Bill Gates with DOE into Mini Molten Salt Reactors

[source]

The Energy Department is participating in major push with electric utility Southern and a company founded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to develop small nuclear power reactors that are less expensive and more efficient than their much larger cousins.

“Molten salt reactors are getting a reboot,” the Energy Department tweeted late Wednesday, offering a schematic of a battery-like power plant module that “could power America’s energy.”

Investment volume: 20 + 28 million $.
Prototype expected by 2030.

[washingtonexaminer.com] – Energy Department teams up with Bill Gates to move mini-nuclear plants to market
[whatisnuclear.com] – Molten Salt Reactors

Leif Holmnid & Ultra Dense Fusion

Fusion energy may soon be used in small-scale power stations. This means producing environmentally friendly heating and electricity at a low cost from fuel found in water. Both heating generators and generators for electricity could be developed within a few years, according to research that has primarily been conducted at the University of Gothenburg… A collaboration between researchers at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Iceland has been to study a new type of nuclear fusion process. This produces almost no neutrons but instead fast, heavy electrons (muons), since it is based on nuclear reactions in ultra-dense heavy hydrogen (deuterium)… The new fusion process can take place in relatively small laser-fired fusion reactors fuelled by heavy hydrogen (deuterium). It has already been shown to produce more energy than that needed to start it… Research shows that far smaller and simpler fusion reactors can be built. The next step is to create a generator that produces instant electrical energy.

[phys.org] – Small-scale nuclear fusion may be a new energy source
[arxiv.org] – Leif Holmnid on ultra dense deuterium
[wikipedia.org] – Rydberg matter
[chem.gu.se] – Leif Holmlid Professor emeritus
[asme.org] – Small Reactor with Big Potential
[atom-ecology.russgeorge.net] – Magnificent magnum opus on ultra dense fusion
[sciencedaily.com] – Ultra-dense Deuterium May Be Nuclear Fuel Of The Future
[journals.plos.org] – Mesons from Laser-Induced Processes in Ultra-Dense Hydrogen

Cold Fusion – Not Entirely Dead

Cold fusion or LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or “roomtemperature nuclear fusion”) is still attracting some interest from scientists. The story of cold fusion began spectacularly with the Fleischmann and Pons episode in 1989, but was discredited soon after.

[wikipedia.org] – Cold fusion

Thorium Future Promotion

Nuclear energy has a terrible image problem world-wide, certainly after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, with perhaps more to come. Scientists have always pointed out that there is an alternative nuclear possibility, parallel to uranium and plutonium: thorium, with less or absent negative consequences.

[futurism.com] – Tech Developed During the Cold War Could Give Us Clean Power for Millions of Years

Belgium’s Nuclear Power Plants Falling Apart

[source] The Belgians conveniently located one of their two nuclear power stations in Doel at the border with the Netherlands. If something goes wrong, large parts of the Netherlands will become uninhabitable, but not Belgium.

The German government is preparing “critical questions” to the Belgian authorities on operational safety at the nation’s two active nuclear power plants, following a number of recent successive incidents at nuclear facilities.
After incidents at both Belgian nuclear power plants, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks has again put her concerns point-blank, demanding whether security is guaranteed at the Belgian NPPs, proposing Brussels to get rid of the nuclear energy altogether. The minister said, though, that the final decision remains with the Belgian people…

“As long as these reactors that are falling to bits remain online nuclear incidents cannot be ruled out,” North Rhine-Westphalia’s regional minister Johannes Remmel was quoted as saying by the Belgium news outlet Flanders News on Tuesday. After “all these incidents,” it is strange that Belgium’s nuclear authorities are not considering taking all the country’s nuclear reactors offline, Remmel also said.

This should be the Dutch government saying this, before the Germans.

Reaction of the Dutch government: next year we’ll take in 250,000 refugees.

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (red) projected over Israel, north of their nuclear facility Dimona. That’s more than 150 km. If Doel goes down, cities like The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht would become uninhabitable. And since Rotterdam is the gateway to Europe, the consequences would exceed a much larger area than the Netherlands alone. That maybe the reason why the Germans sound the alarm bell.

And since with prevailing winds in the Netherlands from the South-West, this is news directly involving yours faithfully.

[rt.com] – Belgium’s nuclear power plants ‘falling to bits’ – German officials

Cold Fusion 2.0

In 1989 two of the world’s leading electrochemists, the Brit Fleischmann and American Frenchman Pons, shocked the world with their announcement that they had found a way to initiate a exogenous nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature. After initial world wide excitement, things calmed down. Cold fusion research however never really stopped and now an Italian inventor and entrepreneur Andrea Rossi claims to have developed a cold fusion or Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) thermal power source. 1-megawatt cold fusion power plant now available, that is on pre-order – yours for just $1.5 million.

[extremetech.com] – 1-megawatt cold fusion power plant now available – yours for just $1.5 million
[forbes.com] Finally! Independent Testing Of Rossi’s E-Cat Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All
[forbes.com] – Psstt! Want An E-Cat LENR Generator? For Free?
[wikipedia.org] – Cold fusion

Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough?

Youtube text: Breakthrough technology: Charles Chase and his team at Lockheed have developed a high beta configuration, which allows a compact reactor design and speedier development timeline (5 years instead of 30).

Lockhead Martin’s Skunk Works is famous for developing advanced technologies. Now Skunk Works Program Manager Charles Chase has outlined their plan for creating a 100 MW Fusion prototype by 2017.

[engineering.com]

China Explores Thorium Route

[source]
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports about developments in China that point at an increased interest the Chinese haven taken in thorium as a means to generate energy. With a startup budget of $350m and 140 PhD scientists to begin with, China is looking for a new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima. China is leading the pack but Norway and Japan are working on thorium reactors as well. The Americans had projects in the past but shelved these and gave preference to uranium, as they needed the plutonium byproduct to build nuclear bombs. China will probably work with molten salt as a transport medium for heat. A team hopes to realize a 2 MW prototype around 2020 and commercial scale reactors later. Estimated thorium reserves should cover China’s energy needs for 20,000 years. Thorium is not without problems, but the waste is far less toxic. Thorium reactors can even be used to destroy all the radioactive waste that has been piling up from conventional uranium reactors. Plants could be build below the ground, at small sizes. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is convinced.

[telegraph.co.uk]

Japanese Ambassador About Fukushima

The ambassador Kohei Murata paints a bleak picture of the situation in Fukushima.

Peak Nuke Now

According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, the highest year of nuclear electric production was 2006.

[theoildrum.com]

Production and Consumption Data

This post is going to be used to collect sources of production and consumption data of primary energy sources. This blogpost will be updated regularly and later probably given a link in the sidebar.

Rembrandt Koppelaar on World Energy Consumption 1830-2010, see graph above.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released full-year 2007-2011 world oil production data per country.

[indexmundi.com] – “Home of the Internet’s most complete country profiles. This site contains detailed country statistics, charts, and maps compiled from multiple sources.”

Gail Tverberg’s blog. Analysis of 2011 EIA oil supply data. Data about top 5 crude oil producers in 2011 (Russia, Saudi-Arabia, USA, China, Iran):
[ourfiniteworld.com]

[enipedia.tudelft.nl] GasOverview

[enipedia.tudelft.nl] The world’s power plants

[enipedia.tudelft.nl] Electricity production per country from nuclear

[enipedia.tudelft.nl] Dutch power generation

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor Advocacy

Fast paced video from 2011, lasting 2 hours, with Kirk Sorenson trying to talk us into a thorium energy future. We have no opinion about thorium. Not yet.

[Wikipedia – Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment]
[Wikipedia – Thorium Fuel Cycle]
[Twitter – Kirk Sorenson]
[Amazon – SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future]

ITER Cadarache

[source]
Optimistic noises from the world of fusion reactors and ITER project in particular. ITER is scheduled to be operational in 2019, followed by commercialisation 20 years thereafter.

“Solar energy will become competitive in 10 years and the world is set to enter the solar/hydrogen fusion era in 20 years“, renowned theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku has told Gulf Times.
“The falling cost of solar, hydrogen, renewable, wind power, geothermal power and the rising cost of fossil fuels will cross within 10 years, causing market forces to kick in and push solar and then in 20 years, fusion power becomes a possibility,” he predicted.

[Gulf Times]

The Thorium Solution

Gerald Celente advises Iran on how to avoid catastrophe: use thorium rather than uranium.
[LewRockwell]

Rembrandt Koppelaar on World Energy Consumption 1830-2010

Today’s post goes into the global consumption of energy and provides a dataset in Excel for researchers on global primary energy consumption from 1830 to 2010. In other words, the energy contained in fossil fuels, uranium, and biomass in their raw form before processing into electricity, heat, or liquid fuel, and direct electricity production from hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal.

Uranium in short supply soon

[source]
A nuclear expert gives uranium supply three more years – at most – before it seriously falls behind demand from the nuclear power industry.
Bad news for France and Belgium whose electrical power industries depend largely on nuclear fuel.
Related info here.
[Mineweb.co.za]

Realtime Data

This post is going to be used to collect sources of real-time online data of interest to this blog. This blogpost will be updated regularly.

Finance
– Goldprice in euro
– Exchange rates (dollar-euro default)

Energy
– Real-time oilprices
– eex (European Energy Exchange, trading in electric energy, natural gas, CO2 emission allowances and coal)
– Prices for Dutch electricity