Oil in the $3 Trillion Global Chemicals Market

We have been assured by resource scarcity doomers that there is no substitute for crude oil. Believing that there is no substitute for crude oil is what makes it so easy for peak oil doomers to predict the collapse of civilisation, and the subsequent great human dieoff.orgy.

But what if human ingenuity were able to come up with better, cheaper, cleaner, safer substitutes for crude oil? Not only for transportation, but -- more lucratively -- for high value chemicals, polymers, lubricants, fertilisers, etc. that help make up the $3 trillion a year global chemical markets?

The global chemicals market is worth about $3 trillion annually, according to the American Chemistry Council. Its products can be found in 95 percent of all manufacturing processes. Much of it involves petrochemicals, which account for about 24 percent of the crude oil used in the U.S.

"A lot of brand owners, particularly those that rely heavily on packaging, are interested in protecting their long-term costs," said Douglas Smock, an analyst who wrote a report for market-research firm BCC Research that predicted a boom in plant-based bioplastics. "They want more predictable cost structures going forward. The high price of oil is responsible for the rapid emergence in interest in bioplastics."

...Ford Motor is using soybean foam in its upholstery. McDonald's is testing paper cups for hot drinks in place of polystyrene, which starts out as petroleum. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are becoming bioplastic bottlers. A California cleaning-products manufacturer has set out to eliminate diesel from its fleet.

.... Ford said it has eliminated 5 million pounds of petroleum annually by using soybean-based cushions in all of its North American vehicles. The company said it got rid of an additional 300,000 pounds of oil-based resins a year by making door bolsters out of kenaf, a tropical plant in the cotton family.

_DenverPost

One of the coming revolutions which will help create alternatives for crude oil in several mega $billion industries, is the coming of cheap, abundant, high quality process heat from non-fossil fuel sources such as HTGRs (high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactors). Look closely at the following images in order to discover some of the possible dividends of high quality industrial process heat from non-fossil fuel sources.



While many of the high value substitutes for crude oil can easily come from biomass and biomaterials such as biolipids, in the early stages far more will come from natural gas, coal, oil shale, etc. Methane hydrates will likewise be used on a large scale to substitute for crude oil.

The idea that there is no substitute for crude oil is doomer drivel. But don't tell the doomers that. They do, after all, have just as much a need for a purpose in life as anyone else. Even if that "purpose" is relatively vacuous.

More here

What if Peak Oil Died and Nobody Noticed?... and Other Energy Stories

A lot of hucksters are making a good living from peak oil doomerism. It has gotten to the point that it no longer matters whether peak oil has any intrinsic importance or not -- it is the symbolism of peak oil doom and devastation that matters. It is the catastrophic image inside the minds of the believers which drives the apocalyptic movement.

In the real world, things are not nearly so clear cut as in the mind of a cultist:

Apparently something terrible happens when we get to peak oil. I've never really quite understood the argument myself, but when we've used half of all the oil then civilisation collapses or something. I'm not sure why this should happen: we don't start starving when there's only half a loaf of bread left. But I am assured that something awful does happen.

That oil fields do get pumped out is obviously true – and also that you can have a good guess at when the ones we're currently pumping will run out. The part I don't get is the catastrophe. Some people seem to think that "peak oil" is when we can't actually pump out a higher amount: that if we've got 70 million barrels a day, then that's the most we can ever have, 70 million a day. Which is also called a disaster. Apparently this means that demand will move ahead of supply, which is simple sheer ignorance of the price system. There is no such thing as "supply" or "demand". There is only either of them at a price. So, if there really is a limit on how fast we can pump the stuff up, the price will rise.

Like it is at the moment. There's a lot more demand for $50-a-barrel oil than there is supply of it, which is why the price is $100 a barrel. It's true that if we really do reach some production plateau, then it's likely that the price will rise. But I still don't even see the catastrophe there. What with the taxes we pay, oil in the UK is around $300 per barrel at present. It is indeed a bit of a strain filling up the car, but other than that I don't see any more signs of the imminent collapse of civilisation than we normally have with politicians in charge.

Even if we accept the geological conventional wisdom, then there's still no cause for panic. Prices will rise, yes, so people will go off and do other things. Either use something else instead of oil (that ever cheaper shale gas for example) or simply doing things that require less energy. That's what a price system is for, after all, providing the signals that a certain resource is in scarce supply.

But the thing is, we really shouldn't be accepting this geology either.

The Green River Formation—an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming—contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.

Yes, we do know how to get this out: these reserves are similar to the Bakken shale in North Dakota that is spurting out oil as you read. _Telegraph

The author of the piece -- like many others recently -- may be understating the challenges of clean and economical extraction of the Green River kerogen oil shales. But that may be because we are not even close to the point that we need to extract oil shale kerogens to use in place of crude oil.

The best tool for clean, economical extraction of oil shales, oil sands, and conversion of gas, coal, and biomass to liquid fuels -- is high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactors of the generation IV variety. Areva and other engineering firms are working on perfecting that gen IV reactor technology, and although it may take the US government another 10 to 20 years to approve and license the designs, that is just about the time that we will need to start cleanly converting oil shale kerogens to crude.

In other energy news, the African nation of Ghana is looking for ways that it can integrate nuclear power into its overall energy mix. Nigeria is another African nation that is pushing to develop its own nuclear power industry.

Intermittent unreliables such as big wind power, are finding it more difficult to get lucrative subsidies from governments. Perhaps it is the fact that intermittent unreliables such as big wind and big solar are so unreliable and expensive, which is causing some governments to step back from the abyss.

And yet, tech powerhouse Google persists in its green energy dreams. Is it possible that for all of its brainpower, Google has allowed political activists to grab control of its energy plans and blueprints? That might explain Google's green energy idiocy.

Does anyone have access to the medical records of climate hack James Hansen? His recent attacks against Canada show the friend of Al Gore to have jumped the shark, right over a cliff. When a person confuses a computer model for the actual climate, he no longer deserves to be called a scientist.

There is a difference between educating oneself and indulging in self-indoctrination into a doomsday cult. It may be too late for this generation of peak oil doomer cultists, but if we hurry we may be able to save at least some of the newer generations -- and turn them into truly competent, independent, and very dangerous children. Which is precisely what the future needs.

Gas-to-Liquids and Coal-to-Liquids: Bringing in a New Era of Energy?

Unconventional liquid fuels are slated to provide ever growing proportions of future demand for transportation fuels. The burgeoning success of plants such as Shell's Pearl GTL plant in Qatar herald a new era of liquid fuels production.

In terms of what GTL is, it is the process of chemically turning natural gas into cleaner-burning liquid products, including fuel, base oil for lubricants and feedstock for chemicals. To produce, the process firstly involves methane and oxygen which are converted into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as synthesis gas or syngas. This is then fed to a reactor with a proprietary Shell catalyst that accelerates the conversion of the mixture to long-chained waxy hydrocarbons and water.

From the GTL reactor, the long-chained hydrocarbons are then reacted with hydrogen and ‘cracked,’ into a range of smaller molecules of various sizes using another proprietary Shell catalyst. This process is referred to as ‘hydrocracking.’ The final step is distillation. Various boiling points are reached to separate out the products, which can be in the form of GTL naphtha, GTL kerosene, GTL normal paraffins, GTL gas oil, or GTL base oils. These are then eventually fed to their own storage tanks ready for use.

...One of the products, GTL gasoil (diesel-type fuel), can contribute significantly to the diversification of the diesel fuel supply. This product can reduce local emissions of nitrogen and sulfur oxides and particulate matter. Because it contains virtually no sulfur or aromatic compounds and has a high cetane number – a measure of combustion quality – GTL gasoil burns more efficiently than conventional oil-based diesel and thus produces fewer local emissions and less black smoke than conventional diesel. The high cetane of GTL gasoil can lead to noise reductions in certain engines under certain driving conditions and improve cold start performance. GTL gasoil can also be blended with conventional diesel and/or biodiesel and used in the same vehicles and infrastructure, thus offering a low investment cost compared with other alternatives.

GTL Kerosene is an alternative to conventional oil-based kerosene. Its primary use is expected for aviation. GTL kerosene can be used as a blend with traditional jet fuel without any modifications to existing aircraft and engines. Given that the aviation sector will rely on liquid hydrocarbons for decades, this fuel can help support the future energy needs of the industry, and offer customers fuel diversification. GTL kerosene has higher energy density than conventional oil-based kerosene and this reduces the required fuel payload, thus aircraft may be required to carry less fuel weight to cover the same distance. _QatarShell

When even pro-nuclear activists such as Rod Adams are speaking out in favour of a coal - nuclear partnership to produce liquid transportation fuels, you should understand that people are finally beginning to look at the possibilities.

Coal is a valuable resource that can be safely mined for centuries by well-trained and compensated miners. Instead of eliminating the use of coal, I would prefer to help coal miners and coal mine owners to recognize that they could make more money and sell a cleaner product if they upgraded their fuel at the mine rather than shipping a dirt-filled, unrefined product that sells for a huge discount in the energy market.

...My pitch to the coal industry would be to use cheap, clean nuclear heat to convert H2O and their carbon rich fuel into a refined hydrocarbon that could compete with petroleum products.

...Shipping oil instead of coal from our domestic mines would also be very beneficial to the US national security and to the prosperity of the world. Just think about the positive impact that substantially lower US demand would have on the price of diesel fuel delivered to a developing country. _RodAdams

Until more people are able to think of energy in multi-disciplinary, multi-industrial terms, societies will be forced to pay higher prices for fuels and energy than is necessary. By including cheap and unlimited nuclear reactor process heat into the fuel production mix, we can immediately bring CTL, GTL, bitumens to liquids, kerogens to liquids, and even biomass to liquids (BTL) into the feasible and profitable arena.

Fortunately, more nuclear advocates are beginning to understand the importance of cleanly integrating coal and gas into the overall energy and fuels mix. But we need more bright chemical engineers like Robert Rapier, and physicists like Tom Murphy, to crunch the numbers once again -- this time including the powerful impact of high temperature process heat from modular and mini-modular HT gas-cooled nuclear reactors.

By utilising scalable, factory produced reactors which can be sited at the point of production of gas, coal, bitumens, kerogens, methane hydrates -- and even biomass in some situations of intensive cultivation -- it should be clear to any objective observer that a new era of hydrocarbon production is quite feasible.

Government action could certainly prevent this development. The great carbon hysteria delusion -- if firmly enacted into law in the developed world -- would not only kill unconventional fuels, it would kill the economic viability of the underlying societies themselves. That is what several governments, from the UK to Obama's US to Australia to the EU are attempting to do in various ways.

A far less likely -- but still potentially effective -- way to stop the revolution in unconventional fuels, is for the national oil companies of OPEC and other oil dictatorships to route needed funds into oil field production, exploration, discovery, and development. It would be easy for existing oil fields and fields under development to ramp up production to overwhelm even the current inflated levels of global demand -- if the equipment, manpower, and funding were allotted for the purpose. But this will not be done, because governments from Russia to Venezuela to Saudi Arabia etc need oil prices to remain artificially high so that they can use oil profits to pacify unstable populations and pay off highly placed insiders.

Radix Mini-Modular Reactors Aim for Off-Grid and Military Markets

Radix - customer presentation

View more PowerPoint from RadixPowerandEnergy

Startup nuclear reactor company Radix is aiming to build and sell a 10 MW Mini Modular Reactor (MMR) to replace diesel generators for large off-grid and military applications.

The Radix design is similar to some SMRs in that it is an integral pressurized water reactor (PWR) with the pressurizer and steam generator in a single vessel. Where it differs is the fuel design: the Radix fuel is based on Triga, an all-metal fuel with a very high power density and thermal conductivity compared to uranium oxide with a long history of use in research reactors -- which might make it more readily approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Triga, originally developed at General Atomics, has an inherent safety feature: a very fast temperature response, which means that in the event of a control rod insertion error, the reactor will shut itself down.

...The goal is to go after off-grid applications as opposed to the on-grid power sources envisioned by the SMR manufacturers. The value proposition claimed by the company is that the lifetime cost of an MMR beats the lifetime cost of diesel power. Further, the company believes the device would work on islands or remote geographies such as in Alaska, as well as in the previously mentioned military applications.

The challenges to this company are many. Raising funding from conventional VC sources will be an uphill battle -- VCs want to isolate risk and this technology, like all nuclear technologies, has market, cost, and regulatory head winds. Nuclear has a post-Fukushima black eye, and the NRC is not known for flexibility or speed. _GreentechMedia

Here is more on the Areva IV-Gen HT-Gas Cooled Reactor which won a recent award from The Next Generation Nuclear Plant Industry Alliance:

The design is for a 625-megawatt, high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor. Unlike current reactor models, the design uses helium to cool the reactor instead of water...Using the process heat from the nuclear reactor instead of fossil fuels would help reduce a company’s carbon footprint, he said.

The main steam temperature in the reactor is designed to produce stabilized steam at about 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit to be used in the manufacturing process, he said.

Southworth said 90 percent of process heat used by industry is in the range of 482 to 932 degrees Fahrenheit, which falls into the reactor’s range.

Parece said safety is different between the current reactors and this next generation design. The helium would always be in a gaseous form and could remove heat from the reactor at all times. Modern reactors use water to remove heat, so it can only go to a certain temperature before it turns to steam, he said.

The reactor would not need big water tanks like modern designs and because the cooling is self-controlled, nuclear fuel will not be damaged, he said.

“This is one of few inherently safe designs,” Parece said.

...In France, the company [Areva] is designing a fourth-generation sodium-cooled reactor Parece said can use natural uranium as fuel. He said it fits the country’s needs for reactors because it has the resources for that type of design. _NewsAdvance

Gen IV reactors will provide solutions to several problems faced by older reactors. Besides increased safety, and the production of game-changing high quality process heat, certain types of Gen IV reactors will provide the solutions to nuclear proliferation and waste storage concerns.

It is ironic that anti-nuclear "environmentalists" are forcing societies to use less safe and more polluting forms of power generation, due to their efforts to retard the approval of newer, safer, cleaner nuclear reactor designs.

Nuclear Blog Carnival #92 + More on Nuclear Process Heat

NGNP AllianceH/T to Brian Wang

The 92nd Nuclear Blog Carnival is hosted at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Here are a few excerpts:

Dan Yurman has an indepth report on the selection of Areva’s HTGR design by the NGNP Alliance for process heat applications.

Also, he reports on a major deal involving Areva reactors to be built in the U.K. by EDF as a result of a face-to-face meeting between U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Atomic Insights
Rod Adams writes that MIT’s studies on the future of various energy fuels are important guides for policy makers. The contrast between strong optimism over the future of natural gas compared to a far more pessimistic view of the future of nuclear energy is stark and difficult to ignore.

An explanation might be found in the amount of natural gas money and the number of natural gas salesmen on the Advisory Committee for the study on natural gas when compared to the more neutral funding source for the study on the future of nuclear energy. He asks if the MIT Energy Initiative has been captured by natural gas money?

Nuke Power Talk
Gail Marcus is pleased to be able to pass on information provided by a reader of her blog providing more details on the Japanese personnel practice called ‘amakudari,‘ the institutionalized system of moving Japanese government retirees into positions in the organizations they used to regulate.

Nuclear Diner
Cheryl Rofer has a unique report that Peter Alaric DeSimone tells how he makes music from the random disintegration of radioactive isotopes and provides MP3 files and videos of the process.

Also, she reports that the National Research Council released a report this week on nuclear technologies NASA needs, including nuclear rocket propulsion, nuclear reactors for power in space, and radioisotope power systems. Susan Voss presents the details.
_Nuke Carnival #92

Dan Yurman looks at the choice of the Areva gas cooled reactor by the NGNP Industry Alliance. As has been pointed out here several times, the high quality process heat from gas-cooled reactors is likely to facilitate an industrial revolution, once it becomes widely available. 4 page PDF report on gas cooled reactors and the next generation of nuclear power.

NGNP AllianceH/T NBF

Gas-Cooled Small Modular Reactors Overturn Conventional Limits

Small modular nuclear reactors will have a revolutionary effect on the future of electrical power generation. But a particular type of small modular reactor -- the gas-cooled reactor -- is destined to revolutionise all aspects of future energy and fuels.

First, let's look at small modular nuclear reactors:

SMRs have a number of advantages over conventional reactors. For one thing, SMRs are cheaper to construct and run. This makes them very attractive to poorer, energy-starved countries; small, growing communities that don't require a full-scale plant; and remote locations such as mines or desalination plants. Part of the reason for this is simply that the reactors are smaller. Another is that, not needing to be custom designed in each case, the reactors can standardized and some types built in factories that are able to employ economies of scale. The factory-built aspect is also important because a factory is more efficient than on-site construction by as much as eight to one in terms of building time. Factory construction also allows SMRs to be built, delivered to the site, and then returned to the factory for dismantling at the end of their service lives - eliminating a major problem with old conventional reactors, i.e. how to dispose of them.

SMRs also enjoy a good deal of design flexibility. Conventional reactors are usually cooled by water - a great deal of water - which means that the reactors need to be situated near rivers or coastlines. SMRs, on the other hand, can be cooled by air, gas, low-melting point metals or salt. This means that SMRs can be placed in remote, inland areas where it isn't possible to site conventional reactors. _David Szondy

It is easy to see why the scalable nature of SMRs allows them to fit a wide variety of energy markets. Better economies of scale and increased reliability are possible from precise factory controlled construction. But why do gas-cooled SMRs, in particular, promise such a revolutionary impact on the future of energy and fuels?

It comes down to the high quality, high temperature process heat that gas-cooled reactors provide. Here are some of the things that high quality process heat can do:

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 oil shale 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 

_Source

One particular gas cooled modular reactor has been selected by the Next Generation Nuclear Plant Industry Alliance as the best design for the category:

The Alliance said that it had selected an unspecified Areva reactor concept, presumably based on the Antares design, "as the optimum design." It said, "The Areva HTGR technology's capability and modular design would support a broad range of market sectors, providing highly-efficient energy to industries such as electrical power generation, petrochemicals, non-conventional oil recovery and synthetic fuel production." Areva, it said, "has the technical and design capabilities to develop a HTGR for the process heat co-generation and generation markets."

It added that "additional investors are being pursued to fully capitalize a venture in order to build an initial fleet of HTGR plants for industry." The Alliance noted, "Deploying next generation nuclear technology is a critical step in solving the long-term needs for secure sources of energy, conserving fossil fuels and slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Clean, safe nuclear energy from HTGR would increase US energy independence and extend the life of domestic oil and natural gas resources." _WorldNuclearNews

More here

Perhaps a stimulus from the private sector will help to spur the revolution that the US federal government under Obama appears to be resisting with all its might. Regardless, it is critical for a wide range of intelligent people within various industries and sectors of the economy to understand the importance of this potential qualitative transition in possibilities for production of future energies and fuels.

Nuclear energy systems that utilise efficient fuel burn and recycling (with combined Gen III and Gen IV + reactor synergies) offer thousands of years of electrical power and optimised fuels production. Only rational nuclear energy possesses the energy density and massive fuel supplies to allow humans to transcend fears of energy scarcity in order to move into a future of relative abundance.

Cross-posted from Al Fin blog

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.

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

Heat from Nuclear Fission and Decay: Using it More Wisely

SpaceflightNow via Brian Wang
Most electrical power is generated from heat: either combustion heat or the heat of nuclear fission and decay. I was disappointed many years ago when I first learned that nuclear power plants generate their huge production of power using primitive heat -- just like coal and gas plants. But as long as we are using heat, we may as well use it more efficiently and more ingeniously.

US NASA is proposing an advanced sterling radioisitope generator (ASRG) for powering space missions -- because the sterling engine provides greater efficiency for the limited amount of fuel allowed on weight-sensitive space missions.

...each ASRG creates between 130 and 140 watts of electricity with 1 kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds, of plutonium-238. More than four times more plutonium would be required to generate the same power in an existing RTG, according to the Energy Department.

Officials want to complete extensive ground testing and a low-cost flight demonstration before flying ASRGs on a multi-billion dollar flagship mission. _SpaceFlightNow_via_BrianWang

The same principle could be used for low power generators powered by "nuclear batteries" of various types, for remote location applications. Arctic and antarctic locations in particular cry out for low power nuclear battery applications, as would deep undersea locations.

Another way of using the heat of nuclear decay more efficiently is by making better use of waste heat from conventional nuclear power.

Nuclear desalination uses the excess heat from a nuclear power plant to evaporate sea water and to condense the pure water. Writing in the appropriately named International Journal of Nuclear Desalination, a team from India and Italy argue that despite public concerns, the low energy costs and convenience of this latter process make it the preferred option. _SD

Waste heat from many industrial sources is seriously underutilised. For nuclear power plants located along salt water estuaries and coastlines, the combination of power-production and nuclear desalination should have been implemented long ago.

Other uses for the waste heat of nuclear reactors include the production of more electrical power by a wide range of means, process heat for industry, and comfort space heating in winter.

Western societies are being squeezed into energy starvation by their well-meaning but stupid politicians, academics, and media personalities. Greater efficiencies from currently existing plants will be one way to survive this designed energy starvation. Many other inventions and workarounds will be required if humans are not to be herded like lemmings off the cliffs, by their lefty-Luddite green dieoff.orgiasts in charge.

High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Boost

The US DOE awarded $40 million to General Atomics and Westinghouse for conceptual designs of High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR) to be completed by August 2011. These next generation designs will be safer, more economical, more efficient, and have a wider range of uses. The first economic use of HTGRs may be to provide "process heat" for the extraction and refining of oil and unconventional fossil fuels.

The process heat niche takes some of the competitive pressure off NGNP since the two LWR designs most likely to get to market in the next five-to-ten years are targeting electricity generation. The size of the NGNP suggests it would not be suited for off-the-grid applications since it would be difficult to transport its components to such sites. This leaves large petro-chemical plants that have both the water access for barges and the need for 600 MW (thermal) of process heat.

The best case scenario for payback to process heat customers for a commercial version of the reactor looks like this. Assume a member of the NGNP Alliance burns 1 million barrels of oil/day at $70/barrel. That's a daily cost of $70 million. Every 30 days it burns $2.1 billion in crude oil for process heat and over 300 days it burns $21 billion.

If a new 300 MW high temperature gas-cooled reactor costs $3,500/Kw, or $1.05 billion, the payback occurs in the first or second year assuming all the oil used for process heat is eventually swapped out for heat from the reactor. The actual payback will be much longer due to the need to amortize R&D, NRC licensing, and start-up costs, which could be an additional $3 billion. Also, the plant would have to reconfigure steam lines and control systems to deliver heat from reactor instead of fossil fueled boilers. _EnergyCollective

It will require a different psychology to see nuclear reactors as "heat generators" more than "power generators", but then heat has always been the primary product of commercial fission reactors.

Western civilisation needs 20 to 30 more years of high quantity production of fossil fuels. If nuclear reactors can facilitate that production, they will have done a significant part in transitioning to a cleaner energy future.