Life Without Exxon

04/30/2007

Paul Munnis


Hydrogen powered vehicles seem problematic because the model that we use for managing the hydrogen production is based upon a gasoline model. In this model, the hydrogen is manufactured in a manufacturing facility then trucked to a distribution site, then its stored, and then pumped on demand -- just as gasoline is managed. Therefore the costs of hydrogen are high because of high overhead elements.

There are several alternative models to consider however and we will just touch on a couple of them here.

One is distributed manufacturing where the fuel depot creates its own product and dispenses it on demand There are two approaches to this, one is continuous production where the manufacturing takes place continuously and the overage is stored for peak demand use. The other is just in time manufacturing where the product is created on the spot and during the fill-cycle.

Other variants in distributed manufacturing of hydrogen have to do with the power source for separating the atoms of hydrogen. One is solar power, lending itself to the continuous production model, the other is the use of electricity where the energy comes from nuclear power stations found in small local communities all across our continent and representing a resurgence of nuclear power investment at the community level and on a broad basis.

Before you blow off the small community nuclear power source idea you would do well to remember that the U.S. Navy now has dozens of nuclear powered ships at sea that are running just fine. Some are surface ships and some are submarines. The Navy knows how to create reactors that can replace the carbon smoke emitters in your home town that are polluting our air. Also, get rid of the sterotype of a big grey factory spewing steam like we see in Foley, MN. These ship-reactors fit in a small space and are clean, quiet and safe.

What has been elusive is the disposition of spent fuel rods. If a good solution could be found then not only could hydrogen be generated using electric power to break the bonding but also electric cars would become feasible. In fact cheap locally available and locally produced power would change the economy of America in ways both big and small ranging from transportation to building heating solutions. The problem is what to do with spent fuel rods.

Three options are available for cooled spent fuel rods; they can remain at the sites from which they have been removed from service, be moved to a more permanent site for storage or they can be reprocessed to remove the uranium and plutonium. In either case, these fuel rods must cool in storage ponds near the reactor for several months in order to reduce their short-lived radioactivity and to allow them to dissipate their initial high thermal energy.

Reprocessing involves chopping up the fuel rods and dissolving the pieces. The plutonium and uranium are then removed and chemically separated. The byproducts of reprocessing, transuranic elements and fission products can be encapsulated in glass and disposed as waste. Gaseous diffusion or other processes can be used to enrich the uranium. The plutonium can be mixed with enriched uranium to make mixed oxide (MOX) reactor fuel. Purified plutonium can also be used for nuclear weapons. Great Britain and France have built large reprocessing plants to produce MOX fuel. They reprocess spent fuel not only from reactors in their respective countries, but also from reactors in other nations.

At one time, the United States planned to use a plutonium-uranium extraction (PUREX) process to for this separation.

But no spent fuel from nuclear power plants has been reprocessed in the US. In 1977 President Carter established national policy that prohibited reprocessing based on the premise that limiting plutonium would limit the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Although President Reagan reversed this policy, reprocessing has never been initiated in the US.

But in science, what can be done, will be done. Local policy seldom deters the ambitions of the entire environment.

The French have reprocessed power plant spent fuel rods at the COGEMA LaHague site since 1966. The French see reprocessing as ecologically sound, economical and profitable and as demonstrating scientific leadership on a world stage.

Quite naturally, the rise of organized terrorism since about 1990, culminating in the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York has focused attention on all aspects of nuclear material management. As an example, the LaHague site was surrounded for a time by antiaircraft missiles for a time after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In the US spent rods are currently stored at locations near the approximately 70 plants throughout the country. US fuel rod disposal planning anticipates opening a facility at Yucca Mountain, NV by 2012 for permanent burial of spent rods.

So the problem is not hydrogen powered vehicles - we have them. The problem is not atomic power plants - we know how to build them for local use. The problem is not even what to do about spent fuel rods - we know how to reprocess and store them. The real problems are ones of political will and investment capital availability. When the political will is there then the investment capital will soon followso the real problem is about political willpower.

If the nuclear reactors for local community use were scaled and massed produced, they could start to be installed rapidly using a greatest benefit method of allocation. That would mean that large cities would get them first, then the middle-size cities, then small cities, then regional electric co-ops. If they were given to municipalities to operate then they would generate revenue thus offsetting taxes and changing the model for taxation away from property taxes and towards consumption taxes potentially makeing bth Democrats and Republicans somewhat happy.

Now there is some reason to be optimistic here for the problem in the past has had a lot to do with GOP demands for privatization of federal investment. But we note that when Herbert Hoover messed up the US economy as bad as he did back in the 1920’s the influence of the GOP waned for forty years. All signs are that G.W. Bush has emulated Herbert Hoovers’ debacle and that the GOP is headed for the dumpster. If that happens then all that is lacking is a champion at the Congressional level to make distributed nuclear electric available on a massive scale.

We can become energy independent but the political will to do it must be present.