PEAK OIL: Going Mainstream

[Dymanic]

So then it seems that we'll have to transition to a zero growth system.

The conclusion appears unavoidable, but don't expect a big rush to be first in line.

Peak Oil (or, for that matter, Peak Uranium or whatever) isn't about the amount of the resource that could conceivably be extracted; it's about the rate of extraction. In the same sense, what counts when we start talking about alternative sources of energy is not the amount of energy that could be produced; it's how fast those sources can be brought on line.

For many decades, economic growth has been driven by (or at least accompanied by) an increase in global petroleum production. The reason for that is that the energy density of petroleum and the ease with which it can be extracted, processed, distributed, and used -- and the infrastructure and technology needed to accomplish all that -- offers a MUCH better return on investment than the next best alternative. I don't know that we necessarily need to resign ourselves to transitioning to zero growth, but I certainly don't see any measure or combination of measures that will support the kind of growth we're accustomed to enjoying. To anyone who thinks nukes will do that, I'll repeat my addendum to JJ's question above: How many plants are we talking about, how long will it take to build them, and what will it cost?

If we could expect a nice, steady, predictable decline in oil production, it would be a lot easier to make whatever transition we need to make. Unfortunately, it seems more reasonable to expect markets to become increasingly volatile. Production falls off, price goes up, producers scramble to produce more, consumers scramble to consume less, industries scale back; lots of interest in alternatives -- and because of all those things happening at once: supply goes up, price eases some, everybody relaxes a little; it was just a hiccup. Less interest in alternatives. I could see things lashing back and forth like that for quite a while.

 

[jimbob]

Do you even know what a breeder reactor is? First, all reactors breed. A significant portion of the power from a conventional power reactor comes from the breeding of fertile U²³⁸ into Pu²³⁹ and subsequent fissioning of the plutonium. Second, fast breeder reactors are specifically designed and optomized to turn fertile isotopes into fissile ones, they produce more fuel than they consume. Building breeder reactors doesn't make sense unless you use them to produce fuel for conventional reactors.

IOW this fuel cycle implies that every reactor on the face of the planet is producing weapons grade nuclear material.

No, actually, it doesn't. Weapons grade material is either 90ish percent U²³⁵ or Pu²³⁹. Partially spent fuel that you will want to breed to send back to the power reactor will be less than 2% U²³⁵. Nothing is going to come out of a reactor at "weapons grade". To make it weapons grade, you would have to seperate out the fission products and any Americium and Curium. Then you would need to separate again all the U²³⁶ and U²³⁸, and then get as much of the Pu²³⁹ as you can while leaving behind the Pu²⁴⁰ and Pu²⁴¹.

The production of weapons grade material is a very deliberate, painstaking and involved process which in turn is why we've spent most of the last ten years harping about North Korea and Irans bomb programs instead of suddenly waking up one morning to news that they exploded test nukes without any apparent warning.

But how easy would it be to get weapons-grade plutonium from either the output of a fast-breeder reactor, or from the inputs to any reactor designed to run on the plutonium?

In my industry (Semiconductors) we play about with different isotopes, and the basic idea of using mass spectrometers to separate isotopes is well known. Hey, sometimes Silicon ingots are even doped using transmutation from Silicon, on an industrial scale.

Wouldn't the widespread availability of plutonium from fast breeder reactors make it far simpler to get at the Pu²³⁹?

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

But how easy would it be to get weapons-grade plutonium from either the output of a fast-breeder reactor, or from the inputs to any reactor designed to run on the plutonium?

It would be impossible, as breeder reactors don't produce weapons grade plutonium. As I described above, most power reactors run on fuel that is enriched to a concentration of only 3% to 5%. In order to get an explosion, you need an enrichment level of 90% for U²³⁵ and 98% or 99% Pu²³⁹. The reason plutonium needs to be so highly enriched is the risk of Pu²⁴⁰ contamination. Plutonium-240 is prone to spontaneous fission, if there's too much of it in your weapon, it could fizzle sitting in the missile silo.

If it's terrorism you're worried about with widespread breeders feeding civilian power plants, then we can defeat them by simply not producing anything higher than 5% enrichment. Given that a fuel assembly in a modern reactor will sit in the core for a year before being swapped for a fresh bundle, that's not going to make things difficult.

In my industry (Semiconductors) we play about with different isotopes, and the basic idea of using mass spectrometers to separate isotopes is well known. Hey, sometimes Silicon ingots are even doped using transmutation from Silicon, on an industrial scale.

Do you have ten thousand mass spectrometers handy? This is what the enrichment facility for the WW2 Manhattan Project in the US looks like.

Begun in June 1943 and completed in early 1945 at a cost of $512 million (equivalent to $6.2 billion in 2009 dollars), the K-25 plant employed 12,000 workers. The U-shaped K-25 building measured half a mile by 1,000 feet (over 2,000,000 sq. ft. (609,600 m²).

And that was to produce three bombs in three years. Again, this is why we have been hearing constantly over most of the last decade about Iran having thousands of centrifuges but they have not yet built a bomb.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort and that places it far outside the ability of any terrorist group to build one. The only way terrorists can get a bomb is to steal one, of acquire one from a friendly nation. If you're worried about terrorist nukes, you need to focus on Iran and Pakistan, not the local power plant.

 

[jimbob]

Oh, I wasn't particularly worried about non-governmental organisations building nuclear weapons; dirty bombs would be a far more economical "bang" for buck. And plutonium would be great for that.

I was thinking about nuclear proliferation among states. In particular, if far more plutonium is being produced in civil programmes, wouldn't it be easier to enrich further and hide any such scheme? I am assuming that Pu²³⁹ would be the fissile material of choice as opposed to U²³⁵.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Oh, I wasn't particularly worried about non-governmental organisations building nuclear weapons; dirty bombs would be a far more economical "bang" for buck. And plutonium would be great for that.

If dirty bombs are your thing you don't need plutonium. Just shop around for a hundred or so ionizing smoke detectors, tear them open and pry out the Americium-241 (Be advised, going into Home Depot™ and ordering large numbers of ionizing smoke detectors will likely result in a call to the police). Wrap all that in a brick of C4 and then call the authorities to let them know what you've done before you push the button.

You don't need to go within a hundred miles of a nuclear reactor for it.

I was thinking about nuclear proliferation among states. In particular, if far more plutonium is being produced in civil programmes, wouldn't it be easier to enrich further and hide any such scheme? I am assuming that Pu²³⁹ would be the fissile material of choice as opposed to U²³⁵.

This is why I suggested earlier in the thread that we (the west) should offer Iran assistance with building a thorium fueled reactor. India is going for a thorium fuel cycle in their new "Clone-DU" reactors (India copied the Canadian CANDU design after Canada cut off further sales following their first nuclear weapons test). It would be easy to get India to assist as they do not want TWO nuclear armed muslim nations on or close to their borders.

 

[lomiller]

All of the Plutonium that's been used to create the worlds nuclear arsenal was bred in a reactor out of natural U²³⁸. We know it's viable because it's already been done for decades.

Ii’s been documented to extends fuel supplies by about 10X. In your own post you linked to pdf’s saying this type of fuel cycle (breeding fuel for conventional reactors) gives us about 150 years worth of fuel at current production levels, and that was with a next gen fuel cycle that is still on the drawing table.


The problem here is that I’m basing my posts on documented current technology and next gen technology that is still on the design table, while you insist on talking about hypothetical technologies that may never become commercially viable. When these technologies are close to hitting the street then they are worth considering, or are you still waiting around for your flying car?

 

[Hindmost]

Although weapons grade U235 is considered greater than 90 percent enriched, a weapon could be made with a 20% enrichment. It just has to be more sophisticated weapon. Universities around the world have used Triga type reactors for many years and they used to have U235 enriched to 70%....not anymore...they are all less than 20% now.

Plutonium is not enriched to make it 98% pure. When it comes out of the reactor, it is separated chemically and it will have isotopes of Pu240, Pu241 and Pu242. If the Pu239 is greater than 93% it is considered weapons grade. For a Pu weapon, a weapon can be made with reactor grade plutonium. Again, it would take a more high tech devise, and its yield wouldl be less, but still devastating.

Any U235/U238 fueled reactor will produce PU. The key is burnup...as PU239 is breed from U238, some of it will fission, some of it will capture more neutrons and become Pu240/241--this is all based on the proabilities of each reaction taking place and calculating the yield etc. The key is to shutdown the plant and refuel often to extract Pu239 or have online type of refueling.

For Light water reactors, the breeding ratio is about 0.7 and therefore can't make more Pu239/240/241 fuel than it uses U235. (the reactor doesn't produce enough excess neutrons to make more fuel than it uses)

A CANDU reactor actually is a good bomb builder...just refuel it a bit more often and it will breed Pu with the needed isotope mix. The online refueling helps alot.

Link

For info: To make a dirty bomb, the americium in smoke detectors wouldn't really help. The amount of americium is in micro grams...it would take gazillions of them.

link

glenn

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Ii’s been documented to extends fuel supplies by about 10X. In your own post you linked to pdf’s saying this type of fuel cycle (breeding fuel for conventional reactors) gives us about 150 years worth of fuel at current production levels, and that was with a next gen fuel cycle that is still on the drawing table.

Actually, the PDF I linked to had a number a helluva lot bigger than 150 years, that you wrote off because you think it's too much work.

Here's another PDF where the author predicts seven million years off of seawater uranium. Admittedly, that's with 100% recovery which is highly unlikely. So for your sake, let's go pessimistic and say only one third will ever be recoverable. We'll split the difference and go with less than two and a quarter million years. Does that sound reasonable?

The problem here is that I’m basing my posts on documented current technology and next gen technology that is still on the design table, while you insist on talking about hypothetical technologies that may never become commercially viable. When these technologies are close to hitting the street then they are worth considering, or are you still waiting around for your flying car?

I am basing my assumptions on what has been proven. There's nothing hypothetical or next gen about turning U-238 into Pu-239. We did it with 1940s technology. We don't absolutely need new tech to do it.

And then there's the thorium, which is more than 4 times more abundant in the earths crust than Uranium, that you aren't taking into account. Once again, an already proven technology. It's been proven to work. But you can't build bombs with and if it wasn't for the Cold War, our nuclear power industry would have been Thorium based today.

You want commercial viability? Well let's look at seawater uranium again. At 300 dollars/kg you think that's not viable, correct?

Well here is a CANDU fuel bundle:

(Filled with inert ballast, this is a display model used to show at schools and public events)

Inside it are 840 of these:

(Not a real fuel pellet, a plastic replica contained in a hand-out card we distribute at schools and public events)

You can barely see it in the photograph (my cell phone is a better cellphone than it is a camera) but it says this one pellet (if it were a real U₃O₈ pellet) is equivalent to 677 litres of oil. 677 litres is roughly equal to 4 barrels of oil. That's 320 dollars at current prices. 320 dollars already and we're only dealing with one pellet. It takes forty-five pellets to equal one kilogram.

That's one kg of uranium to equal 14,400 dollars worth of oil. It could cost ten times to recover seawater uranium what the Japanese originally estimated and still be profitable. And all of the above numbers are based on a once-through fuel cycle. Obviously uranium isn't competing directly with oil. It's competing with other uranium. But when conventionally mined uranium runs out (and as oil prices climb again), that 300$/kg seawater Uranium looks better and better.

 

[Nosi]

And let's talk about "aggressive" resource exploitation for a moment. I live in Alberta, Canada. "The Saudi Arabia of the North" (we have better skiing and no death penalty for having a beer), Americas single biggest foreign supplier of oil. And it's all because of what you describe as "extremely aggressive" resource recovery (Gumboot did a great write up on this in the 9/11 CT section) . More than a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the oil age, no one ever thought that we would be digging up dirt with earth movers the size of apartment buildings and blasting it with high-pressure steam to get stuff that technically isn't really oil.

The problem with tar sands is extracting the energy from them is a dirty business that compromises Canada's fresh water supply. Along with peak water, the Earth is approaching a problem called 'peak water' or rather 'peak fresh water' which is even more dire as that is critical to human life directly and indirectly in crop production.

 

[funk de fino]

:"'Peak oil doomsday' advocate" is a cartoon caricature designed to denigrate not explain.

It explains you quite well. You seem to have stopped sourcing the notorious sucker and sex pest Ruppert though, which can only be good.

 

[JihadJane]

So then it seems that we'll have to transition to a zero growth system.

Yes, believing that growth equals prosperity is a big mistake.

 

[JihadJane]

So what would be a smart, thinking, and constructive way of doing it that produces more permanent (though expensive/cheap, I dunno) gains? If we were to start doing everything right right now, what would you think the world would be like after the oil age is over? What's the best it could possibly be after the end of oil?

Ask ourselves whether we actually need to consume so much energy.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Ask ourselves whether we actually need to consume so much energy.

If we have an energy supply which is virtually infinite, produces small easily manageable amounts of waste (A family of four using nuclear generated electricity will over their lifetimes be responsible for enough waste to fill a coffee cup), has a very small environmental footprint (a 6,000 MW nuke plant covers a hundred acres, a 300 MW wind array in NY covers 12,000 acres, a 3,000 MW proposed in India is projected to cover 150 square km) and does not release carbon or other pollutants into the atmosphere... then the question we really should be asking ourselves is "Why should we stop?"

 

[dudalb]

Ask ourselves whether we actually need to consume so much energy.

I feel a Luddite rant coming our way.

 

[Dymanic]

I feel a Luddite rant coming our way.

Perhaps if it were phrased a little differently. Considering how important it is to us to maintain certain aspects of modern life, aspects which are very dependent upon an abundance of energy, is it pertinent to ask whether we can really afford to continue to consume energy as wastefully as we do now?

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

has a very small environmental footprint (a 6,000 MW nuke plant covers a hundred acres, a 300 MW wind array in NY covers 12,000 acres, a 3,000 MW proposed in India is projected to cover 150 square km)

That was supposed to read "a 3,000 MW Solar plant proposed in India.."

My bad.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Perhaps if it were phrased a little differently. Considering how important it is to us to maintain certain aspects of modern life, aspects which are very dependent upon an abundance of energy, is it pertinent to ask whether we can really afford to continue to consume energy as wastefully as we do now?

As I said above, if we can eliminate or reduce to manageable proportions the side effects, why should we reduce our energy consumption?

 

[mike3]

Ask ourselves whether we actually need to consume so much energy.

I have. The answer? No.

But what would your idea of a lower-energy world be like?

 

[mike3]

I think a big hamper to the acceptance of "peak oil" theory is that it unfortunately tends to get tied up with lots of woo-pot conspiracy theories that are totally irrational (it's strange: peak oil is a quite logical scientific theory/observation, yet then people decide to accept all manner of totally unproven conspiracy theories on top), like the comments on this blog post:

http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/2009/08/china-to-beat-us-at-our-own-game.html

Such things tend to draw attention away from the real problems...

 

[Dymanic]

As I said above, if we can eliminate or reduce to manageable proportions the side effects, why should we reduce our energy consumption?

Your "side effects" appear directed toward an energy infrastructure which does not yet exist. The United States presently consumes about twenty million barrels of oil a day. Let's pretend for a moment that nuclear generated energy could immediately replace that, across the board, without requiring that we convert our entire fleet of cars and trucks and whatnot to run on electricity, and without requiring that we massively increase the capacity of our electrical grid and all that.

Now. I'll ask for a third time: how many nuclear plants would be required to generate an amount of electricity equivalent to the energy we presently obtain from oil, how long would it take to build them, and what would it cost? (While I'm at it, I'll add: what would it cost in energy, as well as in dollars?)