During our conversation we talked about the technology opportunity that brings the group together. They have a vision for a world with abundant, emission free energy supplied by thorium reactors that fully fission a material that is not even in high commercial demand, leaving only relatively short lived fission products behind as a byproduct.

If you want to learn more about the meeting or about the Thorium Energy Alliance, please visit http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com

Other topics discussed during our conversation include:
TMI regulation changes as good for nuclear industry
Engineers as businessmen
Alternative financing for emerging nuclear businesses
Making industry vibrant and respected
Early confusion over anti-nuclear movement, young and inexperienced in recognizing what was going on.
Straightforward guy, did not appreciate the tactics of the other side, engineers tend to be direct and do not try to work an angle
Anti-nuclear attitudes seem to be almost a religion, practitioners will not be convinced otherwise.
It is almost analogous to a conversion from one religion to another to get them to change their mind.
Ownership and passion versus religious fervor.
Story about his attendance at Sierra Club meeting one year after 9-11 – tactics of fear.

People at the table included:
John Wheeler – This Week In Nuclear
Kirk Sorensen – Energy from Thorium
Nick Touran – What is Nuclear?
Rod Adams – The Atomic Show and Atomic Insights
Jess Gehin – Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Nuclear Science and Technology Division

Note: Upon further reflection and discussion, we have decided to produce a new conversation based show at a different meal. This time we are going to try to ensure that Dan Yurman (Idaho Samizdat) will be there. We are targeting tomorrow evening for a better performance.

Warning – this podcast is the longest Atomic Show yet at about 105 minutes.

He asked a lot of good, probing questions with an open attitude. Topics include Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., small nuclear power plants, the nuclear renaissance, French nuclear power experiences, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, nuclear waste, hazards of other energy sources, my thoughts on large scale renewable energy systems, and the importance of understanding commercial energy competition.

During the interview I mentioned a local natural gas explosion that injured 8 firefighters and one employee of the Washington Gas Company. Here is a link to more information about that accident – which had more serious effects on the public health than the far more widely publicized Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.

Explosion a good reminder there are no ‘routine’ calls

This episode of The Atomic Show is my first attempt at an enhanced podcast using chapter markers and trying to add a slide presentation. The constraints of the file format truncates the edges of the slides, but I think you will get the gist of what they are trying to show. Here is a link to the presentation in PDF format (warning – it is a 12.4 MB file), just in case you are interested in seeing the full size slides.

As always, feedback and constructive criticism is welcome. Of course, if you have something nasty to say, feel free to add that as well – I can always used the delete button if necessary.

Promised link to Australia Broadcast Corporation (ABC) Catalyst program about China’s HTR-10

NUCLEAR CHINA (22/02/2007)

During the show, we talked a bit about an article that I wrote for Atomic Insights more than a decade ago titled Light Water Breeder Reactor: Adapting a Proven System and I promised that I would insert a link to that article in the show notes.

I find myself having a bit of a challenge summarizing a conversation that lasted for nearly an hour and a half and covered a lot of ground. Please listen to the show and let me know what you think.

Additional Reading

David Walters on Daily Kos – Toward a Thorium Economy

On September 29, 2008 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) hosted the 4th International Topical Meeting on High Temperature Reactor Technology. Following the plenary session, there was a press conference attended by a grand total of three members of the press plus some additional interested meeting attendees.

Though the press was lightly represented, there were three high level leaders in the high temperature gas reactor field ready and willing to answer questions. Regis Matzie is a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Westinghouse Electric Company and also served as the co-chairman of the HTR 2008 conference. Linden Blue is the vice chairman of General Atomics, and John Grossenbacher is the Director of the Idaho National Laboratory, the leading federal integrator for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) project.

I had the opportunity to ask some probing questions and to listen to others in the press ask additional questions about markets, licensing challenges and building plans. Please let me know what you think about the format and the content of this episode of The Atomic Show since it is a bit different from most of the rest.

If you want to find out more about jobs in the nuclear field, you can start by visiting nuclearenergycareers.com. That visit might also help keep The Atomic Show coming to you on our current nearly regular basis.

You can find more information about Idaho National Laboratory’s projects at http://www.inl.gov

INL also has a YouTube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/IdahoNationalLab. Here is one of the videos that you can find there:

More information about NGNP is available at http://www.nextgenerationnuclearplant.com/

Hyperion Power Generation was formed in 2007 to commercialize a nuclear reactor technology first developed by Otis G. (Pete) Peterson of Los Alamos National Laboratory and patented under US Patent number 2004/0062340 A1.

One of the design criteria driving Peterson was a requirement that the system should be able to fit on a standard over-the-road flat bed truck, a criteria that drove the reactor core design, the shielding design and the system power output.

The Hyperion Power Module is described by company literature as being about the size of a deep hot tub and will produce approximately 70 MW of thermal power. As you will learn if you listen to the interview, the company expects that the cost per unit heat once the systems are in production will be approximately $3 per million BTU – anywhere in the world. Assuming a 90% capacity factor, that leads to an annualized cost of $5.6 million US dollars.

For comparison, the current price of natural gas delivered via pipeline in the US is approximately $8 per million BTU while the cost of fuel oil delivered to remote areas via trucks can be as high as $40 per million BTU assuming that no one is shooting at the trucks. If they are, the cost can really skyrocket.

John and I had a chat that I think you will find very interesting.

If you are interested in pursuing opportunities for employment in the nuclear industry, a good place to start is nuclearenergycareers.com. There, you will learn more about Entergy, one of the more visionary nuclear power plant owner/operators in the US.

Additional information

• Hyperion Announces First Customer For Small Nuclear Reactor
• NuScale Power and Hyperion Power Generation – Nuclear Power Systems That Are Not “Extra Large”
• Hyperion Power Generation announces receipt of its first Letter of Intent (to purchase)