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Listen to Atomic Show #105 Here!

Hans and Mary Lou Gougar are two of my favorite nuclear specialists. They are both currently living and working in South Africa as part of the large international team developing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Hans is doing safety and pebble flow analysis while Mary Lou is working on methods of treating and recycling graphite.

They have visited with me on The Atomic Show before ( The Atomic Show #094 - Hans and Mary Lou Gougar (with Charlie and Betty) - a nuclear family living in South Africa) and have returned to provide an update on their respective research projects and on the challenges and rewards of living and working abroad.

We talked about recycling graphite from legacy reactors like Magnox, THTR, French gas-graphite systems, and various Russian programs. We talked about modeling the flow of pebbles through a core, about dust accumulation and carbon-14 production. It was a great conversation full of enough details for even the most geeky of the geeks. (I just wish that Shane could have participated!)

During the show, I promised to share contact information for Hans for anyone interested in learning more about working on PBMR. You can reach him via email at Hans.Gougar(at symbol)pbmr.co.za.

For those of you who are interested in domestic opportunities in the nuclear industry, you can find out more information at nuclearenergycareers.com

The following gets a bit off topic for The Atomic Show, but I wanted to write it down somewhere.

During episode 105, I promised to share a link from Nader.org to a 1983 article that promotes Breed Corporation’s air bag system.

New Airbag Developed, at Lower Cost, for Crash Protection - Dated Friday, November 18, 1983

Here is how this story got mixed up in a discussion about the PBMR.

Hans and I were talking a bit about the tension between the scientists and engineers working on PBMR and the business people that want to get the product “out the door” so it can begin generating electricity. Until that happens, there is no return on the large investment of time and money from Eskom and the South African taxpayers.

Hans mentioned that the engineers typically wanted to ensure that they satisfied the regulators and then moved on, while the scientists often got distracted by “interesting” work leading to lots of new paths of study.

The conversation turned to a comparison to automobile air bags, which brought me to a mention of Breed Technologies. I had some personal familiarity with the company from my time as the General Manager of a small manufacturing enterprise on the west coast of Florida. Breed was one of the largest manufacturing companies in the area. I met several people over the years doing business there who were intimately familiar with the story of how Breed Technologies grew rapidly from a small transplant company from “up north”.

Allen Breed was a fine engineer who had put his expertise in designing weapons fuses and explosives to use in a unique concept for an automobile air bag system. He knocked on doors for years without much success. My contacts indicated that the key factor in the company’s success was getting government regulations put into place that encouraged and later required manufacturers to install the equipment.

What I did not know when I mentioned Breed during the conversation with the Gougars was just how relevant that story is to the story of nuclear power. I learned that during some fascinating Googling during the show editing and notes preparation. (I know - I have trouble focusing on a single topic at times. Personality flaw.)

The link between nuclear power and air bags is the fact that a participant in Allen Breed’s successful effort to promote his “safety improvement” invention was a Ralph Nader organization.

For my cynical mind, the air bag story is a very interesting chain-of-events case study. It shows how an engineering company with an idea that they cannot sell in the normal way enlisted the help of activists to make it mandatory equipment. Breed Technologies owed a good deal of its business success to Nader’s skills in agitating for federal regulations.

In other words, there is money to be made from pressure group activism and not all of the money goes to the lawyers. I cannot help but assume that safety invention promoters know the importance of this marketing technique and invest time and money in trying to ensure its success.

Here are some additional links:

• BREED Technologies, Inc. Loses Founder, Allen K. Breed
• History of Key Safety Systems, Inc (the current name of the company that was originally Breed Technologies)

Just in case you do not follow the links and read the articles, here is a brief summary:

Breed Technologies was a spin off from the Breed Corporation that was promoted in the Nader article focusing on air bag systems. It sold products to both Ford and Chrysler and eventually to all new cars. The company raised more than $60 million in a 1992 IPO. By 1997, when Allen Breed retired as Chairman and CEO, the company had annual sales in excess of half a billion dollars. The company was taken private by Carlyle Management Group - a company owned by people firmly entrenched in the power elite of the US - in 2003. It is now part of a billion dollar company focused on automobile safety equipment.

Who says that the efforts of activists and regulators benefit just leftist trial lawyers?

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Listen to Atomic Show #104 Here!

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)

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Listen to Atomic Show #103 Here!

Kelly Taylor, Joe Montague and I meet to chat about PBMR, nuclear events and nuclear industry history. Hope you enjoy the show.

If you want to find out more about careers in the nuclear industry, please visit nuclearenergycareers.com.

Listen to Atomic Show #101 Here!

Show 101 is a bit longer than normal, but I think you will want to listen carefully to every word. I invited some innovative thinkers and observers of the nuclear scene to discuss small nuclear power plants and their potential impact on the energy market.

Kirk Sorensen blogs at Energy from Thorium and is nearly finished with his MS in Nuclear Engineering.

Charles Barton blogs at Energy from Thorium and Nuclear Green.

Dan Yurman blogs at Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes and also writes for Fuel Cycle Week.

Our conversation ranged over a number of topics including the NuScale Power 45 MWe reactor, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, licensing issues, waste handling constructs, Dale Klein’s recent speech including his comments on small reactors, and radiation health effects.

Here are some links to articles or papers discussed:

Dan Keuter, Entergy Nuclear - The NGNP in Perspective
UPPU - Fifty Years of Plutonium Exposure to the Manhattan Project Plutonium Workers: An Update - Abstract.

If you want to find out more about nuclear energy career opportunities at Entergy Nuclear, visit nuclearenergycareers.com. The Atomic Show thanks Entergy Nuclear for its support of the show and for its forward leaning participation in new media endeavors.

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Listen to Atomic Show #100 Here!

This episode sponsored by Entergy Nuclear.

Imagine - a traditional utility company far sighted enough to invest advertising dollars in the Atomic Show Podcast!

One of the more exciting developments in the nuclear industry is the growing recognition that one size does not fit all, especially if that size is - to use the words of Al Gore - “extra large”. In many markets, 1200-1600 MWe units simply are not a good match for the power needs or the grid capacity.

NuScale Power is a new, venture funded company that has developed a product designed to address that issue. Paul Lorenzini is a former PacificCorp president who came out of retirement to help lead the company and provide the business expertise. Jose Reyes is the company’s Chief Technical Officer who has been working on the product development for about 8 years. I reached them in their office at 6:00 pm on a Friday evening - after a very busy week.

The company’s 45 MWe natural circulation nuclear heat source grew out of a Department of Energy funded project originally known as the Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor (MASLWR) at Oregon State University in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory and Nexant Inc. That project, funded under the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative, lasted from 2000-2003. The DOE issued a final report and moved on.

Even though the federal funding stopped at that point, the university recognized that they had something worth pursuing. The system will produce only about 1/30th as much power as a large light water reactor. Its advantage is that it produces power with a greatly simplified system that has no valves, pumps or external piping systems. It operates at temperatures and pressures that are familiar in the industry, uses fuel that can be manufactured on the same lines as conventional reactor fuel, and uses conventional pressure vessel technology that is small enough to be produced in a number of qualified factories.

One key feature of this small reactor is that it will be completely assembled in a factory and shipped to the site ready for installation.

Have a listen. For more information about small reactors, please visit some or all of the following articles:

• NuScale Power and Hyperion Power Generation - Nuclear Power Systems That Are Not “Extra Large”
• More small reactor discussions
• Small reactors have NRC’s attention
• Small reactors seek market share

If you are interested in finding out more about career opportunities at Entergy Nuclear visit nuclearenergycareers.com

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Listen to Atomic Show #097 Here!

John Wheeler, Kelly Taylor and I talked about workforce development and John’s impressions from the American Nuclear Society Annual meeting, recently held in Anaheim, California. With regard to workforce development we chatted about the opportunities that the Nuclear Renaissance will bring for people that like math and science, hands on applications, working in teams, and seeing the physical products of their labors.

We also talked about the importance of the role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the quality of the work that it does, and the cost of regulation.

As often happens on The Atomic Show, we also discussed a number of aspects of smaller reactors and how they would fit in a developing nuclear industry. We talked about how smaller plants do not have to wait in the same lines for massive forgings as large plants do, how they might be able to take advantage of assembly line techniques and how they can meet market demands in areas where 1000 MWe and larger plants simply cannot fit.

A side topic was the visionary decision by people like Donald Hintz, who recognized the value of nuclear plants that others did not want. The market consolidation that resulted has produced some strong, nuclear focused companies and helped significantly improve the reliability and productivity of the plants.

We also talked about the decision to shut down Zion Nuclear Power Plant and the possibility that it might be restored to operation. This particular topic ended with a call out for people with an interest and knowledge about the plant to contact me at rod_adams(at symbol)atomicinsights.com. I am really curious about whether or not the plants could be restored to operation at a significantly lower per megawatt cost than building a new facility. If anyone knows something or wants to get involved in the discussion, please contact me.

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Listen to Atomic Show #096 Here!

Bonne Posma is a serial entrepreneur whose latest company is called Liquid Coal, Inc.. He has developed a concept for using the heat from high temperature reactors as a way to improve the cleanliness of well known chemical processes for converting coal - which is mostly carbon and hydrogen - into a liquid hydrocarbon. The process requires adding hydrogen to coal since it is deficient in that element compared to the hydrocarbons that exist as liquids.

The idea has been around a long time, but the traditional process burns some of the input coal to provide heat. Not only does that reduce the amount of liquid fuel produced per unit of coal mined, but it also releases vast quantities of pollutants. Bonne recognizes the value of liquid hydrocarbon as an almost irreplaceable building block of modern society and he strongly believes that processes that make it cleanly have incredible value for today and for the future.

I agree with his assessment. What do you think?

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Listen to Atomic Show #066 Here!

Among nuclear advocates, it is commonly believed that “the media” is one of the reasons for the end of the first Atomic Age. If I have heard it once, I have heard it 1,000 times - “the media does not like us.”

In that view of the world, the fact that the media sensationalizes minor events and provides confusing, scary stories is one of the main reasons that people banded together to oppose new nuclear power plants.

I have a different opinion, but even so, I agree that the mainstream media has not done a good job of explaining nuclear power technology. That is not surprising; most journalists have never taken physics, math, or engineering courses. They are pretty quick studies, however, and have done a pretty fair job of repeating what they have been told.

Unfortunately, they have been talked to far more often by people that oppose nuclear power than by people who understand its intricacies and can explain them in a way that makes sense to people with liberal arts educations.

One of the really exciting things about the Internet and the tools that have been build to make use of the internet is that it is now possible for technologists to have a better chance of explaining complex subjects to a wider audience. No longer are we limited to sound bites that are distributed by enormous companies who need to please their audiences (and advertisers.) Instead we now have the power to create and distribute our own message.

Of course, as Cameron points out, the availability of new tools does not automatically change the calculus. Pro nuclear activists need to learn to use the tools effectively to communicate in a manner that reaches people and makes their message something that is worth sharing.

We also spent quite a bit of time on the topic of “following the money” to determine who is really behind the anti nuclear activist organizations.

Hope you enjoy the show.

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Listen to Atomic Show #055 Here!

TXU, Exelon, NRG and Amarillo Power have all proposed major new nuclear power plant projects in Texas, already the home of 4 of the US’s largest operating nuclear power plants.

The main current fuel for electrical power production in the state is natural gas, with coal and nuclear sharing most of the remaining market. Recent activity against a proposal by TXU to build 11 large coal fired power plants has added to the interest in nuclear power as a low cost, low emission source of electricity.

For the past several years, Texas, which deregulated its electricity generation several years ago, has experienced some of the highest electrical prices in the nation, averaging somewhat higher than 10 USD cents per kilowatt hour, or more than $100 per megawatt hour.

The average cost of generating electricity using existing nuclear power plants is about $16 per MW-hour. In a deregulated market, that spread between price and cost represents a tremendous profit opportunity, one that might even cause private companies to take the risk of building nuclear power plants without the guaranteed cost recovery that is available in regulated markets.

Texas will continue to be an interesting place to watch the nuclear industry develop its competitive juices and might even be a good place to build some Adams Engines(TM).

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Listen to Atomic Show #050 Here!

Half of Atomic Show 50 comes to you from a food court in Norfolk, VA - I am on travel this week. Shane and I pressed forward despite the background noises and had a good chat on a variety of industry news topics. We talked about the new international symbol that has been developed to provide warning of immediate, potentially deadly radiation hazards like those that might arise from attempts to disassemble shielded sources like those used in irradiation or radiography.

Here is a link to the announcement of that new symbol from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/radiationsymbol.html.

We also talked a bit about France’s interest in selling large reactors to South Africa, a new mixed oxide fuel plant in Japan, the revival of interest in nuclear fuel recycling in the United States, and the recent expressions of interest in nuclear energy at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) energy executives conference.

If you can use your personal noise filters to listen past the background sounds, I think you will enjoy the show. We’ll try to improve the audio quality next time.

Here are a couple of additional links that might be of interest:

Japanese MOX development information:

http://www.jnfl.co.jp/english/reprocessing.html

And in compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) news of interest to our Aussie friends; the Australian government is phasing out incandescent bulbs over the next three years:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21258888-421,00.html

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Listen to Atomic Show #045 Here!

Alberta Canada is one of the few areas in the world where oil production has increased rather dramatically during the past 5 years. The area has a vast resource of unconventional oil in the form of oil sands, where the concentration of oil in the sand to a significant depth is in excess of 10%. However, the oil tightly adheres to the sand and will not flow with normal drilling techniques. There are several ways to gather the oil in this region, but the one with the most potential requires the use of large quantities of steam in order to cause the oil to flow so that it can be pumped.

Even after the oil is gathered, it needs additional processing and upgrading steps, which also adds to the amount of energy investment needed to produce this oil. The current source of the energy is natural gas, but the supply growth is limited and the cost is increasing with the market price of natural gas.

The solution that appears ever more likely is to build some CANDU (Canadian Deuterium) nuclear reactors in the oil producing region to provide vast quantities of steam and electricity. See, for example: Oilsands tax incentives questioned.

Shane and I like the idea and provide some comments about why it might be good to pursue the possibilities.

Here are some links that might be useful if you want to do some additional research.

Argonne has a good introductory page with pictures of processes;
also good facts that are backed up by Wikipedia references:

http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/tarsands/index.cfm

This is the original paper that Shane found a few years ago concerning
the natural synergy between nuclear energy and oil sand extraction;
He especially likes the fact that the oil sand resources, after they are
cleaned of their bitumen, are often good zirconium ores:

http://www.cns-snc.ca/events/CCEO/nuclearenergyindustry.pdf

Ruth recently wrote a rather detailed post titled The Ziggy Switkowski Report: Is Nuclear in Australia’s Futureabout the various sides of the nuclear debate in Australia. Not only did she discuss the soon to be released Report, but she also pointed readers to a new anti-nuclear web site titled energyscience.org.au.

She included a discussion about the efforts of the fossil fuel industry and its political supporters to try to blunt any optimism about the prospects that Australia’s entry into nuclear power would bring increased prosperity. According to many in that industry, efforts that encourage nuclear power or try to make the fossil fuel industry pay for its damage to the environment would be harmful for Australian businesses.

For a variety of reasons, a large portion of the nuclear people that I know tend towards being conservative Republicans who believe that “Environmentalists” share much of the blame for the difficulties that their favorite technology has had in the marketplace and in public perception.

I challenge that belief and ask them to reason a little more deeply. Though there are some vocal opponents to nuclear power that are liberal Democrats, there are also many who are conservative Republicans. Though there are people that claim to be Environmentalists that oppose nuclear energy developments, there are also some very prominent people in the environmental movement that favor nuclear energy - and there always have been. James Lovelock and Patrick Moore are only the most recent. In the 1950s, some very prominent and powerful Democrats - including Al Gore Sr, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, and John F. Kennedy - were big nuclear power supporters.

On numerous occasions, I have also asked people to ask themselves a few tough, logically based questions.

1) Which party has supporters that like the status quo more than radical change?
2) Why would someone who is really concerned about clean air and water, uncluttered landscapes, and global climate change actively oppose a technology clean enough and compact enough to run inside sealed submarines?
3) Which party should favor large projects that employ thousands of people, many of whom are union members?

Then I ask them to tell me again why they believe that the Republicans are on their side and the environmental movement is not.

One particular prominent Democrat that gets misunderstood by many nukes is Al Gore, Jr. For many years, he has been identified with the environmental movement. Through his writing, (Earth in the Balance - 1992 and An Inconvenient Truth - 2006) film making and speaking he has made a consistent plea for people to take better care of the Earth and its natural resources, including its people.

In his climate change wake up messages, he occasionally mentions nuclear power and expresses doubt that it can solve the problems that he sees, but his statements are never what I would consider to be antinuclear. As I understand and interpret his words, he is simply expressing his view of the industry and its ability to get things done based on prior history. Here is an example statement from a recent speech:(Note: you can find more of the context of the speech and a discussion about it at Al Gore’s Speech)

While I am not opposed to nuclear power and expect to see some modest increased use of nuclear reactors, I doubt that they will play a significant role in most countries as a new source of electricity.

Read that sentence carefully and remember that there are hundreds of countries in the world, only a handful of which are seriously considering massive new nuclear power projects. Remember also that the nuclear industry, for all its operational successes, has not been very successful in getting new plants financed, politically approved and constructed.

One of the reasons why I believe that Al Gore is telling the truth when he says he does not oppose nuclear power is that I remember reading about how much his father favored the technology. Senator Al Gore, Sr. was a member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and once proposed legislation to allow the Atomic Energy Commission to build a number of nuclear power plants to feed its own facilities as a way to encourage the development of a commercial nuclear power industry. He saw the technology as one way for public power to help improve people’s lives. As a Senator from Tennessee he was also influential in getting approvals for the Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power projects.

Most people who admire their parents gain much of their insight and attitudes from them. It would seem a long stretch to believe that Al Gore, a man who chose the same profession as his father, would decide that he was wrong about such an important issue.

In case you are wondering, I am a registered Republican, but I have not voted for that party in national elections for at least a dozen years.

Listen to Atomic Show #025 Here!

The big news since Shane and I last talked is the announcement by a Texan named George Chapman of the formation of Amarillo Power and its plans to build two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) near Amarillo Texas. Shane questions the location based on his frequent drives through the area. Water might be an issue, but there are probably solutions that are not readily visible. Customer location is also a question. However, the indications are that Mr. Chapman is a serious, experienced businessman with a plan. He once worked for Bechtel and helped to build the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station as a welder in his younger days.

I also talk quite a bit about the discussions going on at the American Nuclear Society Utility Working Conference at Amelia Island. Lots of positive talk about new nuclear plant construction and the amount of work - translate that as jobs - that will need to be done in order to rebuild the infrastructure for manufacturing reactors and their components.

Here are some links to the stories we mention in the show about the Amarillo Power ABWR project.

Nuclear power plant sought (1 August)

Editorial: Nuclear plant in our future (6 August)

Nuclear facility years away (2 August)

Nuke plants get incentives (5 August)

Listen to Atomic Show #020 Here!

I hope some of you missed us last week. If not, we must be doing something that needs improvement. Just in case you noticed that we did not post a new show last week, we simply were not able to match up our schedules. I had a series of meetings about Adams Atomic Engines and those interfered with production of the show. The good news is . . . (blacked out by censors waving NDA’s.)

Anyway, back to this week’s show. Shane and I start off by sharing some of our thoughts about engineering educations versus liberal arts. We then talk a bit about the large Japanese engineering firms - Toshiba, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi - that are all developing ways to enter the US market for new nuclear power plants.

We talk about NRG Energy’s announced plans for new reactors at the South Texas project site and about the fact that those new nuclear facilities only represent about 25% of NRG Energy’s new building plans.

We then digress a bit into some commentary about how new air emissions standards in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach might help to encourage the use of atomic engines for large commercial ships. As always, we welcome your comments and feedback. Enjoy!

Listen to Atomic Show #015 Here!

During show number 15 of The Atomic Show, Shane and I discuss the effects of ever increasing gasoline prices on people that need to drive light trucks as part of the way that they earn their living.

We then discuss how nuclear power, specifically smaller nuclear reactors designed to compete in markets currently dominated by large diesel engines and combustion gas turbines, can help reduce the demand for oil and shift power back into the hands of consumers.