The Super-Hot Nuclear Reactor–and the Hydrogen Cars that Love It

It’s a good thing we learned young not to touch the stove:

This nuclear reactor’[s] the new approach is a "super-hot" type of nuclear reactor cooled by helium gas, not water, and can reach 2000 degrees. That's about three times hotter than existing reactors.

Something went sic in this Fox News Oregon story. It’s about a new approach to nuclear energy that will be demonstrated at Oregon State University.

Construction began today on the $4.8 million facility meant to test a new nuclear energy technology that could be safer, more efficient and produce less waste than existing approaches.

Researchers say it is a viable and versatile energy concept for the future.

[…]

Researchers say it could produce electricity, hydrogen to power automobiles, steam to heat a building complex, or provide a cheaper way to desalinate seawater.

I admit that “hydrogen to power automobiles,” puzzled me. Are there cars that do that now?

If they can make the cars, we could use this technology to make the hydrogen," said Brian Woods, an associate professor of nuclear engineering and director of this project. "One of the biggest attractions of the high-temperature reactors is their versatility. They could be used in so many ways.”

Oh, okay, so we may say this goal is aspirational. Of course, we could just skip a step and have cars outfitted with a flux capacitor. Those I think can break the time barrier, useful when you’re late to work.

Snark aside, hydrogen cars are on their way. Here’s a story about a hydrogen powered Toyota due in 2015.

Executives from Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Volkswagen see fuel-cell vehicles as being further out, and most have not said when they'll have vehicles on the market.

In other words, around 2020. The future (if this works out) may be closer than it appears in the rear view mirror.

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Let’s look at the source of the reactor project, Oregon State University. It certainly doesn’t undersell it:

Like any existing nuclear reactor, the high-temperature nuclear reactors could produce electricity – about 35-50 percent more efficiently than existing approaches. But they also create about half as much radioactive waste, by the nature of their design cannot melt down, and like all nuclear technologies produce no greenhouse gas emissions.

They could be cost-effectively built as small modular reactors, and produce super-heated steam that works well for powering large chemical companies or building complexes. As demand grows for fresh water in arid regions, they could offer a more cost-effective way to desalinate sea water.

And there’s more about the hydrogen cars:

And a promising potential is to produce hydrogen that could power the automobiles of the future, using efficient hydrogen fuel cells that leave only electricity and water as their byproducts. There are still obstacles to overcome in hydrogen transportation and storage, but a high-temperature nuclear reactor could directly split water, or H20, into hydrogen and oxygen, without emitting greenhouse gases.

The university seems less sure about them than Toyota and the other automakers.

The story says that the university expects this reactor approach could take hold commercially by the middle of the century, but that depends on it being able to scale successfully and for all the theoretical presumptions to work practically – and all that is before you hit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

It certainly could happen – we’re not gainsaying this project – but there will be a lot of milestones on the way to 2050. Well worth keeping an eye on, though. This is where the future of nuclear energy originates.

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Nuclear Energy - Justified

A letter from Martha Gordon of Monmouth Oregon to the Statesman-Journal of Salem (Ore.), re-rendered as a poem:

As one survivor
of the Dust Bowl who
experienced the failure of one mistaken idea,
I am vitally afraid
of earth-shaking experiments.

Our experience with nukes,
you would think,
would rival that of
a child learning about fire
by getting burned.

Our wind power,
while not so fruitful
in this water-lush year,
is a “money in the bank” recourse
for the dry years predicted to come.

How can we justify more nukes
on our beautiful Columbia?

I was struck by Ms. Gordon’s (who must be well into her eighties if she remembers the dust bowl) artful arrangement of words in making her lyrical and somewhat mysterious statement about the vagaries of energy.

So it’s not pro-nuclear – or is it?  Or is that even the point? Wind, nuclear, natural gas – she alludes to their power generating potential and, like the first person confronted with fire, finds them fearful, potentially hurtful or incomprehensible (“not so fruitful”). Her letter seems less an anti-nuclear, pro-wind piece than a warning against accepting the promethean gift of energy hastily.

And she’s right in the particular case: if there are to be more nukes on the Columbia, they must be justified. I think it could be done – and it might be worth doing, worth justifying, though I haven’t heard of plans for nuclear build in Oregon (the Trojan plant there closed awhile ago). Regardless, Ms. Gordon’s words are wise and bracingly counterintuitive.

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NuScale Back in Action with Unexpected Support

The other day, we mentioned Babcock & Wilcox’s small reactor project and its indirect use in the Gubernatorial race in Indiana. Now, another vendor of small reactors, NuScale, has attracted some press attention from Reuters. It’s especially nice to see that NuScale has overcome its financial difficulties.

NuScale staff half-jokingly refer to the first half of 2011 as the "Great Pause," when NuScale could not pay its bills and dozens among its 100 employees at the time had to be let go. It now employs 260 people, and hopes to add another 70 by year-end.

And how did it do this, at least in part?

But NuScale is trumpeting the safety aspects of its new technology, and has found helpful supporters including U.S. engineering giant Fluor Corp, which bought a majority stake in the 5-year-old company last October.

Fluor is no stranger to the nuclear energy business. Start here for more on its activities. Fluor has been around for much of the nuclear age.

Like Indiana, Oregon, where NuScale is located, has no nuclear energy facilities. It closed its one plant, called Trojan, in 1992. But, as with Pence in the Hoosier state, NuScale has found some support from the Beavers.

Yet the NuScale design has managed to win over Oregon's national representatives, who tend to be against nuclear power. Senator Jeff Merkley, a self-described "proud progressive," surprised [NuScale Chief Executive Paul] Lorenzini by throwing his support behind SMRs.

The story talks a bit about other subjects – and is interesting in general – but the key point is that NuScale has found a path forward. There are a lot of hurdles yet to clear in the small reactor arena and some of the numerous competitors will probably fail as the marketplace develops. But let’s at least have the marketplace develop some more before/if the winnowing starts.

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If friends knew that I don’t like mushrooms, they might tease me by telling me they love them.

Then I would say, “Mushrooms wouldn’t exist without government help. No one would eat them.”

“But did you see the study that mushrooms are a great source of potassium?”

“More propaganda from the mushroom brigade,” says I. “Mushrooms are just dolled-up toadstools.”

And on and on.

So, in the middle of his story on NuScale, writer Braden Reddall felt the need to get the other side.

"SMRs are just the next chapter in a nuclear industry that can't stand up on its own," said Don Hancock, director for nuclear waste safety at the Southwest Research and Information Center. "So it always has to be funded by the government."

It can’t be fun having reporters calling on you to play the tarantula on the valentine all the time. I wonder if his friends tell him how much they’d like more nuclear energy facilities in the area.

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