GREEN atomic energy - is that an oxymoron ?
Are we going to make Earth look like Mars (no more water) by using Hydrogen from water cracking as a "fuel", or are we going to use a better way? If we are going to look at H2 (Hydrogen) production, let's see a clean way not consuming water.
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I've been asked time and again, why won't I consider using wind power, or trying to extract the energy pent up in magnets, or making a better water cracker "ionizer", or heck play around with the concept of "zpe's (zero point energy modules)". Well, it is simple reality, and looking at what has worked for many years, and improving on a working concept. It makes no sense to waste tens of millions of bucks and lots of time to just play, with so called theoretical concepts as many "free energy" researchers are looking at. What would that accomplish? A waste of energy and time, which is not needed when fuel issues loom over our heads. It seems to me education is something that the world could use if one wanted to get out from under the "shortage" mentality and to switch over into a 21st century progressive approach. I choose to function as a realist to look at the problems at hand, and as a technologist solving issues and building a better way to use a proven energy producing concept. Folks pushing both new forms of wind and sea turbines, or tidal generators still are relying on the "national power grid" to distribute energy into a "system", which is based on consumers who will buy the grid's power. None of those systems offers a potential for portability. It seems to me, when de-centralization is potentially possible, that staying on the grid system is ludicrous, no matter how innovatively "green" the technology of water turbines, or air turbines is that powers the existing grid. Centralized power systems are vulnerable to attack from many sources - from environmental "nature" to saboteurs. A decentralized power system offers long term security especially to avert fuel shortages. I feel that conventional atomic energy based on a fuel such as PLUTONIUM or URANIUM is simply, dangerous, and unwieldy. Although, those energy sources were used in the simplest methods chosen to first build "the bomb" that the United States choose to use on Japan back in the 1940's. Thinking to move away from the earliest "what works" philosophy has been hard to change - partly because of the large industrial investment placed in massive overhead systems and partly due to the byproducts of such reactors usually provide bomb making materials. Shortly thereafter the Soviet Union got into the spotlight by stealing the "secrets" from the US Atomic scientists, and became the next power on the block to say they were "the boss". Such was the onset of the "cold war", in hopes that such would never develop into a "hot nuclear war". The unwieldy problem with conventional reactors has been the fuel chosen to run them. Science has promised eventual solutions with "fusion" at the cost of multi-billions of dollars to research and develop it but seeing results has not been promising to date with fusion. It seems to me that the solution has been staring us in the face for many years; - the choice to go "green" though hasn't been an easy path to follow for institutions brought up on massive billion dollar investments. I point out the solution in the next column to the right - such is extremely cost effective, safe, and virtually unlimited. Existing concepts behind using Thorium in a reactor system have been limited to adding it to the primary fuel such as U238/235 (mixed fuel) series isotopes, or as the Indian government has chosen to investigate, the massive lead bath spallation system requiring a smaller conventional nuclear reactor or high voltage extremely massive particle accelerator to offer the neutron source. These methods are very much conventional thinking and such precludes any small commercial or military Thorium reactors using that behemoth's sized scale. We've chosen to think economically and to think practically to enable the use of properly designed atomics to become common-place and safe. This is a novel thinking process and in the current times thinking lean and efficient is the right way to proceed. |
Switching over to Thorium and using directly controllable neutron excitation allows for abundant energy creation with only a small amount of the byproduct U232 in the U233 fuel cycle conversion. Thorium is the fuel of the future and there are no shortages as it is so abundant on the planet. A large Thorium reactor can be configured to perform as a breeder reactor, making more fuel than it consumes if it is not run excessively HOT (pulling out all the power in a short amount of time). It will take 85 years of running to have actually created a large quantity of fuel. Some normal Uranium reactors have considered creating mixed fuel, thorium/uranium pellets. With Uranium being present in the starting reactions, dirty systems are likely. Staying pure Thorium then is the proper method to build cleaner systems. Conventional uranium breeders rely on excessively hot reactions and produce lots of extremely deadly pollution along the way and nuclear weapons grade plutonium. Thorium cannot do that and for those reasons, primarily has been put on the back burner by governments, because it won't produce weapons fuels. Understand this: There are energy solutions available that don't rely on carbon to be burned or used in the process to make secondary fuels such as hydrogen, or gasoline, or diesel. Do we want slavery or a global family? You decide. The International Atomic Energy Commission actually recommends switching over reactors to Thorium to get away from plutonium waste creation. Conventional reactors based on that really yucky substance, "uranium" make plutonium as a waste substance. That plutonium waste substance has an attraction to rogue governments in-so-much as it can be used to make A-bombs. More innovative power companies are turning to deliberately contaminating their fuel with ultra-high gamma generating versions of plutonium isotopes, to prevent theft by rogues or terrorists. The problem with contaminating the fuel means then it is harder to store the wastes and transfer the wastes to a central holding area. All in all then, the conventional plutonium reactor really is causing issues. A special Thorium "heater" can be built that puts out gigawatts of usable clean power that can destroy "bad" plutonium waste (see the IAEC paper in the above link). A gigawatt is a billion watts of power. Imagine the power of 1000 high powered diesel locomotives all creating fantastic energy at once, and no pollution (no carbon output) - that is what a Thorium heater can do if built properly. Thorium reactors working purely on the heat cycle, without U235 (Uranium Isotopes) then are extremely clean and safe. These done right are the solution. WHY go back to living in a mud hovel or tee-pee and using a lump of coal, when the fuel of the future is here today? Ask why you have been programmed away from proper nuclear science and lead into using lamp oil distillates - you should be able to connect the dots sooner or later. Thorium is abundantly found - it comes out of the ground at the purity levels needed - no enrichment necessary! Pure Thorium 232 is by far the best starting element as a fuel source. The cleaner the starting fuel the better.
Thorium then shows considerable promise in being a better fuel than Uranium. It has the potential to go very green. Alternative "table top" style neutron sources other than a "reactor" are being created. That means affordable technology is possible. DARPA for instance is very interested in miniature and efficient neutron sources. |
Neutron sources are the basis for elemental transmutation. Neutrons from 2 million to 16.7 million electron volts can be created without resorting to multi-million dollar particle accelerators. The intended uses are for power generation (see below), neutron spectroscopy, positron and neutrino (anti-particles or anti-matter) creation and elemental transmutation experiments.
The simplest and smallest "table top sized " neutron generator design is something close to the size of a 4 D cell flashlight, (and this smallest most cost effective system runs off 4 D cells for its power), and starts at about 500 KV neutron output. Some elements on the periodic chart will change to other substances (caution!) after neutron bombardment due to the elemental transmutation that occurs. What types of atomic transmutations are possible with neutron experimentation? What types of experiments are possible with high energy "Fast" neutrons? With "thermal" or slow neutrons?
The generator systems we design do not use radioactive flux components as is conventionally done in portable systems, but rely on a novel method (invented by myself) of resonant phonon pair cleavage using specifically designed nuclear lattice Holo-Forms (holographic waveforms) to induce neutron imbalance in a host atom where the host atom then attempts to establish "balance" through the liberation of neutrons.
On Becoming Energy Self-sufficient
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Thorium powerpacks (see diagram at the right) I believe will be made available in either kit form (for a licensed installer to install) or completely installed units. The larger powerpacks will be designed at 100KW 90% duty cycle output for the medium sized "home user" and up to 1 MegaWatt output for the larger industrial size. This system is generally called an "energy amplifier" based on an energy conversion function. Numbers computed for a "conventional" spallation method show 60 times more energy out than in to evoke the reaction. (That's way over unity by the way... :-) Thorium power is the only way to truly accomplish this. Extremely low cost experimental demonstrators set at 1 KW continuous output should become available when production agreements can be put in place, at an estimated 25K$ per 1KW size, plus a US licence fee for 10 year license, plus installation costs, etc. (Approximately 90 watts input equals about 5,000 watts output for the equation.) Thorium's half life is on the order of many billions of years so the fuel source choice is a very good one. At 2010 estimates, the maximum home energy use could be typically 50 KW at full load. Cost of license is estimated at between 1/10th to 1/5th of the existing energy costs (both for electrical and fuel consumption). |
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These systems ARE regulated by FDA, NRC and EPA, and require a license be obtained before the sales and use of such both from me and the various local state and federal governmental agencies. Various districts, states, commonwealths or countries have their own particular export/import requirements, and such will have to be complied with before any orders are filled. No appreciable radioactivity leaves an interlocked sealed system, so class-1a registration appears proper (consistent with FDA registration of contained laser emission systems). Dual use agreements must be approved and in-place before any consideration of export will be allowed. There will be NO export of strategic technology under any circumstances.
One cannot make an atomic bomb out of one of these power generation systems. Thorium will not self sustain a critical reaction. The quantity of Thorium used in these systems is minimal and impossible to even make a dirty bomb out of the products. These systems are the only practical way to use novel technology to achieve energy self-sufficiency.
We must reserve the right to prohibit license sales to anyone determined to be unethical or socially irresponsible.
As with any technology we develop, technology is licensed not sold:
- Pollution (carbon footprint) - none
- Safety - HIGH, sealed and contained with appropriate interlocks
- Consumables - recycle thorium powerpak and refuel every 10 years of continuous use (performed by a registered licensed service organization).
- Maintenance is minimal (change the refrigerant, oil, lubricate the bearings, verify compliance) - the system self-recalibrates as needed. High quality ceramic and magnetic bearings are used throughout for extremely long life and reliability. Self-check and calibration data is stored in nonvolatile memory to allow for quick and easy readout of performance and diagnostics.
- Warranty is to be a limited warranty of about 9 years from date of install on parts and labor, with extended warranties available.
Opening the control electronics for the units (not recommended) is about as hazardous as opening up one's TV set while it is running, and only trained licensed service technicians are the ones who will do such to maintain the limited warranty. The radioactive modules are completely sealed and tamper-proof.
Internal calibrations should not be changed by the end user as optimum performance has been set when the system was built. Automatic recalibration is performed by the system itself and requires no user intervention. Technician monitoring is performed once a year to verify automatic performance is within compliance specifications.
Modifying the commercial concepts, designs and technology to have such fully mil-spec can be accomplished.
Look at some of these figures:
PowerPack Economics - © 2007/8 by Bob Dratch (worksheet)
Based on 284,000,000 watts (284 megawatts) for 1Kg fuel (2.2 pounds) –Large fuel pack size
Assumptive calculations (automotive, transportation - Note - all values are rounded off)
14Kw per hour re-charge + loads, equals consumption for typical hybrid car going 60 mph
284,000,000 total watts / 14,000 watts load per hour = 20,286 hours of running time (of load watt-hours available for 1Kg of fuel)
Running @ 4 hours per day at 60 mph, the total miles traveled per day are 240 miles.
Running @ 4 hours a day @ 14Kw per hour consumed, the 1Kg fuel lifetime expectancy is 5072 days.
2.2 pounds fuel (1Kg) gives 5072 days / 365 (days in a year) = 13.9 years for a “fill-up”
The yearly consumption of fuel: 1000 g fuel / 13.9 tot. years = 71.942 g per year.
Using 60 mph for 20,286 watt-hours = 1,217,160 miles traveled over the fuel pack’s cycle.
Miles traveled per year then is 1,217,160 total cycle / 13.9 tot. years = 87,565.5 miles per year.
Verifying, 240 miles per day x 365 days = 87,600 miles (rounded up) per year
“Miles per gallon” style equivalent computations:
Fuel cost: @ 26$ per gram x 1000 grams = $26,000 (rounded) for 13.9 years of travel.
Fuel Cost per mile traveled = $26,000 / 1,217,160 miles = $0.0213 per mile for our PowerPack.
- Major Benefit - 2.2 pounds of fuel puts out ZERO carbon, zero pollution - totally closed system.
Note: Recycle fuel pack at our energy fueling station, after it is used up.
Comparisons with Gasoline:
(Based on $3.50 per gallon over 13.9 years, on a car getting 30 miles per gallon, and assuming that the cost of gasoline will remain a constant and stable over that time period – note that historically the cost of gasoline has increased dramatically and is not showing any signs of decreasing in costs per gallon – expect gasoline per gallon to go to 5.00 by March 2009.)
1,217,160 miles / 30 mpg = 40,572 gallons
Fuel cost: 40,572 gallons x $3.50 per gallon = $142,002
Cost per mile traveled = $142,002 / 1,217,160 miles = $0.1167 per mile for gasoline fuel
Environmental Pollution from burning hydrocarbon fuel (gasoline)
One gallon of gasoline puts out 19.654 pounds of carbon (dioxide)
One gallon of gasoline burned also puts out about 8 pounds of water vapor.
Both water vapor and carbon dioxide contribute to global warming and environmental damage. Using hydrogen puts out water vapor. Using electrolyzers puts out water vapor. Our Thorium Powerpacks are the ONLY truly green solution with zero emission.
40,572 gallons of gasoline for the fuel consumed puts out 797,402 pounds of carbon.
That amount of gasoline for the fuel consumed also puts out 326,016 pounds of water-vapor.
Hydrocarbon, or hydrogen use is a significantly high amount of impact (damage) to the environment for 1 vehicle over 14 years.
Computing for a smaller PowerPack module based on a once a year “fill up”
Calculations (automotive, transportation - all figures are rounded):
Assuming 14Kw per hour consumption for typical hybrid car going 60 mph, traveling 4 hours per day
Then @ 4 hours per day going 60 mph, the total miles traveled is 240 miles.
The total fuel consumed is 71.942 grams per year / 365 days = 0.1971 grams per day.
@ 60 mph, usage is 0.1971 grams per day / 240 miles = 0.00082125 grams of fuel consumed per mile
Verifying, the cost per mile is 0.00082125 grams x $26 per gram = $0.0213525 per mile
The total cost then per day for fuel is 0.1917 grams per day x $26 per gram = $4.98 expense then, (Verifying, where a total fuel expense of $4.98 gives one 240 miles travelable in a day).
Verifying, $4.98 per day x 365 = $1817.7 cost of fuel per year. A $1817.7 cost of fuel per year x 13.9 years = $25,266.03 (or $26,000 rounded)
A 1 (one) year sized fuel module then at the above rate allows for a total of about 87,600 miles travel.
Verify, at a cost of $26 per gram, 71.942 grams total for a year’s cost is: $1870.5 rounded
Cost efficiency assumptions compared to gasoline as a fuel (hydrocarbon):
- Looking at the above then, it is highly more economical to run our PowerPacks over using hydrocarbon fuels.
- There are no hydrocarbon emissions from our PowerPacks being used throughout their life cycles (no CO2, no CO, no water vapor)
Gasoline hydrocarbon fuel consumption costs $0.1167 per mile using the above mpg economy based on $3.50 per gallon. Our clean fuel PowerPack consumes a cost of $0.0213 per mile.
Consumer savings per year = $8357.04 ($10,222.92 gas costs minus $1865.88 Powerpack fuel costs)
Over the 13.9 years for a 1Kg PowerPack fuel load, then $116,162.856 is the minimum savings if the cost of gasoline doesn’t increase above $3.50 per gallon.
Assumptive calculations (medium home size energy use)
(Note - all values are rounded off)
A typical small to medium US home uses approximately 10,200 (rounded) kilowatt-hours (Kwh) of electricity per year (or about 830 Kwh per month or 24 hours x 29 days = 696 hours or 1.1925 Kw per hour). This is a LOW end usage figure. (Most new homes though use double that amount).
Assuming the above per day, the total energy consumption over a 24 hour period is 28.6 Kwh and verifying 28.6 Kwh x 365 = 10,181 Kw hours consumed over the year.
Typical utility power company rates (@ $0.125 a Kw Hour – low end before fuel hikes and surcharges) comes to about $106.053 a month or $1272.63 a year, or $35,506.24 for 27.9 years.
Using the available power figure of 284,000,000 watts created using 1 Kg (1000 grams) of PowerPack fuel at a total fuel cost of $26,000, then the total amount of years available at an energy consumption rate of 10,181 Kw hours consumed over the year comes to 27.9 years (rounded) of use. This is derived by 284,000,000 watts / 10,181,000 watts consumed over a year.
With 8760 hours in a year (24 hours times 365 days), the cost per Kw hour using our large 1000 gram Powerpack comes to $0.1063 cents per Kw hour. That’s a $931.188 per year fuel cost.
Verifying @ $0.1063 per Kwh x 8760 hours per year times 27.9 years = $25,980, rounded to $26,000
We save the consumer over 27.9 years $9506.24 ($35506.24 minus $26,000)
Consumer advantages in using our PowerPack systems:
Advantages, no centralized power grid that can fail during a storm. Self contained.
Zero carbon footprint, no green house gases or water vapor emitted.
Fuel doesn’t go bad over time and no large underground tanks required for fuel stores.
The price of the PowerPack fuel is fixed at the time of install and doesn’t increase over time.
The cost of energy has been demonstrated to be going up continually with hydrocarbon, or coal fired fuels as supplied by the Utility Companies.
Summary
Note: the price of “energy” in the above equations from utilities and gasoline companies assumes that the cost of hydrocarbon based fuel will not inflate or go up over the years.
We know from history that fuel costs dramatically increase, and the uncertainty of coal, fossil and hydrocarbon fuel sources is dramatic.
Hydrogen fuels are currently derived from hydrocarbon and water “cracking”. The production of Hydrogen fuels generates waste gases that are greenhouse gases, and have then a high production cost and environmental outcome. Use caution then in Hydrogen "fuel" use.
PowerPack fuel purchased at time of install, allows for the price for the fuel to be fixed and known.
Miniature PowerPack solutions are the only economic way to guarantee a cleaner environment and a certainty of energy self-sufficiency.
PowerPack Fuel yields and excitation levels (technical)
Energy production data (Note – this type of fuel doesn’t “go bad” over its life cycle expectancy, there is some decay, but not appreciable in normal storage)
About 250 Kw of heat per gram of fuel is the yield (allowing for some losses)
85,000,000 watts (85 megawatts) is available for 300 grams of fuel
284,000,000 watts (284 megawatts) for 1Kg fuel (2.2 pounds) – Large fuel pack size
Verifying, where 85,000,000 / 300 = 283,333 watts per gram
Maximum excitation is 3x10e13 neutrons per second rate for a fully ON “hot” rate
Published drag coefficient Cd of the Prius is 0.26, frontal area A is 24 square feet (2.23 m^2), air density ρ at 59 F and sea level is 1.225 kg/m^3 (standard atmosphere), so the power lost to aerodynamic drag ½CdAρv³ at 60 MPH would be 6850 watts, or 9.2 horsepower. Rolling resistance not included. 14 KW allows for recharging plus electrical loads.
© 2008 Bob Dratch - DHR - all rights reserved - "Legal Notice"
Interested? Capable of participation? Internet mail to " bob_dratch ::AT:: spamcop.net " - use subject: greenatoms in your mail.
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