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#76 2021-03-20 18:10:37

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For Calliban re #76

Louis is an important contributor to the forum, in the sense that he is able to draw forth outstanding and memorable posts by those who ARE knowledgeable!

This has been going on for years!  If you ever have time (which I understand you don't) you'd find numerous instances of Louis leading knowledgeable members to creation of remarkable posts.  The challenge for the rest of us (who might want to be able to find those memorable posts again) is that the forum structure does not lend itself to retrieval of such worthwhile posts.

That is why I try to set up little trail markers from time to time, but even those suffer from limitations because it is so difficult (for me at least) to think of short tags that others might find helpful.

So I disagree that your posts are a waste of time.  As you create them (if you ever decide to do so again) please keep in mind that Louis himself is not (or ever could be) the target of your work.  You are (hopefully) writing for those who visit this forum without ever becoming members, and for some registered members who are following the major contributors closely.

Just look upon Louis as a sparring partner who gives you a framework for some of your best thinking.

(th)

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#77 2021-03-20 18:17:59

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Calliban,

I don't view my interactions with other members of this forum as a waste of time, based solely upon whether we agree or disagree.  There are many perfectly valid reasons for disagreement and Louis makes good solid points along with a few that can't be supported by science or existing engineering practice, and those points are more akin to optimism about better technology coming along, which is not a bad thing.  I honestly don't know what his understanding of the engineering involved happens to be.  I do think he's intelligent and sincere in his beliefs.  Even so, practical engineering doesn't care about beliefs- yours, mine, Louis', or anyone else's, for that matter.  I can't know what his emotions about something are from internet posts.  I do believe it's very important to him, something he's passionate about, and he should be the one to state his reasons for that, not you or I.  Ultimately, I think wind and solar energy need a practical energy storage mechanism and improved efficiency.  The large offshore wind turbines are the closest thing to reliable 24/7 power plants that I've seen.  The smaller onshore turbines and solar in parts of the world that don't get a lot of Sun are hamstrung by basic physics.  Beyond that, I believe that all real knowledge is self-taught.  If you truly want to know about something, then you're going to learn about it without any prompting from anyone else.

I would love to have solar and battery powered aircraft, because that would reduce fuel and maintenance costs.  However, if the purchase price of the resultant aircraft is so great that no cost savings can be achieved, then the net result is making aviation cost more, not less, and I want more people to experience and enjoy flying.  The only way that can happen is by decreasing both purchase and operating costs.  At the present time, it's not possible to make battery powered aircraft cost less than gasoline or kerosene powered aircraft in a practical amount of time, except perhaps for very short haul aircraft that are flown every day, specifically because the purchase price of the batteries and electric motors is so great, and the versatility simply isn't there yet.

I am interested in practical flying machines for the masses, but I see those as short-range, lightweight STOL aircraft, with folding wings, that can takeoff and land in a few hundred feet or less, land on seriously rough terrain, and are tough customers when it comes to dealing with the abuse of ham-fisted pilots.  At present, the cheapest aircraft are garage-built steel tubing / fabric or riveted Aluminum sheet metal.  It's perfectly feasible to build a very high quality flying machine that can takeoff and land on a dime or go 200mph for less than $30,000 using converted automotive or power sport engines.  They're typically built by people who have zero experience building aircraft, yet these home builders account for more airframes added to the registry every year than all the certificated aircraft manufacturers combined.  FAA DARs inspect each of these experimental amateur built aircraft, all mistakes must be corrected to the satisfaction of the inspector, and oddly enough, most of the fatalities involved with both certificated and experimental aircraft turn out to be pilot error, rather than anything to do with the aircraft itself.  It's almost as if building an aircraft is the easy part, but flying it within its limits and your own, is much harder to do.

Anyway, energy is a very tough nut to crack.  Some ideas are ultimately better than others, but trying to generate energy in a manner that truly doesn't have a major impact on the environment, at a global scale, is a very difficult goal to achieve.  I put it at least on par with sending humans to Mars.  Thus far, humanity has knocked down all challenges to our continued existence, so I've little doubt that we'll muddle our way through both our energy and expansion / colonization problems, but it won't happen on anyone's desired timeline.

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#78 2021-03-20 18:23:45

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

tahanson43206,

Apologies for hijacking your topic.  I'm going to try to focus on Hydrogen or Hydrocarbon production using nuclear power from here on.

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#79 2021-03-20 19:45:46

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

You are both correct of course.  I have deleted my previous comment.  I am just ticked off over non-related things and I let my frustration spill over here. My apologies for that.

But I do think that we end up going round and round in circles in these sorts of energy discussions and the same stuff gets recycled over and over, apparently without anything being learnt from the experience. It doesn't seem to matter how many times bad ideas get shot to pieces. It gets repetitive after a while.  But perhaps the repetition is necessary.


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#80 2021-03-20 20:05:34

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,

louis wrote:

kbd

I think this article answers some of the points you make:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ … rst-flight

The real attraction for operators will be the lower running costs of electric aeroplanes - maybe 40-70% lower according to the article, which sounds about right to me.

I've already read that article.  You keep talking about a fanciful concept that simply doesn't exist.  It doesn't matter all that much that the batteries cost less to recharge if the aircraft in question is so much larger and heavier, therefore more expensive to own and operate, that nobody can afford to buy and operate it.  Even if they could, it still can't carry much of anything to pay to turn all those cheaper stored electrons into noise.  That article doesn't address any part of the physics of flight, which is what I was addressing.  Weight takes power to push through the air, and lots of it.  There are clever aerodynamics tweaks that you can use to minimize the total drag generated at a given design operating speed, thus the power that must be generated to remain airborne at that speed, but you cannot overcome the need to produce power to keep weight in the air.

Unlike car engines, the only time aircraft engines are idling is while sitting on the tarmac and just prior to landing.  At all other times, they're operating at a significant percentage of their maximum rated output. If you use a turbofan engine or motor driven fan, at 375mph, it's generating 1hp for every pound of thrust generated.  If it takes 375hp / 279.6kW to push the airframe to a given speed, then that's how much continuous power any kind of propulsion system must produce to continue moving at that speed.  At an energy density of 160Wh/kg at the battery pack level, that equates to a 1,748kg battery pack.

As an American, I work in pounds (just to tee of metric people, if for no other reason), so let's examine what that means from a practical electric propulsion system design perspective:

1,748kg = 3853lbs

A 550hp PT6A-21 gas turbine weighs 327lbs and will consume fuel at a rate of about 0.63lbs/hp/hr in cruise.  Subtracting out the weight of the engine, that leaves us with 3,526lbs of fuel to play with.

To produce that same 375hp that the battery can generate (and we're completely ignoring the weight of the electric motors here), we're burning around 236.25 pounds of fuel per hour, so that's just shy of 15 hours of fuel onboard!  I don't know about you, but I can't think of any practical airframe powered by a single 550hp PT-6A that carries that much fuel, apart from some of the airborne relay drones in Viet Nam that had no pilot or paying passengers or cargo onboard.  A Beech King Air C90 series that's powered by a pair of PT-6As has an empty weight of 6,950lbs and a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 10,100 pounds, so all fuel / baggage / crew / passengers / fuzzy dice can come to a combined weight of 3,150 pounds.  That means the battery alone weighs more than the payload capacity of a fairly large light commercial aircraft.  There's also another problem we've yet to address.  The King Air needs two of those beautiful Pratt engines to cruise around at 250mph.

How many people do you know of who are looking for a $2M to $4M King Air that can stay airborne for a maximum of 30 minutes, bearing in mind that those things normally have a range of over 1,400 miles and can stay in the air for almost 6 hours?  If it's airborne for a half hour, then it can fly about 125 miles at most.  While there are a few flights that short, most flights in a King Air are a third of the way across the country, like Las Vegas to LA, for example.

Who do you think is going to pay for a multi-million dollar zero pilot / zero passenger / zero cargo aircraft that flies for 30 minutes?  World's most expensive privately owned RC toy?  How are you supposed to make money with an aircraft that can't carry anything but the battery it needs to get off the ground, because more than 100% of its available payload capacity is consumed by a boat anchor for a power source?  As light as Lithium-ion is, when compared to Lead-acid, it's an absolute brick for flying when compared to any gasoline or kerosene burner in existence.  Thus far science can't seem to "deliver the goods", with respect to a remarkably more energy dense battery.

As "fluffy" as liquid Hydrogen is for a given weight of the stuff, it still has sufficient energy density for real flight applications, especially if it's reacted in a fuel cell, as does liquid Methane and Propane.  A nuclear reactor can supply the enormous amount of continuous thermal and electrical energy required to synthesize those fuels.  A wind turbine or photovoltaic farm may be able to supply intermittent energy, but chemical plants aren't shut off because clouds are overhead, the wind isn't blowing, or day turns into night.

louis wrote:

Everything has to start somewhere - modern planes started with the Kitty Hawk.  The 9-seater looks viable for short island hopper flights.

Fair point, but normally you start with something that actually works.  The Wright Brothers didn't attempt to fly with a cast iron engine block, nor Lead-acid batteries, because they knew the power generated per unit weight carried aloft was insufficient with motor vehicle battery or combustion engine technology of the time.  They used Aluminum instead of cast iron by casting their own components.  That's the only reason that their bird left the ground.  Hydrogen fuel cells do actually work, and can even reduce the weight of the propulsion system carried aloft aboard a light aircraft, so a like-kind replacement is feasible without invoking technology that doesn't exist.

louis wrote:

I don't think you understand the relative significance of EROI or how it relates to green energy.

Concepts like EROEI aren't independent of all other considerations.  The EROEI of nuclear fusion could be absolutely stellar (you can decide for yourself if the pun was intended), but we simply don't know because we can't make one that produces more power than it consumes.

louis wrote:

Try this thought experiment. You are a clever engineer who creates a magnificent set of algorithms which allows solar powered robots to function in the asteroid belt, mining materials, refining raw materials, constructing factories and making things. These robots are so clever they can even build rockets. Now, you being so clever have built into these robots' algorithms that they will always want to serve you and bring you finished products at no charge. The robots built a nice rocket landing pad near your home and periodically bring you lovely products entirely free of any charge.

People who are way more intelligent than I'll ever be haven't yet built a robot that can perform the simplest of tasks in a completely autonomous manner, so the rest of the thought experiment is moot.  Thought experiments are also reserved for academics at universities and Hollyweird screenplay writers, not clever engineers.

louis wrote:

Now, it is clear these robots are using huge amounts of energy to operate in the asteroid belt and make the products they do. But it is equally clear from this experiment that they have no reason to levy any sort of charge, despite the prodigious amounts of energy being used.

Yes, if they're creating the machines that produce the energy they consume, then up to some incredibly large figure limited by raw materials, they can consume energy like it's going out of style.

louis wrote:

What really creates the need for price is human labour input. It isn't the fact you use x KwHs in making a product that determines its price, it is that in order to use x KWhs, z number of people are employed in helping get that energy to a point where it can be used in the making of the product. This applies though only where people are free because free people will not work without reward. If we look at slave labour, again there is no need to generate price. On a Roman villa farm lots of activities would take place and products would be made - all involving slave labour - but at no cost to the slave and land owner. Same on slave plantations in the past in the Americas. Yes, the slave needs to be fed and otherwise minimally maintained, but that is like the energy used by the robots.

We've already established that a robot can't walk into a room, or float in the water, and marry up two randomly shaped pieces of sheet metal to weld together without a LOT of assistance from sensors that humans design and tweak, ultimately prodigious quantities of skilled human labor, because if the robot could actually do that, then our factories would be devoid of people.  Similarly, none of the robots have the ability to repair their own circuitry without human labor.  So putting a bunch of robots out in the asteroid belt STILL requires a ton of human labor, many millions of miles from home.

louis wrote:

Your point about energy budgets for activities is of course a truism. If an activity is not generating energy, then it cannot continue indefinitely without additional energy inputs.

Yes, human powers of basic reasoning and the use of relatively simple, if intricate, logic exists for very fundamental reasons.  It's utterly necessary to orient yourself in the world and to interact with it and other people in ways that are, minimally, merely survivable.  I'm not any kind of philosopher, though.  I recognize my own limitations, in that regard.  I lack that kind of creativity.  What I do know how to do is to interact with and manipulate rules-based systems to get the end result that I'm after, so long as I know what the rules are.  That's the basis for sound engineering work, BTW.

louis wrote:

The error I think you fall into is assuming that EROI is the key factor to energy budgetting, It isn't. The key factor is relative ubiquity. The point  about energy resources like wind, solar and geothermal is they are pretty much ubiquitous across the planet. To take solar, the energy from the sun transported to the planet is huge, enough in one hour to power humanity's needs for decades. More than that, it is readily available all around us, not concentrated in a few locations. So even if solar let's say had an EROI of only 5% of coal's EROI, if we have the right technology - meaning in effect the right price - we can easily build up a larger energy surplus from solar than from coal. So while it's true - in this case - that for every 1 energy unit put into coal I get 100 and I only get 5 from solar, solar is all around and easily available to use if you have the right technology whereas coal is unevenly distributed and its extraction involves mature technologies that are not going to deliver major cost reductions. With solar you have a scenario where you can just invest the 1/4 of your energy surplus back into solar and you can continue to grow your energy surplus at a prodigious rate. With coal, if you did that you would soon strip all the more easily accessible coal deposits.  But with solar we can go on and on, and if we get the technology right we can exploit solar power beyond the narrow confines of Earth e.g. with solar power satellites.

Uranium and Thorium are also ubiquitous.  They're present in every gallon of sea water, just like the Lithium used in Lithium-ion batteries.  That doesn't mean it's easy to extract or that the extraction is "free" in terms of energy consumption, merely because the energy resource is ubiquitous.  Otherwise, we wouldn't go to South America to extract Lithium when we can start filtering it out of sea water.

The mere fact that sunlight and wind are present across the entire planet doesn't make them an intrinsically useful resources, because those resources are very diffuse and require an enormous number of enormous machines that require enormous quantities of materials, therefore enormous quantities of energy to fabricate and maintain.  The total quantity of energy delivered by the Sun is only usable if the entire planet or some very healthy portion of it was covered in solar panels or wind turbines, or there are international power grids established to move electricity around the world.

You can't make those machines cheaply enough to overcome the fact that they require 10 times to 100 times more materials to produce equivalent quantities of energy output.  We use concrete, steel, light metal alloys, and composites for everything.  We don't use Uranium or Thorium for any other purposes apart from fissioning them in nuclear reactors, so your repeated attempt to conflate steel and concrete production with fissile material production is a bad comparison.

Thus far, our "energy surplus" from solar is at or very near to zero, precisely because the most practical / cheapest storage mechanisms, molten salt or molten metal, are not being exploited batteries.  There's enough fissionable nuclear materials sitting in Paducah, Kentucky to supply 100% of the US electricity needs for the next century, or next three centuries if we have a more appropriate mix of power generation technologies.  The storage mechanism for wind and solar cannot begin to "store" the electrical energy used by the entire United States, for at least the next century, in a physical space smaller than a football stadium.  It doesn't matter how "ubiquitous" you think Uranium and Thorium should be, either.  They're a technological fact and the quantity of fissionable material in Paducah is a physical objective fact, not subject to anyone's ideology.

With appropriate storage and energy surpluses, we can continue using wind and solar into perpetuity.  Without a fully functional storage mechanism, we cannot.  People advocating for using wind and solar for everything need to first demonstrate a 16GWh storage facility that can supply 1GW over the 16 hours of the day where there is no sunshine or wind.  A power plant is only a power plant when it generates power.  I don't care if the power is generated or stored for later use, but power needs to be available to cover demand at all times.  Nuclear easily accomplishes that, without spending a dime on storage, or having two or three different power plants to account for the highly variable output of wind and sunlight.

A 16 GWh storage facility? Well as I have said many times I think this will be methane. We definitely already deal in the GW storage level in Europe given the amount of methane we use in heating, cooking and electricity generation. Last time I looked I reckon you probably need to have a storage capacity of around 10% of your annual energy supply held as methane as part of a green energy strategy. So the only question to resolve is how much does it cost to manufacture that amount of methane. The fuel for the manufacture is effectively free because you use surplus green energy that cannot be otherwise used. The real cost is setting up the manufacture base that can produce that 10% in terms of energy. It's v difficult to get figures for the manufacture cost but my previous analysis suggested it currently lay in the mid 20 cents range - about 24 cents per KWh if I remember rightly. Very expensive but that works out at an addition of 2.4 cents across the range. In places like the SW USA I suspect this is already a viable technology but it just requires a lot of upfront investment and "Never be first" is a good rule in business - let the other guy be brave, not you. In SW USA you can produce electricity at around 2 cents per KWh - so with the methane addition that would be 4.4 cents. Maybe you would need to add a cent for chemical batteries dealing with very short term fluctuations.

Nuclear power is an impressive technology in terms of energy density - I've never denied it. But there the story ends. It's expensive.

Yes, you might be able to look at cheaper scaled down nuclear but then you hit the security issue. If every town is going to have its own little nuclear power supply you are creating opportunities for terrorists.

I wouldn't accept our energy surplus from solar or wind are close to zero. I think a few years back most analysts put the EROEI at at least 4 and it's probably more now.

I am not saying all electric craft will supplant current airliners. I am saying electric airplanes will begin to eat up more and more market share.

I am not sure what Elon might be planning but it certainly looks like the ultimate electric airplane offer  will include landing close to city centres (low noise and VTOL), lower fuel and maintenance costs and supersonic speed. Maybe in some future world you might  send your luggage forward a few days before to be delivered by slow robot road vehicles...you get to the hotel and there is your luggage waiting - well you knew that anyway because you could view its progress on the webcam. So if you are travelling 2000 miles you might need to send your luggage off 40 hours beforehand. And if you are travelling 12000 miles, maybe 10 days beforehand. The future is going to be different, for sure!


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#81 2021-03-20 20:17:36

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Was that the one about non STEM people commenting on STEM related matters? Well I am a strong believer in free debate and cross-pollination. Not to say I am defying any thermodynamical laws, it's just free discussion is best. There was a very strong culture of free discussion in the Apollo programme...no one was slapped down for saying something. I think Musk tries to consciously recreate that atmosphere.

My answer was going to be that while I can't justify my position from a qualified STEM point of view I can point to the fact that Elon Musk, a very successful STEM-background entrepeneur has the same perspective I do. Also, if you read any detailed financial outllook analyses they too point in the same direction - that green energy is going to become the predominant energy source, for simple economic reasons. I think people here get confused because we are currently in an intermediate phase where some green energy applications are already v. cost effective whereas others are still being subsidised.

I definitely have learnt from discussions here over time - concepts like energy density have now become part of my thinking about all sorts of subjects.

If I was being critical, I would say the nukies never learn - it's always a question of one more technological innovation and we will realise the original dream of "too cheap to meter" power from nuclear fission. But in the real world the price of real nuclear power (as opposed to the stuff of dreams) remains really high!

Calliban wrote:

You are both correct of course.  I have deleted my previous comment.  I am just ticked off over non-related things and I let my frustration spill over here. My apologies for that.

But I do think that we end up going round and round in circles in these sorts of energy discussions and the same stuff gets recycled over and over, apparently without anything being learnt from the experience. It doesn't seem to matter how many times bad ideas get shot to pieces. It gets repetitive after a while.  But perhaps the repetition is necessary.

Last edited by louis (2021-03-20 20:18:55)


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#82 2021-03-20 20:28:40

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Well thanks for the defence (?) TA but I don't feel I particularly need it as I am used to and rather enjoy robust debate! lol

The good thing about this sort of debate is that we can tell within 10 years or so who's right.

I remember having lots of debates with people 10 to 20  years ago who were quoting how ridiculously high the unsubsidised cost of wind and solar energy were.  To that extent they were right - at the time. But of course now we are where we are, they can't make that argument any more. Because of course now wind and solar are among the cheapest forms of energy.

They can of course talk about the intermittency of green energy or the need for additional infrastructure but that argument - that it was absurdly expensive of itself - no longer applies. They lost that argument.

I confidently expect the critics of green energy to lose the next phase of the argument as energy storage becomes cost-effiective.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Calliban re #76

Louis is an important contributor to the forum, in the sense that he is able to draw forth outstanding and memorable posts by those who ARE knowledgeable!

This has been going on for years!  If you ever have time (which I understand you don't) you'd find numerous instances of Louis leading knowledgeable members to creation of remarkable posts.  The challenge for the rest of us (who might want to be able to find those memorable posts again) is that the forum structure does not lend itself to retrieval of such worthwhile posts.

That is why I try to set up little trail markers from time to time, but even those suffer from limitations because it is so difficult (for me at least) to think of short tags that others might find helpful.

So I disagree that your posts are a waste of time.  As you create them (if you ever decide to do so again) please keep in mind that Louis himself is not (or ever could be) the target of your work.  You are (hopefully) writing for those who visit this forum without ever becoming members, and for some registered members who are following the major contributors closely.

Just look upon Louis as a sparring partner who gives you a framework for some of your best thinking.

(th)


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#83 2021-03-21 08:33:02

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Louis,

louis wrote:

A 16 GWh storage facility? Well as I have said many times I think this will be methane. We definitely already deal in the GW storage level in Europe given the amount of methane we use in heating, cooking and electricity generation. Last time I looked I reckon you probably need to have a storage capacity of around 10% of your annual energy supply held as methane as part of a green energy strategy. So the only question to resolve is how much does it cost to manufacture that amount of methane. The fuel for the manufacture is effectively free because you use surplus green energy that cannot be otherwise used. The real cost is setting up the manufacture base that can produce that 10% in terms of energy. It's v difficult to get figures for the manufacture cost but my previous analysis suggested it currently lay in the mid 20 cents range - about 24 cents per KWh if I remember rightly. Very expensive but that works out at an addition of 2.4 cents across the range. In places like the SW USA I suspect this is already a viable technology but it just requires a lot of upfront investment and "Never be first" is a good rule in business - let the other guy be brave, not you. In SW USA you can produce electricity at around 2 cents per KWh - so with the methane addition that would be 4.4 cents. Maybe you would need to add a cent for chemical batteries dealing with very short term fluctuations.

If you have to produce 1GW of continuous power output, but the Sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow over the other 16 hours of the day, then that is the base level of output that you have to produce, either using energy storage or generation through some other means.  In the grand scheme of things, 16 hours of reserve power storage is very little- essentially enough to make it through one bad day.  However, the endlessly repeated mantra behind "green energy" is CO2 emissions elimination.  If most of the power provided through "some other means" involves burning anything except pure Hydrogen, then we're not eliminating CO2 emissions, so we should stop pretending that that's what we're actually doing.

louis wrote:

Nuclear power is an impressive technology in terms of energy density - I've never denied it. But there the story ends. It's expensive.

If wind and solar are so cheap, then when will the rates paid by consumers start falling instead of rising?

Why does the cost of electricity keep going up as more and more "green energy cheaper than coal" is brought online?

Our electricity rates were cheaper when we were mostly burning coal or using nuclear power, so there's a discrepancy between reality and ideation there.

louis wrote:

Yes, you might be able to look at cheaper scaled down nuclear but then you hit the security issue. If every town is going to have its own little nuclear power supply you are creating opportunities for terrorists.

Reactors would be located where existing reactors already exist, so the notion that they'd be located willy nilly is false.  The danger of unauthorized access exists due to presence of nuclear materials, not where a reactor happens to be located.  All of the existing nuclear materials don't magically disappear merely because they're sitting in casks instead of inside operating nuclear reactors.  It's much more difficult to obtain those materials if they're inside a reactor, paying us back by providing their stored energy.

louis wrote:

I wouldn't accept our energy surplus from solar or wind are close to zero. I think a few years back most analysts put the EROEI at at least 4 and it's probably more now.

I wouldn't accept academic assertions without proof.  Do you have any real-world examples that demonstrate these energy surpluses?

louis wrote:

I am not saying all electric craft will supplant current airliners. I am saying electric airplanes will begin to eat up more and more market share.

Low cost H2 provided by nuclear reactors could enable lighter airliners that don't require as much power to fly, since cost is so tightly coupled with weight.  If LH2 is used, then airliners can retain the same form factor and engines that they currently use.  However, even compressed H2 and CH4 are feasible using CFRP storage tanks.  I think we're allowing "the perfect" to override "the much better" here, assuming we both agree that CO2 emissions reduction and lower cost aviation are worthwhile goals.

louis wrote:

I am not sure what Elon might be planning but it certainly looks like the ultimate electric airplane offer  will include landing close to city centres (low noise and VTOL), lower fuel and maintenance costs and supersonic speed. Maybe in some future world you might  send your luggage forward a few days before to be delivered by slow robot road vehicles...you get to the hotel and there is your luggage waiting - well you knew that anyway because you could view its progress on the webcam. So if you are travelling 2000 miles you might need to send your luggage off 40 hours beforehand. And if you are travelling 12000 miles, maybe 10 days beforehand. The future is going to be different, for sure!

The words "low noise" and "VTOL" don't belong in the same sentence, unless preceded by the word "not".  Most of the noise and the danger to other people comes from the rotor blades, not the engines.  That's why they won't be permitted to land anywhere that helicopters aren't already permitted to land, no matter what the power source happens to be.  The only thing louder than the rotor blades on an aircraft carrier flight deck is a pair of turbofans in full afterburner.  If an aircraft can't carry the passengers and their luggage, then it's not a practical aircraft.

I must admit that it's always fun to daydream about a wildly different future, but government regulations, basic physics, and practical engineering have a way of dragging us right back to boring reality.

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#84 2021-03-21 09:51:33

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,749

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For kbd512 re #83

Thank you for including this gem in your lengthy reply to Louis ...

Low cost H2 provided by nuclear reactors could enable lighter airliners that don't require as much power to fly, since cost is so tightly coupled with weight.  If LH2 is used, then airliners can retain the same form factor and engines that they currently use.  However, even compressed H2 and CH4 are feasible using CFRP storage tanks.  I think we're allowing "the perfect" to override "the much better" here, assuming we both agree that CO2 emissions reduction and lower cost aviation are worthwhile goals.

(th)

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#85 2021-03-22 17:42:43

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

louis wrote:

If I was being critical, I would say the nukies never learn - it's always a question of one more technological innovation and we will realise the original dream of "too cheap to meter" power from nuclear fission. But in the real world the price of real nuclear power (as opposed to the stuff of dreams) remains really high!

This is simply not true.  Here is the link that I posted about a week back on this very thread proving it.
https://www.nei.org/news/2018/cost-of-n … 0-year-low

The average cost of a MWh of baseload nuclear electricity is $33.50.  That is extremely cheap, especially when you consider that it is dependable and does not need other power plants sitting in hot standby mode to back it up.  When you look at it like that, the only thing that a wind turbine or solar panel can do is marginally cut the fuel bill at an existing power plant.  Thermal powerplants are being driven to the wall because they are forced to take second place and provide backup for wind and solar plants on the grid.  But crucially, they are not paid for this service.  If you are running a power station and you find that you cannot generate for half of the time because someone else is automatically prioritised, then it won't be long before you go under.  It has nothing to do with renewable electricity being cheaper.  It has more to do with other generators losing market share because grid operators are contractually and legally obliged to accept renewable energy when it is offered to the grid.  If these powerplants had to follow the same rules as gas, coal or nuclear, they wouldn't last long.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-03-22 17:44:25)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#86 2021-03-22 19:50:15

louis
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From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Those are dodgy figures.

I note they keep referring to the "generating cost" - what are they leaving out? Cost of waste storage perhaps?  Administrative security costs? And this is the price for existing nuclear facilities, you'll note, not new build. In the USA, the nuclear facilities are old - they are benefitting from having paid off their capital cost, no doubt. We'll see the same with wind energy costs as we get beyong the financing period of 20-30 years. But if you want to expand nuclear, you would have to build new. In the UK, the nuclear industry has demanded and got a fixed minimum price of something like $80 per MWh because that's what it needs to cover the new construction cost and add some minimum profit.

Calliban wrote:
louis wrote:

If I was being critical, I would say the nukies never learn - it's always a question of one more technological innovation and we will realise the original dream of "too cheap to meter" power from nuclear fission. But in the real world the price of real nuclear power (as opposed to the stuff of dreams) remains really high!

This is simply not true.  Here is the link that I posted about a week back on this very thread proving it.
https://www.nei.org/news/2018/cost-of-n … 0-year-low

The average cost of a MWh of baseload nuclear electricity is $33.50.  That is extremely cheap, especially when you consider that it is dependable and does not need other power plants sitting in hot standby mode to back it up.  When you look at it like that, the only thing that a wind turbine or solar panel can do is marginally cut the fuel bill at an existing power plant.  Thermal powerplants are being driven to the wall because they are forced to take second place and provide backup for wind and solar plants on the grid.  But crucially, they are not paid for this service.  If you are running a power station and you find that you cannot generate for half of the time because someone else is automatically prioritised, then it won't be long before you go under.  It has nothing to do with renewable electricity being cheaper.  It has more to do with other generators losing market share because grid operators are contractually and legally obliged to accept renewable energy when it is offered to the grid.  If these powerplants had to follow the same rules as gas, coal or nuclear, they wouldn't last long.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#87 2021-06-28 08:03:20

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Space nuclear power is nearing critical mass as the final frontier’s next frontier
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/space-nuc … -frontier/

Economic aspects of nuclear and hydrogen energy
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 992033319X

Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The name comes from the magnesium-aluminium alloy used to clad the fuel rods inside the reactor. Like most other "Generation I nuclear reactors", the Magnox was designed with the dual purpose of producing electrical power and plutonium-239 for the nascent nuclear weapons program in Britain. The name refers specifically to the United Kingdom design but is sometimes used generically to refer to any similar reactor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnox

Design concept for a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) reactor to power future astronaut missions to Mars has exceeded key performance parameters and optimised the reactor for manufacturability, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has announced
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Arti … t-for-Mars

Sierra Space Provides Integration Services for New Nuclear Propulsion System as Part of DARPA’s DRACO Program
http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=57641

Nuclear power in space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_space
QUOTE
While solar power is much more commonly used, nuclear power can offer advantages in some areas. Solar cells, although efficient, can only supply energy to spacecraft in orbits where the solar flux is sufficiently high, such as low Earth orbit and interplanetary destinations close enough to the Sun. Unlike solar cells, nuclear power systems function independently of sunlight, which is necessary for deep space exploration. Nuclear-based systems can have less mass than solar cells of equivalent power, allowing more compact spacecraft that are easier to orient and direct in space. In the case of crewed spaceflight, nuclear power concepts that can power both life support and propulsion systems may reduce both cost and flight time

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,

They probably are desperate to continue living in a technologically advanced human civilization, because there's no such thing as a 100% wind and solar powered civilization that's anything but energy-poor and in the dark half the time.

Here's an older article
https://www.space.com/39413-small-nucle … olony.html

How a Small Nuclear Reactor Could Power a Colony on Mars or Beyond


The brilliance of Kilopoweris its simplicity: With few moving parts, it uses heat-pipe technology, invented at Los Alamos way back in 1963, to power a Stirling engine. Here's how it works: The sealed tube in the heat pipe circulates a fluid around the reactor, picking up the heat and carrying it to the Stirling engine. There, the heat energy pressurizes gas to drive a piston coupled to a motor that generates electricity. Using the two devices in tandem creates a simple, reliable electric power supply that can be adapted for space applications, including human exploration and space science missions to outer planetary bodies like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Kilopower reactorsrange from 1 kilowatt — about enough to power a household toaster — to 10 kW. To effectively run a habitat on Mars and create fuel, about 40 kW would be needed, so NASA would likely send four to five of the reactors to the planet's surface.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2021-06-28 08:04:41)

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#88 2021-06-28 08:40:48

Calliban
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From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

I doubt very much that we will be building Magnox reactors on Mars.  They made sense in the UK at the beginning of the atomic age, because enriched fissile materials were in short supply, natural uranium was abundant and metallurgical coke and petroleum coke, with which to make moderator blocks, were both abundant.

On Mars, natural uranium and thorium appear to be rare, fossil fuels apparently don't exist and fissile materials will be available in the form of spent Kilopower cores.  I think native Martian built reactors will employ breeding cycles from day one.  Probably the first Mars built reactor will be an aqueous homogenous reactor, with Kilopower derived fissile material in its core (in the form of soluble salts) and native Martian thorium or natural uranium blanket regions.  The AHR provides a high power output per kg of fissile material and an excellent neutron economy, allowing a middling to good breeding ratio.  But operating temperature is limited by corrosion issues.

Maybe Martian engineers will skip the AHR and build liquid metal cooled reactors that can produce hydrogen and synthetic fuels?  Liquid metal cooled fast reactors allow both high temperatures and high breeding ratio.  The second is important if the colony is growing fast and you want to expand power supply without relying upon fissile material imported from Earth.  High temperatures allow more efficient production of electricity and also thermochemical water splitting, which will be important on Mars because it will form the basis of methane fuel production, oxygen production and CO for reduction of iron oxides in steel production.  A Mars colony will need a lot of steel.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-06-28 08:50:52)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#89 2021-06-28 09:44:05

tahanson43206
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Posts: 16,749

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For Calliban re #88

SearchTerm:reactor for Mars optimized for conditions liquid metal recommended breeder required power and thermal product delivery

(th)

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#90 2021-08-17 07:54:17

tahanson43206
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Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For Calliban .... today's news feed included an item about UK plans to subsidize hydrogen production...

I've quoted below a section that hints that nuclear power would be considered...  That is precisely the focus of this topic.

Please note the "after 2030" hint ...  Can you (and your company) do better than that?  There would appear to be a ** lot ** of money available for a company with the vision to offer an optimum solution to use of atomic power to make hydrogen for UK customers. 


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-k- … 00838.html

The U.K. plans to finalize the low-carbon hydrogen business model next year with an aim to allocate the first contracts in the first quarter of 2023.

The plan doesn’t model costs for hydrogen production from nuclear power plants, but does envision a role for existing reactors to power electrolyzers this decade. The role for nuclear power to produce hydrogen could be expanded after 2030.

Edit: Calliban, this is ** not ** a time for nickel-dime thinking (or whatever the UK version of that phrase might be).

This ** is ** a time for bold proposals to make the investments necessary to build a self-reinforcing hydrogen production system using carefully crafted reactors that can be operated by small customers all over the UK, and refurbished by a large, secure facility you are in position to manage.

(th)

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#91 2021-08-18 05:52:03

Calliban
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From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

The most likely candidates for new nuclear build in the UK, are the small modular PWRs being developed by Rolls-Royce.  These are likely to be around 300MWe apiece and draw heavily on RR experience in construction of naval reactors.  This is the only nuclear design and construction expertise that wasn't allowed to wither away to nothing in the dash for gas in the 1990s and 2000s.  Basically, the UK needed to keep this going for its nuclear submarine programme.  It had NATO commitments to do this and would have lost its seat on the UN security council had this not been done.  The labour government under Tony Blair did everything they could to sabotage the UK programme by allowing native supply chains to wither.  Even so, the UK naval reactor programme is something that the country still has, with a small nucleus of engineering expertise that just might be nutured sufficiently to allow the development of a parallel commercial product.  If I have any involvement at all in new nuclear build in the UK, this is where it will likely be.  There just isn't the political appetite, funding, expertise or time to develop any exotic fast neutron concepts.

The timing could hardly be more critical.  I can certainly see very bad days ahead for the UK.  The country has deteriorated in just about every way imaginable since the 1990s.  Back in the 90s, it was one of the world's largest oil and gas producers, most of it exported at rock bottom energy prices.  It has gone from a position of energy exporter to importer of almost all of its energy.  Nuclear power production has dwindled, as the old Magnox and AGR stations have closed and new power reactors have not been built.  The government dithered for years over the decision on whether to build more, finally making the decision to allow construction of APR1000 and EPR1600, around 2009  - a full decade after North Sea oil and gas production had hit its peak.  There was then more dithering around funding and the cost of essentially restarting an industry that they had allowed to die two decades earlier.  Funding ended up being through private investment at high interest rates.  Unfortunately, delays introduced by atrophied supply chains, the absence of a trained workforce, difficulties navigating the UK nuclear regulatory system, which had not seen a new reactor commissioned since 1995; have all pushed total project time to around two decades.  This has ballooned the cost of the project to around £20 billion.

I would like to think that the SMR experience would be different, with an understanding from the beginning that the project needs to establish supply chains for a product that will be manufactured continuously, to a common design and in significant numbers for decades ahead.  The regulatory process can be smoothened once there is experience building the same basic unit over and over again, with minimal gaps between build campaigns.  That sort of arrangement would also help to sustain a trained workforce and would allow component related industries to grow in support of the programme as well.  But based on past experience, I just cannot foresee the UK government providing that sort of clarity of vision and single minded commitment.

As things stand, coal has been reduced to a tiny sliver of UK energy supply, and the government plan to phase it out entirely by 2025.  By 2025, under present trajectory, UK energy consumption will be 40% oil, 40% natural gas, 20% renewable energy and nuclear.  Almost all of the oil and gas will be imported.  The problem this raises is that the UK has one of the weakest manufacturing sectors of any European country.  This means extremely weak exports, which ultimately makes it difficult to import large amounts of anything without accruing debt.  The UK is amongst the most heavily indebted countries and has one of the most poorly trained workforces.  We stand at a time where global production of oil is facing the prospect of rapid declines.  It will be difficult to sustain gas production and transportation, without oil production.  At the very least, these commodities will become far more expensive.  Commodities of all kinds will face rapid price inflation, we are seeing the beginning of this already.  And supply disruption is becoming a more and more common occurance.  Not good news for a heavily financialised and endebted economy, which imports almost everything it consumes and exports far too little to balance the terms of trade.

I think the UK economy is approaching a kind of catastrophic collapse.  I doubt very much that a nuclear new build programme could continue under those conditions.  It has been left far too late.  The people in command failed to understand the vulnerability of the country and had too poor an understanding of energy economics to make the right decisions at the right time.  Most of them still cling to the belief that the economy is a financial entity and that its wealth and growth can be sustained and stimulated by controlling the amount of money issued by the central bank and keeping interest rates low.  Historians will spend a lot of time reflecting on the stupidity of these people and the immense damage they caused.  Only when the cars run out of fuel and their currency is worthless, will they realise that they cannot print material goods; that wealth is a measure of material abundance (which rests on energy abundance) and not the pattern of ones and zeros in a bank computer.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-08-18 06:39:02)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#92 2021-08-18 06:10:40

tahanson43206
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Posts: 16,749

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For Calliban re #91

Thanks for this helpful review of the status of nuclear fission expertise in the UK.

The present circumstances may be propitious.

The Bet Your Company decision to leave the EU (Brexit) means the UK is going to have to exert itself at a level comparable to war time (both WWI and WWII come to mind). 

The 300 MW size sounds way too large to be practical for a concept that can be deployed widely to small businesses, but perhaps there is a sweet spot achievable with the existing technology between 1 MW and 300.

Whatever that magic number is, it must be possible for existing small business people to imagine themselves taking the risks of setting up a new business based upon a steady supply of power.

The ten year swap rate looks about right to me .... the customer is not saddled with responsibility for the asset, and the asset provider is large enough to be able to make a profit building and managing multiple reactors.

The submarine model might actually work well in this situation, because the UK is close to a lot of water.

Transport of the modular reactors to and from the customer site by water is thus an option.

Output can be fed into gas lines is they are available, or into transport vehicles such as trains or trucks.

The economic circumstances seem favorable as well.  The UK is (to the best of my knowledge) an importer of natural gas, so the new (nuclear based) industry would be competing with foreign supply that can be adjusted by tariff.

Rolls-Royce is a name that (I think) can be trusted in this risky undertaking.

(th)

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#93 2021-08-18 07:49:54

Calliban
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From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

Since 2005, UK electricity production has fallen by around a quarter.  This reflects the country's decline as a manufacturer and exporter.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/323 … ingdom-uk/

UK electricity consumption stood at 313TWh in 2020.  This was a substantial decline from the 350TWh used in 2018.  The higher value is equivalent to a continuous power of 40GWe.  UK transport energy requirements are around 500TWh, almost all of it oil products.  If the UK were to start meeting a large part of transportation energy requirements using electricity or hydrogen derived from electricity, total electrical energy requirements could double.  If there were to be a significant revival of the manufacturing sector to bolster exports, electricity use would also increase substantially.  If electricity is relied on more heavily for heating, consumption could double.  If the UK were to attempt to wean itself off of oil for transportation and gas for heating, a trippling of demand is possible, with a large seasonal spike in winter.  A good strategy would be to combine a nuclear build programme of modular reactors for baseload power, with expansion of wind energy, which can meet autumn, winter and spring heat loads through a combination of heat pump and resistance heating.

Some 60GWe of baseload capacity, would imply roughly 220x 300MWe units, working at 90% capacity factor.  So I don't think 300MWe is too big.  It is worth remembering that although the power output may be big, the units themselves are not.  A little while back I posted a link showing the volume of the nuclear steam supply system of a VVER1000 PWR.  It could easily fit in a cubic geometry 4-storey building.  Pressurised water reactors are quite compact.

Probably the best strategy for using electrolytic hydrogen to power transportation, would be to use the hydrogen to upgrade biomass or residual fossil fuels into storable methane, methanol, dimethyl ether and ammonia.  All can be burned in modified IC engines and all can be used to manufacture higher value products.  Methanol is the easiest fuel to produce from biomass.  Woody biomass is dominated by cellulose and lignin.  Cellulose has average chemical formula of  (C6H10O5)n.  It can therefore be oxidised to produce a syngas with composition CO + H2.  We can add additional hydrogen from electrolysis and produce a syngas with the correct chemical balance to produce methanol when reacted other the appropriate catalyst.

(CO + H2) + H2(e) = CH3OH.

If we had to produce methanol by reducing carbon dioxide, the electrical energy requirements would at least triple, as we must use 3x as much electrolytic hydrogen:

CO2 + H2(e) = CO + H2O
CO + 2H2(e) = CH3OH

Unless electricity is very cheap, it is wise to choose feedstock that minimises the need for supplementary electrolysis in production of synthetic fuels.  The UK still has a relatively functional agricultural sector.  Biomass from woody agricultural wastes, could be a valuable supplementary revenue for farmers, forestry, recycling centres, sewage works, etc.

My worry is that this is all too little, too late.  The UK economy is dangerously exposed to the global financial system and entirely import dependent.  The world as a whole is now very close to entering another Great Depression, caused by over concentration of manufacturing in East Asia, over financialisation and supply constraints of oil and over commodities.  When it happens, it may destroy the ability of many countries to run nuclear new build programmes.  The UK is particularly exposed to these risks.  Probably the only other first world country in a worse position is Ireland.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-08-18 08:23:43)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#94 2021-08-18 08:23:08

tahanson43206
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Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

For Calliban re #93

Thank you for your thoughtful reply....

I am willing to be persuaded that 300 MW is a reactor size that is practical for a small business to manage. 

For anyone willing to help here ... is there an example of a 300 MW facility (of any kind) that is managed successfully by a small business?

My impression is that a nuclear power plant is the exclusive province of either a national government or a gigantic corporation.

Calliban is a fullback in this topic, but we need more players who can carry part of the load.

The potential of atomic power to help address energy needs of the entire global population is so great, that I would hate to see the present opportunity pass by.

(th)

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#95 2023-01-23 13:30:34

tahanson43206
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Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

This post is about a term that I've not seen before ... "pink" hydrogen (made using nuclear power)

The quote is from an article that is (will be) posted in a topic about hydrogen aircraft experments ...

Because the supply chain is so important, Universal Hydrogen is paying a lot of attention to the sources of its hydrogen. Today, industrial-grade hydrogen gas is typically a byproduct of fossil-fuel production. In contrast, Cousin says his company wants to use solar and wind power to produce “green hydrogen” through water electrolysis. (Another option might be “pink hydrogen,” where nuclear power provides the electricity for electrolysis.)

(th)

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#96 2023-01-23 13:31:38

tahanson43206
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Re: Hydrogen from Nuclear Fission Economy

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/powe … 00521.html

Alan Boyle
Mon, January 23, 2023 at 10:34 AM EST

Hydrogen-powered engine on converted Dash 8-300 turboprop plane
A De Havilland Dash 8-300 plane spins a hydrogen-powered propeller. (Universal Hydrogen via Twitter)

Is hydrogen the green aviation fuel of the future? An industry team led by California-based Universal Hydrogen is testing out that proposition amid the scrublands of central Washington state.

Universal Hydrogen is readying its converted De Havilland Dash 8-300 turboprop plane for initial flight tests later this year at Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Wash., with an assist from Washington state partners including Seattle-based AeroTEC and Everett-based MagniX.

Last week, Universal Hydrogen announced that it spun up the propeller on the plane’s MagniX-built electric motor powered completely by hydrogen fuel for the first time. This week, “Lightning McClean” is set to start ground testing in earnest.

“We’ll run the powertrain on the ground with the aircraft static … up to maximum power,” Mark Cousin, Universal Hydrogen’s chief technology officer, told GeekWire. “Once we’re happy with the behavior of the system, we will then move into taxi testing and the buildup to flight.”

The timing for the first flight test depends on how well the ground tests go — perhaps within the next few months, if things go exceptionally well.


Why hydrogen?

Universal Hydrogen was founded in 2020 by a group of aviation industry veterans who were frustrated to see how slowly the rest of the industry was moving toward climate-friendly, zero-emission air travel.

“Decarbonization of aviation is really hard,” Cousin said. “We don’t believe it’s going to be done with batteries. And the key market within the aviation business, that produces nearly 60% of aviation emissions, is the single-aisle family of aircraft.”

Aircraft manufacturers have to come up with a plan for the next generation of single-aisle planes by the 2030s.

Mark Cousin (Universal Hydrogen Photo)
Mark Cousin (Universal Hydrogen Photo)
“What we want to do is demonstrate to their customers, and ultimately to them, that hydrogen is the only really viable zero-emissions fuel for the next generation of short- and medium-range aircraft,” Cousin said.

Hydrogen has gotten a bad rap in the public’s perception of flight safety for decades — arguably starting with the Hindenburg airship disaster in 1937. If you’re working with hydrogen-fueled systems, sooner or later you have to deal with the Hindenburg Question. “The fire that you saw on the Hindenburg is actually not hydrogen burning,” Cousin said when he was asked. “It’s the dope skin around the bags containing the hydrogen.” (That hypothesis is the subject of a long-running debate.)

Cousin then laid out the bigger picture, acknowledging that the characteristics of hydrogen fuel are different from those of aviation-grade kerosene.

“Our whole strategy on hydrogen is just making sure the concentration of hydrogen in any part of the airplane where it might leak never reaches a threshold where it becomes flammable,” he said. “If you don’t have enough hydrogen in the atmosphere, you simply cannot set fire to it.”

Universal Hydrogen’s strategy calls for using modularized capsules — initially containing compressed gas, and eventually containing liquid hydrogen that’s kept super-cold in the same way that drinks are chilled in an insulated picnic cooler. The modular method is meant to minimize the potential for leaks when loading the fuel onto the plane.


Hydrogen is attractive as a zero-emission fuel because when it reacts with oxygen in a fuel cell to produce electricity, the exhaust comes in the form of water. That’s why hydrogen is picking up steam as a fossil-fuel alternative: Toyota and Hyundai are selling hydrogen-powered cars in California, and a French-Moroccan startup called NamX is working on a refillable capsule concept that’s similar to Universal Hydrogen’s, but for cars rather than airplanes.

On the aviation front, California-based ZeroAvia marked a milestone last week with the first hydrogen-powered flight of its converted Dornier 228 airplane — a 10-minute flight test that began and ended at an airfield west of London. ZeroAvia has a research-and-development facility at Everett’s Paine Field, and counts Seattle-based Alaska Airlines among its strategic partners. It also has attracted investments from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund as well as from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund co-founded by Bill Gates.

Cousin said he doesn’t exactly consider ZeroAvia a competitor. For one thing, he points out that ZeroAvia is working on a hybrid hydrogen-battery propulsion system, while Universal Hydrogen is going all-in on hydrogen power. For another thing, Universal Hydrogen’s main focus is on the fuel supply chain rather than the airplanes alone. Cousin compares his company to the Nespresso coffee company, which sells its machines at cost but derives the bulk of its profit from selling the coffee pods that go into the machines.

Because the supply chain is so important, Universal Hydrogen is paying a lot of attention to the sources of its hydrogen. Today, industrial-grade hydrogen gas is typically a byproduct of fossil-fuel production. In contrast, Cousin says his company wants to use solar and wind power to produce “green hydrogen” through water electrolysis. (Another option might be “pink hydrogen,” where nuclear power provides the electricity for electrolysis.)

(th)

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