Part Two of Two Parts (Pease read Part One first)

        The Chinese also have been working on fusion research for a decade. They recently announced a successful confinement test in the HT-7 tokamak in Hefei, China. They were assisted in the tests by researchers from the Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urban-Champaign. A major innovation was to circulate liquid lithium along the inside of the plasma confinement chamber. Energy confinement was improved by ten percent. This can reduce the diameter of the confinement chamber by one third. The cost of construction may be reduced as much as a factor of ten. This definitely puts the Chinese in the lead for production of commercial fusion reactors. The Chinese intend to be a major supplier of advanced energy generation systems. They have been focusing on nuclear fission power reactors but would be quite happy to be an international supplier of nuclear fusion reactors too.

       While these three research programs are utilizing designs that have been refined for decades, there are other approaches to nuclear fusion that are being researched. In the United States, funding for nuclear fusion research has been relatively small compared to these other national and international programs. And, existing nuclear fusion research funding is under threat. An advisory panel to the U.S. Department of Energy has recently subjected that one of three U.S. fusion projects be mothballed and that the U.S. expand its participation in the ITER project. Fortunately, the private section is picking up the slack in fusion research in the U.S.

       The U.S. Navy has invested twelve million dollars in the development of what is called the Polywell fusion reactor at Eneryg/Matter Conversion Corporation, Inc. (EMC2) since 1999. The Polywell reactor is based on electron and gas injection into a confinement chamber. While EMC2 was working for the Navy, its research was secret. Now the Navy has ended its support and EMC2 is seeking thirty million dollars to fund the next stage of its research. It is estimated that a Polywell nuclear fusion reactor that was about five feet in diameter should be able to produce excess energy.

       Lockheed Martin, the big defense contractor, is working on their own fusion reactor design. Their program was announced in 2013. The Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion Reactor is a design that is referred to as a high-beta fusion reactor where the ration of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure is extremely high when compared to a tokomak design. This design is supposed to result a much cheaper and smaller fusion reactor than many other designs. They were hoping to have a prototype built by 2019.

       Helion Energy is a firm in Redmond, WA with a unique approach to fusion power. Their reactor is shaped like two traffic cones with their small ends embedded in a grapefruit. Magnetic fields function like pistons to drive gas in the ignition chamber to fuse. The rebound of the magnetic fields generates electricity. This reactor does not require a steam turbine to convert heat to electricity which means that the reactors will be small and cheap to build. They expect to have a prototype in a few years.

      There are other interesting fusion research projects both in the U.S. and abroad but this post covers some of the main projects. Several companies intend to have a small, safe and relatively inexpensive commercial fusion power reactor on the market within ten years. With many projects based on many different designs, the odds of success are high. So perhaps the old joke about forty years until commercial fusion can finally be laid to rest.

The conversion of Ghana’s research reactor to run on low-enriched uranium (LEU) instead of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) has been completed. It is the first of five such Chinese-supplied reactors outside of China to be converted. World-nuclear-news.com

Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) has been awarded a second final and binding partial award in the ongoing arbitration proceedings related to delays in the construction of the first-of-a-kind EPR unit at Olkiluoto. It follows the granting of a partial award to TVO last November. World-nuclear-news.com

THE jury is still out on why a country like South Africa, rated number five on the world as best suitable for renewable energy, would want to build eight new nuclear power stations at cost of R1 trillion. Bereammail.com

It is the faulty policy of continuous U.S. support to Pakistan’s military generals that has turned South Asia into a nuclear flashpoint, former U.S. Senator Larry Pressler has said. Mr. Pressler, known for the legislation that forced President George H.W. Bush to suspend aid to Pakistan in 1990, said the U.S. must designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Pressler amendment required the President to certify annually that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear device. Thehindu.com

Part One of Two Parts

       I have blogged about nuclear fusion research in the past. The basic principle is the same as the process that keeps the fires in the sun burning. Light nuclei such as hydrogen or helium are forced to combine to form heavier nuclei, releases a great deal of energy. In order to accomplish this, the light nuclei need to be subjected to enormous heat and pressure. This has proven to be very difficult to do in practice. The payoff would be a source of energy that would generate no pollution, create little if any dangerous waste, be fueled by elements that are abundant and accessible, and be cheaper to build and operate than nuclear fission reactors.

       Fusion power research has been going on since the 1940s but nuclear fusion has never generated any electricity for commercial purposes. There is an old joke that says useful nuclear fusion is always forty years away. Billions of dollars from all over the world are currently flowing into different fusion reactor research project.

        The British have been working on nuclear fusion as part of the Joint European Tokomak project at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, U.K. since 1984. They have been making steady progress and have racked up a number of firsts with respect to temperature, pressure and creating a self-sustaining reaction. The JET is the biggest operational nuclear fusion test reactor in the world. It is based on using a electrical current to confine a superhot plasma to a donut shape. The future of the JET is uncertain since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. When they formally leave in 2018, their participation in the JET program as part of their membership in the E.U. will also end.

      Germany began the construction of their own fusion Wendelstein 7-X stellarator (W7-X) research reactor in 2008 at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald. The German reactor is based on what is called a stellerator where the plasma is confined by a complex system of magnetic coils. In early 2016, construction was completed and the first successful test was conducted. The temperature and duration of plasma confinement will be slowly increased until the confinement can be maintained for thirty minutes. The researchers hope to be able to reach their goal by 2025. The W7-X is not designed to actually produce excess energy.

      The biggest fusion research project in the world is the ITER reactor being built in France by an international consortium in Cadarache, France, The ITER is a tokomak which is a reactor design that looks like a donut. The huge reactor is being built just to test the confinement of plasma and momentary return of energy. The researchers intend to generate five hundred megawatts of energy with the consumption of fifty megawatts for a period of twenty minutes. If successful, it could serve as a stepping stone to a commercial reactor. Billions of dollars have been spent on the project to date. Construction started in 2013 and it is estimated that it will be completed by 2021. Initial test runs will begin in 2025 and full scale operational tests are scheduled for 2035. There have been serious problems with the management of the project, partly due to all the different nations involved.

Please read Part Two

Here’s what would happen if North Korea exported nuclear weapons to the US’s enemies. Businessinsider.com

China plans nuclear attack on India, claims Mulayam. Thehindu.com

Bunkering down: sales of nuclear shelters climb in Japan wary of North Korea tests. Theguardian.com

The Areva plant in Richland, WA  will begin manufacturing newly developed advanced nuclear fuel assemblies that allow operators more time to respond in emergencies. Tri-cityherald.com

 

 

 

       I have written about the possibility of “nuclear winter” in previous blogs. It has been estimated that the detonation of as few as one hundred nuclear warheads would clog the atmosphere with smoke and soot from firestorms in burning cities, oil refineries and rural missile installations. The term nuclear winter was coined in 1983 by Richard P. Turco who ran some of the early computer models that projected the effect of such firestorms. The soot and smoke would reverse global warming and reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth for years.

        If only around a hundred nuclear detonations occurred, Food production would crash. Diseases would spread and millions of people would die. All countries on Earth would be severely impacted. If thousands of nuclear warheads were detonated in a major exchange between the U.S. and Russia, the results would be catastrophic. Billions of people would die. In short, it would mean the end of our civilization and the devastation of the entire ecosystem.

       New work on modeling the effects of nuclear detonations suggests that even a few modern nuclear warheads could cause what is being referred to as a “nuclear autumn.” A nuclear autumn while not as severe as a nuclear winter would still be devastating. Some of the results of a nuclear autumn include a serious drop in agricultural productivity, loss of ozone in the stratosphere and the spread of dangerous radioactive fallout across the world.

       An analysis of the nuclear arsenals of the U.S., the U.K, France, Russia, and China states that the U.S., Russia, and China could each trigger a nuclear autumn with the detonation of as few as five nuclear warheads. These warheads could be delivered by nuclear bombers and/or ICBMs.

        The Trump administration supports expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal. President Trump told the Reuters news service that “It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.” He also tweeted during the Presidential transition that “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

       While the possibility of an all out nuclear war is increasing as the relationship between the U.S. and Russia continues to deteriorate, the possibility of a limited use of nuclear weapons is also increasing. Improved accuracy and variable yields of new generations of nuclear weapons are also increasing the odds of the use of nuclear weapons in regional conflicts as tactical weapons for use on the battlefield.

       One hundred and twenty-two nations have voted for the U.N. ban on all nuclear weapons. A total ban on all nuclear weapons may be the only way of avoiding the disastrous consequences of even a few nuclear detonations in a conflict. Unfortunately, the nations with nuclear weapons did not take part in the creation of the nuclear weapons ban treaty. Without their participation, the noble goal of the treaty will remain unfulfilled and we will continue to live under the nuclear Sword of Damocles.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has concluded that the highly integrated protection system (HIPS) platform developed for NuScale Power’s small modular reactor is acceptable for use in plant safety-related instrumentation and control systems. World-nuclear-news.org

The USA’s Holtec International has signed a teaming agreement with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin to collaborate in the development of Holtec’s SMR-160 small modular reactor (SMR). World-nuclear-news.org

Wang Shoujun, president of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said that commercial production of high-temperature, gas-cooled nuclear fuel (HTGR) had begun at the China North Nuclear Fuel processing plant in northern China. Nuclearstreet.com

Environmental groups are urging South Carolina’s utility regulators to stop the construction of nuclear reactors already years behind schedule and return billions in cost overruns to consumers. Theeagle.com

       The nuclear industry has been anxiously waiting for a clear signal from the Trump administration with respect to support for nuclear power generation. There have been conflicting signals coming out of the Department of Energy under the new Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry.  

       The DoE has been conducting a study on baseload power and the reliability of the grid. The study was supposed to be released by now but the release has been delayed by at least several weeks. Now a draft of the report has been leaked and made public and it appears that the findings of the study do not agree with public statements made by the Trump administration.

       The study was motivated by the desire of the Trump administration to provide support for claims by Perry that EPA regulations and renewable alternative energy sources such as solar and wind installations were undermining the reliability of the U.S. electrical grid. The supposed injury to the national grid was being blamed on the “premature” closure of baseload power which is available twenty four hours a day – seven days a week. Two of the primary sources of baseload power are coal and nuclear power plants.

       The draft of the study’s report said that with respect to baseload power requirements, environmental regulations from the EPA and subsidies to renewable energy installations “played minor roles compared to the long-standing drop in electricity demand relative to previous expectation and years of low electricy prices driven by high natural gas availability.”

        Since 2002, the report continued, “most baseload power plant retirements have been the victims of overcapacity and relatively high operating cost but often reflect the advanced age of the retiring plants.” The report from the study pointed out that many of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. are not economic to operate. Overcapacity is causing major problems in electricity markets. The growth in electricity demand has flattened since 2008. This makes it harder for less competitive power plants such as nuclear plants to survive.

        Between 1970 and 2005, U.S. electricy generation grew annually by two and seven tenths percent. Since 2005, the annual growth rate has dropped to five one hundredth of a percent. For the near future, the price of natural gas will stay low due to energy efficiency and the price of renewables will keep dropping. It is just not good business to keep operating an uncompetitive power plant when you know that it will keep losing money.

        The report from the study says that most of the announcements of nuclear power plant retirement say that the cause is bad market conditions. “The most unfavorable condition is that the marginal cost of generation for many nuclear plants is higher than the cost of most other generators in the market.” The report concludes that “as long as natural gas prices stay down and there is an oversupply of energy in many hours of the day and year [because of zero-marginal-cost renewable power] the typical nuclear plant will lose money on every kWh produced, and not be able to make it up on volume.” It is obvious that if it is not competitive to run an existing nuclear power plant, it will not be competitive to build a new one.

       Critics of the DoE and Trump administration say that they fear that the report will be edited to remove the language that disagrees with the official position of the administration before it is formally published.