Carnival of Nuclear Energy 255

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 255 is up at Neutron Bytes

James Conca at Forbes has a positive opinion of the deal with Iran.

The agreement framework with Iran was better than James Conca had hoped it would be. The major points are:

- Iran will reduce the number of centrifuges from about 19,000 to 6,104 and those 6,104 will be the old ones, not their new, more efficient ones.

- Iran will reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium from about 20,000 lbs to only 600 lbs, a huge concession by Iran.

- Iran will stop U-enrichment at its bunkered underground Fordow U-enrichment facility for at least 15 years (Israeli buster bombs cannot reach this facility).

- Iran’s Natanz U-enrichment facility will only enrich U-235 to 3.67%, about the amount used in nuclear fuel for power plants, but not the same as the enrichment at Iran’s operating power plant at Bushehr (enrichment for a weapon needs to be over 93%).

Parameters of the nuclear framework deal with Iran are trying to get breakout time from 2-3 months to over 12 months

The Whitehouse has issued a press release with details of the parameters of the nuclear framework deal.

The US is trying to go for 12+ month to nuclear breakout instead of 2-3 months. Breakout meaning how long to get the first bomb from the point of following the agreement and when they stopped following and go for the bomb.

Once breakout occurs then it is about 25 bombs per year based on modified calculations from Robert Zubrin.
Zubrin had calculated the enrichment based on 6500 centrifuges. The deal is for 5,060.
There may also needs to be slight modification for 3.67 enriched starting point instead 4%. This could drop it to about 20 bombs per year.

Trying to avoid nuclear

Enrichment

* Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge.
* Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years.
* Iran has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years.
* All excess centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure will be placed in IAEA monitored storage and will be used only as replacements for operating centrifuges and equipment.
* Iran has agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.
* Iran’s breakout timeline – the time that it would take for Iran to acquire enough fissile material for one weapon – is currently assessed to be 2 to 3 months. That timeline will be extended to at least one year, for a duration of at least ten years, under this framework.

Iran Centrifuges

Iran could enrich 25 nuclear bombs each year according to the nuclear framework

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned on Sunday the framework Iranian nuclear agreement being sought by international negotiators, saying it was even worse than his country had feared.

Israel has mounted what it terms an "uphill battle" against an agreement that might ease sanctions on the Iranians while leaving them with a nuclear infrastructure with bomb-making potential. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

"This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that," Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem as the United States, five other world powers and Iran worked toward a March 31 deadline in Lausanne, Switzerland.

UPDATE - The details of the framework agreement have been released. It has 5,060 centrifuges and not 6,500. This means 25 bombs and not 32.

Robert Zubrin explains the details of enrichment and why too many centrifuges for Iran will enable them to get a nuclear bomb

In order to enable atomic bombs, the 0.7 percent U235 fraction of natural uranium needs to be enriched to 10 percent or more. This is typically done using centrifuges, and the amount of effort required by such systems to accomplish a given amount of enrichment is measured in Separation Work Units, or SWUs. The table below shows the number of SWUs needed to refine an initial feedstock of 100 metric tons (100,000 kilograms) of 0.7 percent U235 natural uranium into smaller amounts of more enriched materials.

Under Obama’s proposed treaty, Iran will be allowed
6,500 5060 centrifuges to enrich uranium from its natural level of 0.7 percent U235 to a reactor grade of 3 percent to 5 percent, but not to higher grades that would be useful for making bombs. However, we see that close to 80 percent of the total effort required to turn 0.7-percent-enriched natural uranium into 93-percent-enriched, top-quality bomb-grade material is spent on the first step, to 4-percent-enriched reactor grade stuff, which, as noted, the treaty will permit. Only the last 20 percent is forbidden.

Carnival of Nuclear Energy 252

1. Forbes - The Fukushima Disaster Wasn’t Very Disastrous

Four years after the Fukushima nuclear reactors withstood one of the largest earthquakes in history, only to fall to the largest tsunami in history, the most important thing to realize is what did not happen - no increased cancers, no contaminated food, no contaminated fish, most evacuees can go home, and there will be no Fukushima Death Toll. In fact, some Superfund sites in the United States have caused more health effects and environmental damage than the crippled Japanese reactors ever will. Only a botched response and unfounded fear are the killers.

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March of 2011 was a disaster of epic proportions – over 20,000 died, over 300,000 left homeless, a blow to the country’s economic and infrastructure unlike anything in the last 40 years. But the crippling of the Fukushima nuclear plants wasn’t the disastrous part. Source: Google Maps

2. The Hiroshima Syndrome...Fukushima: Four Years After

The Japanese Press has literally flooded the news with mostly negative reports, including at least one outright lie from outside Japan. The following are summations of the more-significant Fukushima 4th anniversary postings by major Press outlets, all but one of which are Japanese.

Kazakhstan targets 23400 tons of Uranium production for 2015 and Cameco 3000-4000 tons of Uranium at Cigar Lake

1. Kazatomprom, the world's biggest uranium producer, plans to increase output this year to 23,400 tU, up from 22,800 tU in 2014

2. Three US uranium producers say they are poised to ratchet up production quickly if prices swing higher after a four-year slump.

Colorado-based Ur-Energy looks to produce 750 000 lbs to 850 000 lbs this year at Lost Creek, Wyoming, most of which it would sell under eight utility contracts. If the spot price climbs to $50/lb from $38.75 currently, Ur-Energy would push production to Lost Creek's one-million pounds capacity, CEO Wayne Heili told Reuters at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto.

"The $50 mark is probably where we would say, if we can get more on the spot market than from our contracts, that's what we'll do: produce additionally for the spot market," he said.

Uranium Energy, which has operations in Texas, placed producing assets on standby in late 2013. A spot price around $45 would lead it to raise production from minimal levels, CEO Amir Adnani said.

Cameco is aiming for production of six-million to eight-million pounds (3000-4000 tons) at its new Cigar Lake, Saskatchewan, mine this year.

China approving new domestic nuclear reactor projects and gearing up for nuclear exports

1.

China approved construction of its first nuclear power project since the Fukushima disaster in Japan almost four years ago brought the program to a standstill.

China’s State Council gave the go-ahead on Feb. 17 to begin building two new reactors at China General Nuclear Power Group’s Hongyanhe plant in the country’s northeast.

Nuclear power is among the clean energies China hopes to rely on in a bid to cap carbon emissions by 2030. Atomic energy now accounts for just 2 percent of the country’s total power generation, according to International Energy Agency reports.

China may soon approve another two nuclear units in Fujian province, and may eventually approve construction of six to eight units within the year, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified official close to the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planner.

Concentrated solar does set birds on fire and Wind turbines club birds so Environmentalists make stuff up about nuclear energy

Concentrated solar does set birds on fire and Wind turbines club birds so Environmentalists make stuff up about nuclear energy. [Atomic Insights]

First domestic and wild cats kill way more birds than any energy source

America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis.

The USA has about 97 million pet cats and there are several million more feral cats.

Made up stuff about nuclear energy to misdirect from Spectacle is solar and wind flaw

There are statistics online that alleging 0.269 avian deaths per GWh for wind turbines as compared to 0.416 for nuclear power plant.

The most dominant contribution to Sovacool’s analysis of nuclear power impacts comes from uranium mining and milling operations which he claims “can poison and kill hundreds of birds per facility per year”. In his first report, he supports this by focusing on two “uranium mining” operations “in Wyoming” where he charges that bird deaths are caused by abandoned open pits. The first is the Canon City Uranium Mine in Colorado (not Wyoming), a mine that operated from 1958 to 1979, and only intermittently since. The owners of the mine were ordered to pay a $40,000 fine when a kerosene spill killed 40 geese in 2008. The spill was a one time occurrence and the operators were required to take steps to prevent further spills. Sovacool assumes the death of 40 geese is a routine occurrence, assumes it happens annually at every operating uranium mine, then based on estimates of the peak uranium production.

Concentrated solar is clearly setting the birds on fire in mid-air and wind turbines club birds out of the air

Concentrated solar power has set hundreds of birds on fire.

More than 100 birds have been injured during testing of a new solar power farm. Biologists say 130 birds caught fire mid-air while entering an area of concentrated solar energy created by the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah, Nevada. Experts believe the birds may have been attracted by the glow of the farm’s tower, but the project’s owners, SolarReserve, say they have found a way to reduce the fatalities.

Wind Turbines do club some birds

Carnival of Nuclear Energy 244

1. Northwest Celan Energy - Cybersecurity at Columbia Generating Station

Here comes the movie "Blackhat" to scare people about cybersecurity at nuclear plants! But before we all join the Hollywood-inflicted panic, Dean Kovacs of Energy Northwest Information Services describes some (but not all, of course) of the cybersecurity measures in place at Columbia Generating Station.

Cigar Lake to produce 3000-4000 tons of Uranium in 2015

Cameco expects that the Cigar Lake mine will produce between 6 and 8 million pounds of uranium oxide (2308 to 3077 tU) this year. The mine produced 340,000 pounds U3O8 in 2014, its first year of operations.

Cameco said it was providing its 2015 forecast for Cigar Lake production in order to co-ordinate with the disclosure of information by Denison Mines Corp.

Mining commenced at Cigar Lake in 2014. The proven and probable ore reserves at Cigar Lake are extremely large and very high grade. A 480-metre-deep underground mine was developed in very poor ground conditions – the orebody is actually in the soft Athabasca sandstone. Hence it uses ground freezing and remotely-controlled high pressure water jets at this level to excavate the ore. Known resources are 130,000 tonnes U3O8 at about 17% average grade, and with other resources the mine is expected to have a life of at least 30 years. Production is expected to ramp up to 8,200 t/yr U3O8 (7,000 tU/yr) over four years from late 2014.

Uranium from seawater using metal organic frameworks

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are many times lighter than proteins, while still capable of achieving similar local structure. A protein that absorbs one uranium atom extracts less than one-tenth of one percent of its final mass. A MOF cage offers similar three-dimensional connectivity as the protein, but weighs around 100 times less and may have multiple binding sites. MOFs absorbed slightly more than 20 percent of their mass in uranium. The 2013 research won an award.

Enzymes and proteins can have an unusual affinity for specific molecules. The researchers suspected that they could use the three-dimensional structure of the metal-organic frameworks to produce a binding pocket similar to those of the enzymes or proteins. They could then create a more efficient, lightweight version of a molecule that mimics the structure and function of the protein or enzyme.

Fast and High Temperature Reactors

There is a high temperature reactor conference at the site of China HTR-PM (pebble bed reactor) from Oct 27-31. The HTR-PM is under construction.

* Single zone, pebble bed
* Super heat steam turbine (higher temperature for more efficiency)
* Like conventional turbine in fossil plant
* 1 turbine with 2 reactors
* More reactors are possible in future
* Modular concept ： Inherently passively safety
* Simplified safety system
* Standard design
* Duplicable for future

Roles of HTGR in China
* Supplementary for electricity generation to the big pressure water reactors PWR
- Suitable for process heat application
- Suitable for international market
- SMR is more flexible for developing countrie

How the Terrestrial Energy Integral Molten Salt Reactor is designed for fast approval, safety and lower costs

Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR (Integral Molten Salt Reactor) features a self-contained reactor Core-unit, (the “IMSR Core-unit”), within which all key components are permanently sealed for its operating lifetime. At the end of its 7-year design life, the IMSR Core-unit is shut down and left to cool. At the same time, power is switched to a new IMSR Core-unit, installed a short time before in an adjacent silo within the facility. Once sufficiently cool, the spent IMSR Core-unit is removed and prepared for long-term storage, a process similar to existing industry protocols for long-term nuclear waste containment. Owing to the extremely low costs of the IMSR Core-unit, it is commercially feasible to operate the IMSR facility in this manner. The sealed nature of the IMSR Core-unit has other benefits, such as permitting operational safety and simplicity.

I have covered how the costs for the IMSR reactor could eventually provide energy at less than 1 cent per kilowatt hour.

Russia makes progress to closed nuclear fuel cycle

Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC), based in Tomsk, said yesterday it has completed testing of the first full-scale TVS-4 fuel assembly containing nitride fuel. The assembly is intended for the BN-600 fast neutron reactor, which is the third unit of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant.

These are two new milestones in Russia's ‘Proryv’, or Breakthrough, project to enable a closed nuclear fuel cycle. The ultimate aim is to eliminate production of radioactive waste from nuclear power generation.

Terrestrial Energy has updated its molten salt reactor design

Terrestrial Energy is rethinking energy. In this video, members of the Terrestrial Energy team explain the benefits of IMSR technology, and explore the business itself.

Atomic Insights took a recent look at Terrestrial Energy The main technical description from Atomic Insights is below.

Terrestrial Energy believe there are fundamental choices that can alter the competitive balance. TEI’s choice has been to design a reactor that is more akin to a chemical reactor, with fuel that is a dissolved reactant in a solution (in this case, a salt solution) where the solution provides the transport mechanism for the heat produced in a strongly exothermic reaction. Of course, the reaction in this case is not a chemical reaction; it is a fission chain reaction.

The hot reactor fluid is circulated through multiple redundant heat exchangers sealed into the same container as the reactor. Solar salt circulates on the other side of the primary heat exchangers to transport the reactor heat to a second set of heat exchangers where water receives the heat and boils into high temperature, high pressure steam.

The salt circuits operate at high temperature but low pressure. Low pressure enables containers that are simpler, cheaper and quicker to produce compared to the containers performing similar functions in a water-cooled reactor.

Kazakhstan produces 5,650 tons of uranium in second quarter

Kazakhstan produced 5,650 tons of uranium in the second quarter of 2014.

Kazakhstan produced 5,590 tons of uranium in the second quarter of 2013.

Kazakhstan possesses 0.85 million tons of uranium reserves. It ranks second in the world in terms of the reserves, and first in terms of uranium mining

Carnival of Nuclear Energy 221

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 221 is up at ANS Nuclear Cafe

Atomic Insights - Why does conventional wisdom ignore hormesis?

Hormesis – the stimulation by some agent, such as radiation, of biological responses that are protective against damage done by that agent. It has the same etymological root as hormone, which is a molecule secreted by a gland to stimulate a response in some other part of the body.

In light of repeated assertions that all ionizing radiation is harmful no matter how high or how low the dose, the existence of a beneficial health effect may be surprising. But nearly a century of laboratory experimentation and epidemiological observation of both humans and animals supports the protective response region and contradicts the conventional wisdom. Why then does the concept that all ionizing radiation is harmful hang on with such tenacity, and how did it gain a foothold against all evidence to the contrary?

They rule out hormesis by fiat rather than by scientific evidence. They are forced to this maneuver since the evidence supports hormesis and contradicts LNT. The only reason that LNT is widely accepted is that virtually all political power stands behind LNT, so that it has long been the default position. This is not science.

Cameco still on track for over 8000 tons of uranium production in 2018

A temporary halt to jet boring at Cameco's Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan has forced the company to revise its ore production target date (from late 2014 into early 2015). Cameco's long-term annual production target of 18 million pounds (8,164 tonnes) U3O8 by 2018 will not be impacted.

Peak Resource and Anti-Nuclear Doomers Really Hate Uranium from Seawater Technology and Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors

Ugo Bardi and Michael Dittmar contributed to a new Club of Rome report which forecasts economic doom because of lack of future resources. Nextbigfuture has shown Ugo Bardi analysis to be flawed and bets on Uranium annual production and Nuclear power generation have been won by Nextbigfuture for 6 out of 9 bets versus Dittmar.

UGO calculations are off by many thousands of times and Dittmar has been wrong on his uranium predictions for years

The report forecasts an "unavoidable" production decline from existing uranium mines. This is the same type of claim that Dittmar has been making for years and being proven wrong in our bets. I have won every one of the uranium production bets..

Ugo Bardi first calculation is for "evaporating the ocean", which no one is proposing and he unsurprisingly finds that has very poor energy return.

Ugo claims we need to process at least 2 × 10^13 tons of water per year to produce enough uranium for the current park of nuclear reactors in the world. To process this amount of water, we must rely on oceanic currents to move water through the membranes. In marine science, current strength is sometimes measured in “Sverdrups”, a unit that corresponds to one million tons of water per second, or 3 × 10^13 tons of water per year. Ugo looks at the Strait of Gibraltar which carries a current of about 1 Sverdrup.

Japan has proposed various scaling up plans for uranium from seawater They look at the Black Current (42 Sverdrup, 42 times stronger than the current Ugo looked at) in the ocean off of Japan and how much materials it is moving. They would put uranium extraction materials in its path and collect uranium and other resources as they are moved past the materials that would trap the resources.

The Black Current off Japan carries approximately 5.2 million tons of Uranium each year. This amount is equivalent to the currently estimated land based uranium reserves. The World uses about 70,000 tons of uranium per year. If 1.4 percent of what flows along Japan can be recovered, the world demand for uranium can be supplied even with existing inefficient reactors.

The material sits in the ocean like fishnet for 1-3 months and then it is pulled up and acid washed to remove the uranium. A large platform like an oil drilling platform can be used to process the uranium absorping nets out in the ocean.

Kuroshio which has 42 Sverdrups.

The Agulhas Current is the Western Boundary Current of the southwest Indian Ocean. It flows down the east coast of Africa from 27°S to 40°S. It is narrow, swift and strong. It is even suggested that the Agulhas is the largest western boundary current in the world ocean, as comparable western boundary currents transport less, ranging from the Brazil Current, 16.2 Sverdrups), to the Kuroshio, 42 Sverdrups

The sources of the Agulhas Current are the East Madagascar Current (25 Sverdrups), the Mozambique Current (5 Sverdrups) and a reticulated part of the Agulhas Current itself (35 Sverdrups). The net transport of the Agulhas Current is estimated as 100 Sv.

* Ugo considers a process where membranes for uranium extraction are carried at sea, submerged for a while, raised, brought back to land for processing, and then the cycle is repeated.

* Ugo assumes recovering one kilogram of uranium, therefore, would require processing at least 3 tons of membranes per year. However the technology has been field tested at 3.3 kilograms of uranium per one ton of material so ten times better than Ugo estimates. There is also newer material which could achieve 12- 200 kilograms of uranium per ton of absorbent material.

* Ugo calculates using the ratio of 5 kWh/kg for energy expenditure in fishing, and assuming the yield and the conditions reported by Seko , we can calculate a total energy expenditure of about 1000 TWh/year for processing the membranes to give sufficient amounts to fuel the present needs of the nuclear industry. This is close to the total energy that could be produced by the extracted uranium, ca. 2600 TWh/year. An energy gain (EROEI) of 2.6 is larger than unity, but it is too low for the process to be of practical interest.

In 2000, the world’s fishing fleets were responsible for about 1.2% of total global fuel consumption, corresponding to 0.67 liters of fuel per Kg of live fish and shellfish landed. In 2008, the EU fleet consumed 3.7 billion liters of fuel, representing 25% of the value of landings.

An SEU fueled CANDU can produce 11.7MWd (megawatt-days) using 1 kg of natural uranium. (Enrich to 1.2% with 0.1% tails enrichment in a centrifuge/SILEX plant).
11.7MWd is equivalent to 280MWh which is the thermal energy of 24 tonnes of oil - that is 177 barrels of oil.

Even if we are pessimistic and say that oil is equal to electricity rather than steam heating (admittedly relatively low temperature steam produced by reactors) that is still 62 barrels of oil in electricity.

62 barrels (7390 liters) of oil is a lot more energy than 0.67 liters of oil with plenty left over for acid washing and processing the polymer or other absorbent material.

Molten Salt reactors can use nuclear fuel 30-60 times more efficiently than current reactors.

China could complete 9 nuclear reactors in the next 7 months and then start construction on 30 reactors over the next 18 months

China currently has 21 operational nuclear reactors.

By the end of 2014, the number of reactors in the country is expected reach 30, bringing the total nuclear capacity to around 27 GWe. In 2015, capacity should reach 36 GWe, as a further eight reactors are brought online. 18 units are expected to start up within the next two years, taking nuclear capacity close to the projected 40 GWe figure.

Mining has begun at the Husab Uranium mine in Namibia and it will reach 5770 tonnes of uranium per year in 2017

The official start of mining operations at the Husab project in Namibia has begun. Husab becomes the fourth uranium mine in operation in Namibia, the others being Rössing, Langer Heinrich and Trekkopje. China National Nuclear Corporation holds a 25% stake in Paladin's Langer Heinrich mine, entitling it to a corresponding share of the project's output.

The first blasting of rock took place earlier this year. Construction of the mine is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015, with production then planned to ramp up to 5770 tonnes of uranium per year by 2017.

The operation will be an open pit mine with an acid leach process plant on site. The Husab ore-body is claimed to be the third largest uranium-only deposit in the world. With measured and indicated reserves of about 140,000 tonnes U, Husab is expected to operate for at least 20 years. The mine will comprise of two pits: the Zone 1 pit will be some 3km long, 1km wide and 412m deep; the Zone 2 pit will be about 2km long, 1.3 km wide and 377m deep.