This post debunks claims that grid-scale nuclear fusion energy will be commercialized in the next decade, and argues that fusion offers few benefits beyond those already offered by advanced fission.
I agree with everything you have written about fusion. Several physicists have pointed these things out in the near past. ITER is a great project for basic natural science research, it is however the worst possible prospect for our energy problems in the next 50 years or so.
Regarding fission. You dont have to go to the Thorium cycle. Well, its not practical at the moment. Just burning the leftover Uranium from the last 80 years will provide enough energy for 300 or so years.
Russia announced in September 2022 that they completed the first rounds of testing at their new BN1200 reactor, the newest addition to the BN series being developed since 1970. What can this reactor do? Essentially it is capable of breeding 40% more fissile material than it uses in a single reload round (typically 2-5 years with conventional reactors).
To put this into perspective, let`s take a look at what goes into a commercial nuclear reactor and what goes out. Typically, pressurized water reactors require 5% of fissile material (Pu-239 or U-235) and 95% of U-238 in their fuel pellets. When changing the fuel rods, the output typically looks something like this:
Charge Discharge
Uranium 100% 93.4%
Enrichment 4.20% 0.71%
Plutonium 0.00% 1.27%
Minor Actinides 0.00% 0.14%
Fission products 0.00% 5.15%
So typically, 93,4% of the nuclear waste coming out of a reactor is uranium, specifically U-238, the isotope of uranium that has not been burnt by the reactor. The rest is either plutonium, which is fissile, or fission products, like Iodine or Strontium isotopes that typically have a half-life of a few dozen years or so and split with much less energy than Uranium or Plutonium. Thus, with the exception of actinides, the overwhelming majority of nuclear waste is leftover uranium-238 that the reactor cannot burn. Given a reactor design that can burn the leftover U-238 by converting into fissile Pu-239, the problem of the radioactive waste is reduced to actinides (which can also be burnt in specialized reactors) and the daughter elements, which need to be contained for about 10 times their half-lives, so 300-600 years or so. The problem of nuclear waste will be reduced from a couple of billions of years problem to a few hundred years problem and with energy levels about 1 million to 2 million times less than with leftover U238.
The BN-1200 (and even its predecessor, the BN-800) can breed more plutonium than it needs to function (in case of the BN-1200 this can be up to 40% more), thus it can take used pellets, remix them with plutonium and create new rods of fuel from them as it goes. This means, that Rosatom will be able to buy nuclear waste and turn it into energy in the future. Not only does this mean they will be paid TWICE (once for ridding their customers of the most dangerous waste in world history, and once for reselling the fuel rods or directly selling the electricity), but also that they will be able to directly produce energy out of radioactive waste.
How much energy? Well, given the fact that we have mined about 3,5 million tons of uranium since the 1940s and that about 0,7% of this is fissile, and that U-238 when burnt in fast breeders can produce 86 million Megajoules per kg, we are talking in the range of 8,6x10^7x3,5x10^9 Megajoules, so 3x10^17 megajoules or 3x10^23 joules. Human energy consumption globally is roughly 6x10^20 Joules per year. So, Russia is just about to invent a way to provide 500 years worth of energy for the entirety of humanity while solving 97% (99,9999% if they also burn actinides) of the nuclear waste problem.
The only question is, why Germany has wasted some 500 billion euros on wind and solar while solving nothing, while Rosatom managed to do all of this listed above out of a fraction of this money. Especially considering how many young talented physics phds work in ITER and CERN in Europe, both of which are great basic research undertakings but serve no practical purpose for the time being to anything. I couldnt think of anything more "green" than ridding the world of 3,5 million tonnes of radioactive waste while solving our energy needs for 300 years (given current consumption, which will go up of course). Yet, we are wasting our resources on useless stuff like solar, wind and fusion.
Copenhagen's reactors are in the form factor of a standard 40' shipping container, but it's the 'hi-cube' variant which is about 0.5m taller than a regular container.
In terms of engineering, the shipboard side isn't difficult. Ships driven by steam turbines have been commonplace for 150+ years. Once you have an MSR producing heat energy, it's just a matter of connecting the molten salt loop to a steam generator and other off-the-shelf shipbuilding components.
The Copenhagen design is 100MW of thermal energy. That only produces about 40MW of electricity in a powerplant, but on a ship you would use the heat to turn a turbine that directly drives the propeller shafts, which is more efficient.
I would be shocked if China is NOT already working very hard on an Thorium-fueled molten salt SMR design that will power everything from container ships to military ships to remote mining villages. The only sensible thing is to choose a size that meets a lot of different application needs, and then use more than one for larger applications. I would guess they are aiming in the 50-200MW(t) range, but that's just a guess.
I think they intentionally made the announcement early, for the purpose of gauging the international reaction to the concept of nuclear-powered merchant ships. There is no precedent for this, and it opens up a can of worms in international maritime law. So I think their motive for announcing it early was to see how much pushback they would get.
Thanks for the reply. Could you please speak to what your estimate of the feasibility, engineering or economic gap(s) are that remain, and how long till first sea trials?
The engineering is not monumental, but it's very difficult to gauge how far along they already are because they don't go public until they have something finished (except in the case of this containership announcement).
China has already build an "experiemental" Thorium MSR in the Gobi desert which was approved for start-up, but then they went silent and never announced whether it was actually started. Did they run into difficulty and not start it up, or did it go so well that they decided to make it a major state secret and rush plans to develop small modular commercial Thorium MSRs? We don't know...
For sake of comparison, Copenhagen Atomics is developing a small modular Thorium MSR that would be very well suited to powering a containership at 100MW(t) design output capacity. They have 1/1000th of China's money and engineering resources, and after working on their prototype for about 3 years now they're making good progress and expect to ship their first commercial reactors in 2028.
So off the top of my head, I'd say Copenhagen will take 10 full years from initial design to delivering their first commercial reactors. China could easily cut that time in half by throwing money at the problem, so figure if they had good results starting their experimental Thorium MSR in late 2022 then decided to fast-track this, they should be able to start delivering commercial SMRs based on a Thorium MSR design by 2026 or 2027-ish.
But obviously, I'm GUESSING here. For all we know, China may only be CONSIDERING the idea of doing this, and they might have made the nuclear containership announcement as a "trial baloon" to see how the market would react before deciding WHETHER to commercialize SMRs based on Thorium MSR.
I'd definitely lean toward the former scenario. China is way ahead of everyone else on advanced nuclear, and the RIGHT thing for them to do is beat Copenhagen to market with a Thorium SRM that powers not just containerships but a whole bunch of other things as well. I'd be surprised if they're not hard at work on that.
Very much so! Thanks very much for the considered response.
To fully connect the two, to my very limited understanding of nuclear, mechanical and naval engineering, is incredibly difficult to transplant into the required mobile form of propulsion for any naval vessel.
On a related tangent, how small of a physical footprint can Copenhagen Atomics safely and economically get down towards, with what commensurate output?
I agree with everything you have written about fusion. Several physicists have pointed these things out in the near past. ITER is a great project for basic natural science research, it is however the worst possible prospect for our energy problems in the next 50 years or so.
Regarding fission. You dont have to go to the Thorium cycle. Well, its not practical at the moment. Just burning the leftover Uranium from the last 80 years will provide enough energy for 300 or so years.
Russia announced in September 2022 that they completed the first rounds of testing at their new BN1200 reactor, the newest addition to the BN series being developed since 1970. What can this reactor do? Essentially it is capable of breeding 40% more fissile material than it uses in a single reload round (typically 2-5 years with conventional reactors).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
To put this into perspective, let`s take a look at what goes into a commercial nuclear reactor and what goes out. Typically, pressurized water reactors require 5% of fissile material (Pu-239 or U-235) and 95% of U-238 in their fuel pellets. When changing the fuel rods, the output typically looks something like this:
Charge Discharge
Uranium 100% 93.4%
Enrichment 4.20% 0.71%
Plutonium 0.00% 1.27%
Minor Actinides 0.00% 0.14%
Fission products 0.00% 5.15%
So typically, 93,4% of the nuclear waste coming out of a reactor is uranium, specifically U-238, the isotope of uranium that has not been burnt by the reactor. The rest is either plutonium, which is fissile, or fission products, like Iodine or Strontium isotopes that typically have a half-life of a few dozen years or so and split with much less energy than Uranium or Plutonium. Thus, with the exception of actinides, the overwhelming majority of nuclear waste is leftover uranium-238 that the reactor cannot burn. Given a reactor design that can burn the leftover U-238 by converting into fissile Pu-239, the problem of the radioactive waste is reduced to actinides (which can also be burnt in specialized reactors) and the daughter elements, which need to be contained for about 10 times their half-lives, so 300-600 years or so. The problem of nuclear waste will be reduced from a couple of billions of years problem to a few hundred years problem and with energy levels about 1 million to 2 million times less than with leftover U238.
The BN-1200 (and even its predecessor, the BN-800) can breed more plutonium than it needs to function (in case of the BN-1200 this can be up to 40% more), thus it can take used pellets, remix them with plutonium and create new rods of fuel from them as it goes. This means, that Rosatom will be able to buy nuclear waste and turn it into energy in the future. Not only does this mean they will be paid TWICE (once for ridding their customers of the most dangerous waste in world history, and once for reselling the fuel rods or directly selling the electricity), but also that they will be able to directly produce energy out of radioactive waste.
How much energy? Well, given the fact that we have mined about 3,5 million tons of uranium since the 1940s and that about 0,7% of this is fissile, and that U-238 when burnt in fast breeders can produce 86 million Megajoules per kg, we are talking in the range of 8,6x10^7x3,5x10^9 Megajoules, so 3x10^17 megajoules or 3x10^23 joules. Human energy consumption globally is roughly 6x10^20 Joules per year. So, Russia is just about to invent a way to provide 500 years worth of energy for the entirety of humanity while solving 97% (99,9999% if they also burn actinides) of the nuclear waste problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table
The only question is, why Germany has wasted some 500 billion euros on wind and solar while solving nothing, while Rosatom managed to do all of this listed above out of a fraction of this money. Especially considering how many young talented physics phds work in ITER and CERN in Europe, both of which are great basic research undertakings but serve no practical purpose for the time being to anything. I couldnt think of anything more "green" than ridding the world of 3,5 million tonnes of radioactive waste while solving our energy needs for 300 years (given current consumption, which will go up of course). Yet, we are wasting our resources on useless stuff like solar, wind and fusion.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, and I agree. I've been saying the same things as you say here, but they mostly fall on deaf ears.
Copenhagen's reactors are in the form factor of a standard 40' shipping container, but it's the 'hi-cube' variant which is about 0.5m taller than a regular container.
In terms of engineering, the shipboard side isn't difficult. Ships driven by steam turbines have been commonplace for 150+ years. Once you have an MSR producing heat energy, it's just a matter of connecting the molten salt loop to a steam generator and other off-the-shelf shipbuilding components.
The Copenhagen design is 100MW of thermal energy. That only produces about 40MW of electricity in a powerplant, but on a ship you would use the heat to turn a turbine that directly drives the propeller shafts, which is more efficient.
I would be shocked if China is NOT already working very hard on an Thorium-fueled molten salt SMR design that will power everything from container ships to military ships to remote mining villages. The only sensible thing is to choose a size that meets a lot of different application needs, and then use more than one for larger applications. I would guess they are aiming in the 50-200MW(t) range, but that's just a guess.
How soon do you think we see the aforementioned Chinese cargo ship propelled by a Thorium MSR?
I think they intentionally made the announcement early, for the purpose of gauging the international reaction to the concept of nuclear-powered merchant ships. There is no precedent for this, and it opens up a can of worms in international maritime law. So I think their motive for announcing it early was to see how much pushback they would get.
Thanks for the reply. Could you please speak to what your estimate of the feasibility, engineering or economic gap(s) are that remain, and how long till first sea trials?
The engineering is not monumental, but it's very difficult to gauge how far along they already are because they don't go public until they have something finished (except in the case of this containership announcement).
China has already build an "experiemental" Thorium MSR in the Gobi desert which was approved for start-up, but then they went silent and never announced whether it was actually started. Did they run into difficulty and not start it up, or did it go so well that they decided to make it a major state secret and rush plans to develop small modular commercial Thorium MSRs? We don't know...
For sake of comparison, Copenhagen Atomics is developing a small modular Thorium MSR that would be very well suited to powering a containership at 100MW(t) design output capacity. They have 1/1000th of China's money and engineering resources, and after working on their prototype for about 3 years now they're making good progress and expect to ship their first commercial reactors in 2028.
So off the top of my head, I'd say Copenhagen will take 10 full years from initial design to delivering their first commercial reactors. China could easily cut that time in half by throwing money at the problem, so figure if they had good results starting their experimental Thorium MSR in late 2022 then decided to fast-track this, they should be able to start delivering commercial SMRs based on a Thorium MSR design by 2026 or 2027-ish.
But obviously, I'm GUESSING here. For all we know, China may only be CONSIDERING the idea of doing this, and they might have made the nuclear containership announcement as a "trial baloon" to see how the market would react before deciding WHETHER to commercialize SMRs based on Thorium MSR.
I'd definitely lean toward the former scenario. China is way ahead of everyone else on advanced nuclear, and the RIGHT thing for them to do is beat Copenhagen to market with a Thorium SRM that powers not just containerships but a whole bunch of other things as well. I'd be surprised if they're not hard at work on that.
Hope this helps.
Very much so! Thanks very much for the considered response.
To fully connect the two, to my very limited understanding of nuclear, mechanical and naval engineering, is incredibly difficult to transplant into the required mobile form of propulsion for any naval vessel.
On a related tangent, how small of a physical footprint can Copenhagen Atomics safely and economically get down towards, with what commensurate output?