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NNadir
NNadir's Journal
NNadir's Journal
December 12, 2023
Subtitle:
Excerpts:
The goals set, by the way, for the UK, are way too low to have serious meaning for climate change. They should be more like 100 GWe, and not "by 2050" but ASAP.
Sheffield Forgemasters set to regain key nuclear accreditation
Sheffield Forgemasters set to regain key nuclear accreditationSubtitle:
The UK company says it is on track to regain ASME status as a supplier of heavy forgings and castings to the civil nuclear market, to position it for the proposed large-scale expansion of nuclear capacity in the country.
Excerpts:
Sheffield Forgemasters, which was acquired by the UK's Ministry of Defence in 2021, says an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Section III Division I NCA 3300, NCA 4000 and NQA-1 Code survey and audit, recommended it for Material Organisation (MO), and welding (NPT) accreditations. ASME MO and NPT status means it can supply castings and forgings (material) for civil nuclear applications and also be qualified to carry out weld construction activities on these materials.
The ASME committee on nuclear certification is now expected to approve the audit's findings and grant the certificate, making the company the only UK producer of such heavy forgings and castings to physically weld-fabricate what are safety-critical components for nuclear power plants. The company, based in the city of Sheffield, originally gained ASME accreditation as a Nuclear Material Organisation in 1992, but that had lapsed, with the lack of nuclear new-build in the following years, instead the focus being on developing technologies for SMRs...
... The UK's energy strategy, unveiled in April, set the target for eight new reactors plus small modular reactors to produce 24 GWe capacity by 2050, meeting about 25% of the UK's projected electricity demand. The UK currently generates about 15% of its electricity from about 6.5 GW of nuclear capacity. The first new nuclear capacity in the UK for about 30 years is being built by EDF at Hinkley Point C - two EPRs producing 3.2 GW of electricity - with a final investment decision also expected on a similar sized project at Sizewell C within the next few months.
There is currently a selection process taking place for SMR technology to be adopted in the UK with six companies - Holtec, Rolls-Royce, Nuward, NuScale, GE Hitachi and Westinghouse - shortlisted ahead of an announcement scheduled for Spring 2024 on which the government will support. The aim is for a final investment decision in 2029, with operational SMRs delivered by the mid-2030s...
The ASME committee on nuclear certification is now expected to approve the audit's findings and grant the certificate, making the company the only UK producer of such heavy forgings and castings to physically weld-fabricate what are safety-critical components for nuclear power plants. The company, based in the city of Sheffield, originally gained ASME accreditation as a Nuclear Material Organisation in 1992, but that had lapsed, with the lack of nuclear new-build in the following years, instead the focus being on developing technologies for SMRs...
... The UK's energy strategy, unveiled in April, set the target for eight new reactors plus small modular reactors to produce 24 GWe capacity by 2050, meeting about 25% of the UK's projected electricity demand. The UK currently generates about 15% of its electricity from about 6.5 GW of nuclear capacity. The first new nuclear capacity in the UK for about 30 years is being built by EDF at Hinkley Point C - two EPRs producing 3.2 GW of electricity - with a final investment decision also expected on a similar sized project at Sizewell C within the next few months.
There is currently a selection process taking place for SMR technology to be adopted in the UK with six companies - Holtec, Rolls-Royce, Nuward, NuScale, GE Hitachi and Westinghouse - shortlisted ahead of an announcement scheduled for Spring 2024 on which the government will support. The aim is for a final investment decision in 2029, with operational SMRs delivered by the mid-2030s...
The goals set, by the way, for the UK, are way too low to have serious meaning for climate change. They should be more like 100 GWe, and not "by 2050" but ASAP.
December 12, 2023
Excerpts of the article:
I note that the Poles have mentioned specifically their climate shortcomings in this article. The word for that position is "courage."
This would contrast with a nation calling itself "green," and then raising its carbon intensity with appeals to fear and ignorance.
Verstehen?
With 6 More Reactor Approvals, Poland Now Plans 24 Small Nuclear Reactors.
Poland has, in general, the worst carbon intensity for electrical generation in Europe, generally followed in 2nd or 3rd place for large economies, by Germany.
One can discern this at any point in time by calling up The Electricity Map. As of this writing, 12/11/23, 1:17 AM Warsaw time, the carbon intensity for electricity in Poland is 861 g CO2/kWh, Germany 524 g CO2/kWh, France 36 g CO2/kWh.
In "percent talk," utilized by defenders of the indefensible so called "renewable energy" failure to address climate change, the carbon intensity of Poland is 2390% higher than France, whereas putatively "green" Germany is "only" 1455% higher than France.
Unlike Germany, however Poland has plans to do something about its carbon emissions:
Six SMR power plants approved in Poland
Subtitle:
Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment has issued decisions-in-principle for the construction of power plants based on GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at six locations. A total of 24 BWRX-300 reactors are planned at the sites.
Excerpts of the article:
In mid-April, Orlen Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) announced it had shortlisted seven locations in Poland for further geological surveys to host SMR plants based on GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300, for which it holds the exclusive right in Poland. The locations were: Ostrołęka, Włocławek, Stawy Monowskie, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Nowa Huta, Tarnobrzeg Special Economic Zone and Warsaw.
OSGE submitted applications in late-April to the Ministry of Climate and Environment for decisions-in-principle on the construction of plants at six locations, omitting Warsaw from the list.
The ministry has now issued decisions-in-principle for the construction of a total of 24 BWRX-300 reactors at the six locations.
The decision-in-principle is the first decision in the process of administrative permits for investments in nuclear power facilities in Poland that an investor may apply for. Obtaining it entitles OSGE to apply for a number of further administrative arrangements, such as a siting decision or construction licence.
"The decisions we received are an important step towards deep decarbonisation of the Polish economy," Rafał Kasprów, President of the Management Board of OSGE, announced during the Net Zero Nuclear forum at the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai. "It is symbolic that we received the decisions today - with carbon dioxide emissions in Poland reaching 928g CO2/kWh, the highest in Europe and one of the highest in the world.
"The decisions enable us to launch a programme to build a fleet of BWRX-300 reactors in Poland to provide zero-emission, stable energy sources for the energy, industry and heating sectors..."
OSGE submitted applications in late-April to the Ministry of Climate and Environment for decisions-in-principle on the construction of plants at six locations, omitting Warsaw from the list.
The ministry has now issued decisions-in-principle for the construction of a total of 24 BWRX-300 reactors at the six locations.
The decision-in-principle is the first decision in the process of administrative permits for investments in nuclear power facilities in Poland that an investor may apply for. Obtaining it entitles OSGE to apply for a number of further administrative arrangements, such as a siting decision or construction licence.
"The decisions we received are an important step towards deep decarbonisation of the Polish economy," Rafał Kasprów, President of the Management Board of OSGE, announced during the Net Zero Nuclear forum at the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai. "It is symbolic that we received the decisions today - with carbon dioxide emissions in Poland reaching 928g CO2/kWh, the highest in Europe and one of the highest in the world.
"The decisions enable us to launch a programme to build a fleet of BWRX-300 reactors in Poland to provide zero-emission, stable energy sources for the energy, industry and heating sectors..."
I note that the Poles have mentioned specifically their climate shortcomings in this article. The word for that position is "courage."
This would contrast with a nation calling itself "green," and then raising its carbon intensity with appeals to fear and ignorance.
Verstehen?
December 11, 2023
Chemists, chemical engineers, and many other kinds of engineers, and certainly physicists and other kinds of scientists all have a working knowledge of the subject of entropy, a fundamental concept in thermodynamics.
One can even get lazy when putting the concept to use, and become detached from the powerful sublimity of the concept and the remarkable intellectual history underlying it.
Fun things I learned in the three hours of reading. Boltzmann never wrote down the equation now inscribed on his tombstone S = k ln(W). Instead, he derived the Boltzmann distribution function as a differential equation that was the sum of two partial derivatives, one in space and the other in time of that function, and thus derived conservation laws in momentum, energy and mass from which the "tombstone Boltzmann equation" falls out with recognition that if one substitutes the number of atoms in a phase space with a consideration of numbers of atoms having unique momenta at particular points in space.
The author makes the point that Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann should have all followed their concepts to a realization and appreciation of quantization of matter, quantum mechanics, by recognizing that space itself is quantized.
From Chapter 2 (Ingo Mueller):
Cool. I wish I wasn't running out of time in my life. Now, as an old man, I truly regret the time I wasted.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
I have to say that my mind was blown by a book this weekend.
Today my wife and I were killing time in a University Library while waiting for a musical performance and I wandered around the shelves looking for something that might be a fun read (since I don't have privileges in that library). I came across this book: Entropy . I pulled it off the shelf, and in a few hours went through the magnificent Introduction (the first chapter) by cowritten by the editors, and the inspiring mind bending 2nd Chapter, Fundamental Concepts by one of the authors logo Mueller.
I only had three hours with the book, and then the time for the musical event came upon us, and I had to put it down.
After returning home, I downloaded the full text. I could spend the rest of my life with this book, dusting off withered concepts in mathematics about which I have not thought in a long time, but as a practical matter, unless I retire, which I do not want to do, I won't have time
The book was a compilation of papers from a conference held in 2000 because of the realization among workers in entropy that the mathematical language used in specific disciplines were at least partially incomprehensible to workers in other disciplines.
From the Preface:
Imagine the following scene. A probabilist working in stochastic processes, a physicist working in statistical mechanics, an information theorist and a statistician meet and exchange their views about entropy. They are talking about the same notion, and, although they may be using distinct technical variants of it, they will probably understand each other. Someone working in the ergodic theory of dynamical systems may join those four. He will probably have to explain to the others precisely what he means by entropy, but the language he uses is still that of probability (except if he is talking about topological entropy, etc.). In any case, the five of them all see the historical roots of their notion of entropy in the work of Boltzmann and Gibbs. In another group, including people working in thermodynamics, on conservation laws, in rational mechanics and in fluid dynamics, the talk is about entropy from their perspective. However, because they probably see the common root of their concept of entropy in the work of Carnot, Clausius and later Boltzmann, the views they exchange are rather different. Now imagine that both groups come together and each picks up parts of the discussion of the others: they will realize that entropy appears to be an important link between their respective fields of research. But very soon they realize that they have major difficulties in understanding each other-the gap between their notions of entropy seems too large, despite the closely related historical roots and their common interest in gaining a better understanding of complex systems...
Chemists, chemical engineers, and many other kinds of engineers, and certainly physicists and other kinds of scientists all have a working knowledge of the subject of entropy, a fundamental concept in thermodynamics.
One can even get lazy when putting the concept to use, and become detached from the powerful sublimity of the concept and the remarkable intellectual history underlying it.
Fun things I learned in the three hours of reading. Boltzmann never wrote down the equation now inscribed on his tombstone S = k ln(W). Instead, he derived the Boltzmann distribution function as a differential equation that was the sum of two partial derivatives, one in space and the other in time of that function, and thus derived conservation laws in momentum, energy and mass from which the "tombstone Boltzmann equation" falls out with recognition that if one substitutes the number of atoms in a phase space with a consideration of numbers of atoms having unique momenta at particular points in space.
The author makes the point that Gibbs, Maxwell and Boltzmann should have all followed their concepts to a realization and appreciation of quantization of matter, quantum mechanics, by recognizing that space itself is quantized.
From Chapter 2 (Ingo Mueller):
...However, in the long and fierce debate that followed Boltzmann's interpretation of entropy, this nonsuggestive expression was eventually hammered into something suggestive and, moreover, something amenable to extrapolation away from gases.
Actually, 'hammered' is the right word. The main proponents went into a prolonged and acrimonious debate. Polemic was rife and good sense in abeyance. After 50 years, when the dust settled and the fog lifted, one had to realize that quantum mechanics could have started 30 years earlier, if only the founders of thermodynamics-not exempting Boltzmann, Maxwell and Gibbs-had put the facts into the right perspective...
.
Actually, 'hammered' is the right word. The main proponents went into a prolonged and acrimonious debate. Polemic was rife and good sense in abeyance. After 50 years, when the dust settled and the fog lifted, one had to realize that quantum mechanics could have started 30 years earlier, if only the founders of thermodynamics-not exempting Boltzmann, Maxwell and Gibbs-had put the facts into the right perspective...
Cool. I wish I wasn't running out of time in my life. Now, as an old man, I truly regret the time I wasted.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
December 9, 2023
The paper cited at the outset of this post considers the question of how many, and what types, of industrial and consumer foreign molecules - generally falling under the rubric of "xenobiotics" - show up in human flesh by developing a software tool to sort through the complex data sets generated by mass spectrometry. This concept is defined as the "exposome," a concept defined in 2005 by the editor of a scientific journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
From the introduction to the paper mentioned at the outset:
The authors use a lower level high resolution mass spectrometer, (HRMS) still a very powerful instrument but one that fits nicely on a benchtop to collect and annotate some data from human subjects.
A few graphics from the paper demonstrate the power of this software tool, which apparently can be downloaded for free by mass spectrometry labs:
The caption:
The caption:
The penultimate figure in the text gives an idea of the "exposome" found in human subjects:
The caption:
An interesting, if disturbing, paper, I think.
Have a nice weekend.
Measuring Foreign Chemical Exposure of Human Flesh: Mass Spectrometry Software for the "Exposome."
The paper I'll briefly discuss in this post is this one: Scannotation: A Suspect Screening Tool for the Rapid Pre-Annotation of the Human LC-HRMS-Based Chemical Exposome, Jade Chaker, Erwann Gilles, Christine Monfort, Cécile Chevrier, Sarah Lennon, and Arthur David, Environmental Science & Technology 2023 57 (48), 19253-19262.
Mass spectrometry is the very important technique of placing molecules in the gas phase - most often by spraying them in solution and evaporating off the solvents - and then adding energy to break them into ionic fragments (MS1) that can be electromagnetically stored, and fragmented again, (MS2) or even multiple times (MSn). The way molecules fragment, and the mass of the fragments, and now, even their shape (IMS, ion mobility spectrometry) is characteristic of their structure, and thus molecules can be, in practically every case with few exceptions, uniquely identified.
The technology of mass spectrometry has reached a level where one can almost determine the presence, and often the concentration, of molecules, both natural and foreign, at the femtogram and even the attogram levels but the data set sizes in doing so are massive, far too massive in fact, for a human being to apprehend in any meaningfully reasonable amount of time. There is even talk these days of identifying single molecules in this way.
As I recently noted in this space, referring to another paper in this issue of Environmental Science & Technology , the number of chemicals now in circulation for use for technological applications are huge: Conflicts of Interest in the Assessment of Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution
A quotation from the paper discussed in that post:
Worldwide, more than 350 000 chemicals have been registered for production and use. (1) With continuously increasing production, multifaceted adverse impacts, and a lack of public oversight throughout their life cycle(s), an argument has been made that chemicals as a whole have transgressed the planetary boundary, including specific examples such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Further, the annual production and releases of chemicals and chemical products are increasing faster than the global capacity for assessment and monitoring.
The paper cited at the outset of this post considers the question of how many, and what types, of industrial and consumer foreign molecules - generally falling under the rubric of "xenobiotics" - show up in human flesh by developing a software tool to sort through the complex data sets generated by mass spectrometry. This concept is defined as the "exposome," a concept defined in 2005 by the editor of a scientific journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
From the introduction to the paper mentioned at the outset:
Chemical pollution is a great and growing global problem, with more than tens of thousands of very diverse chemicals currently present on the market. (1) Human chemical exposure and toxicological data are only available for a few hundreds of these chemicals, meaning that a great share of chemicals potentially associated with deleterious health outcomes have not been investigated so far. (1) Nevertheless, the emergence of the exposome paradigm (2) as well as technological advances such as hyphenated high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques (e.g., LC-HRMS) have paved the way for the use of suspect screening (SS) and nontargeted screening (NTS) approaches, and therefore offer great promises for a comprehensive characterization of exogenous substances mixtures accumulating in humans. (3?7) It is however crucial to overcome the remaining methodological obstacles before implementing large-scale nontargeted exposomics studies to population-based studies. Indeed, the annotation of the tens of thousands of signals present in HRMS data sets remains one of the main bottlenecks, as only a few percent of signals are usually annotated. (4)
Annotation of complex HRMS data can be performed using NTS, which relies on the structure elucidation of features, prioritized as differential between two (or more) groups, or SS, which relies on the annotation of features prioritized for their similarity to compounds listed in a suspect library. This second methodology is particularly promising, in part because it has a strong potential for automation and allows for a very rapid prioritization of signals of interest. Furthermore, there is no restriction regarding the number of suspects that can be included as well as the forms they are searched as (i.e., parent or metabolite, adduct). The comparison of experimental features and suspects on characteristic properties such as their mass/charge ratio or their MS2 fragmentation profile can be automatically performed before being manually validated. Even though some bioinformatics solutions already exist to carry out MS2-based spectral library searches, allowing the automatized comparison of reference and experimental MS2 spectra (e.g., xMSannotator, msPurity, MZmine2, MS-DIAL4, patRoon, CAMERA), (8?13) the number of software tools is still limited and not necessarily suited for exposomics applications, (14) which present specific challenges detailed hereafter.
One of the main challenges of using biological matrices to characterize the human internal chemical exposome is the wide dynamic range of concentrations for compounds present in the samples. Compounds of interest in an exposomics context are often present at much lower levels (i.e., tens of pg/mL (15)) than many endogenous metabolites (i.e., up to a few mg/mL). These low-abundant xenobiotics do not systematically trigger MS2 acquisition. (16) This strongly limits the annotation’s confidence level according to Schymanski’s scale, which is the current reference. (17) Despite this fact, other factors accessible through MS1 data, such as retention time (Rt), distinctive isotope profiles based on halogen contents (often present in exogenous compounds such as pesticides), or detection of other phase I/II metabolites, could already provide reliable indications of the annotation’s plausibility...
Annotation of complex HRMS data can be performed using NTS, which relies on the structure elucidation of features, prioritized as differential between two (or more) groups, or SS, which relies on the annotation of features prioritized for their similarity to compounds listed in a suspect library. This second methodology is particularly promising, in part because it has a strong potential for automation and allows for a very rapid prioritization of signals of interest. Furthermore, there is no restriction regarding the number of suspects that can be included as well as the forms they are searched as (i.e., parent or metabolite, adduct). The comparison of experimental features and suspects on characteristic properties such as their mass/charge ratio or their MS2 fragmentation profile can be automatically performed before being manually validated. Even though some bioinformatics solutions already exist to carry out MS2-based spectral library searches, allowing the automatized comparison of reference and experimental MS2 spectra (e.g., xMSannotator, msPurity, MZmine2, MS-DIAL4, patRoon, CAMERA), (8?13) the number of software tools is still limited and not necessarily suited for exposomics applications, (14) which present specific challenges detailed hereafter.
One of the main challenges of using biological matrices to characterize the human internal chemical exposome is the wide dynamic range of concentrations for compounds present in the samples. Compounds of interest in an exposomics context are often present at much lower levels (i.e., tens of pg/mL (15)) than many endogenous metabolites (i.e., up to a few mg/mL). These low-abundant xenobiotics do not systematically trigger MS2 acquisition. (16) This strongly limits the annotation’s confidence level according to Schymanski’s scale, which is the current reference. (17) Despite this fact, other factors accessible through MS1 data, such as retention time (Rt), distinctive isotope profiles based on halogen contents (often present in exogenous compounds such as pesticides), or detection of other phase I/II metabolites, could already provide reliable indications of the annotation’s plausibility...
The authors use a lower level high resolution mass spectrometer, (HRMS) still a very powerful instrument but one that fits nicely on a benchtop to collect and annotate some data from human subjects.
A few graphics from the paper demonstrate the power of this software tool, which apparently can be downloaded for free by mass spectrometry labs:
The caption:
Figure 1. Scannotation annotation workflow relies on comparing a user-built library to a list of features. Compounds’ identifiers (name and SMILES), molecular formula, experimental, predicted retention time (Rt) and log P values (when not listed by the user), allowing the software to compute molecular ion and adduct masses, theoretical isotopic pattern, and a log P-predicted Rt. Any other predicted Rt can also be added to the library and will be used by the software. The software then successively compares experimental features to the suspect library data for three predictors: m/z, Rt, and isotopic fit. Scores are generated for each predictor and combined into a global score.
The caption:
Figure 2. Overview of the data generated by two suspect screening tools, based on either MS1 or both MS1 and MS2 predictors (Scannotation and MS-DIAL respectively).
The penultimate figure in the text gives an idea of the "exposome" found in human subjects:
The caption:
Figure 3. Detection of suspect compounds in each participant. Compounds were classified into four main categories: gut microbiota metabolites, food compounds, medication and personal care compounds, and industrial compounds.
An interesting, if disturbing, paper, I think.
Have a nice weekend.
December 8, 2023
Slaughterhouse Five, Catch 22 and Band of Brothers.
1995 Discussion Between Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Steven Ambrose.
Vonnegut Heller and Ambrose.Slaughterhouse Five, Catch 22 and Band of Brothers.
December 7, 2023
Washington
CNN
—
I'm inclined to respond as Gaetz did, but for different reasons. His response was "Oh please..." as a denial of his criminal perversion.
I share the "Oh please..." for different reasons. I don't believe that the Republican Party retains enough of a sense of decency to do anything about this creep. In fact it's very clear that the Republican Party has no sense of decency.
House Ethics Committee requests interview with witness in Gaetz probe
House Ethics Committee requests interview with witness in Gaetz probeWashington
CNN
—
The Republican-led House Ethics Committee has reached out to at least one witness as part of its investigation into GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz to schedule an interview in the coming weeks, the latest sign that the once dormant probe remains open.
One formal request went out last week, the day before the House voted to expel former Rep. George Santos over ethics violations, according to a source familiar with the investigation...
... The formal interview request, which has not been previously reported, is the first sign of activity in the Ethics committee’s Gaetz probe since investigators made contact with witnesses in July. It also suggests that on the heels of Santos’s expulsion, the panel is turning its attention to Gaetz, who argued on the House floor that expelling Santos without a conviction would be an “incredible violation of precedent” that would do “grave damage” to Congress...
... The Ethics Committee, which at the time was controlled by Democrats, originally opened its Gaetz investigation in 2021, publicly announcing that its was examining a range of allegations including that Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, used illicit drugs, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted a bribe, among other claims...
One formal request went out last week, the day before the House voted to expel former Rep. George Santos over ethics violations, according to a source familiar with the investigation...
... The formal interview request, which has not been previously reported, is the first sign of activity in the Ethics committee’s Gaetz probe since investigators made contact with witnesses in July. It also suggests that on the heels of Santos’s expulsion, the panel is turning its attention to Gaetz, who argued on the House floor that expelling Santos without a conviction would be an “incredible violation of precedent” that would do “grave damage” to Congress...
... The Ethics Committee, which at the time was controlled by Democrats, originally opened its Gaetz investigation in 2021, publicly announcing that its was examining a range of allegations including that Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, used illicit drugs, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted a bribe, among other claims...
I'm inclined to respond as Gaetz did, but for different reasons. His response was "Oh please..." as a denial of his criminal perversion.
I share the "Oh please..." for different reasons. I don't believe that the Republican Party retains enough of a sense of decency to do anything about this creep. In fact it's very clear that the Republican Party has no sense of decency.
December 7, 2023
Subtitle:
Excerpts:
The APR1400 is a reactor of Korean design, incorporating design features originally developed by Combustion Engineering, later acquired by Westinghouse.
Three other APR1400's now operate in South Korea, including Shin Hanul 1, and three more operate in the United Arab Emirates, with a fourth undergoing commissioning.
This is a victory for people who are serious about climate change, as opposed to those who couldn't care less about the use of fossil fuels, for instance the German Government.
Although Korea has a large nuclear infrastructure, it is heavily dependent on dangerous coal and dangerous gas otherwise. To eliminate coal with reliable clean power, South Korea would be required to roughly triple its nuclear capacity.
Electricity Map, South Korea (12 Month data. Accessed 12/07/23)
The experience of building 8 reactors of endogenous design should open the doors to accomplishing this important task. With more reactors planned Korea obviously now has a nuclear construction infrastructure.
South Korea Fires Up Its 28th Nuclear Reactor.
Second APR-1400 at Shin Hanul starts upSubtitle:
Unit 2 of the Shin Hanul nuclear power plant in South Korea has attained a sustained chain reaction for the first time, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced. The unit is the second of two APR-1400 reactors at the site, with a further two planned.
Excerpts:
The 1350 MWe pressurised water reactor reached first criticality at 7.00am on the 6 December, KHNP said.
Shin Hanul 2 received an operating licence from the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission on 7 September, after which it completed a preliminary inspection by the regulator. The loading of 241 fuel assemblies into the reactor's core was carried out between 11 and 18 September. High-temperature functional tests were subsequently conducted.
With first criticality now achieved, Shin Hanul 2 will undergo performance tests of the power plant system. The reactor is scheduled to start generating electricity on 20 December, contributing to the winter power peak, KHNP said. After major tests at each output stage, it is scheduled to begin full-scale commercial operation in the first half of 2024...
..."Shin Hanul unit 1, the same reactor design as Shin Hanul unit 2, began commercial operation in December of last year and has been operating without failure for 365 days to-date," KHNP noted.
Once in operation, Shin Hanul 2 will be South Korea's 28th nuclear power reactor and its 4th operational APR1400 - after Saeul units 1 and 2 (formerly Shin Kori 3 and 4) and Shin Hanul unit 1. Two further APR1400s are under construction as Saeul units 3 and 4, with two more units planned as Shin Hanul units 3 and 4...
Shin Hanul 2 received an operating licence from the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission on 7 September, after which it completed a preliminary inspection by the regulator. The loading of 241 fuel assemblies into the reactor's core was carried out between 11 and 18 September. High-temperature functional tests were subsequently conducted.
With first criticality now achieved, Shin Hanul 2 will undergo performance tests of the power plant system. The reactor is scheduled to start generating electricity on 20 December, contributing to the winter power peak, KHNP said. After major tests at each output stage, it is scheduled to begin full-scale commercial operation in the first half of 2024...
..."Shin Hanul unit 1, the same reactor design as Shin Hanul unit 2, began commercial operation in December of last year and has been operating without failure for 365 days to-date," KHNP noted.
Once in operation, Shin Hanul 2 will be South Korea's 28th nuclear power reactor and its 4th operational APR1400 - after Saeul units 1 and 2 (formerly Shin Kori 3 and 4) and Shin Hanul unit 1. Two further APR1400s are under construction as Saeul units 3 and 4, with two more units planned as Shin Hanul units 3 and 4...
The APR1400 is a reactor of Korean design, incorporating design features originally developed by Combustion Engineering, later acquired by Westinghouse.
Three other APR1400's now operate in South Korea, including Shin Hanul 1, and three more operate in the United Arab Emirates, with a fourth undergoing commissioning.
This is a victory for people who are serious about climate change, as opposed to those who couldn't care less about the use of fossil fuels, for instance the German Government.
Although Korea has a large nuclear infrastructure, it is heavily dependent on dangerous coal and dangerous gas otherwise. To eliminate coal with reliable clean power, South Korea would be required to roughly triple its nuclear capacity.
Electricity Map, South Korea (12 Month data. Accessed 12/07/23)
The experience of building 8 reactors of endogenous design should open the doors to accomplishing this important task. With more reactors planned Korea obviously now has a nuclear construction infrastructure.
December 7, 2023
Benjamin Pounds, Tennessee Lookout, Dec. 6, 2023.
Excerpts:
I'm not sure whether these reactors would be those with 3D printable cores recently demonstrated at ORNL, but the Secretary waxed enthusiastic as reported in other media about exporting the reactors.
The Biden administration is serious about climate change, and is, in fact, the most serious such administration in my lifetime.
Energy Secretary celebrates steps towards TVA nuclear power
Energy Secretary celebrates steps towards TVA nuclear powerBenjamin Pounds, Tennessee Lookout, Dec. 6, 2023.
Excerpts:
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited the site of a possible first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor for the Tennessee Valley Authority in Oak Ridge, Tenn. on Tuesday.
The utility’s board authorized $200 million to explore building a reactor on the site last year after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave TVA an early site permit in 2019
This first-of-its-kind small modular reactor would be smaller than standard nuclear reactors and generate less power, but it would have other advantages. While typical nuclear power plants need to provide power at 100 percent of their capacity constantly, a small modular reactor can more easily increase or decrease the amount of power it provides to the overall grid. Melinda Hunter, TVA nuclear communication specialist explained that this flexibility can complement renewable plants elsewhere in the TVA grid...
...Granholm stressed the small modular reactor’s importance for the Biden Administration’s priorities of the U.S. becoming carbon neutral by 2035 and reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. She also said it fit the U.S. and other countries’ commitment at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050. Granholm said the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, gave tax credits for nuclear power projects.
“We basically have to build a hundred Hoover Dams in nuclear to be able to meet those goals,” she said. “We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to be serious about it, and that’s why the fact that TVA is so far along is so important.”...
The utility’s board authorized $200 million to explore building a reactor on the site last year after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave TVA an early site permit in 2019
This first-of-its-kind small modular reactor would be smaller than standard nuclear reactors and generate less power, but it would have other advantages. While typical nuclear power plants need to provide power at 100 percent of their capacity constantly, a small modular reactor can more easily increase or decrease the amount of power it provides to the overall grid. Melinda Hunter, TVA nuclear communication specialist explained that this flexibility can complement renewable plants elsewhere in the TVA grid...
...Granholm stressed the small modular reactor’s importance for the Biden Administration’s priorities of the U.S. becoming carbon neutral by 2035 and reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. She also said it fit the U.S. and other countries’ commitment at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050. Granholm said the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, gave tax credits for nuclear power projects.
“We basically have to build a hundred Hoover Dams in nuclear to be able to meet those goals,” she said. “We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to be serious about it, and that’s why the fact that TVA is so far along is so important.”...
I'm not sure whether these reactors would be those with 3D printable cores recently demonstrated at ORNL, but the Secretary waxed enthusiastic as reported in other media about exporting the reactors.
The Biden administration is serious about climate change, and is, in fact, the most serious such administration in my lifetime.
December 7, 2023
Subtitle:
Excerpts:
The reactor operates at 500°C with a helium moderator/coolant. This type of reactor is probably not sustainable because the world supply of helium will run out within a few decades, I think, although small but trivial amounts will be available from the decay of tritium (3He) and alpha decay in nuclear fuels, particularly those running on the higher actinides, americium and curium.
500°C is too low to run the SI cycle for water splitting to provide captive hydrogen. My understanding is that the experimental HTR10 run in China did run at temps this high, and if I recall correctly, an SI (sulfur iodine) cycle was explored with this reactor.
Nevertheless, the reactor has been designed for the purpose of producing process heat, which allows for increased exergy recovery and efficiency.
It's nice to see.
In the United States a reactor along similar lines is being designed, but the working fluid is not helium, but is rather a molten salt, bringing to reactor concepts together. This reactor is under development by Kairos, under the scientific leadership of Per Petersen at UC Berkeley. The type of fuel, with refractory Silicon Carbide layers is known as "TRISO" fuel.
The British AGCR which is a commercial bulk fuel option has similar features. The United States operated (briefly) a similar type of reactor at Ft. St. Vrain in Colorado in the 1960's, but the materials science was not well enough developed and the reactor was problematic and was converted to a dangerous natural gas plant.
China Brings Back the High Temperature Pebble Bed Type Nuclear Reactor.
China's demonstration HTR-PM enters commercial operationSubtitle:
The world’s first modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear power plant has entered commercial operation, China’s National Energy Administration has announced.
Excerpts:
It follows a successful 168-hour demonstration run for the High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor - Pebble-bed Module (HTR-PM) in Shidao Bay (also known as Shidaowan), in Shandong Province, which is currently operating at 2×200 MWt power.
The HTR-PM features two small reactors (each of 250 MWt) that drive a single 210 MWe steam turbine. It uses helium as coolant and graphite as the moderator. Each reactor is loaded with more than 400,000 spherical fuel elements (‘pebbles’), each 60 mm in diameter and containing 7 g of fuel enriched to 8.5%. Each pebble has an outer layer of graphite and contains some 12,000 four-layer ceramic-coated fuel particles dispersed in a graphite matrix. The fuel has high inherent safety characteristics, and has been shown to remain intact and to continue to contain radioactivity at temperatures up to 1620°C - far higher than the temperatures that would be encountered even in extreme accident situations, according to the China Nuclear Energy Association.
First concrete for the demonstration project was poured on December 2012, with the operating permit granted in August 2021 and the plant connected to the grid in December 2021. The plant has more than 2200 sets of first-of-a-kind equipment, including more than 660 sets of innovative equipment. The supporting fuel element production line has the largest production capacity in the world...
The HTR-PM features two small reactors (each of 250 MWt) that drive a single 210 MWe steam turbine. It uses helium as coolant and graphite as the moderator. Each reactor is loaded with more than 400,000 spherical fuel elements (‘pebbles’), each 60 mm in diameter and containing 7 g of fuel enriched to 8.5%. Each pebble has an outer layer of graphite and contains some 12,000 four-layer ceramic-coated fuel particles dispersed in a graphite matrix. The fuel has high inherent safety characteristics, and has been shown to remain intact and to continue to contain radioactivity at temperatures up to 1620°C - far higher than the temperatures that would be encountered even in extreme accident situations, according to the China Nuclear Energy Association.
First concrete for the demonstration project was poured on December 2012, with the operating permit granted in August 2021 and the plant connected to the grid in December 2021. The plant has more than 2200 sets of first-of-a-kind equipment, including more than 660 sets of innovative equipment. The supporting fuel element production line has the largest production capacity in the world...
The reactor operates at 500°C with a helium moderator/coolant. This type of reactor is probably not sustainable because the world supply of helium will run out within a few decades, I think, although small but trivial amounts will be available from the decay of tritium (3He) and alpha decay in nuclear fuels, particularly those running on the higher actinides, americium and curium.
500°C is too low to run the SI cycle for water splitting to provide captive hydrogen. My understanding is that the experimental HTR10 run in China did run at temps this high, and if I recall correctly, an SI (sulfur iodine) cycle was explored with this reactor.
Nevertheless, the reactor has been designed for the purpose of producing process heat, which allows for increased exergy recovery and efficiency.
It's nice to see.
In the United States a reactor along similar lines is being designed, but the working fluid is not helium, but is rather a molten salt, bringing to reactor concepts together. This reactor is under development by Kairos, under the scientific leadership of Per Petersen at UC Berkeley. The type of fuel, with refractory Silicon Carbide layers is known as "TRISO" fuel.
The British AGCR which is a commercial bulk fuel option has similar features. The United States operated (briefly) a similar type of reactor at Ft. St. Vrain in Colorado in the 1960's, but the materials science was not well enough developed and the reactor was problematic and was converted to a dangerous natural gas plant.
December 6, 2023
The use of the word "green" to describe technologies that are not even remotely sustainable, and which in fact rob all future generations of their rights to this planet, is one of the most dire abuses of language known.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
Thallium pollution from Lithium Mining and the Urgent Need to Address It.
This opinion piece is from one of the scientific journals I regularly read, the current issue: Thallium Pollution from the Lithium Industry Calls for Urgent International Action on Regulations Juan Liu, Wenhuan Yuan, Ke Lin, Jin Wang, Christian Sonne, and Jörg Rinklebe
Environmental Science & Technology 2023 57 (48), 19099-19101
The opinion piece gives out the seldom challenged but nevertheless nonsensical inclusion of energy storage as so called "green energy." The laws of thermodynamics, which are not going to be repealed by appeal to wishful thinking are laws of physics, and a statement of the 2nd (inviolable) law is that storing energy wastes energy. The problem before humanity is to produce sustainable primary energy, not to play with Rube Goldberg schemes to pretend that storing energy with batteries, and worse, the very, very, very stupid hydrogen stuff that flies around all the time is the same as producing energy.
Although I'm not a fan of the "batteries will save us" scam, and I'm well aware of the material limitations, of which lithium is just a subset, I was unaware of the thallium issue with lithium mining. Thallium is an element in the periodic table that has been used as rat poison, although it is now banned for this purpose since it accumulates.
From the text:
Thallium (Tl) is a rare and very toxic heavy metal, which is classified as one of the priority pollutants by the European Water Framework and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and it is listed in China’s latest catalog of key heavy metals for prevention, with stringent drinking water quality limits ranging from 0.1 to 2 ?g/L. (1?3) However, technical challenges associated with precise Tl measurements pose a significant obstacle to routine surveillance for Tl pollution in most countries. (3) The escalating global attention to increasing Tl pollution is driven by its potential for high enrichment in various sulfides and contributing to its release into the aqueous environment through traditional industrial activities such as coal combustion, cement production, and metal mining and smelting. (3,4) Despite the ongoing global shift toward green energy technologies with low carbon emissions, which may reduce the scale of traditional industries and subsequently Tl emissions, the reliance on lithium (Li) production for green energy introduces new challenges. It is worth noting that high enrichment of Tl (even reaching 40 mg/kg) has been found in Li ores, possibly due to Tl’s lithophilic properties. (5,6) In addition, the current growing needs for clean energy technologies have driven escalating demands for Li production worldwide, which has recently witnessed a staggering 256% increase. (7)
In the meantime, there should be growing concern that soaring growth in Li production may dramatically increase Tl contamination in the surface environment if no regulations are implemented for Tl pollution control during the manufacturing and supply of Li. Recent reports highlight excessive environmental Tl levels not only in industrial effluent from Li production facilities (8) but also in debris or “gangue” left in evaporation ponds for Li extraction processes. (9) High levels of Tl have also been found in leachate from some discarded rechargeable Li batteries. (10) All of these new findings indicate that Li-related production and end-of-life consumer waste (batteries) can lead to environmental pollution and adversely affect human health due to potentially Tl-containing toxic materials. Worse still, predictions suggest that global demand for Li resources will continue to surge by 5–40 times from 2020 to 2040, (11) ultimately reaching a peak in Li production of >700 000 Mt in 2041. (7)
This situation emphasizes the need for increased international collaboration to evaluate and critically limit environmental pollution from Tl during Li production and its life cycle. Considering the prevalence of Li production, the associated risk of Tl pollution is poised to escalate significantly in the coming decades...
In the meantime, there should be growing concern that soaring growth in Li production may dramatically increase Tl contamination in the surface environment if no regulations are implemented for Tl pollution control during the manufacturing and supply of Li. Recent reports highlight excessive environmental Tl levels not only in industrial effluent from Li production facilities (8) but also in debris or “gangue” left in evaporation ponds for Li extraction processes. (9) High levels of Tl have also been found in leachate from some discarded rechargeable Li batteries. (10) All of these new findings indicate that Li-related production and end-of-life consumer waste (batteries) can lead to environmental pollution and adversely affect human health due to potentially Tl-containing toxic materials. Worse still, predictions suggest that global demand for Li resources will continue to surge by 5–40 times from 2020 to 2040, (11) ultimately reaching a peak in Li production of >700 000 Mt in 2041. (7)
This situation emphasizes the need for increased international collaboration to evaluate and critically limit environmental pollution from Tl during Li production and its life cycle. Considering the prevalence of Li production, the associated risk of Tl pollution is poised to escalate significantly in the coming decades...
The use of the word "green" to describe technologies that are not even remotely sustainable, and which in fact rob all future generations of their rights to this planet, is one of the most dire abuses of language known.
Have a nice day tomorrow.
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