The Cornucopia of Nuclear Power

You will remember from chapter 21 that we have two neutrons, on average, emitted whenever a U235 atom undergoes fission - or "splitting." One of these is necessary to fission another atom to keep the chain reaction going. But what happens to all of those second neutrons? Some of them, as mentioned, are absorbed by the structure of the reactor or by the control rods, which slide in and out of the reactor to keep the reaction at - or just very slightly above - the critical point. But others smash into, and are captured by, the plentiful U238 atoms that make up from 95% to 96.5% of the fuel rod contents. When this happens, a truly miraculous thing takes place: This practically worthless material is transformed into one of the most concentrated sources of energy on Earth - or in the universe for that matter - plutonium 239, and element so evil that it was named for the god of the underworld. (Not really, but that's what some would have you believe.) [Plutonium was named in honor of the discovery of the planet Pluto, just as neptunium and uranium were named for Neptune and Uranus.]

This happens in every one of the world's 500 power reactors, plus thousands of research reactors, every day they are in operation. In fact, a sizable fraction (up to about 30%) of electrical energy generated by a power plant comes from this plutonium, which arises as a natural consequence of the uranium fission reaction - without any effort on our part - and supplements the scarce U235 fuel.

Some reactors, however, are designed to intentionally make plutonium. If it is to be used in bombs, it is normally made in a reactor with another modulator - such as the carbon-modulated reactor at Chernobyl. A reactor designed specifically to make only fuel-grade plutonium is called a breeder reactor, since new fuel is "bred" from an almost worthless byproduct of the refining cycle. [Breeder technology seems to be on hold for a couple of reasons: (1) in the prevailing anti-nuclear climate, few entrepreneurs or speculators are willing to make investments in nuclear power for fear of laws that can make their investment instantly worthless; and (2) at the present time there is a glut of plutonium available from the dismantlement of nuclear weapons.]

Are we speculating here on new technology like "fusion" power? Hardly.

The first reactor ever to produce electric power from nuclear energy was a "liquid metal fast breeder reactor" known as the EBR-I. (By the way, liquid metal means that the coolant was not our old friend water, but liquid sodium; fast means that it used "fast neutrons," not the slowed-down, moderated variety.) Designed by physicist Walter Zinn in 1944, his brainchild went critical at 11 am, December 20, 1951 - producing the first steam in history produced by man-made nuclear heat. Like the Manhattan reactor in Chicago and the SLOWPOKE reactor in Canada, EBR-I was not designed to produce electrical power but to prove the concept of fuel breeding (which it did along with its successor, EBR-II). [Declared a national landmark in 1966, the EBR-I is open to the public from mid June to mid September. Located eighteen miles southeast of Arco, Idaho, on Highway 26, visitors must be at least sixteen years old (too much neutron violence?) and U.S. citizens (fear of spies who might steal this technology?).]

The EBR-II had "on the spot reprocessing," which reprocessed 35,000 fuel elements between 1965 and 1969. But the facility was not without problems: the fence around it kept out the coyotes, causing the rabbit population to outbreed the reactor.

Does the ERB-II sound a little familiar? It should since it has another name we used in chapter 21 - the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).

While many U.S. politicians have never heard of breeder technology, Europeans have. Sadly, "Green" activists there have been successful in shutting them down or keeping them from ever starting up.

SECURE and the IFR

Other low-temperature reactors - used for warming entire communities - are not new to the world... just to U.S. citizens with our abysmal lack of scientific knowledge. For instance, a Swedish and Finnish consortium has designed a 200 MW inherently safe reactor called SECURE - with no moving parts, not even control rods - as the reactivity level is controlled by the content of boric acid in the coolant/moderator. [Safe and Environmentally Clean Urban REactor]

Finally, there is another reactor design known as the Integral Fast Reactor, which I find fascinating, because it is fueled by natural uranium and is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we are likely to get. [See Integral Fast Reactor, available from Argonne National Laboratories, P.O. Box 2528, Idaho Falls, ID 83415.]

It operates in a vessel filled with liquid sodium (melting point, 208 degrees Fahrenheit), which is a much better heat-transfer agent than water - along with having certain desirable nuclear characteristics. It reportedly produces 100 to 200 times more electrical energy per pound of fuel than obtainable from existing plants. The prototype plant, at Idaho Falls, was designed to be virtually self-contained with the capability of fabricating, using and reprocessing the spent fuel "on-site." It is inherently safe from a meltdown, since the fuel assemblies are configured in such a manner as to shut down the reaction when the temperature increases above its maximum design point. As a test, the entire heat transfer system was shut down while operating at full power - without causing any harm to the reactor.

While it is unlikely that the fuel-processing part of the operation could be scaled down to community or residential proportions, the inherent safety of the reactor is intriguing, along with its use of natural (unenriched) uranium. It is likely that radiation would be an insignificant factor compared with keeping the sodium contained, since contact with either water or air causes some pretty nasty chemical reactions. (It is best kept submerged in kerosene or naphtha.)

As far as I know, a low-power, inherently safe reactor has not been designed for community or home use. Why? I suspect it's because the prevailing fear of low-level radiation would keep any reasonably intelligent investor in the "sow bellies futures" market where at least there is a chance of making a profit. Why design a product that will cost more in attorneys' fees each time you sell one than the sale price of the product itself? Although much of the technology is there and proven, it just won't happen in today's climate ruled by the Linear No-Threshold bureaucracy.

But if we can create an understanding of actual - as opposed to perceived - radiation dangers, the technology will surely flourish. Because of higher efficiencies? No, large power reactors operating at high temperatures have higher efficiencies than would a home or community reactor and are well suited for commercial and industrial power production - but they also have transmission losses, transformer losses, costs of installing and maintaining pole-line hardware, and other overhead expenses that can be eliminated by decentralization, especially for small, off-the-beaten-path residential customers who use only a few thousand kilowatt-hours per month.

Would we require a government program to make this happen? Not at all. Just get the government out of the way, and let market forces determine what is worthy and what is not. As Paul Johnson put it: "For capitalism merely occurs, if no one does anything to stop it. It is socialism that has to be constructed, and as a rule, forcibly imposed, thus providing a far bigger role for intellectuals in its genesis." ["The heartless loves of humankind," Wall Street Journal, January 5, 1987.]