Generation IV

Many Nuclear Monitor readers will be familiar with the tiresome rhetoric of thorium enthusiasts − let's call them thor-bores. Their arguments have little merit but they refuse to go away.

Here's a thor-bore in full flight − a science journalist who should know better:

"Thorium is a superior nuclear fuel to uranium in almost every conceivable way ... If there is such a thing as green nuclear power, thorium is it. ... For one, a thorium-powered nuclear reactor can never undergo a meltdown. It just can't. ... Thorium is also thoroughly useless for making nuclear weapons. ... But wait, there's more. Thorium doesn't only produce less waste, it can be used to consume existing waste."¹
Thankfully, there is a healthy degree of scepticism about thorium, even among nuclear industry insiders, experts and enthusiasts (other than the thor-bores themselves, of course). Some of that 'friendly fire' is noted here.

Readiness

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) notes that the commercialization of thorium fuels faces some "significant hurdles in terms of building an economic case to undertake the necessary development work." The WNA states:

"A great deal of testing, analysis and licensing and qualification work is required before any thorium fuel can enter into service. This is expensive and will not eventuate without a clear business case and government support. Also, uranium is abundant and cheap and forms only a small part of the cost of nuclear electricity generation, so there are no real incentives for investment in a new fuel type that may save uranium resources.

"Other impediments to the development of thorium fuel cycle are the higher cost of fuel fabrication and the cost of reprocessing to provide the fissile plutonium driver material. The high cost of fuel fabrication (for solid fuel) is due partly to the high level of radioactivity that builds up in U-233 chemically separated from the irradiated thorium fuel. Separated U-233 is always contaminated with traces of U-232 which decays (with a 69-year half-life) to daughter nuclides such as thallium-208 that are high-energy gamma emitters. Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle by making U-233 hard to handle and easy to detect, it results in increased costs. There are similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present."²

A 2012 report by the UK National Nuclear Laboratory states:

"NNL has assessed the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) of the thorium fuel cycle. For all of the system options more work is needed at the fundamental level to establish the basic knowledge and understanding. Thorium reprocessing and waste management are poorly understood. The thorium fuel cycle cannot be considered to be mature in any area."³

Fiona Rayment from the UK National Nuclear Laboratory states:

"It is conceivable that thorium could be introduced in current generation reactors within about 15 years, if there was a clear economic benefit to utilities. This would be a once-through fuel cycle that would partly realise the strategic benefits of thorium.

"To obtain the full strategic benefit of the thorium fuel cycle would require recycle, for which the technological development timescale is longer, probably 25 to 30 years.

"To develop radical new reactor designs, specifically designed around thorium, would take at least 30 years. It will therefore be some time before the thorium fuel cycle can realistically be expected to make a significant contribution to emissions reductions targets."⁴

Thorium is no 'silver bullet'

Do thorium reactors potentially offer significant advantages compared to conventional uranium reactors?

Nuclear physicist Prof. George Dracoulis states: "Some of the rhetoric associated with thorium gives the impression that thorium is, somehow, magical. In reality it isn't."⁵

The UK National Nuclear Laboratory report argues that thorium has "theoretical advantages regarding sustainability, reducing radiotoxicity and reducing proliferation risk" but that "while there is some justification for these benefits, they are often over stated." The report further states that the purported benefits "have yet to be demonstrated or substantiated, particularly in a commercial or regulatory environment."³

The UK National Nuclear Laboratory report is sceptical about safety claims:

"Thorium fuelled reactors have already been advocated as being inherently safer than LWRs [light water reactors], but the basis of these claims is not sufficiently substantiated and will not be for many years, if at all."³

False distinction

Thor-bores posit a sharp distinction between thorium and uranium. But there is little to distinguish the two. A much more important distinction is between conventional reactor technology and some 'Generation IV' concepts − in particular, those based on repeated (or continuous) fuel recycling and the 'breeding' of fissile isotopes from fertile isotopes (Th-232>U-233 or U-238>Pu-239).

A report by the Idaho National Laboratory states:

"For fuel type, either uranium-based or thorium-based, it is only in the case of continuous recycle where these two fuel types exhibit different characteristics, and it is important to emphasize that this difference only exists for a fissile breeder strategy. The comparison between the thorium/U-233 and uranium/Pu-239 option shows that the thorium option would have lower, but probably not significantly lower, TRU [transuranic waste] inventory and disposal requirements, both having essentially equivalent proliferation risks.

"For these reasons, the choice between uranium-based fuel and thorium-based fuels is seen basically as one of preference, with no fundamental difference in addressing the nuclear power issues.

"Since no infrastructure currently exists in the U.S. for thorium-based fuels, and processing of thorium-based fuels is at a lower level of technical maturity when compared to processing of uranium-based fuels, costs and RD&D requirements for using thorium are anticipated to be higher."⁷

George Dracoulis takes issue with the "particularly silly claim" by a science journalist (and many others) that almost all the thorium is usable as fuel compared to just 0.7% of uranium (i.e. uranium-235), and that thorium can therefore power civilization for millennia. Dracoulis states:

"In fact, in that sense, none of the thorium is usable since it is not fissile. The comparison should be with the analogous fertile isotope uranium-238, which makes up nearly 100% of natural uranium. If you wanted to go that way (breeding that is), there is already enough uranium-238 to 'power civilization for millennia'."⁵

Some Generation IV concepts promise major advantages, such as the potential to use long-lived nuclear waste and weapons-usable material (esp. plutonium) as reactor fuel. On the other hand, Generation IV concepts are generally those that face the greatest technical challenges and are the furthest away from commercial deployment; and they will gobble up a great deal of R&D funding before they gobble up any waste or weapons material.

Moreover, uranium/plutonium fast reactor technology might more accurately be described as failed Generation I technology. The first reactor to produce electricity − the EBR-I fast reactor in the US, a.k.a. Zinn's Infernal Pile − suffered a partial fuel meltdown in 1955. The subsequent history of fast reactors has largely been one of extremely expensive, underperforming and accident-prone reactors which have contributed far more to WMD proliferation problems than to the resolution of those problems.

Most importantly, whether Generation IV concepts deliver on their potential depends on a myriad of factors − not just the resolution of technical challenges. India's fast reactor / thorium program illustrates how badly things can go wrong, and it illustrates problems that can't be solved with technical innovation. John Carlson, a nuclear advocate and former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, writes:

"India has a plan to produce [weapons-grade] plutonium in fast breeder reactors for use as driver fuel in thorium reactors. This is problematic on non-proliferation and nuclear security grounds. Pakistan believes the real purpose of the fast breeder program is to produce plutonium for weapons (so this plan raises tensions between the two countries); and transport and use of weapons-grade plutonium in civil reactors presents a serious terrorism risk (weapons-grade material would be a priority target for seizure by terrorists)."⁸

Generation IV thorium concepts such as molten salt reactors (MSR) have a lengthy, uncertain R&D road ahead of them − notwithstanding the fact that there is some previous R&D to build upon.^4,9

Kirk Sorensen, founder of a US firm which aims to build a demonstration 'liquid fluoride thorium reactor' (a type of MSR), notes that "several technical hurdles" confront thorium-fuelled MSRs, including materials corrosion, reactor control and in-line processing of the fuel.⁴

George Dracoulis writes:

"MSRs are not currently available at an industrial scale, but test reactors with different configurations have operated for extended periods in the past. But there are a number of technical challenges that have been encountered along the way. One such challenge is that the hot beryllium and lithium "salts" – in which the fuel and heavy wastes are dissolved – are highly reactive and corrosive. Building a large-scale system that can operate reliably for decades is non-trivial. That said, many of the components have been the subject of extensive research programs."¹⁰

Weapons proliferation

Claims that thorium reactors would be proliferation-resistant or proliferation-proof do not stand up to scrutiny.¹¹ Irradiation of thorium-232 produces uranium-233, which can be and has been used in nuclear weapons.

The World Nuclear Association states:

"The USA produced about 2 tonnes of U-233 from thorium during the 'Cold War', at various levels of chemical and isotopic purity, in plutonium production reactors. It is possible to use U-233 in a nuclear weapon, and in 1955 the USA detonated a device with a plutonium-U-233 composite pit, in Operation Teapot. The explosive yield was less than anticipated, at 22 kilotons. In 1998 India detonated a very small device based on U-233 called Shakti V."²

According to Assoc. Prof. Nigel Marks, both the US and the USSR tested uranium-233 bombs in 1955.⁶

Uranium-233 is contaminated with uranium-232 but there are ways around that problem. Kang and von Hippel note:

"[J]ust as it is possible to produce weapon-grade plutonium in low-burnup fuel, it is also practical to use heavy-water reactors to produce U-233 containing only a few ppm of U-232 if the thorium is segregated in "target" channels and discharged a few times more frequently than the natural-uranium "driver" fuel."¹²

John Carlson discusses the proliferation risks associated with thorium:

"The thorium fuel cycle has similarities to the fast neutron fuel cycle – it depends on breeding fissile material (U-233) in the reactor, and reprocessing to recover this fissile material for recycle. ...

"Proponents argue that the thorium fuel cycle is proliferation resistant because it does not produce plutonium. Proponents claim that it is not practicable to use U-233 for nuclear weapons.

"There is no doubt that use of U-233 for nuclear weapons would present significant technical difficulties, due to the high gamma radiation and heat output arising from decay of U-232 which is unavoidably produced with U-233. Heat levels would become excessive within a few weeks, degrading the high explosive and electronic components of a weapon and making use of U‑233 impracticable for stockpiled weapons. However, it would be possible to develop strategies to deal with these drawbacks, e.g. designing weapons where the fissile "pit" (the core of the nuclear weapon) is not inserted until required, and where ongoing production and treatment of U-233 allows for pits to be continually replaced. This might not be practical for a large arsenal, but could certainly be done on a small scale.

"In addition, there are other considerations. A thorium reactor requires initial core fuel – LEU or plutonium – until it reaches the point where it is producing sufficient U-233 for self-sustainability, so the cycle is not entirely free of issues applying to the uranium fuel cycle (i.e. requirement for enrichment or reprocessing). Further, while the thorium cycle can be self-sustaining on produced U‑233, it is much more efficient if the U-233 is supplemented by additional "driver" fuel, such as LEU or plutonium. For example, India, which has spent some decades developing a comprehensive thorium fuel cycle concept, is proposing production of weapons grade plutonium in fast breeder reactors specifically for use as driver fuel for thorium reactors. This approach has obvious problems in terms of proliferation and terrorism risks.

"A concept for a liquid fuel thorium reactor is under consideration (in which the thorium/uranium fuel would be dissolved in molten fluoride salts), which would avoid the need for reprocessing to separate U-233. If it proceeds, this concept would have non-proliferation advantages.

"Finally, it cannot be excluded that a thorium reactor – as in the case of other reactors – could be used for plutonium production through irradiation of uranium targets.

"Arguments that the thorium fuel cycle is inherently proliferation resistant are overstated. In some circumstances the thorium cycle could involve significant proliferation risks."¹³

Sometimes thor-bores posit conspiracy theories. Former International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Hans Blix said "it is almost impossible to make a bomb out of thorium" and thorium is being held back by the "vested interests" of the uranium-based nuclear industry.¹⁴

But Julian Kelly from Thor Energy, a Norwegian company developing and testing thorium-plutonium fuels for use in commercial light water reactors, states:

"Conspiracy theories about funding denials for thorium work are for the entertainment sector. A greater risk is that there will be a classic R&D bubble [that] divides R&D effort and investment into fragmented camps and feifdoms."⁴

Thor-bores and uro-sceptics

Might the considered opinions of nuclear insiders, experts and enthusiasts help to shut the thor-bores up? Perhaps not − critics are dismissed with claims that they have ideological or financial connections to the vested interests of the uranium-based nuclear industry, or they are dismissed with claims that they are ideologically opposed to all things nuclear. But we live in hope.

Thor-bores do serve one useful purpose − they sometimes serve up pointed criticisms of the uranium fuel cycle. In other words, some thor-bores are uro-sceptics. For example, thorium enthusiast and former Shell executive John Hofmeister states:

"The days of nuclear power based upon uranium-based fission are coming to a close because the fear of nuclear proliferation, the reality of nuclear waste and the difficulty of managing it have proven too difficult over time."¹⁵

References:
1. Tim Dean, 16 March 2011, 'The greener nuclear alternative', www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45178.html
2. www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/
3. UK National Nuclear Laboratory Ltd., 5 March 2012, 'Comparison of thorium and uranium fuel cycles', www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/nuclear/6300-compar...
4. Stephen Harris, 9 Jan 2014, 'Your questions answered: thorium-powered nuclear', www.theengineer.co.uk/energy-and-environment/in-depth/your-questions-ans...
5. George Dracoulis, 5 Aug 2011, 'Thorium is no silver bullet when it comes to nuclear energy, but it could play a role', http://theconversation.com/thorium-is-no-silver-bullet-when-it-comes-to-...
6. Nigel Marks, 2 March 2015, 'Should Australia consider thorium nuclear power?', http://theconversation.com/should-australia-consider-thorium-nuclear-pow...
7. Idaho National Laboratory, Sept 2009, 'AFCI Options Study', INL/EXT-10-17639, www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/4480296.pdf
8. John Carlson, 2014, submission to Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Parliament of Australia, www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=79a1a29e-5691-4299-8923-06e633780d4...
9. Oliver Tickell, August/September 2012, 'Thorium: Not 'green', not 'viable', and not likely', www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo43.pdf
10. George Dracoulis, 19 Dec 2011, 'Thoughts from a thorium 'symposium'', http://theconversation.com/thoughts-from-a-thorium-symposium-4545
11. www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons/thorium
12. Jungmin Kang and Frank N. von Hippel, 2001, "U-232 and the Proliferation-Resistance of U-233 in Spent Fuel", Science & Global Security, Volume 9, pp.1-32, www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/9_1kang.pdf
13. John Carlson, 2009, 'Introduction to the Concept of Proliferation Resistance', www.foe.org.au/sites/default/files/Carlson%20ASNO%20ICNND%20Prolif%20Res...
14. Herman Trabish, 10 Dec 2013, 'Thorium Reactors: Nuclear Redemption or Nuclear Hazard?', http://theenergycollective.com/hermantrabish/314771/thorium-reactors-nuc...
15. Pia Akerman, 7 Oct 2013, 'Ex-Shell boss issues nuclear call', The Australian, www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/ex-shell-boss-issues-nu...
 

A group of conservation scientists has published an open letter urging environmentalists to reconsider their opposition to nuclear power.¹ The letter is an initiative of Australian academics Barry Brook and Corey Bradshaw, and has been endorsed by 69 (other) scientists from Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

The co-signatories "support the broad conclusions drawn in the article 'Key role for nuclear energy in global biodiversity conservation', published in Conservation Biology."² The open letter states: "Brook and Bradshaw argue that the full gamut of electricity-generation sources − including nuclear power − must be deployed to replace the burning of fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of mitigating severe climate change."

So, here's my open letter in response to the open letter initiated by Brook and Bradshaw:

Dear conservation scientists,

Space constraints prohibit the usual niceties that accompany open letters so I'll get straight to the point. If you want environmentalists to support nuclear power, get off your backsides and do something about the all-too-obvious problems associated with the technology. Start with the proliferation problem since the multifaceted and repeatedly-demonstrated links between the 'peaceful atom' and nuclear weapons proliferation pose profound risks and greatly trouble environmentalists and many others besides.³

The Brook/Bradshaw journal article (rightly) emphasises the importance of biodiversity − but even a relatively modest exchange of some dozens of nuclear weapons could profoundly effect biodiversity, and large-scale nuclear warfare undoubtedly would.⁴

As Australian scientist Dr Mark Diesendorf notes: "On top of the perennial challenges of global poverty and injustice, the two biggest threats facing human civilisation in the 21st century are climate change and nuclear war. It would be absurd to respond to one by increasing the risks of the other. Yet that is what nuclear power does."⁵

The Brook/Bradshaw article ranks power sources according to seven criteria: greenhouse gas emissions, cost, dispatchability, land use, safety (fatalities), solid waste, and radiotoxic waste. WMD proliferation is excluded. By all means ignore lesser concerns to avoid a book-length analysis, but to ignore the link between nuclear power and weapons is disingenuous and the comparative analysis of power sources is a case of rubbish in, rubbish out.

Integral fast reactors

While Brook and Bradshaw exclude WMD proliferation from their comparative assessment of power sources, their journal article does address the topic. They promote the 'integral fast reactor' (IFR) that was the subject of R&D in the US until was abandoned in the 1990s.⁶ If they existed, IFRs would be metal-fuelled, sodium-cooled, fast neutron reactors.

Brook and Bradshaw write: "The IFR technology in particular also counters one of the principal concerns regarding nuclear expansion − the proliferation of nuclear weapons − because its electrorefining-based fuel-recycling system cannot separate weapons-grade fissile material."

But Brook's claim that IFRs "cannot be used to generate weapons-grade material"⁷ is false.⁸ IFR advocate Tom Blees notes that: "IFRs are certainly not the panacea that removes all threat of proliferation, and extracting plutonium from it would require the same sort of techniques as extracting it from spent fuel from light water reactors."⁹ George Stanford, who worked on an IFR research program in the US, states: "If not properly safeguarded, [countries] could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor – operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material."¹⁰

The presentation of IFRs by Brook and Bradshaw contrasts sharply with the sober assessments of the UK and US governments. An April 2014 US government report notes that pursuit of IFR technology would be associated with "significant technical risk" and that it would take 18 years to construct an IFR and associated facilities.¹¹ A recent UK government report notes that IFR facilities have not been industrially demonstrated, waste disposal issues remain unresolved, and little can be ascertained about cost.¹²

Brook and Bradshaw argue that "the large-scale deployment of fast reactor technology would result in all of the nuclear-waste and depleted-uranium stockpiles generated over the last 50 years being consumed as fuel." Seriously? An infinitely more likely outcome would be some fast reactors consuming waste and weapons-useable material while other fast reactors and conventional uranium reactors continue to produce such materials.

The Brook/Bradshaw article ignores the sad reality of fast reactor technology: over US$50 billion (€40.2b) invested, unreliable reactors, numerous fires and other accidents, and one after another country abandoning the technology.¹³

Moreover, fast reactors have worsened, not lessened, proliferation problems. John Carlson, former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, discusses a topical example: "India has a plan to produce such [weapon grade] plutonium in fast breeder reactors for use as driver fuel in thorium reactors. This is problematic on non-proliferation and nuclear security grounds. Pakistan believes the real purpose of the fast breeder program is to produce plutonium for weapons (so this plan raises tensions between the two countries); and transport and use of weapons-grade plutonium in civil reactors presents a serious terrorism risk (weapons-grade material would be a priority target for seizure by terrorists)."¹⁴

The fast reactor techno-utopia presented by Brook and Bradshaw is attractive. Back in the real world, there's much more about fast reactors to oppose than to support. And the large-scale deployment of Generation IV reactor technology is further away than they care to admit. The Generation IV International Forum website states: "It will take at least two or three decades before the deployment of commercial Gen IV systems. In the meantime, a number of prototypes will need to be built and operated. The Gen IV concepts currently under investigation are not all on the same timeline and some might not even reach the stage of commercial exploitation."¹⁵

Creative accounting and jiggery-pokery

Brook and Bradshaw also counter proliferation concerns with the following argument: "Nuclear power is deployed commercially in countries whose joint energy intensity is such that they collectively constitute 80% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. If one adds to this tally those nations that are actively planning nuclear deployment or already have scientific or medical research reactors, this figure rises to over 90%. As a consequence, displacement of fossil fuels by an expanding nuclear-energy sector would not lead to a large increase in the number of countries with access to nuclear resources and expertise."

The premise is correct − countries operating reactors account for a large majority of greenhouse emissions. But even by the most expansive estimate − Brook's¹⁶ − less than one-third of all countries have some sort of weapons capability, either through the operation of reactors or an alliance with a nuclear weapons state. So the conclusion − that nuclear power expansion "would not lead to a large increase in the number of countries with access to nuclear resources and expertise" − is nonsense and one wonders how such jiggery-pokery could find its way into a peer-reviewed journal.

The power−weapons conundrum is neatly summarised by former US Vice-President Al Gore: "For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal ... then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale."¹⁷

Safeguards

Apart from the their misinformation about IFRs, and their nonsense argument about the proliferation implications of expanding nuclear power, Brook and Bradshaw add one further comment about proliferation: "Nuclear weapons proliferation is a complex political issue, with or without commercial nuclear power plants, and is under strong international oversight."

Oddly, Brook and Bradshaw cite a book by IFR advocate Tom Blees in support of that statement.¹⁸ But Blees argues for the establishment of an international strike force on full standby to attend promptly to any detected attempts to misuse or to divert nuclear materials (p.269). That is a far cry from the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards system. In articles and speeches during his tenure as the Director General of the IAEA from 1997−2009, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei said that the Agency's basic rights of inspection are "fairly limited", that the safeguards system suffers from "vulnerabilities" and "clearly needs reinforcement", that efforts to improve the system have been "half-hearted", and that the safeguards system operates on a "shoestring budget ... comparable to that of a local police department".

Moreover, Blees argues that: "Privatized nuclear power should be outlawed worldwide, with complete international control of not only the entire fuel cycle but also the engineering, construction, and operation of all nuclear power plants. Only in this way will safety and proliferation issues be satisfactorily dealt with. Anything short of that opens up a Pandora's box of inevitable problems." (p.303)

Blees doesn't argue that the nuclear industry is subject to strong international oversight − he argues that "fissile material should all be subject to rigorous international oversight" (emphasis added).¹⁹

Of course, the flaws in the nuclear safeguards system are not set in stone.²⁰ And this gets me back to my original point: if nuclear lobbyists want environmentalists to support nuclear power, they need to get off their backsides and do something about the all-too-obvious problems such as the inadequate safeguards system. Environmentalists have a long record of working on these problems and the lack of support from nuclear lobbyists has not gone unnoticed.

To give an example of a topical point of intervention, Canada has agreed to supply uranium and nuclear technology to India with greatly reduced safeguards and non-proliferation standards, Australia seems likely to follow suit, and those precedents will likely lead to a broader weakening of international safeguards (and make it that much more difficult for nuclear lobbyists to win support from environmentalists and others). The seriousness of the problem has been acknowledged by, among others, a former Chair of the IAEA Board of Governors²¹ and a former Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office.¹⁴ It is a live debate in numerous nuclear exporting countries and there isn't a moment to lose.

Nuclear lobbyists should join environmentalists in campaigning for a strengthening of the safeguards system and against efforts to weaken the system. But Brook and Bradshaw have never made even the slightest contribution to efforts to strengthen safeguards, and it's a safe bet that the same could be said of the other signatories to their open letter.

To mention just one more point of intervention, the separation and stockpiling of plutonium from power reactor spent fuel increases proliferation risks. There is virtually no demand for the uranium or plutonium separated at reprocessing plants, and no repositories for the high-level waste stream. Yet reprocessing continues, the global stockpile of separated plutonium increases year after year and now stands at around 260 tons.²² It's a problem that needs to be solved; it's a problem that can be solved.

Endorsing the wishful thinking and misinformation presented in the Brook/Bradshaw journal article is no substitute for an honest acknowledgement of the proliferation problems associated with nuclear power, coupled with serious, sustained efforts to solve those problems.

References:

1. 15 Dec 2014, 'An Open Letter to Environmentalists on Nuclear Energy', http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalist...
2. Brook, B. W., and C. J. A. Bradshaw. 2014. Key role for nuclear energy in global biodiversity conservation. Conservation Biology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12433
3. www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons
4. www.nucleardarkness.org/index2.php
5. Dr Mark Diesendorf, University of NSW, 'Need energy? Forget nuclear and go natural', 14 Oct 2009, www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/need-energy-forget-nuclear...
6. http://foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power/ifrs
7. Barry Brook, 9 June 2009, 'Nuking green myths', The Australian, http://web.archive.org/web/20090611042943/http://www.theaustralian.news....
8. www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons/g4nw
9. http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/12/integral-fast-reactors-for-the-mas...
10. http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/09/18/ifr-fad-7/
11. US Department of Energy, April 2014, 'Report of the Plutonium Disposition Working Group: Analysis of Surplus  Weapon‐Grade Plutonium Disposition Options', www.nnsa.energy.gov/sites/default/files/nnsa/04-14-inlinefiles/SurplusPu...
See also 'Generation IV reactor R&D', www.wiseinternational.org/node/4251
12. UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, January 2014, 'Progress on approaches to the management of separated plutonium – Position Paper', www.nda.gov.uk/news/pu-management-approach.cfm
See also: 'Will PRISM solve the UK's plutonium problem?', www.wiseinternational.org/node/4048
13. International Panel on Fissile Materials, 2010, 'Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status', www.ipfmlibrary.org/rr08.pdf
14. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=79a1a29e-5691-4299-8923-06e633780d4...
15. www.gen-4.org/gif/jcms/c_41890/faq-2
16. http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/06/carbon-emissions-nuclear-capable-c...
17. David Roberts, 10 May 2006, 'An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore', www.grist.org/article/roberts2
18. Blees T. 2008. 'Prescription for the planet: the painless remedy for our energy & environmental crises'. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina.
19. http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/21/response-to-an-integral-fast-react...
20. www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/u/safeguards
21. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=eeed39e8-2c3c-400b-a9ff-4d744da48c4...
www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=9b3d0478-c3ad-4d97-a1c2-5747f1265eb...
22. Fissile Materials Working Group, 6 May 2013, 'How do you solve a problem like plutonium?', www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/fissile-materials-working-gro...

There's an Alice in Wonderland flavour to the nuclear power debate with lobbyists promoting all sorts of non-existent reactor types − an implicit acknowledgement that conventional uranium-fuelled reactors aren't all they're cracked up to be. Some favour non-existent Integral Fast Reactors, others favour non-existent Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, others favour non-existent Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, others favour non-existent fusion reactors, and on it goes.

Two to three decades ago, the nuclear industry promised a new generation of gee-whiz 'Generation IV' reactors in two to three decades. That's what they're still saying now, and that's what they'll be saying two to three decades from now. The Generation IV International Forum website states: "It will take at least two or three decades before the deployment of commercial Gen IV systems. In the meantime, a number of prototypes will need to be built and operated. The Gen IV concepts currently under investigation are not all on the same timeline and some might not even reach the stage of commercial exploitation."¹

Likewise, the World Nuclear Association notes that "progress is seen as slow, and several potential designs have been undergoing evaluation on paper for many years."²

Integral Fast Reactors ... it gets ugly moving from blueprint to backyard

Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) are a case in point. According to the lobbyists they are ready to roll, will be cheap to build and operate, couldn't be used to feed WMD proliferation, etc. The US and UK governments have been analysing the potential of IFRs. The UK government found that the facilities have not been industrially demonstrated; waste disposal issues remain unresolved and could be further complicated if it is deemed necessary to remove sodium from spent fuel to facilitate disposal; and little could be ascertained about cost since General Electric Hitachi refuses to release estimates of capital and operating costs, saying they are "commercially sensitive".³

The US government has considered the use of IFRs (which it calls Advanced Disposition Reactors − ADR) to manage US plutonium stockpiles and concluded that the ADR approach would be more than twice as expensive as all the other options under consideration; that it would take 18 years to construct an ADR and associated facilities; and that the ADR option is associated with "significant technical risk".⁴

Unsurprisingly, the IFR rhetoric doesn't match the sober assessments of the UK and US governments. As nuclear engineer Dave Lochbaum from the Union of Concerned Scientists puts it: "The IFR looks good on paper. So good, in fact, that we should leave it on paper. For it only gets ugly in moving from blueprint to backyard."

No-one has cracked fusion yet

Lockheed Martin recently claimed that it "is working on a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years." Lockheed "anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years" − which is very different from saying that it will actually build a prototype in five years. According to Lockheed's Tom McGuire, "The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year."⁵
 

Matthew Hole, an academic and Australia's representative on the IAEA International Fusion Research Council, wrote in an October 7 article⁶:

"Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin's announcement this week that it could make small-scale nuclear fusion power a reality in the next decade has understandably generated excitement in the media. Physicists, however, aren't getting their hopes up just yet. ...

"Lockheed Martin claims that its technology development offshoot, Skunk Works, is working on a new compact fusion reactor that can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years. The only technical details it provided are that it is a "high beta" device (meaning that it produces a high plasma pressure for a relatively weak magnetic field pressure), and that it is sufficiently small to be able to power flight and vehicles.

"This isn't enough information to substantiate a credible program of research into the development of fusion power, or a credible claim for the delivery of a revolutionary power source in the next decade. ... Lockheed Martin will need to show a lot more research evidence that it can do better than multinational collaborative projects like ITER. So far, its lack of willingness to engage with the scientific community suggests that it may be more interested in media attention than scientific development."

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has also thrown cold water on Lockheed's claims."⁷ The 'compact fusion reactor' concept remains "undemonstrated", the WNA notes. Moreover, Lockheed has itself acknowledged that it is "searching for partners" to help advance the technology.

Small Modular Reactors ... a new occupant in the graveyard of the 'nuclear renaissance'

The Energy Green Paper recently released by the Australian government is typical of the small-is-beautiful rhetoric: "The main development in technology since 2006 has been further work on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). SMRs have the potential to be flexibly deployed, as they are a simpler 'plug-in' technology that does not require the same level of operating skills and access to water as traditional, large reactors."⁸

The rhetoric doesn't match reality. Interest in SMRs is on the wane. Thus Thomas W. Overton, associate editor of POWER magazine, wrote in a recent article: "At the graveyard wherein resides the "nuclear renaissance" of the 2000s, a new occupant appears to be moving in: the small modular reactor (SMR). ... Over the past year, the SMR industry has been bumping up against an uncomfortable and not-entirely-unpredictable problem: It appears that no one actually wants to buy one."⁹

Dr Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, notes that two US corporations are pulling out of SMR development because they cannot find customers (Westinghouse) or major investors (Babcock and Wilcox). Cooper points to some economic constraints: "SMR technology will suffer disproportionately from material cost increases because they use more material per MW of capacity. Higher costs will result from: lost economies of scale; higher operating costs; and higher decommissioning costs. Cost estimates that assume quick design approval and deployment are certain to prove to be wildly optimistic."¹⁰

Westinghouse CEO Danny Roderick said in January: "The problem I have with SMRs is not the technology, it's not the deployment − it's that there's no customers."¹¹ Westinghouse is looking to triple its decommissioning business. "We see this as a $1 billion-per-year business for us," Roderick said. With the world's fleet of mostly middle-aged reactors inexorably becoming a fleet of mostly ageing, decrepit reactors, Westinghouse is getting ahead of the game.

Academics M.V. Ramana and Zia Mian state in their detailed analysis of SMRs: "Proponents of the development and large scale deployment of small modular reactors suggest that this approach to nuclear power technology and fuel cycles can resolve the four key problems facing nuclear power today: costs, safety, waste, and proliferation. Nuclear developers and vendors seek to encode as many if not all of these priorities into the designs of their specific nuclear reactor. The technical reality, however, is that each of these priorities can drive the requirements on the reactor design in different, sometimes opposing, directions. Of the different major SMR designs under development, it seems none meets all four of these challenges simultaneously. In most, if not all designs, it is likely that addressing one of the four problems will involve choices that make one or more of the other problems worse."¹²

Likewise, Kennette Benedict, Executive Director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, states: "Small modular nuclear reactors may be attractive, but they will not, in themselves, offer satisfactory solutions to the most pressing problems of nuclear energy: high cost, safety, and weapons proliferation."¹³

Some SMR R&D work continues but it all seems to be leading to the conclusions mentioned above. Argentina is ahead of the rest, with construction underway on a 27 MWe reactor − but the cost equates to an astronomical US$15.2 billion (€12b) per 1000 MWe.¹⁴ And that cost would be greater still if not for Argentina's expertise and experience with reactor construction − a legacy of its covert weapons program from the 1960s to the early 1980s.

So work continues on SMRs but the writing's on the wall and it's time for the nuclear lobby to come up with another gee-whiz next-gen fail-safe reactor type to promote − perhaps a giant fusion reactor located out of harm's way, 150 million kilometres from Earth.

References:
1. www.gen-4.org/gif/jcms/c_41890/faq-2
2. www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_France_puts_into_future_nuclear_1512091.html
3. www.wiseinternational.org/node/4222
4. www.wiseinternational.org/node/4066
5. www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2014/october/141015ae_lock...
6. Matthew Hole, 7 Oct 2014, 'Don't get too excited, no one has cracked nuclear fusion yet', http://theconversation.com/dont-get-too-excited-no-one-has-cracked-nucle...
7. WNA, 16 Oct 2014, 'Big dreams for compact fusion reactor', www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Big-dreams-for-compact-fusion-reactor-1610...
8. www.ewp.industry.gov.au/sites/prod2.ewp.industry.gov.au/files/egp/energy...
9. www.powermag.com/what-went-wrong-with-smrs/
10. www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/newreactors/cooper-smrsaretheproblemnotthesolu...
11. www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/02/02/Westinghouse-backs-off-small-nu...
12. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629614000486.
13. http://thebulletin.org/are-small-nuclear-reactors-answer
14. www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Construction-of-CAREM-underway-1002144.html

The dominant type of new nuclear power plant, light-water reactors (LWRs), proved impossible to finance in the robust 2005–08 capital market, despite new U.S. subsidies approaching or exceeding their total construction cost. New LWRs are now so costly and slow that they save 2–20 times less carbon, approximately 20–40 times slower, than micro power and efficient end-use.

As this becomes evident, other kinds of reactors are being proposed instead ­novel designs claimed to solve LWRs’ problems of economics, proliferation, and waste. Even climate-protection pioneer Jim Hansen says these “Generation IV” reactors merit rapid R&D. But on closer examination, the two kinds most often promoted ­Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) and thorium reactors­ reveal no economic, environmental, or security rationale, and the thesis is unsound for any nuclear reactor.

Integrated Fast Reactors (IFRs)
The IFR ­a pool-type, liquid-sodium cooled fast-neutron reactor plus an ambitious new nuclear fuel cycle­ was abandoned in 1994, and General Electric’s S-PRISM design in 2003, due to both proliferation concerns and dismal economics. Federal funding for fast breeder reactors halted in 1983, but in the past few years, enthusiasts got renewed Bush Administration support by portraying the IFR as a solution to proliferation and nuclear waste. It’s neither.

Fast reactors were first offered as a way to make more plutonium to augment and ultimately replace scarce uranium. Now that uranium and enrichment are known to get cheaper while reprocessing, cleanup, and nonproliferation get costlier ­destroying the economic rationale­ IFRs have been reframed as a way to destroy the plutonium (and similar transuranic elements) in long-lived radioactive waste. Two or three redesigned IFRs could in principle fission the plutonium produced by each four LWRs without making more net plutonium. However, most LWRs will have retired before even one commercial-size IFR could be built; LWRs won’t be replaced with more LWRs because they’re grossly uncompetitive; and IFRs with their fuel cycle would cost even more and probably be less reliable. It’s feasible today to “burn” plutonium in LWRs, but this isn’t done much because it’s very costly, makes each kg of spent fuel 7x hotter, enhances risks, and makes certain transuranic isotopes that complicate operation. IFRs could do the same thing with similar or greater problems, offering no advantage over LWRs in proliferation resistance, cost, or environment.

IFRs’ reprocessing plant, lately reframed a “recycling center,” would be built at or near the reactors, coupling them so neither works without the other. Its novel technology, replacing solvents and aqueous chemistry with high-temperature pyrometallurgy and electro refining, would incur different but major challenges, greater technical risks and repair problems, and speculative but probably worse economics. (Argonne National Laboratory, the world’s experts on it, contracted to pyroprocess spent fuel from the EBRII ­ a small IFR-like test reactor shut down in 1994 ­ by 2035, at a cost DOE estimated in 2006 at approximately 50× today’s cost of fresh LWR fuel.)

Reprocessing of any kind makes waste management more difficult and complex, increases the volume and diversity of waste streams, increases by several -to manifold the cost of nuclear fueling, and separates bomb-usable material that can’t be adequately measured or protected. Mainly for this last reason, all U.S. Presidents since Gerald Ford in 1976 (except G.W. Bush in 2006– 08) discouraged it. An IFR/pyroprocessing system would give any country immediate access to over a thousand bombs’ worth of plutonium to fuel it, facilities to recover that plutonium, and experts to separate and fabricate it into bomb cores ­hardly a path to a safer world.

IFRs might in principle offer some safety advantages over today’s light-water reactors, but create different safety concerns, including the sodium coolant’s chemical reactivity and radioactivity. Over the past half century, the world’s leading nuclear technologists have built about three dozen sodium-cooled fast reactors, 11 of them Naval. Of the 22 whose histories are mostly reported, over half had sodium leaks, four suffered fuel damage (including two partial meltdowns), several others had serious accidents, most were prematurely closed, and only six succeeded. Admiral Rickover canceled sodium-cooled propulsion for USS Seawolf in 1956 as “expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.” Little has changed. As Dr. Tom Cochran of NRDC notes, fast reactor programs were tried in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USSR, and the US and Soviet Navies. All failed. After a half-century and tens of billions of dollars, the world has one operational commercial-sized fast reactor (Russia’s BN600) out of 438 commercial power reactors, and it’s not fueled with plutonium.

IFRs are often claimed to “burn up nuclear waste” and make its “time of concern . . . less than 500 years” rather than 10,000–100,000 years or more. That’s wrong: most of the radioactivity comes from fission products, including very-long-lived isotopes like iodine-129 and technicium-99, and their mix is broadly similar in any nuclear fuel cycle. IFRs’ wastes may contain less transuranic s, but at prohibitive cost and with worse occupational exposures, routine releases, accident and terrorism risks, proliferation, and disposal needs for intermediate- and low-level wastes. It’s simply a dishonest fantasy to claim that such hypothetical and uneconomic ways to recover energy or other value from spent LWR fuel mean “There is no such thing as nuclear waste.” Of course, the nuclear industry wishes this were true.

No new kind of reactor is likely to be much, if at all, cheaper than today’s LWRs, which remain grossly uncompetitive and are getting more so despite five decades of maturation. “New reactors” are precisely the “paper reactors” Admiral Rickover described in 1953:

An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off the shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.

On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.

Every new type of reactor in history has been costlier, slower, and harder than projected. IFRs’ low pressure, different safety profile, high temperature, and potentially higher thermal efficiency (if its helium turbines didn’t misbehave as they have in all previous reactor projects) come with countervailing disadvantages and costs that advocates assume away, contrary to all experience.

Thorium reactors
Some enthusiasts prefer fueling reactors with thorium ­an element 3 times as abundant as uranium but even more uneconomic to use. India has for decades failed to commercialize breeder reactors to exploit its thorium deposits. But thorium can’t fuel a reactor by itself: rather, a uranium- or plutonium fueled reactor can convert thorium-232 into fissionable (and plutonium-like, highly bomb-usable) uranium-233. Thorium’s proliferation, waste, safety, and cost problems differ only in detail from uranium’s: e.g., thorium ore makes less mill waste, but highly radioactive U-232 makes fabricating or reprocessing U-233 fuel hard and costly. And with uranium-based nuclear power continuing its decades-long economic collapse, it’s awfully late to be thinking of developing a whole new fuel cycle whose problems differ only in detail from current versions.

Spent LWR fuel “burned” in IFRs, it’s claimed, could meet all humanity’s energy needs for centuries. But renewables and efficiency can do that forever at far lower cost, with no proliferation, nuclear wastes, or major risks. Moreover, any new type of reactor would probably cost even more than today’s models: even if the nuclear part of a new plant were free, the rest ­ two-thirds of its capital cost ­ would still be grossly uncompetitive with any efficiency and most renewables, sending out a kilowatt-hour for ~9–13¢/kWh instead of new LWRs’ ~12–18+¢. In contrast, the average U.S. wind farm completed in 2007 sold its power (net of a 1¢/ kWh subsidy that’s a small fraction of nuclear subsidies) for 4.5¢/kWh. Add ~0.4¢ to make it dispatchable whether the wind is blowing or not and you get under a nickel delivered to the grid. (1 US$ =  0.7 Euro)

Most other renewables also beat new thermal power plants too, cogeneration is often comparable or cheaper, and efficiency is cheaper than just running any nuclear- or fossil-fueled plant. Obviously these options would also easily beat proposed fusion reactors that are sometimes claimed to be comparable to today’s fission reactors in size and cost. And unlike any kind of hypothetical fusion or new fission reactor ­or LWRs, which have a market share below 2%­ efficiency and micro power now provide at least half the world’s new electrical services, adding tens of times more capacity each year than nuclear power does. It’s a far bigger gamble to assume that the nuclear market loser will become a winner than that these winners will turn to losers.

Small reactors
Toshiba claims to be about to market a 200-kWe nuclear plant (~5,000x smaller than today’s norm); a few startup firms like Hyperion Power Generation aim to make 10¢/kWh electricity from miniature reactors for which it claims over 100 firm orders. Unfortunately, 10¢ is the wrong target to beat: the real competitor is not other big and costly thermal power plants, but micro power and negawatts, whose delivered retail cost is often ~1–6¢/kWh. Can one imagine in principle that mass-production, passive operation, automation (perhaps with zero operating and security staff), and supposedly failsafe design might enable hypothetical small reactors to approach such low costs? No, for two basic reasons:

• Nuclear reactors derive their claimed advantages from highly concentrated sources of heat, and hence also of radiation. But the shielding and thermal protection needed to contain that concentrated energy and exploit it (via turbine cycles) are inherently unable to scale down as well as technologies whose different principles avoid these issues.

• By the time the new reactors could be proven, accepted by regulators and the public, financed, built, and convincingly tested, they couldn’t undercut the then prices of negawatts and micro power that are beating them by 2–20x today­ and would have gained decades of further head start on their own economies of mass production.

In short, the notion that different or smaller reactors plus wholly new fuel cycles (and, usually, new competitive conditions and political systems) could overcome nuclear energy’s inherent problems is not just decades too late, but fundamentally a fantasy. Fantasies are all right, but people should pay for their own. Investors in and advocates of small-reactor innovations will be disappointed. But in due course, the aging advocates of the half-century-old reactor concepts that never made it to market will retire and die, their credulous young devotees will relearn painful lessons lately forgotten, and the whole nuclear business will complete its slow death of an incurable attack of market forces. Meanwhile, the rest of us shouldn’t be distracted from getting on with the winning investments that make sense, make money, and really do solve the energy, climate, and proliferation problems, led by business for profit.

Source and contact: Amory B. Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute. 2317 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, Colorado 81654-9199, U.S.A.
Tel: +1 970 927-3851
Web: www.rmi.org