Green Tech

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Advocates say a nuclear power "renaissance" can solve global energy problems, but construction of new reactors in the U.S. faces a number of barriers, not the least of which is nuclear waste.

Delaware Senator Thomas Carper, who actively supports nuclear power, hosted a panel of experts on Monday to discuss nuclear waste at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT on Monday also updated its 2003 study on how nuclear power can play a role in reducing carbon emissions (click for PDF).

The four panelists--executive director of the upcoming MIT Nuclear Fuels Cycle study Charles Forsberg, MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering Andrew Kadak, Harvard University associate professor and proliferation expert Matthew Bunn, and MIT Energy Initiative director Ernest Moniz--all favored more nuclear power.

They also agreed that the U.S. should fund more research and development, particularly around long-term solutions to radioactive waste. They said that current methods give the U.S. time to develop new storage technologies.

Advocates of nuclear often point out that other countries, such as France and Japan, are reprocessing spent fuel from nuclear reactors, which allows them to essentially draw more energy from the original uranium.

But rather than pursue existing fuel reprocessing technologies, Bunn, Moniz, and Kadak said that the U.S. should take time now to develop different "advanced fuel cycle" technologies. The existing process is expensive and poses greater nuclear proliferation risks, said Bunn.

"Overall I would argue that those who are in favor of a bright future for nuclear power should be against near-term reprocessing of nuclear fuel," he said.

Today's dry cask storage method, where spent fuel is put in underground bunkers, can work for decades, the panelists said. "Future technologies may change that picture. We don't know today what the best fuel cycle for nuclear fuels will be," Bunn said.

The panelists agreed that there should be some sort of underground storage for nuclear wastes, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which the Obama administration recently decided to stop funding. At the very least, that decision has opened up a "national discussion" on how to handle nuclear wastes, said Forsberg.

In the meantime, the industry should design nuclear power systems that address spent fuel, said Moniz, who characterized today's strategy as "kicking the can down the road."

"Long-term managed storage, by which I mean century timescale...should be viewed as an integral part of a waste management system," he said.

Moniz also said that new government policies for managing existing spent fuel are needed to prevent proliferation. "Today we have about 270 tons of separated plutonium essentially in storage in multiple countries. That's about 30,000 significant quantities. Not a pretty picture," he said.

All panelists agreed that establishing consistent policies are required for the growth of the nuclear energy industry. "Political stability is very, very important to solve the nuclear waste problem," said Kadak.

Growing interest
Nuclear power plants produce almost 20 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and are suitable for "baseload power," or supplying electricity reliably at peak times. But despite applications to build 26 new plants, no new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. for decades.

Senator Carper argued that the U.S. needs a nuclear industry revival to replace aging fleets and to meet growing electricity demand. He called the problem of nuclear waste handling "the elephant in the room."

Even venture capitalists and start-ups are looking to invest in different forms of nuclear power. Colorado-based Hyperion Power is developing relatively small-scale nuclear reactors, which it hopes to sell for $25 million or $30 million a piece. By contrast, construction of a new large-scale nuclear plant can be more than $10 billion.

Fuel or waste? MIT's nuclear waste panel from left: Charles Forsberg, Matthew Bunn, Ernest Moniz, Andrew Kadak, and on right, senator Thomas Carper.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

Interest in nuclear power has grown in the past few years, in part because nuclear reactors don't produce carbon emissions.

MIT's updated nuclear power report said that for nuclear power to be considered a viable method of curbing carbon emissions, there needs to be construction done at massive scale in coming decades--on the order of one terawatt worth of capacity, according to Moniz, or about 1,000 new large power plants.

The study also found that the cost of building new nuclear power plants has gone up faster than the cost of building new coal or natural gas plants.

Moniz, one of the study's authors, recommended that the U.S. build new nuclear power facilities and invest on the order of $500 million a year on research for advanced fuel cycles and other nuclear technologies, such as different types of reactors.

That ancient, inefficient heating/air conditioning system in your building might be worth something someday.

Pacific Gas & Electric CEO Pete Darbee said in a briefing with reporters Tuesday that the utility is working with government officials to see if there is a way to create a fund that gives building owners financial incentives to replace old compressors, pumps, and other building equipment with new, energy-efficient versions.

Building owners want to get rid of this old equipment, he explained, but the capital requirements are a big hurdle. The program could be structured in a way so that it could be funded partly through the utility bills paid by the customer.

The program would, in some sense, be similar to the residential energy rebate programs PG&E has run for years. Under those, PG&E gives cash rebates to homeowners who replace old washers and dryers with new ones. The utility has also underwritten programs to get consumers to replace incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

Energy efficiency is the top priority in PG&E's effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For one thing, energy conservation is less taxing on the environment than even getting more power from renewable sources of energy like solar panels.

Energy efficiency is also far cheaper. Technology for energy efficiency costs about 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, Darbee said. Harvesting energy from a renewable resource might cost 10 to 15 cents a kilowatt-hour or more. Rooftop solar panels have historically hovered around 40 cents a kilowatt-hour, he said. Energy efficiency standards implemented in California in the '70s also show that the programs work--energy consumption per capita has stayed relatively stable in the state since then but have risen substantially in other parts of the nation. Efficiency allowed California not to build 24 power plants in the last 35 years, he argued.

"The fact that you don't use power is the best strategy," he said.

Darbee, who has helped put PG&E at the forefront of greening utilities, spoke at length on a number of topics. Here are some of the highlights.

--PG&E is examining ways it can own its own solar thermal plants. Solar thermal plants--large, sprawling complexes that generate megawatts' worth of electricity from heat from the sun--are far more cost-effective than solar rooftop panels. "With solar farms, you can get down to 10 cents a kilowatt-hour," he said.

Technically, PG&E can build a solar thermal plant now, but it wouldn't qualify for the investment or production credits. That would put PG&E at a 30 percent cost disadvantage. Thus, if it can get that law changed, PG&E might build its own plant. Right now, the utility signs contracts to buy solar thermal-generated power from third-party companies like BrightSource Energy.

Why would it want to build and own solar plants? Solar thermal plants cost millions of dollars, and the start-ups trying to build them don't have the same capital as a major utility. A hiccup in the regulations or electricity demand could become a terminal setback for a start-up. PG&E could ride out such storms.

--He's not wild about a California ballot initiative to get 50 percent of the state's power from renewable sources. "There may be a time when 50 percent seems reasonable, but right now it seems too far out of reach," he said. Nonetheless, it could be possible to raise it from the current 20 percent level to 33 percent in the future. It depends on the state of renewables and the transmission grid.

--Nuclear power will likely make a comeback in the U.S., but the resurgence mostly might occur in the Southeast and other regions where renewables don't work as well. Besides, resistance among segments of California's population could make it difficult to build more nuclear plants there.

"Demand for power is so great in the U.S. that nuclear should play a role," he said.

--Plug-in hybrids could help promote wind power. A lot of wind power gets generated at night, but since few are awake to use it, it goes to waste. With plug-ins, that power could be used to recharge batteries. The utility is also working with Google and others on technology that would identify cars on the grid. With this, drivers could plug in their cars at work, and then sell power stored on their batteries back to the utility for peak prices. You'd buy at night when power is cheap and sell it in the day when it's expensive.

--He likes the idea of wave power, but building something that can survive the ocean won't be easy, "How do these technologies hold up in the Pacific when things get really nasty?" he posed. "What is clear is that you have constant motion in the ocean."

Correction: This story was corrected to reflect the day the briefing was held. It was Tuesday, April 30.

The U.S. does not recycle nuclear waste from power plants because it could be used for weapons, but that might change.

Pete Domenici, the Republican Senator from New Mexico, said the country should start to examine the benefits of recycling fuel, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

France and most other nuclear energy-producing countries recycle fuel. Doing so cuts down the amount of fuel that needs to be mined, as well as the amount of nuclear waste that needs to get buried. Recycling, however, leads to byproducts that can be used to build bombs.

Domenici also said he wants to introduce legislation that would create more nuclear depositories, possibly in New Mexico. The Department of Energy has invested billions of dollars over several years in trying to build a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The project, however, faces strong opposition.

No nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. in decades, but global warming, as well as higher prices for coal and natural gas, have revived the industry. An estimated 31 applications for building new nuclear plants in the United States are expected to be filed in the next few years. The applications, though, will likely draw strong opposition.

A few start-ups are also tinkering with nuclear fusion, which produces much less waste than nuclear fission, the basis of nuclear plants today. (Nuclear plants basically create heat, which is used to create steam to crank a turbine.)

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.--Nuclear fusion will move from the lab to reality in a few years, a noted venture capitalist says.

"Within five years, large companies will start to think about building fusion reactors," Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, said in an interview at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place here this week. In three to four years, scientists will demonstrate results that show that fusion has a 60 percent chance of success, he said.

Wal van Lierop

(Credit: Chrysalix )

If van Lierop were some crazy guy off the street with an old stack of Omni magazines, you could dismiss him. Fusion--which extracts energy from nuclear reactions without the dangers associated with nuclear fission--has been studied for decades, but has yet to go commercial. Van Lierop, however, isn't a random individual. He is one of the earliest and more active investors in clean tech: Chrysalix started investing in clean energy in 2001. The firm's limited partners include BASF, Shell, and Rabobank.

Chrysalix's optimism is pinned on an angel investment the company made in General Fusion, a Canadian company that says it has found a way to hurdle many of the technical problems surrounding fusion. The company's ultimate plan is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The plants would cost around $50 million. That could allow the company to generate electricity at about 4 cents per kilowatt hour, making it competitive with conventional electricity.

The company uses a technique called Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) model. In this scenario, an electric current is generated in a conductive cavity containing lithium and a plasma. The electric current produces a magnetic field and the cavity is collapsed, which results in a massive temperature spike.

The lithium breaks down into helium and tritium. Tritium, an unstable form of hydrogen, is separated and then mixed with deuterium, another form of hydrogen. The two fuse and make helium, a reaction that releases energy that can be harvested. So in short, lithium, a fairly inexpensive and plentiful metal, gets converted to helium in a reaction that generates lots of power and leaves only a harmless gas as a byproduct. MTF has an advantage over other fusion techniques in that the plasma only has to stay at thermonuclear temperatures (150 million degrees Celsius) for a microsecond for a reaction to occur, according to the General Fusion's Web site. General Fusion has also filed for several patents.

Other firms, such as Venrock, have invested in nuclear fusion, but most avoid it. Lierop claims that's because most don't understand the fundamentals. (Interestingly, Venrock's partner overseeing nuclear investments, Ray Rothrock, is a nuclear engineer.) It is also politically volatile.

"I want to see it succeed, not only because I would make a lot of money, but because it would solve many of our problems," he said.

Other notes from van Lierop:

• Although onshore wind power is mature, companies building offshore wind turbines have to figure out a way to deal with corrosion and maintenance. It is going to be a big problem that we will hear more about in the next few years.

• Municipalities will soon begin to explore solar microgrids. In this scenario, neighborhoods will get a substantial portion of their power from local solar plants. By delivering power locally, utilities will save on the costs of transporting power.

• Tax breaks and tax holidays may replace solar subsidies in some areas. Electricity is taxed, but utilities offer subsidies to those who install solar power. By switching to microgeneration, cities will find it easier to just forgo taxation rather than try to run a subsidy program.

He's not a big fan of corn ethanol. "Corn ethanol is a scam," he said.

We could put a bigger dent in greenhouse gases, says Patrick Moore, if it weren't for environmentalists.

Expanding the use of nuclear power would let the U.S. and other nations reduce dependence on coal, one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide and other pollutants (and industrial accidents). Nuclear plants emit virtually no greenhouse gases, and more plants would also give the green light to the electric car industry.

"They (environmentalists) are the ones who are screaming that the sky is falling and that the climate catastrophe is coming and it's going to be global and it's going to cause 40 to 50 percent of all the species to become extinct and it's going to be the end of civilization as we know it," he said in an interview with CNET News.com. "And yet, they are against nuclear energy just because there could be an accident somewhere. How could one nuclear accident be worse than the whole world being destroyed?"

But here's something about Moore's background. He is a co-founder of Greenpeace. After he left the organization, he began to think about climate change and is now a very public nuclear advocate. He even works with the Center for Sustainable Energy, a nuclear trade group.

And, he likes to point out, he's not alone. Environmentalists and scientists like Stewart Brand and Jared Diamond are also pro-nuclear. Still, there are issues with disposal.

Moore also looks at the political and safety issues surrounding nuclear. Check out the full interview here.

Oil officials see limit looming on production. It's not an oil peak; it's an oil plateau. The Wall Street Journal reports on impending restrictions on oil extraction. Now both oil industry skeptics and execs are seeing limits. Recently, Don Paul, CTO of Chevron (not the presidential candidate), told us that the world has consumed 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and will go to 1.5 trillion by 2012. The world only had 3 trillion barrels to begin with.

A deeply green city confronts its energy needs and nuclear worries. The New York Times reports on the struggle in Fort Collins, Colorado, between a solar power plant or increased nuclear power. The technology around nuclear has improved and applications for 31 new nuclear plants are expected to be filed, but the public remains queasy.

'Geoengineering': space mirror over Greenland? Scientists are starting to consider planet-scale engineering projects to slow the pace of climate change.

"Cold" geothermal experiments in Halifax. Speaking of big engineering projects, construction began on the Alderney 5 Advanced Geothermal Energy Project in Nova Scotia, according to Renewable Energy Access. The system consists of a field of 100 holes, each 600 feet deep. Sea water chills the rock mass underground. This can then be used to meet peak air conditioning needs, eliminating the need for a supplementary cooling system. It's sort of like Heat Miser and Snow Miser finally seeing eye-to-eye.

UN says wood for fuel is bad. That campfire smell is soot going into the atmosphere.

The ethanol market says youch. Pacific Ethanol tumbled when it came out that celebrity investor Bill Gates (through a fund) is selling shares in the outfit, notes Earth2Tech. Ethanol looked great in 2005, before capacity went up and corn prices rose.

Finally, First Solar has become one of the fastest growing solar companies in the world. It has no major direct competitors in its particular niche, and experts explain why.

Nuclear power plants have a lot of excess heat, so why not use that heat to make fresh water?

That's the idea of S.S. Verma, with the Department of Physics at the Sont Longowal Institute in Punjab, India. If located offshore near large population centers, the plants could provide cheap electricity as well as fresh water to megacities like Mumbai.

Some companies are already looking at developing desalination platforms that can be attached to nuclear plants, he said, according to the Indo-Asian News Service (via Earthtimes). (Verma's complete paper can be found here.)

The general and very serious concerns about nuclear power--what do you do about transportation of nuclear materials? Disposal and storage? Safety?--of course apply. But it's also an interesting idea. Nuclear plants do produce a lot of waste heat. Many believe that hydrogen could become economical if the waste heat from these plants could be used to crack water molecules to produce the gas.

Some companies in Canada are contemplating installing nuclear power plants near the tar sands deposits in Alberta to produce hydrogen, a necessary ingredient for turning the goopy tar into usable liquid fuel.

The world is mired in a water crisis. In many large cities in India, people wait in line to get water from roving trucks. Droughts and crop failures are expected to increase as global temperatures rise. And it's not just in the emerging world. Australia is suffering through a prolonged shortage of water.

Desalination provides an avenue out of it, but conventional methods are expensive and somewhat time consuming.

Other water purification ideas out there include better membranes (from start-up Nano H20) better purification ponds (a la Aqwise) and simulated evaporation and condensation from Altela.