gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

[Rajiv]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Yes, I only had to read one line, page 90

Nuclear fusion is the only solution.

Yet to come at some future time!!!!

And he does not address the non energy limits that we are also simultaneously facing, and will continue to face EVEN if we had Nuclear Fusion -- The current world population is, and continues to be unsustainable. And there are no winners in that battle!

[bill]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Yet to come at some future time!!!!

And he does not address the non energy limits that we are also simultaneously facing, and will continue to face EVEN if we had Nuclear Fusion -- The current world population is, and continues to be unsustainable. And there are no winners in that battle!

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2010/06/n...ent-plant.html

June 11, 2010
Anyone who thinks there isn’t going to be a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. needs to take a look at the multi-billion bet placed by Urenco at the Louisiana Energy Services plant in Eunice, NM.

[Rajiv]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2010/06/n...ent-plant.html

Anyone who thinks there isn’t going to be a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. needs to take a look at the multi-billion bet placed by Urenco at the Louisiana Energy Services plant in Eunice, NM.

See also this thread from a few years ago - Warning: The mining boom is fading fast

[ASH]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Yes, I only had to read one line, page 90 {Nuclear fusion is the only solution}

He repeats a common error -- "Fusion is far more powerful than fission, converting larger percentages of the mass within an atom into energy" -- but no matter, I think the core of what he says has merit. (Energy yield from D-T fusion is only 17.6 MeV -- about 80% of which is in the form of the kinetic energy of a fast neutron which is tricky to harvest, whereas fission of U-235 yields 202.5 MeV of which about 83% is in the form of kinetic energy of daughter nuclei which is easy to harvest. The reason people think fusion is more powerful is that H-bombs, in which fusion occurs, result in bigger explosions than pure fission bombs. But that's only because the fusion reaction generates hot neutrons to drive more fission; the actual energy released by the fusion itself isn't so significant. EDIT: To clarify -- it is true that a larger percentage of mass is converted to energy by D-T fusion than U-235 fission (about 3.5 MeV/AMU vs. ~0.86 MeV/AMU), but there is less total mass being converted, and the accessible energy density of the fuel is much lower.)

Still, he downplays all the difficulties. He talks about H-H fusion as though it were a technological possibility. He says that fusion is "clean", which is technically true only in that the radioactive waste results from irradiation of the reactor walls rather than the "ashes" of the fusion reaction. He doesn't mention the fact that most of the energy released is in the form of hot neutrons, and although he talks about the walls of the reactor becoming "highly radioactive", he doesn't mention that the neutron flux is about 100x worse than in a fission reactor -- so much so that designing materials to withstand that irradiation is a challenge. In short, this isn't critical analysis so much as a puff piece, as far as fusion power goes.

But for all of that, hot fusion is a potential compact, high-quality power source. And it is more in the realm of engineering than basic science. Very tough to do and very tough to make economical, but ultimately possible. The thing I wonder is how our supply of lithium will hold up (to breed tritium, until we can make D-D work), and whether there will be any negative consequences boiling all that seawater to separate the deuterium.

[bill]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

See also this thread from a few years ago - Warning: The mining boom is fading fast

http://intellectualventureslab.com/?p=19

3000 Year Fuel Supply: Depleted Uranium

May 12th, 2009 Pablos Leave a comment Go to comments

This is a photo of an existing stockpile of depleted uranium at Paducah, Kentucky. The U.S. has 700,000 metric tons of this nuclear waste. Using this as fuel for our reactor, it represents a 3000 year national energy reserve.
Traveling Wave Reactors can convert these 36,000 cylinders of “waste” to ~$100 Trillion of electricity.

Photo: Peter Essick
Learn more from The Depleted UF6 Management Information Network.


Tags: Nuclear, TerraPower

[we_are_toast]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

A quoted quip from the june 2010 issue of Scientific American;

A practical fusion reactor will always be about 20 years away.

[ASH]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

A quoted quip from the june 2010 issue of Scientific American -- {A practical fusion reactor will always be about 20 years away};

That 20-year figure is one of the natural constants measured by fusion research since the 50's.

Still, I gotta believe it is possible... we're just not trying hard enough!

[jtabeb]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

"So again, I point to my previous critiques and leave it at that. "

Fair enough.

[c1ue]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Still, I gotta believe it is possible... we're just not trying hard enough!

That's the engineer talking!

[Rajiv]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Depleted Uranium as Fuel

This is indeed interesting. Currently, the DU is being used in munitions (ultimately to poison large numbers of civilians in war zones where it is used), or as counterweights or other trivial uses.

The suggested use of DU as a power source waould indeed be useful as it would remove a potential scourge from the planet.

This could be made possible by a new type of breeder reactor -- TR10: Traveling-Wave Reactor

March/April 2009

[1] 2 3 Next »

TR10: Traveling-Wave Reactor

A new reactor design could make nuclear power safer and cheaper, says John Gilleland.
By Matthew L. Wald

Enriching the uranium for reactor fuel and opening the reactor periodically to refuel it are among the most cumbersome and expensive steps in running a nuclear plant. And after spent fuel is removed from the reactor, reprocessing it to recover usable materials has the same drawbacks, plus two more: the risks of nuclear-weapons proliferation and environmental pollution.

Wave of the future: Unlike today’s reactors, a traveling-wave reactor requires very little enriched uranium, reducing the risk of weapons proliferation. (Click here for a larger diagram, also on page 3). The reactor uses depleted-uranium fuel packed inside hundreds of hexagonal pillars (shown in black and green). In a “wave” that moves through the core at only a centimeter per year, this fuel is transformed (or bred) into plutonium, which then undergoes fission. The reaction requires a small amount of enriched uranium (not shown) to get started and could run for decades without refueling. The reactor uses liquid sodium as a coolant; core temperatures are extremely hot--about 550 ºC, versus the 330 ºC typical of conventional reactors. Credit: Bryan Christie Design

Multimedia Watch an animation showing the atomic reactions that would take place inside a traveling-wave reactor, and hear John Gilleland describe the processes. A diagram of a traveling-wave reactor.

These problems are mostly accepted as a given, but not by a group of researcher*s at Intellectual Ventures, an invention and investment company in Bellevue, WA. The scientists there have come up with a preliminary design for a reactor that requires only a small amount of enriched fuel--that is, the kind whose atoms can easily be split in a chain reaction. It's called a traveling*-wave reactor. And while government researchers intermittently bring out new reactor designs, the traveling-wave reactor is noteworthy for having come from something that barely exists in the nuclear industry: a privately funded research company.

As it runs, the core in a traveling-*wave reactor gradually converts nonfissile material into the fuel it needs. Nuclear reactors based on such designs "theoretically could run for a couple of hundred years" without refueling, says John Gilleland, manager of nuclear programs at Intellectual Ventures.

Gilleland's aim is to run a nuclear reactor on what is now waste. Conventional reactors use uranium-235, which splits easily to carry on a chain reaction but is scarce and expensive; it must be separated from the more common, nonfissile uranium-238 in special enrichment plants. Every 18 to 24 months, the reactor must be opened, hundreds of fuel bundles removed, hundreds added, and the remainder reshuffled to supply all the fissile uranium needed for the next run. This raises proliferation concerns, since an enrichment plant designed to make low-enriched uranium for a power reactor differs trivially from one that makes highly enriched material for a bomb.

But the traveling-wave reactor needs only a thin layer of enriched U-235. Most of the core is U-238, millions of pounds of which are stockpiled around the world as leftovers from natural uranium after the U-235 has been scavenged. The design provides "the simplest possible fuel cycle," says Charles W. Forsberg, executive director of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Project at MIT, "and it requires only one uranium enrichment plant per planet."

The trick is that the reactor itself will convert the uranium-238 into a usable fuel, plutonium-239. Conventional reactors also produce P-239, but using it requires removing the spent fuel, chopping it up, and chemically extracting the plutonium--a dirty, expensive process that is also a major step toward building an atomic bomb. The traveling-wave reactor produces plutonium and uses it at once, eliminating the possibility of its being diverted for weapons. An active region less than a meter thick moves along the reactor core, breeding new plutonium in front of it.

The traveling-wave idea dates to the early 1990s. However, Gilleland's team is the first to develop a practical design. Intellectual Ventures has patented the technology; the company says it is in licensing discussions with reactor manufacturers but won't name them. Although there are still some basic design issues to be worked out--for instance, precise models of how the reactor would behave under accident conditions--Gilleland thinks a commercial unit could be running by the early 2020s.

While Intellectual Ventures has caught the attention of academics, the commercial industry--hoping to stimulate interest in an energy source that doesn't contribute to global warming--is focused on selling its first reactors in the U.S. in 30 years. The designs it's proposing, however, are essentially updates on the models operating today. Intellectual Ventures thinks that the traveling-wave design will have more appeal a bit further down the road, when a nuclear renaissance is fully under way and fuel supplies look tight.

"We need a little excitement in the nuclear field," says Forsber*g. "We have too many people working on 1/10th of 1 percent change."

See the 10 Emerging Technologies of 2009.

Atomic Snapshot

How nuclear power is progressing







A. Coolant pumps
B. Expansion area for fission gases
C. Fuel (depleted uranium) inside the hexagonal pillars; green represents unused fuel, black spent fuel
D. Fission wave (red)

E. Breeding wave (yellow)

F. Liquid sodium coolant

Also from one of the comments in the article

What are the end products?
The end products are residual (unburned) U-238, fission products, and transuranic elements (Np, Pu, Am, and Cm)

How much will there be?
The fuel in this reactor is Pu-239. The energy content in 1 lb of Pu-239 is equivalent to more than 2,000,000 lbs of coal, so nuclear power produces an enormous amount of energy and an extremely small amount of waste.

Currently we have 104 nuclear reactors in operation in the US, which generate about 20% of our electricity. The total amount of spent fuel discharged is about 2,000 tons per year. Of this, 95% is U-238 (which could be used as fuel in the Wave reactor), 4% is fission products (waste), 1% is transuranics (TRU). Of the 1% TRU, 90% is Pu, which can be recycled as fuel. The remaining 10% (0.1% of the total) is Np, Am, and Cm, which is considered waste, but can be recycled in a fast reactor like the Wave. The amount of fission products (waste) generated each year is 4% of 2,000 tons or 160,000 lbs. There are 300 million people in the US, so the average share of the nuclear waste is 160,000 lbs / 300 million = 0.0005 lbs, or 0.2 grams per person per year. If you received 100% of your electricity from nuclear power for your entire lifetime, all of the nuclear waste generated from your use would fit in a coffee cup. Compare this to the average person's carbon footprint of 20 tons of CO2 per year.

How radioactive will it be?
The radioactivity of the end products from the Wave reactor would be essentially the same as from the current generation of reactors.

What is its effective half-life?
The half-lives of the numerous fission products vary from a fraction of a second to many years. It takes about 500 years for the fission products to decay to same level of radioactivity as the natural uranium we started with.

How much shielding will it require?
Spent fuel is stored under water for at least 5 years to allow the fuel to cool (water is also an excellent shielding material). After that the fuel can be transferred to dry storage casks, which use steel and concrete for shielding. Six inches of concrete will stop more than 90% of the radiation from the spent fuel. A typical cask has about 3 inches of steel (for gamma shielding) and almost 3 feet of heavily reinforced concrete (for both gamma and neutron shielding).

What is its potential for mischief?
None. The combination of physical security, the huge mass of the storage systems, and self-protecting nature of radioactive materials make spent fuel extremely unattractive for mischief or misuse.

[ASH]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Pre-ordained and active choice are NOT mutually exclusive. Just because the outcome IS known in God's frame of reference (see Einstein's theory of relativity) does not mean that WE CAN KNOW the outcome in OUR frame of reference, THEREFORE, Active choice is required in OUR FRAME of reference.

Hi JT. Would you entertain a question or two about your faith, and the implications of this discussion of free will? It's a diversion from the topic of the thread, but you baited me by framing this essentially metaphysical discussion in terms of physics.

My first question is semantic. The word "ordain" normally connotes that something has been decreed, implying control over future events in addition to foreknowledge, but your discussion of reference frame seems to focus mainly on the state of our knowledge. It seems reasonable that a supernatural God could view the universe from any vantage point of His choosing, and so would have certain knowledge of events which are indeterminate to us prior to their occurrence. But I'm wondering if this line of argument actually addresses the idea of pre-ordination? Does your faith hold that God not only knows how all events will transpire, but actually wills that they transpire in exactly that way, or does the element of control implied by the English word "ordain" not capture the idea correctly?

If God both wills and knows, then it seems to me that His ability to will is more salient for a discussion of pre-ordination. You talk about people "trying to circumvent God's will" by failing to actively choose, but does your faith hold that it is actually possible to circumvent God's will? If it's not possible to circumvent God's will, then logically the illusion of choice isn't very important, because God doesn't "need" the cooperation of mortals to see His will done. Rather, their apparent obedience or rebellion would be something He had in fact willed. Put in other terms, whether one "chooses to make active choices" or not would also seem to be pre-ordained, even if we perceive the possibility of choice from our limited perspective.

The whole reference frame/vantage point thing is something I'd also like to pursue further. You point out that the outcome of an event can be known from one vantage point yet unknown from another. Any being, mortal or otherwise, observing an event from the future of the event (its "future light cone" if you want to use the language of relativity) can know its outcome, even if that outcome was subject to chance from the perspective of an observer anticipating the event from its past. All events are "post-ordained" after they occur, and no supernatural agency is required to make the outcome of past events definite. What we mortals can't do is move information from the future of an event into its past, and this would seem to be the key ability for knowing the outcome of "future" events. It's not about having a vantage point from which the outcome is known -- any schmuck can do that if they can get to a location in the future light cone of an event (by, e.g. waiting) -- it's about moving that information to the past of an event so that it constitutes prior knowledge. One supposes that a supernatural God could do this.

Anyway, the fact that a definite outcome is known in the future of an event does not require that a definite outcome was pre-ordained before the event occurred. It seems to me that you are describing a God whose vantage point is semi-privileged, and whose ability to move information about an event into its past is exclusive, but the element of control implied by the word "ordain" isn't part of this picture. (Not that you said it was.)

Active choice forces us to shape our own destiny. To us it appears to be free will and IT IS, in OUR FRAME of reference. But to GOD, in HIS frame of reference, your life appears as the manifestation of a preordained path set forth by him

Since you brought up relativity, I should point out that in relativity, events are fundamental, although their perceived separation in space and time can vary depending upon the state of motion of the observer (the observer's "reference frame"). What this means is that there is only one reality, even if relative motion leads to different perceptions of it. In that sense, it isn't possible that choice have meaning in one frame but not another; there is either choice or there isn't. Your vantage point may affect your state of knowledge about an event (the outcome of choice, if choice is real), depending upon whether you are in its past or future light cone, and your state of motion may affect your perception of the space and time separation of events, but whether or not free will exists cannot depend upon reference frame.

Having picked all these nits, I should say that I don't think physics or logic have anything to do with religious faith or the abilities of supernatural beings, either for or against. Either the universe is rational, or it isn't. If it isn't, then a subset of the universe can appear rational, and fool us into believing it is all rational. There would be no way to distinguish that universe from a perfectly rational one, unless favored with an opportunity to directly observe the irrational subset. Therefore, it is pointless to argue for or against religion on the basis of reason. The most carefully constructed logical arguments or theories built on centuries of empirical observation have no absolute validity; they rest, like religion, upon a kernel of faith -- that the rational behavior of the subset of the universe which we've been able to observe is representative of the whole, and that empirical examples to the contrary result from errors of observation or distortion of reporting.

[jtabeb]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Okay ASH, here is my best shot



but you baited me by framing this essentially metaphysical discussion in terms of physics.


Sorry, wasn’t trying to bait you, but it’s the only way that this discussion has ever made sense to me (relating this to physics).


Does your faith hold that God not only knows how all events will transpire, but actually wills that they transpire in exactly that way, or does the element of control implied by the English word


Some people hold this exact view (NOTHING IS IN OUR CONTROL, FREE CHOICE DOESN’T EXIST, nothing I do matters, “Allah has the aircraft”, etc.). I don’t share this view, AT ALL, BECAUSE, It is completely CONTRARY to my everyday experience. I can choose to be kind to people or I can be an ass. I can choose to be compassionate, or I can be cold hearted. I can try to make an improvement every time I see the opportunity to do so, or I can sit back and do nothing to help.

Others seem to hold an “elastic view” that the harder you deviate from what “God” desires, the stronger you will be “Pushed” back to the path you are supposed to be on. In this view, the path is like a “rubber band” with fixed anchors. You’ll notice that in this view, both the STARTING POINT and the ENDING POINT are FIXED. The only freedom of movement (choice if you will), is limited to the excursion allowed by the rubberband (remember, again, this view holds that start and end points are fixed an immovable). I don't agree with this view either, again because it is completely CONTRARY to what I actually experience.


From my understanding, and I emphasize MY understanding, It is like a ball rolling down a hill. The ball may follow the contours of the controlling terrain features or it may have enough kinetic energy to jump these bounds and proceed via a different path. The Deterministic part is that we know the ball is going to roll down hill and end up at the bottom hill SOMEWHERE. The path that the ball follows and it’s eventual resting place seem to be defined by a statistical distribution of some sort based on the initial condition of the ball and the terrain that it will be traversing. Steve Jobs has it right in that only by looking backwards can you connect the dots. It seems to me that I am the one RESPONSIBLE for placing the dots, however. Each time I make a choice, I get to place a dot. Later, I can look BACK at the path that I have created behind me and understand how each dot is related to the other dots. But as you said only looking BACKWARDS, not FORWARDS. This is the difference between the ball and a person. A ball doesn’t get to make a choice, a person does. Hence, the ball can’t control it’s destiny but a person can by making choices. (A ball can’t choose).


but does your faith hold that it is actually possible to circumvent God's will?


Here is where it gets really interesting and I am going to do my best to answer this in two ways. How I, myself see it, and how I perceive that others see it.

I VIEW it as a matter of following the “golden rule”, and that I will be more successful at achieving my goals in life IF, I do my best to HELP OTHERS so that they can do their best. I also observe that converse applies. The more harshly that I treat others, the less successful I will be at achieving my goals.


What I perceive in others is more of what I would describe as “Biblical View”. That is, YES it is possible. (Look at the story of Lott, the story of Noah, etc, etc.) Each parable is about a group people that were punished for not following what God had prescribed.


The common theme is that Failure to make productive choices (do the right thing for lack of a better term) results in negative consequences.

The DIFFERENCE is, in my view, that I project this internally, onto myself. It is a judgment I place on myself, not others.

What I view in many others is that they project this EXTERNALLY, onto other groups. It is a judgment that THEY PLACE ON OTHERS, but NOT necessarily ON THEMSELVES.





Your vantage point may affect your state of knowledge about an event (the outcome of choice, if choice is real), depending upon whether you are in its past or future light cone, and your state of motion may affect your perception of the space and time separation of events, but whether or not free will exists cannot depend upon reference frame.


I agree with that, my position was not stated precisely enough.

[ASH]

Re: gregor: ignoring energy - the hollow keynesian/austrian debate

Thanks for the response, JT. I like your "elastic view" aesthetically.