If global warming is a big problem, then it stands to reason that engineers should be the ones to fix it. A few days ago, we asked Visions readers if they had any big ideas for saving the planet. Well, UMR freshman Trevor McWilliams has some ideas about energy alternatives. A lot of ideas. It's nice to know that some college students still care about stuff like saving the world. Trevor's email follows. (Keep the dialogue going by emailing news at umr dot edu -- for now, that's our only way to receive comments.)
I attended Nuke Camp at Rolla several years ago and they presented a very nice option to current problems with the energy infrastructure. Can you guess? Yup, nuclear energy! Although nuke got a bad rep from the "disaster" at Three Mile Island and the much larger problem at Chernobyl, it has since become a key component to any long-term scenario presented by those advocates of green energy. It turns out CO2 emissions from nuke plants approach zero and they are considered safer to live next to than a similar coal-fired plant. Coal plants- in addition to the CO2- also put out trace amounts of arsenic, lead, mercury, and a few other nasties as well. Over a period of time that stuff collects. Now I wouldn't personally consider it a real threat (asteroids hitting me while I sleep concern me more...) but that goes to show you how safe nuclear energy is.
The guys who make nuke plants don't mess around. To them, triple-redundancy is the norm and safety factors are very large. Besides, Chernobyl could not happen here b/c we use reactors that are designed to shut down when they fail (Chernobyl had a problem where the reaction rate increased as temperature rose- our reactors are oppositely designed) and we use 3 foot concrete and steel containment buildings. Further more, we don't use flammable moderators :) Beyond this, our engineers (including those at Rolla!) are currently redesigning American reactors to a single design known as the Gen IV Reactor. In this system, reactors are built in a semi-modular form and all reactors would adhere to a standaradized safety and control system. Nuclear power is just waiting for a favorable public opinion and legislators who don't take money from the coal guys.
Now that takes care of the electricity market, but how about the automobile market? What needs to happen is to connect the automotive fuel market to the commerical electrical grid. This IS debatable, but I'll give you one good (though well used) exaample. Hydrogen cars. Now, I know that there are more advanced projects in the works, and hydrogen gets a lot of crap, but it is a source that can work. The biggest problem is currently how to store the hydrogen safely, and that is not a killer problem. I recently read about new tanks that use an adsorbtion process to physically constrain hyperactive H atoms to the surface of an extremely porous material. When you need it, simply heat the tank up a little. And this process means that the tank is not under pressure and can contain a vast amount of hydrogen versus a gaseous form. (I would like to note that this isn't perfect- it takes a long time to fill the tank, currently. But hey, that's why ENGINEERS ARE NEEDED TO SAVE THE PLANET!)
The rest of Trevor's email is after the jump....
But wait, doesn't hydrogen take more energy to make than to use? True. But nuclear power, when implemented correctly, will be much cheaper than current prices (gasp) and will be plentiful. And how much energy do you think it takes to extract, transport, refine, and sell fuel? Hmmm... What the new system basically does is link the two major energy uses in the US to one. Now, the grid relies solely on one energy source- fission. Sounds almost Utopian :)
There. Two huge problems solved. But there is a problem that is real and will be the major thorn in a nuke-based society's collective side. Nuclear waste is extremely radioactive and stays that way for a few thousand years. After that, it's not as "hot" to use nuke parlance, but it still has some kick and will keep it for a long time. In order to safely operate nuclear energy, we must make a commitment to storing the waste in a way that will contain it for a long time. The problem is that no society has been around long enough to record that amount of time. Our engineers (who are relatively new to society... CivEs didn't design caves, I"m pretty sure) are used to thinking on a timescale that reflects decades and occasionally centuries. But we DO have nature's own record of geologic activity to look at and that's what we use to find a proper storage site. The site must be underground, seismically inactive, impervious to water, and generally inert in as many ways as possible. Yucca mountain in Nevada actually meets all these requirements. We're putting waste down there already! But it won't last forever, and we'll need ENGINEERS TO SAVE THE PLANET from it's waste.
Where does the fuel for nuclear power come from? Trees. Just kidding. We mine ore that contains the principle fuel uranium from the ground. Just like coal. However, we must also refine it and that means throwing out something like 97% of the uranium b/c it doesn't contain the useful isotope U-235 (most of it is U-238). But hey, the US has some nice reserves. And at our current rate of consumption plus growth, we have 300 years of uranium left. That is a problem, however un-immediate, b/c 300 years isn't a grand amount of time. Scared? You shouldn't be. We can MAKE our own fuel. Yup. There are two methods that have been tried and worked. One is the manufacture of U-233, which is a good fuel, by taking thorium-232 and sticking it in a reactor. Neutron absorbtion from the intense currents of neutrons inside the reactor transmutes the useless thorium into perfectly good fuel. Neat, huh? And there's the other method: take the leftover U-238 from the separation process and stick it in a reactor. Funny how sticking stuff in there does such a great amount of change. No, it doesn't fission like the U-235, it absorbs some neutrons and eventually becomes plutonium-239 and plutonium-240. Which can be used as fuel. These two schemes will easily extend the fuel reserves to a much longer depletion point (I can't remember how long... it's a lot).
So why aren't we taking advantage of this? Because coal and oil already have an established infrastructure and politicians like to take money from coal guys. The first part is simply an engineering problem (get the picture?). The other problem has existed for decades and is a known phenomenon. Owners of coal companies exert a lot of pressure and money on politicians (on both sides, mind you). Need an example? We didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol b/c it would have made coal more expensive. Coal companies also influence legislature on emmisions reductions: instead of installing filters, they can choose to pay someone else for exceeding their own reductions quotas. All those filters cost money... a lot more than politicians, apparently. The coal companies have a lot tied up in coal, and they dominate the energy market. Until nuclear energy grows from its current 20% share of the market, that won't change. Maybe I should write my lawmakers...
By the way- don't wait on fusion. All the nonsense about endless energy and He-3 reserves on the moon is not going to happen. Scientists have been attacking the fusion problem for more than four decades and still haven't gotten it right. Current efforts are making huge multi-billion Tokamak reactors and massive lasers, both of which can't even make as much energy as they consume. Fusion is easy (try fusor.net) but it isn't practical. Sorry. Maybe in another hundred years or something.
There is another argument for nuclear energy: it removes foreign oil from the equation. Middle Eastern countries are openly hostile to the US, yet we still pour own money into their countries. Your money goes into the hands of extremists and nationalists that use it to fund weapons programs, propaganda, and even terrorists. This has got to stop.
I don't know about you, but I'm willing to trade the tons of CO2 produced daily for a little nuclear waste. The cost to transform will be high, but hey, it's going to happen either way. Compromises are always necessary... there is no perfectly green source that is viable (yet... the sun IS free, after all. It gives us all the energy to make coal, wind, water, oil, and every other source except nuclear). This is simply a trade that makes a whole lot more sense than the current situation.
Trevor McWilliams
Freshman, FreshE-AeroE
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