MIT Researchers See Natural Gas as the Choice for Lower Carbon Emissions
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are encouraging U.S. policymakers to consider the nation’s growing supply of natural gas as a short-term substitute for aging coal-fired power plants.

In the results of a two-year study, released today, the researchers said electric utilities and other sectors of the American economy will use more gas through 2050. Under a scenario that envisions a federal policy aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, researchers found a substantial role for natural gas.

“Because national energy use is substantially reduced, the share represented by gas is projected to rise from about 20 percent of the current national total to around 40 percent in 2040,” said the MIT researchers. When used to fire a power plant, gas emits about half of the carbon dioxide emissions as conventional coal plants.

The report asserts the impact of national policies that place an economic cost on greenhouse gas emissions would, first and foremost, be a reduction in energy use across the United States. It would flatten demand in the electricity sector.

….

Gas is an option for cutting power plant emissions and addressing global warming in the short term. But the researchers warned that the gas cushion shouldn’t distract policymakers from addressing the need for nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology for coal-fired generation.

“Though gas frequently is touted as a ‘bridge’ to the future, continuing effort is needed to prepare for that future, lest the gift of greater domestic gas resources turn out to be a bridge with no landing point on the far bank,” the report says. “Barriers to the expansion of nuclear power or coal and/or gas generation with CCS must be resolved over the next few decades so they are capable of expanding to replace natural gas in generation.”

…
Economics favor vehicles run on natural gas

Automakers that take the plunge into compressed natural gas vehicles would see a significant jump in demand under a national climate policy that makes carbon dioxide emissions costly. Biofuels are expected to advance, but it’s unclear how quickly and at what cost to important food crops. But even with biofuels in the picture, MIT projects natural gas vehicles will be 15 percent of the private vehicle fleet by 2050.

New shale gas fields could reconfigure the national map of gas producers and consumers. Gas production in the Marcellus Shale and other burgeoning gas fields in the Northeast, stretching from New England through the Great Lake states, is set to rise 78 percent by 2030. Under a carbon price regime, the researchers said gas production matches increasing gas consumption.

Indeed, natural gas is cleaner and less CO2-intensive than coal, but that’s hardly setting the bar high. There really aren’t any fuels that are dirtier than coal, so damn never everything has to be cleaner.

At least they did not discount nuclear energy completely, though the full report cites nuclear power as being too expensive for near term usage and claims gas is the most economical way to go. This is a common claim against nuclear energy, which has an extremely economical full life cost profile, but tends to be capital intensive. The report didn’t appear to consider the fact that much of the cost is a direct result of regulatory policy or that natural gas generation tends to have the highest operating expenses.

A look at the entire report finds that its conclusions on natural gas are generally quite glowing and tend to ignore the darker side of things.  Gas prices, it claims, could be stabilized and gas remain cheap. Yet historically, natural gas prices have been as volatile as oil and sometimes worse. The report also includes statements concerning the future of US natural gas production, painting a rosy picture of natural gas in the US being a fuel with many decades of supply remaining. It gives only a brief mention of the fact that this estimate is based on the presumption that non-conventional sources of gas are included in production, despite the fact that these have proven, thus far, to be significantly more difficult to effectively tap than conventional gas reservoirs.

As it stands, the US is already a major net importer of gas, although primarily from Canada. The demand for gas in North America has lead to an increasingly thinly stretched production capacity in both Canada and the United States. Demand has forced the use of extremely sour gas fields in Canada, which are both dirtier than conventional gas fields and are far more dangerous. At the same time, increasing use of natural gas for power generation has begun to push the capacity of pipelines and may soon require expensive upgrades of the North American natural gas transmission system.

As North American natural gas supplies become more and more stretched, the world supply of natural gas is increasingly becoming dependent on Russia and the Middle East. Natural gas reserves in Qatar have made it one of the richest countries in the world, and additional supplies in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates have come to dominate the world natural gas markets. Still, Russia remains on top as the biggest producer and exporter of natural gas. It is becoming increasingly clear that North America consumption of gas cannot continue to increase without becoming dependent on these countries for imports.

Yet the report, with its rosy picture of unconventional gas reserves and generous estimates of current supplies is quite silent on this issue as it is on the price volatility of gas and the environmental impacts of recovery of natural gas.
Why is this?

A quick look at the citations of the report finds a disturbing number of individuals with vested interests involved. Damn near every person cited as an “advisory committee member” was the CEO of a major energy interest, including the CEO of Hess Corporation, a major producer of oil and gas and Sempra Energy, the parent company of Southern California Gas and Sempra Pipeline and Storage company.

Yet the most telling statement can be found in the document’s “Forward and Acknowledgments” section:

Finally, we are very appreciative of the support from several sources. First and foremost,
we thank the American Clean Skies Foundation. Discussions with the Foundation led
to the conclusion that an integrative study on the future of natural gas in a carbon-
constrained world could contribute to the energy debate in an important way, and
the Foundation stepped forward as the major sponsor. MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)
members Hess Corporation and Agencia Naçional de Hidrocarburos (Colombia)
provided additional support. The Energy Futures Coalition supported dissemination
of the study results, and MITEI employed internal funds and fellowship sponsorship
to support the study as well. As with the advisory committee, the sponsors are not
responsible for and do not necessarily endorse the findings and recommendations.
That responsibility lies solely with the MIT study group.

It appears that the “American Clean Skies Foundation” was the major contributor to this publication. And just who is the American Clean Skies Foundation, you ask?

They are a nonprofit foundation with the stated mission: “to educate the public about the environmental benefits of using natural gas as well as wind, solar and other renewables to replace sources of energy that cause more pollution and add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.” They are also funded almost exclusively by the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the second largest producer of natural gas in the US. Not only that, but the foundation’s chair is Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy.

Now if that isn’t a transparent and obvious example of a “front group” I don’t know what is!

Nothing angers me more than idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about walking around and talking like they have some kind of authority

Well, “Rick” let me first assure you that there’s no reason to worry about the nuclear plant at Chalk River, because there is no such plant. There is a research and isotope production reactor there, however. You know why it was allowed to run without the mandated triple-redundant cooling system? Because the reactor is quite important to producing medical isotopes and shutting it down would create a shortage.

Of course, it was shut down anyway when it sprung a leak and hence the world now has a shortage of medical isotopes. This wouldn’t be a big deal if either of the two replacement reactors built right nextdoor to it were online, but because of people like yourself, they’re not. It also would not be a huge deal if other countries had built more medical research reactors, but again, anti-nuclear groups have managed to stunt that, so now we’re reliant on mostly 40 year old reactors.

Pat yourself on the back, idiot.

Finally, repeat after me “I replaced the old cloudy water with new clear water.” That is how you say “nuclear” just like “new clear.”

Via Nuclear Street:

AREVA Sets The Record Straight On The Termination Of Depleted Uranium Transports To Russia

Despite explanations provided by AREVA, the press this week-end reports Greenpeace’s allegations that the AREVA group decided to end transports of depleted uranium to the Russian enriching company Tenex this year, suggesting that this decision was made due to pressure from the anti-nuclear organization. These claims are completely unfounded.

Termination of these transports end of 2010 results from the completion of a commercial contract that the parties decided not to renew back in 2006. The final transport of AREVA’s depleted uranium to Russia, within the scope of this contract, will occur as planned in the weeks to come. This topic was raised during an Haut Comité à la Transparence (Transparency committee) meeting back in November 2009 in presence of Greenpeace representative, Mr. Yannick Rousselet. In addition, Mr. Rousselet contributes to the drafting of the Haut Comité à la Transparence report on the fuel cycle in which the transport termination deadline is referred to.

For Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, AREVA spokesperson, « This situation illustrates that Greenpeace has extensive imagination but little memory. Locked in its anti-nuclear dogma, Greenpeace is once again fighting the wrong battle. »

In April, Greenpeace vandals tore up train rails to stop a nuclear waste shipment to Russia. According to a report by RIA Novosti, Greenpeace activists tore up the train track near the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in southeast France to stop a shipment of nuclear waste to Russia, the organization said. Depleted uranium hexafluoride was due to be transported via rail to the port of Le Havre and on to St. Petersburg.

“Yet another Greenpeace protest is a clear manipulation of public consciousness. They [Greenpeace activists] demanding the halt of shipments while it was widely known in 2006 that deliveries of uranium hexafluoride expire in 2010. Each time a shipment occurs, they chain themselves to the train tracks and put their heads on the tracks pretending to fight against further deliveries which will not take place after 2010,” Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said, adding that the protestors are “drawing attention to an issue that doesn’t exist.”

Activists say that shipments of nuclear waste to Russia violate French law and an EU directive banning the import and export of dangerous waste. In February, activists held several protests against nuclear waste transportation to Russia and its storage in the country.

What is so disgusting about this is that it demonstrates, yet again, that Greenpeace believes that they are not only justified in lying about the facts, but are above the law. Greenpeace seems to believe that they have the right to do anything they want, destroy any property they want and violate the laws of any country with impunity. Simply because they believe nuclear energy is so terrible, they may do anything and everything, acting as if there is no authority higher than themselves.

These self-appointed authorities are all too often allowed to get away with their crimes, simply because they are popular or their cause is seen as being valid. Not even a legitimate national government has the powers they seem to believe they are entitled to. With no courts, no balances or division of power, they claim the right to deface or destroy any property, to blockade any transportation and to harass any group or individual they decide to.

In case you missed it, their “protest” was vandalizing or dismantling the rails which are used to transport materials to and from nuclear energy center outside Pierrelatte France. This “protest’ was not simply waving signs or picketing, calling for boycotts or yelling on bullhorns, it was taking wrenches, prybars and hammers and taking apart railroad tracks.

Greenpeace had this to say on their blog:

Yesterday morning at 8am CET, eight Greenpeace activists dismantled the railway tracks between the Tricastin nuclear facility and Pierrelatte in order to stop a shipment of nuclear waste being shipped to Russia. The Russian ship, Kapitan Kuroptev, is waiting at Le Havre to receive the shipment.

French nuclear companies AREVA and EDF say depleted uranium is sent to Siberia to be enriched and then returned to France. This is spin and deception. This isn’t ‘recycling’ or ‘reuse’. This is making nuclear waste somebody else’s problem. It only demonstrates once again the industry’s complete inability to deal with the dangers of nuclear waste.

Not only are there bold-faced lies in this statement, but they again flaunt their criminal activities with a smug disregard for the rules of a civil and just society.

They did, however, state that they will not be attempting such protests in Russia:

“In Russia, taking apart rails is fraught with serious consequences,” Tchouprov said referring to routinely tough response by Russian authorities to any action they deem as a security threat.

Well YEAH! In this circumstance, I have to be a little critical of France for allowing this to go on without arresting those involved and subjecting them to considerable prison time (like years). In Russia, they would certainly not avoid such punishment, assuming they were not shot on sight, which quite honestly, is not entirely unjustified when someone is clearly attempting to sabotage a life-critical piece of infrastructure like a railway.

I’m not aware of exactly what the punishment is for this kind of vandalism in France or the EU in general is. In the United States, intentionally compromising the safety or integrity of a railroad or attempting to cause a train derailment is a very very serious Federal crime. Simply committing the act of sabotage on railways carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. If the act results in an actual derailment with loss of property and injuries, additional charges would be included, and if anyone dies as a result, the crime becomes a capital offense, eligible for the federal death penalty.

Why is Greenpeace exempt from rule of law on these actions? Hopefully they won’t be forever.

As for the uranium bound for Russia, the truth is far different than they would like you to believe.

Why the material was being shipped to Russia:

The material had been shipped to Russia for processing at a large uranium defluorination plant run by TENEX.   When uranium is enriched, it is done so by converting it to a gaseous compound, uranium hexafluoride.   After enrichment, the enriched uranium hexafluoride is converted to another form of uranium, usually uranium oxide, but occasionally uranium carbide, uranium metal or some other compound.   However, since the process of converting the uranium hexafluoride back to solid uranium requires energy and chemical processing, it is common practice for the depleted uranium to be stored on site as uranium hexaflouride gas in cylinders.

After many years of enrichment, the cylinders of depleted uranium hexaflouride tend to accumulate at enrichment sites. Eventually, warehousing them becomes an issue simply due to the space they take up. More than 95% of the depleted uranium in the world is in the form of uranium hexafluoride. In addition to taking up space, the gas is reactive and can be dangerous if a cylinder were to spring a leak. Compared to many other industrial chemicals shipped by rail (such as chlorine gas) the uranium hexafluoride is not unusually dangerous, but there have been some accidents in years past.

Therefore, defluoridization and conversion of the uranium hexafluoride to uranium oxide or uranium metal is the preferred method of dealing with the material. The process produces allows for the recovery of uranium, which can be used for downblending of highly enriched uranium to produce fuel. It can also be used for any of the number of uses depleted uranium metal has found (ranging from semiconductors to radiation shielding to armor-penetrating munitions.) Alternatively, the chemically stable uranium oxide can be stored, taking up less space and without the potential dangers of uranium hexafluoride. The process also results in the recovery of fluorine which can be sold commercially, most commonly in the form of hydrofluoric acid.

At least some of the depleted uranium also was destine for re-enrichment. While depleted uranium has had most of the uranium-235 removed, it often does have enough remaining to make re-enrichment economically viable, depending on the price of uranium and the enrichment technology being used. Tenex would have re-enriched the depleted uranium at one of its Russian plants. A portion of the enriched uranium would be returned to France.

Areva had contracted with Tenex to process the material, which had become backlogged at their facilities. As part of the contract, Areva sold the surplus material to Tenex at a low price and Tenex resold the fluoride recovered from the processing of the uranium hexafluoride.

By all accounts this was a mutually beneficial business relationship, but the contract is now over and Areva has reduced its surplus of uranium hexafluoride. The decision not to renew the contract does not mean that either party was necessarily dissatisfied with the arrangement. It is just as likely that Areva is satisifed with the reduction in their depleted uranium inventory and may not see much economic benefit in continuing to send it to Russia for processing.

Belarus, however, is setting the record straight about the uranium they have, its security and its usage.   Furthermore, they’re not about to let the US, the Russians or anyone else demand that they give up valuable material from their domestic nuclear sciences program, especially when its perfectly secure and not a proliferation threat.

Via Naviny:

As Mr. Lukashenka said, Belarus still possesses enriched uranium, including “hundreds of kilograms” of weapons-grade and lower enriched uranium. “I’ve been told for many years: ‘Move this uranium out of the country. To America if you like. We’ll pay you. Or to Russia.’ I say: ‘Why are you dictating to us? This is our commodity. We keep it under the control of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]. We aren’t going to make dirty bombs or sell it to anyone. We use this uranium for research purposes….We once gave up nuclear weapons and what benefit do we have from that?’”

Mr. Lukashenka’s statements show that he’s not about to let his country be bullied about the material, which can still be used for legitimate research purposes, but is not enriched enough to be used in weapons. However, he did confuse some of the terminology about the type of uranium that they have in the country. Stanislaw Shushkevich, the head of the Belarusian State University nuclear physics program helped clear up the issue of exactly what the country has in the following statement:

“I can say with full responsibility that we don’t and will not have any appreciable amount of weapons-grade uranium,” Dr. Shushkevich stressed. “We have ‘dirty’ uranium, which is highly radioactive. After the reactor [at the Sosny center] was deactivated, this radioactive substance was extracted and put in special conditions in order not to trigger a nuclear reaction. This is far from being what an atomic bomb is made of. A whole industry should be in place to process this uranium. This requires expensive technologies, which we don’t have.”

The uranium that Belarus has is far too “dirty” from irradiation to make a weapon from, and is not even of sufficient enrichment for weapon usage. However, it has only been partially used up by the research reactor that was deactivated. The material is still perfectly suitable for use in a new research reactor, and as such is very valuable to science.

Three cheers for Belarus! Don’t bend to bunk political pressures from other countries to turn over this valuable non-prolific material. It’s not your damn job to make Obama look good for his next election. Perhaps this example will teach a few other countries to grow a pair.

Chile hands US weapons-grade uranium
SANTIAGO – With United States President Barack Obama shifting his nuclear non-proliferation strategy to rogue states and terrorists, Chile has become an example of how small countries help make the world safer.

Vast amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) are being stored in relatively unsecured locations globally. Just 25kg of it – the size of a grapefruit – could devastate an entire city if detonated.

At a nonproliferation summit next Monday in Washington, Mr Obama will encourage leaders from 47 countries to work with the US to secure and remove HEU from reactors. Chile did so last month, giving 18kg of HEU from Santiago reactors to the US.

Mr Obama has promised to lead a global effort to recover all of this material within four years.

The US has helped convert or verified the shut down of 67 reactors in 32 countries from HEU to low-enriched uranium that is much harder to weaponise. It also has secured HEU supplies more than 750 vulnerable buildings and removed 2,691kg of weapons-grade nuclear material for safer storage. AP

This news story has been making the rounds and getting a lot of attention.   Some press outlets are making quite a big deal about it, such as Time Magazine which ran a story entitled Bomb Chasers: Rescuing a Potential Nuke from the Chile Quake.  You can view photos of the uranium removal on the NNSA Flickr site.

This sure sounds like a big step forward toward a safer world where terrorists won’t be able to raid a research reactor for material ton use in a bomb, but is it really?  Lets take a closer look.

What is highly enriched uranium:

There is some confusion as to exactly what the term “highly enriched uranium” means, and this has in and of itself been used by politicians to gain support for conversion of reactors to lower enrichment and to scare the public into believing that any material that is considered “highly enriched” is the same as “weapons grade.” In fact, any uranium which is enriched beyond 20% U-235 and/or U-233 is considered to be “highly enriched.”   This is considerably less than the level required for a nuclear weapon.

Fission-based weapons generally use uranium that has been enriched to well beyond 85%   Bellow about 80%, gun triggered weapons simply will not work, and even advanced implosion-based weapons would be unable to function at levels much lower.   Somewhere around 75% is likely the limit for what even the best designs could use for uranium.  All known uranium-based nuclear weapons use at least 85% enriched uranium while modern weapons use uranium enriched to more than 90%.

By some definitions, all highly enriched uranium is considered to be “weapons usable.”   This definition is deceptive, because it implies that such uranium could be used alone to build a nuclear weapon.   This is not the case.   However, 20-50% enriched uranium can be used in weapons as an effective secondary initiator or “spark plug” in a multistage H-bomb.   Of course, for this to happen, there already needs to be a primary composed of weapons grade uranium or plutonium.

The definition and the confusion it has caused may be attributed to the context under which it was originally used.   During the cold war, when the United States or Soviet Union produced uranium of an enrichment level bellow 20%, it was understood that the material had no potential to be used for weapons purposes (except perhaps as the final tamper stage of an H-bomb, which any uranium can be used for) without additional enrichment.    However, uranium enriched beyond 20% had the distinct possibility of being incorporated into weapons to increase their power and build larger H-bombs, even if it, in and of itself was not usable as the primary fission fuel.    At the time, it went without saying that the US and Soviet Union had plenty of weapons grade material and no shortage of primaries to begin with.

Though outdated, the definition has proven to be great for politicians who want to scare the public and make them believe that they are dealing with a highly dangerous material.

Use of high enrichment uranium in research reactors:

Early research reactors, especially those which were built under the US “Atoms for Peace” program commonly used highly enriched uranium, with many approaching weapons grade uranium levels.   In general, the amount of material in the core was not enough to build a bomb from, but the use of HEU had numerous advantages for operating the reactor.  For one thing, it offered a very long core lifespan, allowing for research institutions to use the reactor for years on end without having to worry about shutting down the reactor to refuel.  The highly enriched fuel also produced a smaller volume of spent fuel and a more uniform neutron flux over the life of the reactor.

HEU fuel allowed cores to be smaller and produce very high neutron economy.  This is vital in a research reactor, because the reactor is designed to produce excess neutrons for use in irradiation of experiments.  Such high fluxes can be easily achieved with highly enriched uranium.

The use of HEU also allows for the recovery of high purity fission-product isotopes from the fuel.  For some isotopes, highly enriched uranium is the only feasible means of production.  While most research reactors no longer run on highly enriched uranium, HEU targets are still used to product isotopes such as molybdenum-99.

In the 1970’s political concerns resulted in a great deal of effort to convert research reactors to run on low enrichment uranium.   Doing so often meant redesigning the cores of reactors that had run on HEU and almost always resulted in a decrease in performance.    In many cases, the HEU cores of reactors built in the 1950’s and 1960’s still had many years of life in them, but they were replaced anyway because of the politics that made nuclear fears more important than reality.

While the idea of a terrorist or rogue nation stealing uranium from a research reactor might make for a good James Bond movie, it’s not a very realistic concern, especially after the fuel has been irradiated for any period of time.    Once the fuel has been used for a few years it becomes unusable for weapons much of the U-235 has been fissioned away, leaving highly radioactive fission byproducts.   The fuel is difficult to handle and nearly impossible to transport without special containers and equipment.   Given enough time, up to 7% of the U-235 will have become U-236, a non-fissile isotope which further reduces the reactivity of the fuel.

Therefore, while the core may have material that could, at least in theory, be used to construct a nuclear weapon, this is not the case after it has been run for any length of time, and by the time the core has reached 50% of its lifespan, it is far beyond usable for any nuclear weapon.

What you need to build a uranium-based nuclear bomb:

Building a “simple, crude gun-triggered” nuclear bomb is not nearly as simple and crude as you might think.   By comparison to modern nuclear weapons, a bomb like Little Boy may be crude and simple, but compared to anything a lay person is likely to build it’s pretty damn complicated.

Even the Little Boy bomb was a lot more complex than is commonly believed.   The weapon used two pieces of uranium, with one fired into the other to create a critical mass of uranium.   This is a technique that is very inefficient  and will only work with uranium – it won’t work at all with plutonium.   However, the actual weapon, contrary to popular belief, did not fire a small uranium slug into a larger mass of uranium.   Instead, it fired a large piece of uranium into a smaller insert.   This was necessary to achieve critical mass while keeping the weapon from pre-initiating.

The larger of the two piece of uranium had to be kept away from the polonium-beryllium neutron generator until the last moment before detonation.  It also had to be kept outside of the tungsten carbide neutron reflector that helped produce the super-critical  reaction.   Furthermore, the larger piece of uranium had to be larger than a single critical mass to make the bomb reach supercriticality fast enough.   In order to do this, the uranium was fabricated into a cylindrical shape with a hole through the center.   This geometry kept the uranium from achieving a chain reaction.

When the bomb was finally detonated, the mass of uranium was rapidly inserted into the neutron reflector, where it joined a smaller piece of uranium.  A neutron source assured the mass had plenty of neutrons to start the reaction.   The whole thing had to come together very rapidly and with extreme precision.  Even the slightest miscalculation could cause the bomb to fail or a criticality accident to occur when it was being fabricated.

Though simple by nuclear weapon standards, a first-generation gun triggered device requires extremely precise measurement and machining of the uranium components.   Uranium is a notoriously difficult metal to machine and work with, and any error could cause the bomb to fail to detonate or could result in a criticality accident before the weapon is even complete.

Could a terrorist group ever pull this off?   Unlikely.   Perhaps with a handful of physicists on their staff and a million dollars or so to spend on the project, but even then, it’s far from a sure thing.    Before this could ever happen, they’d need to get the weapons grade uranium and enough of it to make the bomb.   The Mk-1 Little Boy bomb is about as simple as nuclear weapons get, but it’s still a complicated device whose inner workings still are partially classified.

Assuming the uranium used is nearly 100% pure U-235, the minimum critical mass  for a bare sphere required is going to be 52 kilograms (115 lbs) for a basic sphere of material.   This amount may be reduced somewhat by the use of advanced nuclear weapon designs features like neutron reflectors, neutron generators or boosting, but this has its limits.   By some estimates, a weapon with a very thick, reflective tamper and a highly advanced assembly could use as little as 15 kilograms of U-235, but this seems a bit extreme, and almost certainly only applies to highly sophisticated weapons with nearly 100%  “super grade” U-235.    First generation nuclear weapons like the Little Boy bomb needed at least 50 kg, with Little Boy containing a total of 65 kilograms.

Conversely, the use of lower grades of uranium is going to result in a higher minimum critical mass.   If the uranium is only 90 or 85% uranium-235, a weapon is going to need  more of it, and even with the use of advanced design features, anything much less than that is not going to work at all.

One reason why most modern nuclear weapons use plutonium as the primary fuel is that it can create a weapon with much smaller critical mass.  A plutonium weapon only needs only 22 kilograms of pu-239 to achieve critical mass.

Statements that claim that only 25 kilograms of uranium are required and that the core need only be “About the size of a grapefruit” are not accurate.  “About the size of a grapefruit” could describe the amount of plutonium needed for a modern weapon, but a uranium based weapon would need more material.    25 kilograms of uranium might be enough to produce a small but significant nuclear reaction in a highly efficient, boosted, implosion-triggered weapon, but it’s not nearly enough for a basic fission weapon.

Reactors in Chile:

RECH-1 – A 5 MWt pool-type research reactor, began operation in 1974.

RECH-2 – A 2 MWt pool-type reactor, began operation in 1977, refurbished to present configuration in 1989.  (RECH-2 has a design capability of 10 MWt, but is licensed to run at 2 MWt)

Although RECH-2 is officially considered to be operational, it has not been online in many years and is currently in cold shutdown with no fuel in the core.  Both of these reactors were originally provided by the Soviet Union.   The reactors are located in Santiago and operated by the Comisión Chilena de Energía Nuclear.

Both of these reactors were initially designed to use highly enriched uranium at about 80-90% uranium-235.   Beginning in 1979, the IAEA and other international entities began to pressure Chile to convert the two reactors to run exclusively on low enrichment uranium.   Initial studies of the RECH-1 reactor indicated that conversion to low enrichment uranium would not be feasible.  However, conversion to 45% U-235 fuel was considered to be a possibility.   Although 45% is nowhere near the level of enrichment needed for a nuclear weapon primary, it is considered to be “Highly Enriched Uranium” by most definitions.

Although the original reactor cores elements were not quite due for replacement, the conversion of the RECH-1 reactor to 45% U-235 began in 1981.   The fuel was acquired by agreement with the United Kingdom.   Work on converting the reactor to 45% U-235 was completed in 1989 when RECH-1 achieved its first criticality using only 45% enriched uranium.   Conversion to 45% U-235 operation required modification of the reactor, with an increase in the number of core fuel elements and a decrease in the performance of the reactor.   From 1989 to 1998, the RECH-1 reactor operated using a mixed core containing 45% enriched fuel elements as well as some of the original 80% fuel elements.  By 1998, however, all of the 80% enriched HEU had been exhausted and was removed from the core.

The RECH-2 reactor, although licensed for operation is currently shutdown.   The reactor operated up to 1986 using a combination of 90% and 45% enriched uranium.   Beginning in 1986 the reactor was shut down for a major modification of the core.   Of the 31 original fuel assemblies, it was determined that two were damaged beyond repair.   The reactor was brought online again in 1989, but only for a short period of time.   Problems with the conversion of RECH-2 to use lower enrichment fuel lead to the program being suspended.   Any remaining fuel in RECH-2 was removed and transferred to RECH-1 at this time.

Although RECH-2 remains licensed for operation, it has not been online since 1989 and currently no long term decisions have been made as to its future.   Use of the reactor in the future hinges on whether it can be converted to use exclusively low enrichment uranium, which would likely require a complete redesign of the reactor core and support systems.

The conversion of the single operational reactor in Chile was not enough to get the IAEA or international community off Chile’s back over the use of “highly enriched fuel.”   Due to external pressure, studies to convert the reactor to even lower enrichment fuel had been ongoing since the 1980’s. Beginning in 1998, the reactor began to operate on a combination of 45% U-235 fuel elements and 19.75% U-235 fuel elements.  The former of the two qualifying as “Low Enrichment Uranium” by all agreed upon definitions.     Complete conversion of the Rech-2 reactor to 19.75% U-235 was achieved in 2006.   Since that time, the reactor has run only on “Low Enrichment Uranium.”   Not surprisingly, there has been some reduction in performance and capabilities of the single remaining reactor.

What Chile Has For Uranium:

By all accounts the only fresh uranium fuel available in Chile is 19.75% U-235 or less.    The original 80%+ U-235 that the country had acquired in the 1970’s has all been heavily irradiated from years of use.  Most of the uranium in the fuel elements has been burned up and the fuel now contains high levels of fission byproducts.   Extracting any remaining U-235 for use in a weapon is nearly impossible.

The 45% U-235 fuel which was used from the early 1980’s onward has also been mostly burned.   There may still be a few fuel assemblies which contain a large amount of their original uranium and have not been heavily irradiated.   Of course, the 45% enriched uranium is not directly usable in a weapon to begin with.

Several news sources make reference to 18 kilograms of uranium being in the inventory of Chile. Even if this was very highly enriched uranium it would not be enough to build a weapon. The 18 kilograms described may be remaining 45% enriched fuel that has not been heavily irradiated or it could possibly be some leftover 80%+ fuel, although the former seems less likely. It may also be 80%+ fuel that has been partially irradiated.   News reports have been fairly sketchy about the exact nature of the uranium removed.   All that is known conclusively is that it was “highly enriched.”

The reactor operations in Chile are conducted by fully competent personnel and there has never been any serious accident or concern over theft of the fresh or spent fuel.

Conclusion:

The removal of uranium from Chile is purely an exercise in public relations and a political windfall for those involved.   Chile never had sufficient amounts of weapons grade uranium at any one time to create a nuclear bomb.   The weapons grade material the country did once have has been burned in their research reactors years ago.  Any 45% U-235 fuel that may remain in the inventory does not present a proliferation risk even if it technically qualifies as “highly enriched.”

So why would someone remove the option to comment form them blog? An even bigger question: why would they remove the option to comment from one blog and leave it on many others that the same organization runs?

Chances are that they’re not happy with the comments they’re getting. It can make a site look pretty bad when all the feedback shown publicly is heavily against their view. Worse still is when the comments contain effective counter arguments or point out factual errors. How do you deal with that?

Well apparently Greenpeace didn’t want to deal with it, because their anti-nuclear blog, called “nuclear reaction” has now gone comment-less. Even the previous comments have been expunged from the record.

Does this constitute censorship? That would seem to depend on whose definition of censorship you use. Regardless of whether it’s censorship, it’s certainly within the rights of Greenpeace to disable to comments on their own site, which they control and pay for the bandwidth on. This might be considered a good example of “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” because while they’re free to run their own site how they want, it’s not usually a good sign when you show that you can’t take any heat but are fully willing to dish it out or that you’re not willing to have your facts checked or statements questioned.

Greenpeace Blogs:

Nuclear Reaction - Comments disabled and previous comments deleted

Making Waves – Comments Allowed

Ocean Defenders – Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Blog Community – Comments Allowed

Greenpeace USA – Comments Allowed

Greenpeace UK - Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Canada – Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Germany- Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Sweden- Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Australia and Pacific Region – Comments Allowed

Greenpeace Southeast Asia – Comments Allowed

A big thanks to “Nuclear Fissionary,” another grassroots pro-nuclear blog for pointing this one out!

However, there is another type of reactor that plays a vital, although unseen role in life.   These are the non-power reactors, which are used for producing radioisotopes and for a variety of research activities.  The cores of these reactors may produce many megawatts of thermal energy, but this is not their purpose, or at least not the primary purpose.  Instead, these reactors are used as sources of large amounts of neutrons, which irradiate target materials.   This may be done for research or analysis purposes, such as neutron activation analysis, but it is also done to prepare synthetic isotopes for medical and industrial applications.

Reactors of this type are often refereed to as “research reactors,” even if their primary purpose is the routine production of isotopes, as opposed to pure scientific research.   They can be found at national laboratories, universities and nuclear technology centers.   Most research reactors are “pool” type reactors.  In pool reactors, the reactor core is literally in an open pool of water, allowing technicians to access the core and surrounding area with poles or manipulators at any time.  Many also have pneumatic or hydraulic systems for sending target samples into the reactor core and back.

The size and power of these reactors depends largely on their application.   Small research reactors include the SLOWPOKE and TRIGA reactor types.  These reactors operate at power levels from a few kilowatts up to 500 kilowatts.   Such reactors can be found at universities and research facilities.  They produce a high enough neutron flux for materials sciences and analysis uses, but are generally too small to produce synthetic isotopes in large quantities.   A few universities and research facilities have larger, more powerful research reactors that can operate at power levels of up to a few megawatts.

Then there are the so-called “high flux” reactors, which generally have a core power of several megawatts up to 50 megawatts or more.   Such reactors can produce large neutron fluxes and are designed to have a large amount of excess neutrons beyond what is needed to maintain criticality.  These excess neutrons can be used to irradiate target materials for isotope production.

Isotope production reactors provide a variety of important materials.  These include radiopharmasuiticals, industrial radiography sources, specialty isotopes for research and even the americium-241 used in smoke detectors.    Their impact on industry and research is enormous, but nuclear medicine is where the fill the most critical role.   Since many important radioisotopes are short lived, they need to be produced continuously, thus making these reactors vital to modern medical care.

But there is a huge problem.

Demand for radioisotopes has been increasing rapidly.  More and more areas of the world now have access to high tech healthcare and imaging and therapeutic of radioisotopes has only increased since synthetic isotopes entered the market in the 1950’s.   What has not been on the increase, however, is the capacity of research and isotope production reactors to produce these vital products.   Indeed, while a very few reactors have come online in the past decade, many more have been retired.  Those which do continue to fill this vital need are aging, with many approaching the half-century mark.

As with power reactors, there has been an unwillingness to built new reactors.  Pool type isotope production reactors are comparably easy to construct and there are several standardized designs avaliable, but politics and activism has made it so difficult to build new reactors, that more often then not, we’re left to use only the reactors we inherited from a more rational era.    As reactors age, it becomes increasingly expensive to maintain them and eventually, major overhauls are required.  All too often, financial concerns mean that the reactor gets retried, rather than upgraded or replaced by a new reactor.

It should be noted that the age of a reactor of this type is not, in and of itself, a reason for concern.   In many cases the age of the reactor represents only the age of the “pool” or “tank,” and even that may have a new lining.   Just like a computer case can be years old and still contain high tech electronics, an old reactor pool may be reused multiple times for new cores, mechanical systems and electronics.  The problem arises when old reactors are operated continuously with no opportunity to preform the necessary replacements of major components.

Unfortunately, as reactor capacity gets stretched to the limits, increasingly the role of these research reactors is considered “too important to shut down.”   They play a roll so vital that a planned outage to replace the tank liner, overhaul the critical systems and bring the whole unit up to date is considered unacceptable, because doing so would result in a catastrophic shortage of isotopes.   Thus, the reactor is run into the ground.    It would be like driving your car continuously, refueling from a tanker truck and never coming off the highway.  Eventually, the car is going to need new spark plugs, an oil change and the transmission flushed.  If you don’t do it, the car will seize up.

That’s basically what happened to the NRU reactor in Canada and very nearly happened to the Petten High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands.   Both reactors had been running for years and were showing signs of festering problems.  What they really needed was a good top to bottom inspection and refit.   The operators knew this, but there were no reactors avaliable to pick up the slack.  Thus they kept on going.  When they sprung a leak, it was patched.   Until, inevitably, they ended up with problems too severe for a band-aid.

Reactors currently filling critical needs:

Petten Nuclear Reactors, The Netherlands -The Petten nuclear reactors are located at the Petten Nuclear Research Center in the Netherlands. The two reactors on the site are the High Flux Reactor, a 45 megawatt isotope production reactor in use since 1961 and the Low Flux Reactor, a 30 kW pool type reactor which has been in use since 1960. The High Flux Reactor is, by far, the more important of the two. The Low Flux Reactor is owned by the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group, and is used primarily for materials research. It does not have the capacity to produce large amounts of synthetic isotopes.

The High Flux Reactor at Petten is one of the three most important medical isotope reactors. The Petter HFR, the Canadian NRU reactor and the South African SAFARI-1 reactor together account for the vast majority of the therapeutic and medical imaging isotopes produced in the world. The reactor normally operates for 280 days or more a year, but in recent years, corrosion problems have forced the reactor to be shut down for maintenance.

Last month (February 2010) the HFR was shut down for an extended service outage. The outage had been planned for some time, as in 2008, workers had discovered significant corrosion that would require much of the reactor tank and plumbing to be replaced. The reactor has been drained and much of the containment structure has been removed to allow for the refit. Authorities had delayed the shutdown, in part due to the shutdown of the NRU reactor, but the condition of the reactor made the service outage inevitable.

Planning has begun for the construction of a replacement for the Petten High Flux Reactor as the current reactor is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2015.

It’s not entirely clear how long the HFR will be down. The fact that the shutdown has occurred while the NRU reactor continues to experience problems has effectively reduced the worldwide supply of medical isotopes by more than half. The critical isotope molybdenum-99 is produced at the HFR, and its shutdown has had a major impact on the world supply of the critical isotope.

The NRU Reactor, Canada – The NRU reactor (National Research Universal Reactor) is (or perhaps was) the single most important medical isotope production reactor in the world.   Located at the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada, NRU was originally intended to be the country premier research reactor. Built in 1957, the reactor has a high capacity for isotope production and sample irradiation. It had been used in past years for nuclear fuel research, but increasingly, the capacity has been taken up by medical isotope production. NRU was the most important supplier of numerous medical isotopes including Tc-99m, I-131 and Co-60 and was responsible for providing diagnostic and treatment isotopes to at least twenty million per year.

NRU received a new reactor tank in the 1970’s and was last taken offline for a major overhaul in 1991. The 1991 servicing increased the reactors power and modified the core to use low-enrichment uranium fuel. At the time, inspection of the tank indicated that it was in relatively good condition, but showed some signs of wear and tear, but was estimated to have a good ten years of reliable service left. That was the same year that the NRX reactor went offline. Without the NRX reactor, NRU no longer had a backup, and it could no longer be shut down for another inspection or major servicing.

Not surprisingly, in 2008 the tank began to spring leaks. First two small leaks were discovered and patched, but in May 2009, a major leak was discovered and it was determined that the reactor needed to be shutdown and defuled for repairs. Initially, officials had hoped to have it back up and running in a matter of a few months, but the restart date has been pushed back several times. At present, it’s not expected to be back online for at least another two months.

In the meantime, workers at Chalk River are scrambling to try to get it going again as soon as possible. The world is facing a shortage of medical isotopes and the Canadian taxpayers are hemorrhaging money to repair a reactor that everyone pretty much knew was being pushed way past what it should have been. If that’s not infuriating enough, two state of the art reactors are sitting idle just outside the NRU building.

(more on that bellow)

SAFARI-1, South Africa -SAFARI-1 is a pool type reactor which is currently operated at a core power of 20 megawatts.  It was originally built as a 5MW pool reactor in 1965.   Since then, it has received several upgrades and retrofits, with the last complete overhaul of the reactor being in 1988, when an inner tank leak had to be repaired.   The reactor currently runs on highly enriched uranium, primarily supplied by material left over from the defunct South African Nuclear Weapons Program.

At present, SAFARI-1 operates almost entirely as a medical isotope production reactor.   With the shutdown of the NRU reactor in Canada and the Petten High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands, SAFARI-1 is currently the only major supplier of molybdenum-99, the precursor to Technetium-99m in the world.  Technetium-99m is one of the most important, if not THE most important isotopes for diagnostic medical imaging.   Despite efforts by South Africa to produce as much as possible with the SAFARI-1 reactor, worldwide supplies are currently critically tight and rationing of diagnostic procedures has been the result.   If SAFARI-1 were to be shut down due to a major technical problem, the results could be catastrophic.  Until NRU and Petten reopen, SAFARI is a thin thread by which the world’s Tc-99m supply hangs.

OPAL, Australia - OPAL or “Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor,” is the only operating reactor in Australia, and is located in Lucas Heights, just outside of Sydney. The reactor is a 20 megawatt multipurpose research, medical and isotope production reactor. The primary use of OPAL is neutron scatter and neutron activation analysis. It is also used, although to a lesser extent, for production of industrial and medical isotopes.

OPAL is regularly used for production of radiopharmasuitical isotopes, primarily for use in Australia, but also in the Pacific Rim region. Although the production of medical isotopes by OPAL is only of nominal size, it is noteworthy as it is one of the few reactors that produces such isotopes regularly. Due to the shutdown of the NRU reactor in Canada and the resulting worldwide shortage of therapeutic isotopes, OPAL has increased medical isotope production. Unfortunately, due to the design of the reactor fuel elements and the fact that they are low enrichment uranium, it cannot produce all the isotopes that reactors like the NRU reactor can.

OPAL has the distinction of being the newest isotope production reactor currently in operation. It first went critical in 2007, replacing the High Flux Australian Reactor, which was located at the same complex since 1958.

High Flux Isotope Reactor, United States - The High Flux Isotope Reactor is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and has been operating since 1965.   HFIR is a pool type reactor that operates at 85 megawatts and has one of the highest neutron fluxes for irradiation of any research reactor in the world.

Initially, the primary purpose of the HFIR was the production of a variety of isotopes for the purposes of industry, medicine and research.  The reactor was overhauled several times, most recently in 2006-2007.  The shutdown lasted for more than a year and was one of the most extensive in the reactor’s history.  It included the installation of new instrumentation and targeting system for irradiating materials.  It also included the installation of a “cold neutron source” which allows for certain studies of particle interactions and fundamental materials physics.

The HFIR also has four horizontal beam neutron tubes, which are used to provide neutrons to instruments of the Center for Neutron Scattering.   These tubes, known as HB-1, HB-2, HB-3 and HB-4 are situated outside the core with the remaining space occupied by large and small “vertical experiment facility” areas, where samples can be irradiated.  Within the core, target positions allow samples to be exposed to extremely intense neutron irradiation.

In recent years the focus of the HFIR has moved away from isotope production and increasingly toward scientific research.   Lacking other facilities, and with no new research reactors constructed in recent years, the HFIR has become more and more in demand and the capacity has become stretched.  Each year over 500 scientific users utilize the HFIR, with many having to wait in que for many years.

While isotope production now occupies less of the limited capacity of the HFIR, it remains the only large general purpose isotope production reactors in the United States.  It is also the only source of numerous specialty isotopes in the world and the only reactor in the Western world capable of producing the highly valuable and extremely important isotope californium-252.

Advanced Test Reactor, United States – The Advanced Test Reactor is located at the Idaho National Laboratory in the United States.   The name of the reactor is a bit deceptive, as by modern standards there are aspects of the reactor which are not “advanced” at all.    However, both the reactor and the name date back to 1967.   The reactor uses fuel “plates” as opposed to rods or pellets, as most other reactors do.   Plate fuel has fallen from favor since the construction of the ATR and is now generally considered obsolete.   The fuel must be custom fabricated for the ATR when refueling is needed.

Despite the use of plate fuel, the ATR is a very capable reactor with a maximum power of 250 megawatts – considerably more than most other research and irradiation reactors.  The reactor was built with the primary purpose of materials testing, especially relating to materials for use in nuclear power reactors.   The reactor also includes features like a pressurized water loop, which can be used to simulate the conditions inside a PWR in order to test fuel, cladding, control rod material and other materials used in power reactors.

Originally, isotope production was seen as only a secondary function of the reactor, but due to the loss of other isotope producing reactors and the increasing demand for industrial and medical isotopes, the ATR has seen more and more of its capacity go to isotope production.   Today, the Advanced Test Reactor is the only source of cobalt-60, an isotope vital to medicine and industry, in the United States.   The reactor’s “Static Capsul Experiment,” originally intended to expose various materials to neutron irradiation, is now used almost full time for Cobalt-60 production.   The reactor produces about 200 KCi of Co-60 per year.  Due to the limits of capacity, nearly all of the Co-60 produced is used for medical purposes.

The Mayak Reactor Complex, Russia – Mayak is one of the largest nuclear technology centers in Russia. It was originally constructed in between 1945 and 1948 to support the Soviet Atomic Bomb Program. It served as one of the major weapons materials production locations throughout the cold war, and could be considered comparable to the Savannah River Site or the Hanford Site in the United States. The Mayak center has also been the site of several high profile accidents and mishaps, including the Kyshtm disaster in 1957, which was the result of improper materials handling during plutonium recovery.

Despite its checkered history, Russian officials insist that Mayak is now a perfectly safe facility. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, most of the weapons related work has ended at Mayak and the reactors at the site no longer produce plutonium for weapons usage. What they now are used for is the production of industrial radioisotopes.  Indeed, since the end of the cold war, Russia has gained a near monopoly in industrial radioisotope production, pricing out nearly all competitors.

Industrial isotopes may be purchased through any number of licensed American and European distributors, but in nearly all cases, the original source of the material is Russia, and Mayak is the primary production location.   Even the isotopes used by the US DOE for research purposes often come from Russia.   The safety and enviornmental safeguards at Mayak have been called into question, and much of the equipment is quite old and has not been upgraded recently, but the material produced is cheap and that’s what has lead to Russia cornering the international market.

At present, Mayak is the largest supplier (and in some cases the only supplier) of Co-60, Pm-147, Cs-137, Sr-90, Am-241, Pu-238 , Po-210 and numerous other isotopes.   The plutonium-238 that powers NASA’s recent space probes has all been imported from Mayak.

Reactors we’ve lost:

Experimental Breeder Reactor II - The Experimental Breeder Reactor II operated from 1965 to 1995 as a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor with a total operating power of 68 megawatts.   During its lifetime, the EBR-2 was one of the premier fast spectrum experimental reactors in the world.    It proved the feasibility of the integral fast reactor fuel cycle and had one of the most flexible fueling cycles of any reactor ever built.   It operated on a variety of plutonium and uranium based fuels including metal, carbide, nitride and oxide fuels.

The reactor could accommodate up to 65 simultaneous experiments for irradiation.   It could therefore not only be used as a platform to test breeder reactor operations but also as an industrial and medical isotope producer and a test reactor for materials sciences, neutron activation and fundamental physics studies.

The defunding of the EBR-2 in 1995 has left the US with no ability to test and develop fast reactor breeding cycles and a dramatically reduced ability to produce critical isotopes.   Today only Japan and Russia have active reactors capable of doing what the EBR-2 could.

Fast Flux Test Facility – The Fast Flux Test Facility was one of the most capable and valuable nuclear power research facilities in the world.   Located at the Hanford Site in Washington State, the Fast Flux Test Facility consisted of a 400 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor.   The facility operated from 1980 to 1992.  During that time, it was used for accelerated testing of nuclear fuel and components such as cladding.   It also demonstrated the feasibility of fast reactors for power generation.   The Fast Flux Test Facility did not operate as a breeder, but it did break several world records for fuel longevity and burnup.

A secondary mission of the fast FFTF was to explore the use of fast spectrum reactors in the field of isotope production for medicine and industry.  This capacity was tested and proven to be effective, although it never was used for anything more than small scale experimental production.    Irradiation experiments also demonstrated the feasibility of waste transmutation, including neutron transmutation of long lived fission products such as Technetium-99.

Despite not being a dedicated breeder reactor, the facility was ultimately closed due to (eyeroll) “proliferation concerns.”   It has not operated since 1992 and was scheduled to be completely decommissioned, but has gotten a slight reprieve due to the efforts of many in the DOE and elsewhere to save this priceless facility.   In May 2005, the core was drilled out to remove the remaining sodium coolant.  However, it was filled with argon gas in an effort to preserve the components from corrosion.   Legal wrangling continues in an effort to save the facility and, hopefully, someday bring it back online.

The retirement of the Fast Flux Test Facility has had numerous ramifications for nuclear research. It has left the US without the capacity to preform research on fast reactor technology. It has reduced the capacity of the US (and the world) to produce high quality medical and industrial isotopes. One of the biggest impacts has been on fuel research. The Fast Flux Test Facility was capable of accelerated testing of nuclear fuel assemblies to evaluate how different fuel types and levels of burn-up can effect fuel integrity, cladding and isotopic composition. Without the facility, the development and testing of nuclear fuel has been dramatically compromised.

Oak Ridge Research Reactor – The Oak Ridge Research Reactor operated from 1958 until 1987 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  The reactor was a high capacity pool reactor used for isotope production and general purpose research.   Initially it was the primary source of specialty isotopes in the United States, but was later surpassed by the High Flux Isotope Reactor, also located at Oak Ridge.

Although the Oak Ridge Research Reactor was not remarkable in its capabilities and represented a moderately large research and isotope reactor, the retirement of reactor has left the High Flux Isotope Reactor the only research reactor at the Oak Ridge Laboratory.   Because of this, the reactor has been working double-duty for isotope production and general purpose research.   Recently, scientists demonstrated a new “cold neutron” source at the HFIR. While this new capability expands the abilities of the HFIR, it also means that it’s already stretched capacity will be subject to even greater demands.

Oak Ridge is the largest producer of industrial and scientific isotopes in the United States and one of the most important nuclear research facilities.   Having only a single reactor with no backup and limited capacity is far from optimal.    The laboratory could benefit greatly from an additional research reactor, allowing scientific experiments which do not require the capabilities of the HFIR to use an alternate facility and thus relieve some of the demand on the HFIR.

High Flux Beam Reactor – There are a handful of research facilities that can be called truly “world class.”   These are the facilities whose capabilities are so useful and unique that scientists from Japan to the UK to Russia will wait for years for the opportunity to use these capabilities for research.   From 1965 to 1999, the High Flux Research Reactor at the Brookhaven National Laboratory was one of those facilities.

The reactor was unique in several respects.  Although relatively low power (initially 30 megawatts and later upgraded to 60 megawatts), the reactor produced a very high neutron flux that could be rapidly powered on and off.   Unlike nearly all other reactors in the world, the neutron beam flux was highest outside the reactor’s core, rather than in the center of the core.   Neutron beams were provided through beam ports, which had a unique design that allowed for experiments to be irradiated with a precisely controlled ratio of thermal and high speed neutrons.   The ability to produce neutron beams outside the reactor core made the HFBR one of the premier facilities in the world for investigating the nature of matter through neutron activation, neutron imaging and neutron scatter analysis.

Only one other reactor in the world, the Institut Laue-Langevin reactor in Grenoble, France could match the HFBR for these capabilities.   The HFBR’s capabilities were increased dramatically when the reactor was overhauled in 1980.   The 1980 upgrade brought the power of the reactor up to 60 megawatts, which increased the neutron flux by 50%, reducing the time needed to irradiate samples and thus making the reactor more avaliable.   It also improved the control capabilities of the reactor, making it an even more valuable tool to science.

In 1996, the routine maintenance of the reactor was being conducted when tests indicated a slightly increased level of tritium in ground water monitoring wells on the perimeter of the reactor. A thorough inspection of the reactor found no leaks in the reactor itself but a small leak in the water system of a pool where spent fuel was being stored.   This turned out to be the only source of the tritium and was easily fixed.   Unfortunately, the disclosure of the tritium leak lead to a political effort that would prevent the reactor from reopening.   Scientists and laboratory personnel fought to keep the reactor alive for the next three years, but in 1999, the Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson ordered that the reactor be decommissioned.

Indeed, the shutdown of the HFBR has become notorious as one of the most blatant examples of bad science policy dictated by special interest groups.   The effort to stop the HFBR from being restarted after the tritium leak was spearheaded by none other than Christie Brinkley. Birnkley and other celebrities argued that the reactor endangered the community they lived in (at least part of the year), as many owned summer homes in the exclusive Hamptons.  The campaign to rid Long Island of nuclear reactors (power, research, medical or otherwise) was run under the “Standing for Truth About Radiation” campaign.   A well funded and highly active assault on the reactor which was funded by Brinkley as well as Alec Baldwin and included a number of anti-nuclear standard bearers and B-list celebrities.   The common argument, not surprisingly was “what is the cost to our children?”

The closing of the HFBR resulted in an uncommonly powerful and candid backlash from the scientific community.   Physics Today called it “a Triumph of Politics Over Science.“  A number of scientists spoke out against the decision and pointed out that Richardson’s decision to shut the reactor was announced on the 16th of November, just in time to avoid an in depth review report released in December 1999 – the report found that the reactor posed no danger to the local enviornment. The loss of the HFBR has truly made the Brookhaven National Laboratory a ghost of its former self.   A number of lab scientists went on the record to state that Richardson’s decision was based on politics and not science.   The shutdown of the reactor was described as having an enormous impact on the morale of the research community, and lead to a number of DOE scientists resigning or retiring.

The HFBR is now a lost cause.  Most of the equipment has been removed and the reactor itself is now being prepared for final disassembly and decommissioning.   The United States and the world have lost a scientific treasure.

Medical Research Reactor - Located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Medical Research Reactor was one of the most unique reactor facilities ever built.    The Medical Research reactor was the only reactor built exclusively for the purpose of nuclear medicine and medical isotope research.   While other reactors may be used primarily for producing medical isotopes, the task of the Medical Research Reactor was tasked with developing new and innovative isotope production methods and therapies.

One of the most unique aspects of the MRR was that it had patient care facilities, including a small ward of hospital beds right at the site of the reactor.   This allowed patients to be treated with freshly-prepared isotopes that were too short-lived to transport to other locations.   Patients were also treated with cutting edge nuclear therapies including boron neutron capture therapy.

The reactor was shut down in 2000, in part due to the same efforts that resulted in the shutdown of the High Flux Beam Reactor.   The shutdown was a huge blow to nuclear medicine research.  No dedicated medical research reactors currently exist and nuclear medicine research must now rely on sharing time on general purpose research reactors which lack the features of the MRR.   With the isotope shortage caused by the NRU reactors shutdown, the MMR would have been one of the few reactors in the world capable of relieving the shortage had it not been shut down just a few years earlier.

When decommissioning was finally formalized in 2000, Baldwin and Brinkley considered it the culmination of their effort to rid their “neighborhood” of the dangers from nuclear reactors.

NRX – The NRX Reactor was a heavy water-moderated research and isotope reactor located at the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada.   The reactor operated from 1947 to 1992 and for many years was the world’s largest source of medical isotopes.   Later, production was moved to the NRU reactor, but the NRX reactor remained in operation, and was used for isotope production at times when the NRU reactor was shut down for maintenance or refueling.

When shut down in 1992, the reactor had been in operation for 45 years and certainly was past its prime.  However, because the reactor was not replaced with another reactor, the shutdown left the NRU reactor without any backup.  1992 was also the last time that the NRU reactor was shut down for major servicing.  From that time on, it was impossible to shut down NRU for the maintenance it sorely needed.   Eventually this lead to a severe leak that forced NRU to shut down in May 2009.   The reactor is still shut down and a global isotope shortage continues.

MAPLE I and II – Whether or not you can truly call the maples “reactors we’ve lost” is a little debatable.   The Maples are more of a “never was but could have been.”   They also may someday be what they were meant to be, but that will depend on some major policy change.   The two reactors are currently sitting in standby at the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada.   They’re only a few years old and completely state of the art, yet remain disused because of regulatory issues.

The MAPLE (Multipurpose Applied Physics Lattice Experiment) reactors were intended to replace the NRU reactor for the purpose of medical isotope production.   They could have and should have alleviated a problem which have become an issue in Canada in recent years.   Since the 1950’s, Canada has been one of the most important suppliers of medical isotopes in the world.   While this has proven to be a boon to nuclear medicine, imaging and cancer therapy, it has become apparent that the arrangement is less than optimal and has resulted in much of the burden being carried by the Canadian government and taxpayers.

In decades past, isotopes were produced in both the NRX and NRU reactors, but with the closure of NRX, the NRU reactor has been running without any backup reactor to produce critical medical isotopes.   The increase in demand and lack of additional reactor capacity has made the NRU reactor a full time medical isotope reactor, with little or no capacity avaliable for research or fuel testing.   As AECL began to seek development of new reactor types, the lack of suitable fuel testing reactors has become a problem.

MDS Nordion, a private corporation is the primary seller of isotopes produced at the Chalk River Laboratories and this has turned out to be a profitable buisiness.  However, the production of these isotopes at the government-owned NRU effectively means that the Canadian tax payer has been directly subsidizing the world’s isotope supply and the bottom line of MDS Nordion.    This along with the lack of a backup reactor made it clear that new reactor capacity would be necessary, and in the late 1980’s, plans for the MAPLE reactors began to be formulated.

The Maple Reactors would do the following for Canada and the world isotope supply:

• Privatize the operation of the isotope reactors and finally take the burden off of the government-owned NRU reactor
• Free up the NRU reactor to be used for research purposes
• Provide redundant isotope production capability (each of the two MAPLES has the capacity to provide for the entire world medical isotope supply)
• Improve effeciency and replace old systems with more reliable and economic systems for isotope production
• Provide capacity for future increases in isotope demand

Sounds great right?  MDS Nordion gains an state of the art isotope production system, the Canadian government can wash its hands of the burden of creating medical isotopes, the nuclear medicine centers around the world get a secure supply, AECL can use the NRU reactor again.    It certainly seemed like the way to go and to that end, AECL MDS and the Canadian government agreed to invest billions to complete the project.

By 2008, it seemed that the two reactors were ready to go live.  They were loaded with fuel and began testing.   That’s where the trouble started.    First, a control rod mechanism was found to have a machining error.   This could have been a problem if the reactor had to be SCRAM’ed in an emergency and the primary control rod system failed.   Of course, if this happened, there still were other ways to shut down the reactor, such as injecting boric acid into the coolant or dumping the neutron reflector, but this issue stirred up the political concerns that would kill the whole project.

Although the control rod mechanism was quickly fixed, another minor “problem” (if you can call it that) came up.   The reactors were designed to have a power co-efficient of reactivity (or void coefficient) of approximately zero.  Initial projections were for void coefficient that would be slightly bellow zero (a negative void coefficient).   When the reactors were tested, however, it was found that they had a small positive void coefficient.   The small positive coefficient was within the error of the initial projections so it was not considered to be an error by anyone…. except for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The CNSC is a relatively new nuclear safety regulatory agency in the Canadian government.   Like the NRC in the US, the CSNC is the result of dirty politics and exists primarily to get in the way of progress in nuclear energy.   The CNSC managed to kill the MAPLE project by alleging that the positive void coefficient makes the reactors inherently unsafe.   This, of course, is not true at all.   While it’s true that a positive void coeffecient could theoretically cause a positive feedback loop that would increase power in a reactor, the MAPLE’s could only experience this to a relatively small degree.   The reactors rely on a neutron reflector composed of heavy water.   If the reactors did begin to run too high in power, they might continue to increase in power for a short time, but before long the neutron reflector tank would begin to boil or the safety would rupture and the reaction would be killed.  Furthermore, the reactors are relatively small reactors of the “pool” type and are protected in bunkers built into the side of a hill at the Chalk River laboratories.

To make a long story short, thanks to CNSC, AECL lost billions, MDS sued them for billions more, the Canadian tax payers ended up paying most of the tab, the reactors sit idle and unused and the NRU reactor finally sprung a leak severe enough to require shutting down, causing a worldwide isotope shortage.   (It’s pathetic)

R1, R2, R2-0 and FR-0 - The country of Sweden operated four research reactors with the primary purpose of isotope production for industry and medical purposes.   The first reactor was the R1, a small research reactor which operated from 1956 until 1970.  In 1960, the R2 and R2-0 began operation at 50MW and 1MW power, respectively.   These two reactors provided Sweden with the ability to produce a diverse variety of isotopes.

Both were shut down in 2005, primarily for political reasons.   The loss of R2 and R2-o has left Sweden with no ability to produce medical and industrial isotopes and has reduced the supply to Europe and the world, leaving Russia the only producer of several important industrial isotopes.  The Swedish company Studsvik was once one of the world leaders in industrial isotopes and now is no longer capable of producing them domestically, and the country of Sweden has no domestic research reactors for educational or industrial use.

Other Reactors – The country of Denmark ended its domestic research reactor program in 2001.   Three reactors DR-1, DR-2 and DR-3 had been constructed in Denmark for industrial and scientific research purposes.   DR-2 was shut down in 1975, but DR-1 and DR-3 continued to operate until 2000 and 2001.   This largely political decision was part of the realignment of the Riso National Laboratory, which was renamed the Riso DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy.   The facility had a rich history since its founding in 1956 by Neils Bhore, but is no longer engaged in nuclear or theoretical physics research.   Today they research wind turbines.   (pathetic)

The UK has shut down the majority of domestic research reactors, including three reactors at the Dounreay Research Center. The Atomic Energy Research Establishment At Harwell was once the premier center for neutron activation research and isotope production in the UK.   All four of the reactors at the location are now shut down.  The British currently have only a very limited domestic nuclear research reactor capacity provided by a couple of comparatively small university reactors.   The AERE now relies on a spallation neutron source for neutron activation experiments, although this source can be pulsed rapidly, it does not provide anywhere near the capacity of a reactor.

The only current research and isotope production reactor in Germany, Forschungsreaktor München II came online in Germany in 2004, and is now the only reactor in Germany capable of isotope production and research usage.  Several other reactors were planned in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but all but one were canceled.   Three other German research reactors were shut down between 1970 and 1990.

Japan still has several research and isotope production reactors, but far fewer than it used to.   Three reactors in Tokai had been shut down or put into standby in the past 20 years.  Tokyo City University and Rikkyo University both shut down their reactors in the 1990’s, leaving the country with only two academic research reactors, located at Kyoto University and Kinki University.

Conclusion:

In the past few years we’ve seen a marked decrease in the capacity of the world’s research reactors to provide for scientific experimentation, materials evaluation and production of vital industrial and medical isotopes.   All too often, reactors are working double or triple duty to cater to a long line of users with vital needs.   In the US and elsewhere, we’ve lost reactors that could genuinely be considered national scientific treasures.   Furthermore, the shortages of isotope capacity poses both a stratigic and medical risk, and lack of extra capacity, to accommodate shutdowns, has made safe and reliable of the reactors we do have less and less easy to assure.

What is needed is clear:  More research reactors need to be built and those that we do have need to be upgraded or replaced – NOT retired without replacement but retired only after a new reactor of equal or greater capacity has been built.  One step that can be taken in the near term, and for relatively low cost, would be the construction of more small and medium sized reach reactors such as TRIGA units.   If more of these reactors were available, it would at least provide an alternative for uses that do not require all the capabilities of the more specialized reactors.  For example, a complex of several 1 MW TRIGA reactors at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory would allow the HFIR to be reserved for work that requires its unique capabilities and move routine neutron activation uses to a less specialized reactor.

There must also be a renewed effort to build new, innovative and unique reactors in the spirit of the HFTF and the High Flux Beam Reactor. Not only are these unique, highly capable, reactors great tools of science, but their design and construction offers an opportunity to try out new nuclear reactor technologies on a small scale, before incorporating them into large power reactors.   The very design and construction of these reactors can be used as a valuable opportunity to train a new generation of nuclear engineers and establish new reactor construction and operation methods.

Or, we could just continue to let the ones we have continue to fall apart and the whole thing will go to hell.   As things currently are going, this is probably what’s going to happen…

Now imagine the following situation:  you’ve been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.   Your doctor tells you that the odds are good that you’ll beat it, but your thyroid gland needs to be removed.  After removal, you’re dosed with some iodine-131 to kill any remaining tissue from the cancerous organ.    You’ll be taking synthetic hormones for the rest of your life to replace the function of the thyroid, but thankfully, the procedures are basically over.

Now what do you want to do?   Probably go home and try to relax.   That’s what most people would want to do after that kind of ordeal, and in general they are allowed to do so.   But some now say that needs to change.

Via USA Today:

Report: Thyroid cancer radiation a public threat

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule allowing hospitals to discharge radioactive thyroid cancer patients to their homes and hotels poses a public health threat, a congressional report says today.

The report (pdf), released by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, which oversees the commission, also found that insurers routinely use the rule to deny hospital care even to patients whom doctors say may pose a radiation risk to others. Patients are often discharged to recover in self-imposed isolation.

“The United States simply cannot play radioactive roulette and gamble with public health and safety,” Markey says.

Radioactive iodine is a proven cancer fighter, with a five-year survival rate of 97%. The thyroid is the only body organ that uses iodine. Radioactive iodine kills any thyroid cancer cells that surgery might have missed. But radiation also poses a cancer risk, especially to children. Thyroid cancer patients give off radioactive iodine in urine, sweat and saliva for several days; traces may remain in the body for as long as two weeks.

In 1997, the NRC “weakened” its patient-release regulations from the global standard requiring hospitalization for patients whose bodies contain 30 millicuries or more of radioactive iodine to one that allows outpatient treatment, the report says. The report says the NRC repeatedly rebuffed efforts to get the agency to adopt stricter standards.

In August, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a petition by thyroid cancer survivor Peter Crane, a former NRC lawyer, to force a change. The court ruled that he “lacked standing to bring the case” because he is not undergoing treatment, the report says.

“I’m gratified that the committee is paying attention to this,” Crane said. “Patients are going home in this country with 200 millicuries of radiation in their system. In Germany, they would be hospitalized with 8 millicuries. This isn’t an academic matter, it’s about exposing children to cancer-causing radiation.”

Owen Hoffman, a radiation-risk expert at Senes Oak Ridge, says even though the risk is fairly low, about 1 in 1,000 for an infant boy and double that for an infant girl, “the right thing to do is to reduce unnecessary exposures.”

The report cites a 2007 USA TODAY survey, carried out with the Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association, showing that 4% of the patients treated with radioactive iodine checked into hotels or other accommodations, 2% took public transportation, and 14% failed to go directly home, which gave patients “plenty of opportunity” to “unwittingly” expose others to radiation.

NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner says the agency will examine the report, but he added in an e-mail, “I don’t want to set up false expectations about what we might do with the recommendations.”

Why am I not surprised that a former NRC lawyer got this all started?  After all, NRC lawyers are specially selected and trained in order to make sure they do everything to get in the way of progress and make descent people’s lives  hell, right?

And just what the hell do you expect to accomplish with this, rep Edward Markey? The proximity exposure from just being next to one of these individuals is generally nill, and the danger from somehow excreting some of the iodine-131 only to have someone else absorb it is nearly as small. Sure, some patients do check themselves into hotels or other isolation under the recommendation of doctors, but that’s a fairly extreme precaution. These are not people who need to be handled while wearing moon suits. Remember, radiation dose depends on time, and the clerk at the front desk who spends a few minutes checking in someone is not going to be in any danger from the gamma rays coming out of that person’s neck, nor is the person who sits next to them for a subway or bus ride.

Needless to say, we have “the children” thrown in here, just to make sure all rational thought is gone. A person who has iodine-131 in their system may be advised not to spend too much time cuddling with a child, but other than that, it’s not like they’re a walking, talking danger zone.

Patients are generally asked to take a few basic precautions to avoid contaminating others, although the risk is really not that huge. Patients are told not to have sex for up to a month after treatment. They may be told not to share a bed with another for at least a few days and to double-flush the toilet. But what could happen if they don’t adhere to this advice? probably nothing.

In the event that the tiny traces of iodine-131 in their sweat and skin secretions do contaminate anything, the half-life of I-131 assures it’s not going to be a big concern. With a half-life of about eight days, the iodine-131 dissipates fairly quickly. If they did manage to leave a detectable level of I-131 behind on a phone receiver or remote control, in about a week, half of it will be gone; in a month the vast majority will be gone and in about another month, there will be hardly anything left.

Most of the iodine is eliminated from the body within a couple of days. The remainder, though detectable, is quite low and will be gone in a month or so.

In conclusion, if I ever were to have a friend who had thyroid cancer and was left isolated while they let the iodine run its course, I’d have no problem keeping them company, because it seems exceptionally cruel to lock away someone in that condition over a small or non-existent risk. I might be a bit apprehensive about much close contact, at least for the first couple of days, but the idea that they are playing “radiation roulette” is insulting.

I collected these classics from a number of sources.  A few came from the excellent Modern Mechanix blog, while others  came from Wikimedia, Erik Nitsche’s Flickr account and other websites.   Since these images were scanned from original material and posted to begin with, I’m assuming that there’s probably no copyright issue here, either because the original ad owner doesn’t mind them being distributed or because they’re no longer under copyright.   In any case, their use for documentary purposes should constitute fair use.

I really love these classics.

Q. Why don’t you write about global warming and climate change more often?
A. It’s a complicated issue.   I’m not an expert and I’m not sure I’m qualified to really address it.   Also, it’s so politically charged that if I do say the wrong thing then the concequences would be very bad.   I’ve got to cover my ass on that more than anything else.

Q. Do you believe in global warming/climate change?  Is it real?
A. I don’t just believe it, it is real and I accept that.

Q. Is human activity the cause?
A. No.  It is not the cause.  The climate would change with or without human activity.

Q. Is human activity a cause or at least a contributing factor?
A. Yes

Q. How much so?  Is it a major contributing factor or a minor one?
A. I don’t know

Q. How much do you think?  What do you suspect?
A. While I do not know for sure, and I stress that, my opinion is that it is probably considerably less than it is made out to be by most activists.

Q. Are you sure?
A. No.  I just said I’m not sure.  This is what I personally think is probably true, and I don’t actually know it for a fact, so please don’t quote me as saying this is how it will be or that I have anything more than a hunch, if that.   I may very well be wrong.

Q. Do you think the scientists are inflating their numbers or deceiving the public?
A. Some are, but as for the whole field of climatology?   Certainly not everyone, but possibly a significant proportion.

Q. How big a proportion?  By how much?
A. I have no idea.  I said it’s possible that a significant proportion are.  I don’t actually know that they are and I certainly don’t know by how much.

Q. Do you think the media and enviornmental groups are inflating numbers and deceiving the public?
A. Of that I have no doubt.  Groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, The Sierra Club, The Green Party etc lie more than they tell the truth.   The media always reports the most sensational.

Q. Do you think Al Gore lies to us?
A. He lies by omission and cherry-picks the worst data he can find in support of this claims.  He’s too smart to lie outright.

Q. Do you think global warming will be catastrophic?
A. Probably not, but I don’t really know for sure.  I am confident that the catastrophic predictions made by many lobbyists and groups are not going to happen.

Q. How can you be so sure?
A. They never tell the truth about anything and always inflate the issue to their own advantage.   If the earth really was going to be in a state of moderate drought in 20 years, they’d say that it would be complete drought in ten years.   If it were going to be in complete drought in ten years, they’d say that the earth was going to burn up in five years.  If the earth was going to burn up in five years, they’d say that it’s going to explode in ten minutes.   Nothing, absolutely nothing that an “enviornmental” mainstream group says is ever credible and if they do say something that’s true, it’s usually by mistake.

Q. Do you think anything can be done about global warming?
A. Realistically, there’s little we can do now that will have any effect in the immediate future.  There is too much of a delayed response and the changes in years and even decades to come are already committed to.   It is not an immediate issue, but the long term policies we commit to now can make a difference in fifty to one hundred years.

Q. What do you think of the current proposals to stem global warming?
A. All the mainstream proposals are absolutely worthless or worse than worthless and if we’re only going to do things like carbon capture and storage or building wind turbines, we may as well not even bother, because those kind of solutions are not “solutions” and only hurt us economically while doing not a single thing to reduce enviornmental problems.

Q. Would it surprise you if in thirty years it turned out that it had not gotten any warmer?
A. Not really.

Q. What is the one thing you think climate scientists are hiding the most from the public?
A. The degree of confidence (or lack there of) of projections and measurements.   Not that they are really hiding it actively, but it’s not publicized to the degree it should be.

Q. What do you expect the climate will be like in ten, twenty, thirty, forty years in the future?
A. In ten years, it will be roughly what it is now.  In twenty thirty, forty or more, I have absolutely no idea.

Q. What do you think of climate change conferences like Copenhagen?
A. A lot of hot air, a lot of politics, a small amount of cherry-picked science and a lot of wasted money wining and dining politicians.

Q. So then you’re denying global warming, eh?
A. No, and where the hell did you get that from?

Q. And you think there’s a big worldwide conspiracy of climate change scientists?
A. No, I don’t and where the hell did I say anything like that?

Q. So then you are a big supporter of the Republicans and all over Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and you want Sarah Palin in the Whitehouse right?   Why do you hate black people so much?
A. What the?   no, I’m a registered Libertarian and… I’m not going to dignify the rest of that with a response.

Q. How much are the oil companies paying you?
A. The same as the pharmaceutical companies: nothing.

Q. What do you think should be done to try to reduce climate change as much as is possible?
A. We need to understand what human-driven climate change and impacts of human energy usage on the enviornment are truly part of.

The single biggest thing we can do is recognize that we, as a society are beginning a great transition, as great as the deployment of electricity, the invention of the steam engine or the mastering of fire.   We have begun to outgrow the limitations of hydrocarbon fossil fuels.   Hydrocarbon fuels will continue to be an important energy source for some applications, but we can no longer rely on them for our foundational energy needs.

Just as we outgrew the limits of human muscle and moved onto animal muscle; just as we outgrew the limits of animal muscle and moved onto steam power and to electricity, to turbines and beyond, the time has arived that we will take the next great leap to the next order of magnitude of energy sources, and one which will revolutionize our interaction with the enviornment as fire did thousands of years ago.

Climate change is only a symptom of the fundamental issue: we are pushing combustion of hydrocarbons beyond the limits of what it can effectively provide for us without major problems.   Fuel costs, shortages and choking emissions are the other symptoms of the same disease.   It is time to break these bonds and use the energy source that can send us to the stars and beyond.   Nuclear energy is not simply the answer to global warming, it is the answer to the greatest question one can ask: “what is the destiny of mankind?”

Does this put this issue to rest?   Because I’m tired of being asked about it.  I think I got all the questions I got on there.