I write mainly about nuclear fission reactors in this blog because they exist and generate about eleven percent of the electricity in the world. Commercial nuclear fusion power reactors do not exist yet. Billions of dollars have been spent over the past sixty years in fusion research, but scientists have not yet been able to kindle a sustained fusion reaction that returns more energy than needed to start the reactor. Currently there are at least half a dozen startups in the U.S. alone working on novel approaches to nuclear fusion as well as major government sponsored projects.

       Now two recent breakthroughs in fusion research may be the key to commercial fusion power according to a startup named HB11 Energy. Their approach utilizes a reaction between hydrogen and the boron 11 isotope. The fuel for the reaction is an uncompressed solid-state fuel pellet of boron inside a high trapping magnetic field of ionized hydrogen. Fusion of hydrogen and the boron 11 isotope requires about a hundred thousand times the energy input of fusing deuterium and hydrogen which are used as fuels in many current fusion experiments. If extreme non-equilibrium plasma conditions are utilized in conjunction with picosecond laser pulses of greater than ten petawatts of power, the difficulty of fusing hydrogen and boron drops to the general level of difficult of conventional deuterium-hydrogen fusion.

       In the hydrogen-boron approach, the transfer of energy into the plasma from the laser does not heat the plasma as much as it accelerates the plasma. When the laser hits the fuel pellet, it is vaporized, and a shockwave is generated which drives the plasma into a high concentration permitting the cascading chain reaction which produces the high energy output.

       A one kilojoule laser amplifies a magnetic field up to ten thousand Teslas. A second laser triggers a nuclear fusion chain reaction. Experiments have been carried out that show a fusion reaction increase of a billion times current fusion energy production.

       Computer models indicate that a fusion reaction produced by a laser pulse of less than one picosecond in duration at a power of one petawatt could create a sustained fusion reaction. The reaction of twelve milligrams of boron fuel should produce about two hundred and seventy-seven kilowatts or more of fusion energy. This represents about five hundred times the amount of power used to trigger the reaction. A reactor based on the process tested in the laboratory should be able to use one beam ignition at a rate of about one shot per second to reliably produce electricity.

      It should be possible to utilize the experimentally tested hydrogen-boron fusion process to construct a simple spherical compact fusion reactor for commercial production of electricity. Calculations suggest that such a proposed reactor based on these principles could possibly produce electricity at a quarter of the cost of electricity generated by coal power plants. The process produces no carbon emission or radioactive wastes.

      Currently, there are no lasers which can produce the power and duration needed for a commercial fusion power reactor based on the new process being studied. However, it is estimated that such lasers should be available commercially within a few years. If these scientists are right, a clean cheap source of inexhaustible energy may be only a few years away.

Two Tepco reactors were cleared for restarts by the government’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday, becoming the first run by the operator of the crippled Fukushima power plant to formally pass stricter safety standards imposed after the 2011 crisis. Japantimes.co.jp

Improved farming practices, healthier animals and – ultimately – increased food security will be the outcomes of projects supported by a US$ 600 000 grant by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development (OFID) under a partnership with the IAEA signed last week. Iaea.org

CHINA is building a nuclear plant to provide power to its artificial islands and “conquer the disputed South China Sea”, according to reports. Thesun.co.uk

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was “very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea” and that such moves would prevent “a friendly solution” to the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Globalnews.ca

 

 

 

       Naturally occurring uranium ore contains ninety-nine and a quarter percent uranium-238 which is mildly radioactive. It also contains about three quarters of a percent of uranium-235 which is intensely radioactive and fissile with thermal neutrons.

       Low enriched uranium (LEU) is uranium ore that has been processed to increase the proportion of U-235 up to about twenty percent. The most common commercial power reactors in the world burn uranium enriched to three to five percent. Some research reactors burn uranium enriched from twelve percent to nineteen and three quarters percent.

         High enriched uranium (HEU) is uranium ore that has been processed to increase the proportion of U-235 to over twenty percent. Nuclear weapons usually contain uranium enriched to eighty five percent or more of U-235. Some HEU is burned in research reactors and in what are called fast neutron reactors which burn uranium enriched to twenty percent or more. Naval reactors use uranium enriched to about fifty percent.

        It is estimated that there is about two thousand tons of HEU in the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency works to monitor and control supplies of and processes involving HEU. They are dedicated to the safe generation of nuclear energy and to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. There is currently an international effort to convert as many research reactors as possible to LEU to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.

       There are seventy-six research reactors in the world today that burn HEU and converting even a few of them to the new fuel would be of benefit. Over fifteen years of research have gone into developing a new type of fuel based on an alloy of molybdenum and LEU. One of the big problems being worked on during this time was making sure that the new fuel would not seriously affect the efficiency of the research reactors.

      The U.S. has announced that six research reactors will soon be converted to the new fuel. These include the Advanced Test Reactor and the Advanced Test Reactor Critical Assembly, both at the Idaho National Laboratory; the High Flux Isotope Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reactor (MITR) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the National Bureau of Standards Reactor in Gaithersburg, Maryland; and the University of Missouri Research Reactor in Columbia, Missouri.

       The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has submitted a report on the new fuel to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NNSA worked in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The MITR was shown to be able to operate safely with the new fuel. MIT will continue to test the new fuel in the MITR for the next few years and then submit a final safety analysis report. When the NRC issues approval of the new fuel, MIT will be able to convert the MITR to full time use of the new fuel.

       Jeff Chamberlin, the Director of the NNSA’s Office of Conversion said, “MIT’s outstanding commitment towards this challenging, yet very important, LEU conversion project is exemplified by the completion of this important milestone.”

MITR:

Prince Philip privately backed nuclear disarmament during the Cold War and opposed the ‘ridiculous’ arms race, newly declassified documents reveal dailymail.co.uk

EDF has signed an agreement with Areva SA to buy 75.5% of New NP, the French electricity provider said late Friday. Marketwatch.com

Olkiluoto 3, a much delayed first-of-its-kind EPR nuclear plant project under construction in Finland, has begun hot functional tests and should begin generating electricity in May 2019, according to Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). Powermag.com

New York City has begun removing the nuclear fallout shelter signs that were appended to      thousands of buildings in the 1960s, saying many no longer denote functional shelters. Cnbc.com

       The most exciting subject in energy is the prospect for nuclear fusion. I have occasionally blogged about current work on nuclear fusion. Research has been going on since the 1970s and there is an old joke that nuclear fusion is always forty years away, but things are changing. With fuels cheap and abundant, nuclear fusion holds great promise. It would be safer than nuclear fission power and would not produce toxic radioactive spent nuclear fuel which is piling up around the world. The cost of fusion reactors when they reach the market should be a fraction of the cost of new nuclear fission plants. Since it is the end of the year, I though that I would mention a few of the most important current research programs followed by a review of a few of the most promising commercial startups.

        General Fusion is based in Vancouver, Canada. They have raised almost a hundred million dollars from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and other investors. Their approach to nuclear fusion is called “magnetized target fusion.” The fusion fuel is a pellet of hydrogen that is held by magnetic fields as it is heated to a plasma state. Then, there is a brief powerful squeeze by magnetic fields that triggers the fusion reaction. This approach combines two older methods called magnetic confinement and inertial confinement. Hydrogen is a common element.

        TAE Technologies (formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy) is located in California. Paul Allen of Microsoft fame is one of the principle investors. TAE calls its approach “friendly fusion.” The fuel consists of particles that have been accelerated in particle accelerators. Then they are injected into a field-reversed configuration which is a self-stabilizing rotating cylinder of particles that resembles a smoke ring. The cloud of particles is then compressed to cause the fusion reaction. Fuels being considered include hydrogen and boron-11, the interaction of which does not produce neutrons. Boron-11 is a stable isotope that constitutes about eighty percent of the boron in deposits of borax. Borax is a common mineral. It is expected that TAE will have a working reactor within ten years.

        Helion Energy is located in Redmond, Washington. Paypal’s Peter Thiel, NASA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense have all invested in Helion. They are working on what they call the Fusion Engine. They claim that it will be a thousand times smaller and five hundred times cheaper than the competition. Their approach is to compress a plasma of deuterium and helium 3 in a cycling system. Once a second, a compression of magnetic fields triggers a brief fusion which repels the magnetic fields similar to the way that a piston engine works. As the magnetic fields are repelled, the system directly produces electricity. Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron in the nucleus. It is present in all the water on Earth at about one percent. Helium-3 is rare on Earth but the system recycles it so not much will be needed. It is estimated that there are vast amounts of Helium-3 on the Moon. Helion hopes to have a prototype of a commercial nuclear fusion reactor built by 2019.

       Cheap, abundant, carbon-free and non-polluting energy would have an enormous positive impact on the entire world. Let us hope that one of these three companies or any of the other companies working on nuclear fusion succeed in the near future.

Natural Fusion Power Plant:

Reports from French Polynesia say the French government will launch an epidemiological study of 21,000 nuclear test veterans. Radionz.co.nz

The Russian Defense Ministry has started work on upgrading the bases in Tartus and Khmeimim in Syria into permanent military centers. Damascus has agreed to host Russian forces for at least 49 more years. Rt.com

Peru’s government has ordered the expulsion of two North Korean diplomats after declaring them persona non-grata over Pyongyang’s “continued violations” of UN Security Council resolutions with its nuclear program.  Aljezeera.com

Most of the world’s nations live in nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs). This does not give them any real protection, since the catastrophic environmental effects of nuclear war would be global, not sparing any nation. However, by supporting the Nuclear Weapons Convention and by becoming members of NWFZ’s, nations can state that they consider nuclear weapons to be morally unacceptable, a view that must soon become worldwide if human civilization is to survive. Globalresearch.ca

        It’s Chrismas 2017 and Hanford is the gift that keeps on giving in a morbid way. I live in Washington State where the Hanford Nuclear Reservations, one of the most radioactively contaminated areas in the world, is located. The U.S. nuclear weapons program produced nuclear materials for warheads at Hanford for decades before being shut down. There was no concern for the environment in the early days and radioactive liquids were poured into trenches dug in the dirt without so much as a sheet of plastic to contain them. A great deal of toxic and radioactive material was buried in single wall steel containers that are now leaking.

        I have blogged often about problems at Hanford including improper handling of radioactive materials, failure to document contents of buried tanks, failure to properly protect the health of workers, failure to meet deadlines for cleanup, poor design of treatment facilities, radioactive contamination from the soil leaking into the Columbia River and many other issues. The Attorney General of the State of Washington has had to drag the U.S. Department of Energy into court several times to force it to act on serious problems.

      The DoE is now busy working on the destruction of the Plutonium handling faclity at Hanford where plutonium was recovered for warheads. Recently, a railway tunnel filled with contaminated railway cars near the facility was exposed to the environment when the roof of one of the tunnels collapsed. Officials had been repeatedly warned that this could happen for years but apprently did not take the warnings seriously. As always, they claimed that there was no danger of exposure to radioactive materials for the workers because of the protective gear that they wear.

       Following the recent demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, the most contaminated part of the Plutonium Finishing Plant, specks of radioactive materials were found beyond the boundaries of the radiological control boundaries over the past two weeks. Inside the boundary, the workers wear protective gear including protection from just such specs of radioactive materials in the air. But, beyond the boundary, the protective gear is removed.

      Specks of radioactive materials were found in or on fourteen vehicles, including two vehicles which may have been driven home by employees on December 15^th, just before the contamination was found.  Seven homes in the Richland, Washington area were checked for contamination but, fortunately, there was none found.

      In early December, some of the air monitors that workers wear on their lapels did register low levels of radioactive contamination in the air. These particular workers were outside of the demolition area where protective gear is worn. Two hundred and fifty-seven workers at Hanford have been checked to see if they have inhaled any radioactive particles.

       Work on the demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant has been suspended pending investigation of the source of the radioactive materials that threatens the workers. The two senators of Washington State, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, support the cessation of work until conditions improve for the workers. They are waiting for a report on the Government Accounting Office review of safety at Hanford following the collapse of the tunnel near the Plutonium Finishing Plant. They have asked for additional information on the contamination and efforts to identify and stop it from the DoE. They say that the workers at Hanford have the right to a work place where safety is put ahead of legal deadlines and financial interests.

Demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility at Hanford: