Skip to main content

It must be Atomic !

 

Bill Gates Debuts Mini-Reactor + Energy Storage To Balance Renewables

After long weeks of absence, I take up the pen again.  The vacations of this summer 2020 were an opportunity to discuss and meet brilliant people with whom I had the chance to exchange on what tomorrow could be like.  I have to write "could" because here, there are no exact sciences anymore, but relatively strong hypotheses. Remember the book  "The limit to growth" in 1972. The book was based on The World3 model, a system dynamics model for computer simulation of interactions between population, industrial growth, food production, and limits in the earth's ecosystems.

These hypotheses tell us that the energy mix road will be 35% renewable energy and 65% nuclear energy.

However, in Europe (Belgium, France, Germany), we turn away from nuclear power due to a lack of political courage or even the capacity to simply decide.  And yet we have developed all the technology.  What has become of it?

The only EPR reactors (European Pressurized Water Reactor) operating are ... in China. Taishan 1 and Taishan 2( 2 x 1750 megawatts) .  And within 15 years, Beijing will have built a hundred more.

The USA has also grasped the importance of nuclear power. They are testing the production of green hydrogen using nuclear power.  In a previous article (about Bill Gates), I wrote that his TerraPower project was dead, but now there are clear signs that this project is back on track. Great for the USA and great for the world. Hallelujah.  On August 27th (3 weeks ago!!!), TerraPower revealed a new prototype of a small sodium-cooled fast reactor. The reactor can continuously produce 345 megawatts of electrical energy. An attached storage system retains the heat in the form of molten salt that can discharge the calories when needed. This brings the total power of the reactor plant to 500 megawatts for more than 5.5 hours. In comparison, an average French nuclear reactor produces 1300 megawatts.

And meanwhile, Europe does nothing, tetanized by self-righteous people who prefer to go back to coal, hoping that things will get better with a little more CO2.  Ahhh, those cognitive biases that lead us towards the wrong decision...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Carbon Sources & Sinks

By not distinguishing between a fact and an opinion, by dint of confusing orders of magnitude and time scales, I wanted to find the large masses of carbon production and carbon sinks and share them here. We have included in the site under the "fact" tab the data we found in "the Project Drawdown - March 2020" and which states, by order of magnitude:   Carbon sources 1.       Electricity production                : 25% 2.       Cultivation & agriculture         : 24% 3.       Industry                                     : 21% 4.       Transportation                         : 14% 5.       Building                                    :    6% 6.       Rest                                           : 10%   Carbon sinks 1.       Land                                           : 24% 2.       The oceans                                : 17% 3.       The Atmosphere                        : 59%   What about taking another source: the book of Bill Gates, "How to avoid a

Hydrogen fuel cartridge .. let's power bikes ?

As "green" hydrogen production and storage has become an EU green deal central strategic axis, more and more innovative solutions emerge from academic and industrial players. Early this month, the Fraunhofer institute published an article presenting a prototype of what we can call "hydrogen power paste": hydrogen power paste (source : Fraunhofer institute) The principle behind is to create a magnesium hydride paste (whereas a high quantity of hydrogen is stored). When water is added to the mix, hydrogen gas is produced and can be used in a fuel cell to create electricity.  In the previously published article describing hydrogen fuel principles and applications, we mentioned that this H2 energy source was particularly suited for heavy transportation such as trains, trucks, or boats. This power paste concept is particularly interesting for light mobility or applications where there are no refill stations neither H2 storage tanks easily available. One can think of Hyd
Hydrogen: What colour? 19,4 KWh in Li-ion, H2 and NH3 In June, I had the chance to bike with my son Léopold from San Francisco (California) to Denver (Colorado). I planned several meetings with companies dedicated to developing solutions to overcome climate change. That's how I came to meet with Joe Beach, the president of Starfire Energy. From there, I started to learn about hydrogen and ammonia.    First, I realize that hydrogen is so colourful.  You have many different types of hydrogen: the "black," the "green," the "blue," even the "turquoise."   The black : Today, 95% of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels and is responsible for 800 million tons of CO2 (1.9% of the 43.1 billion tons of CO2 produced in 2019). In 2019, 75 million tons of hydrogen were produced worldwide (one ton of H2 creates 10 tons of CO2).  The technique used is called methane reforming. We take water (2*H2O) and methane (CH4) that we heat, and we obtain after cooki