Exelon has chosen the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) marketed by GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Each of the reactors will produce approximately 1,500 MW of electric power.

One of the key design features of the ESBWR is a large degree of passive safety provided by large water reservoirs, natural coolant circulation and safety systems that operate without any electrical power. (Link to animation of ESBWR safety system operation)

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My wait is now closer to ending. On August 21, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of ionizing radiation at doses that will drastically reduce the population of the target bacteria on spinach and iceberg lettuce without harming the food.

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On August 22, 2008, the company announced that it had signed a contract for engineering, procurement, project and construction management (EPCM) services to build a 165 MWe commercial scale, emission free, demonstration plant near Cape Town, South Africa. The approximate value of the contract is a quarter of a billion US dollars.

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If you take a look at a map of the pipeline, you will begin to understand the geopolitical importance of the effort to provide a path out of the Caspian Sea region - home to a large oil and gas reservoir - that does not pass through Iran or Russia. Until the BTC was completed, there was no way to move Azeri oil out to the rest of the market without going through Russia.

(Aside: The map indicates that a path through Armenia could have been chosen instead of through Georgia, but apparently Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long-standing conflict over a region known as Mountainous Kharabakh.)

Unfortunately, western leaders underestimated the strength of Russia’s objection to losing control over Azerbaijan’s oil and gas resources. They also underestimated Russia’s ability to do something about its desire to reassert control. By biding its time and working in the way of the excellent chess players that they are, Russia has put itself in a position to control (stop?) the flow and there are few acceptable actions that can be taken to change the situation.

One of the few things that has a long term chance of success is a focused program of reducing the importance of oil and gas in the world economy.

My input on that front is to steadily increase the use of uranium and thorium fuels whose supply cannot be severed by an aggressor sitting astride a key delivery path. When electricity and ship propulsion is powered by heavy metal fission instead of natural gas or oil, the importance of owning the valves that supply heat and power gradually dims to insignificance.

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Each HPM will be priced at approximately $25 million. The company did not disclose an expected shipping date for the first HPM, but the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently lists their scheduled manufacturing license review as starting in 2012 with an projected completion sometime in 2015. (Ref - Periodic Briefing on New Reactor Issues dated February 20, 2008 - PDF.)

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I used quotes and capital letters to emphasize a point - I recognize that there are individual people concerned about the environment who have a more open mind and are willing to accept the notion that nuclear power has a place at the table in any discussion about our reduced carbon energy future. The officially recognized groups and spokesmen for The Movement seem unimpressed and continue to firmly oppose nuclear development. The remaining arguments end up being cost, waste and nuclear weapons.

Cost is an issue for another day, but the arguments against nuclear power on the matter of waste and relationship to nuclear weapons rest on shaky ground that is beginning to give way. More and more people, including some in responsible leadership positions, are beginning to realize that the tired arguments originated in the 1970s no longer apply. They actually never did.

There are about 55,000 tons of used nuclear fuel resting quietly in cooling pools and dry storage containers on the sites where the fuel was initially used. That may sound like a large amount, but compared to the fact that a single 1000 MWe coal fired power plant can release 45,000 tons of waste to the atmosphere every single day, 55,000 tons of used material after 50 years of nuclear plant operation seems vanishingly small.

You may have noticed that I have carefully avoided calling that slightly used material “waste”. Unlike the gases, ash and soot released to our common atmosphere from coal, oil, gas and biomass fired power plants, the materials left over from nuclear fission reactors are sealed in corrosion resistant cladding and look a lot like they did when they first entered the reactor. Inside those tubes, the material is still mostly solid uranium dioxide - only about 4-5% of the initial material has been converted into other elements.

Essentially all of the remainders from nuclear plant operation could be recovered and reused; some of it would best be used as feedstock for future reactors, other parts should be segregated and used in other material applications for long life batteries, catalysts, and irradiation source materials.

Both of the remaining US presidential candidates seem to be open to the idea that used fuel should be recycled and reused. That is a welcome position since it looks like there will be a number of new reactors under construction soon and they will provide a ready market for the recycled fuel. There will need to be a bipartisan effort to establish rules that do not change with political winds, however, before private industry will invest in the system.

ALL of the used fuel has been carefully stored away in a form that is easy to control and easy to keep segregated. It does not take up much space, does not cost much to watch (compared to the heat value that it provided), and it has never hurt anyone because the people that watch it understand the simple concepts of time, distance and shielding.

As a life time procrastinator, I am actually encouraged by the fact that while we continue to debate and pontificate about the pros and cons of long term disposal, the natural process of radioactive decay continues to make the fuel easier and easier to handle. That process can reduce the cost of recycling, when we finally get around to it.

Perhaps those of us who are advocates of the increased use of nuclear energy as a clean, emissions free source of reliable, low cost power should thank the people who have prevented the used fuel from being too hastily moved or recycled.

Not only do we have a growing volume of seasoned raw materials, but when we finally do get around to building facilities, we can do so using up to date methods and the lessons learned from the first generation facilities in other countries. The democratic process really does favor the patient.

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Web denizens, Navy submariners, former Army Nukes, and others have always recognized that the former Vice President’s comment does not provide a full picture of the possibilities. While it is certainly true that vendors like GE, Areva, Rosatom, Siemens, and Mitsubishi have chosen to limit their model line-up to the very largest plants, the technical fact is that nuclear reactors have always been available in multiple sizes ranging from petite to XXL.

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Corn ethanol is also causing some very interesting political discussions that result in strange bedfellow alliances on all sides of the argument. Conservative and liberal labels have no real meaning in this discussion; even regional boundaries are being made fuzzy by the varying impacts of the market changes.

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I thought it might be worth taking a few minutes to remember that people who developed internal combustion engines were not people focused on selling fossil fuels, they were people interested in solving a very real challenge - energy storage and delivery on a moving vehicle. When all factors are taken into account, fossil fuels provide a compact, lightweight form of energy that can be readily converted to power in device that is moving - sometimes very rapidly and without any connection to the earth.

There are certainly times in all of our lives when we feel like the big oil companies have us over a barrel, but their dominance came as a result of the high performance that their product gave to automobiles, trains, trucks, ships and aircraft. By many measures, their product remains the best technical choice available.

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I am not rich, not powerful and not a public figure. I have not spent my career drilling oil and gas wells, raiding companies, running for office, or building an industry dominating chip supplier. Instead, I have been struggling for more than 15 years to try to share a vision for a cleaner, safer, more prosperous world made possible by moving away from carbon based fuels that put most of us into dependence on people that simply do not like or respect us.

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As a former submarine engineer, I never fail to marvel at the fact that a volume of fuel small enough to fit under my office desk could power a ship for 15-30 years without even taking a breath. Trying to compare nuclear capabilities with wind or solar power is like trying to compare Michael Jordan in his prime to a bench warmer on an elementary school basketball team.

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The US Energy Information Agency does a fine job of keeping statistical records of energy sources - though its predictive arm has had some real miscues over the years. The graph associated with this article provides a picture illustrates that the use of oil for electricity in the US may be small now, but that is because it was replaced by nuclear fission during the growth years in the 1970s and 1980s.

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He has been running advertisements on major media outlets describing a clear challenge - America now sends $700 Billion across its borders every year to purchase oil.

Pickens has a plan to reduce that number and he intends to share the details of the plan during the coming weeks. He has been an oilman all his life; that has made him a strong believer in Peak Oil.

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As successful as Manhattan and Apollo were at achieving their stated goals, both share a common flaw as a model for attacking our energy supply challenges - they were sprints that left their respective teams panting and wiped out when the initial goal was achieved. In contrast, the Interstate Highway system was a more distributed, long-term effort whose accomplishment required a sustained, methodical approach lasting more than 50 years (so far). It was more of an endurance relay event than a sprint.

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I am a bit reluctant to call this plant a “first”, but I can get just as excited about the third, 10th or 100th plant in a progressive series of improved plants that should number 1000 reactors or more.

The plant, designated as HTR-PM, will be a 200 MWe pebble bed reactor heated steam plant with two reactors, each with a single steam generator (boiler) feeding a single turbine. The plant will be built in Rongchen City on a site large enough to host series of perhaps 10-12 similar plants. In that area of China, there are hundreds of older coal fired power plants generating 50-300 MWe each.

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As described by the press release, the BLM would require about 22 months to produce the necessary studies to complete the PEIS. During that time, the Bureau would seek public comment, focus on the impacts that would result from the development of 125 applications it has in hand already, defer any new applications, and create a framework for approaches that would best allow the Bureau to mitigate the effects of an expected continued flow of applications after that study period.

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The new thing, the reason that talk about CNG is growing, is that natural gas now costs about half as much per unit energy as gasoline and has an even greater cost advantage over diesel fuel.

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I have not yet had a chance to read the book, but I recently listened to a Tavis Smiley show interview with Robert where he talked a little about one of the topics discussed in the book - the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel.

This topic caught my interest as my energy obsessed brain began weaving several threads into a new pattern. One thread is the growing disconnect between the cost per unit energy of natural gas compared to diesel fuel in the United States. Another thread is a story that has been playing on my drive time radio station about the challenges that local school districts are facing as they prepare their student transportation budgets in the face of rapid increases in the cost of diesel fuel. The final thread is my continuing belief that new nuclear power plants have a role to play in alleviating our current energy crisis.

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This past weekend I had the pleasure of spending nearly all of my waking hours at his campaign headquarters, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Merrill Center. It is one of only about 50 Leed Platinum Certified buildings in the world. Unlike certain former presidential candidates who talk green and act a bit differently, Captain Smith apparently practices as well as he preaches.

The Merrill Center’s entrance road is lined with “Vote John Smith for President” signs, there are banners hanging in the soaring lobby, and one of the campaign volunteers offered me brochures, buttons, and a tee shirt. I am wearing the tee shirt as I write, but it is really early in the morning so I am sure I do not want to share that visual with the world.

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