Earlier this year, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) released a study entitled "The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle."
The key recommendations of that study have been called into question by a group of prominent nuclear and climate change experts who challenged MIT to defend their study in a debate at a place and time of MIT's choosing.
MIT's response was effectively, "How about we talk about something else instead?"
I agree with the challengers. The recommendations in the MIT study are not only wrong, but they endanger the future of our planet.
I believe MIT must know this, which is why they refused to accept the challenge to debate from such a well-qualified group of experts. The experts challenging the MIT study include:
If there is any lesson to be learned from Fukushima on a technical side, it is that we need to be pursuing even safer nuclear designs and we need to do something about all the stored waste. That means investing aggressively now in safer reactor designs (like the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR)) and in reactor designs that safely get rid of the waste (the IFR again). The MIT Report basically says it is OK to not do this for decades while various alternatives can be studied. That is stupid and wrong.
One of our country's best and brightest nuclear scientists is Chuck Till. I asked him how to best advance nuclear science and safety. His answer was unequivocal: you build them and you learn from your mistakes; you can only get so far with computer simulations. The MIT Report tells us not to do this...that we have plenty of time to decide what to do. That's just so incredibly wrong. We needed a safe way to dispose of the nuclear waste years ago. Fukushima confirmed that in spades.
We had a way to get rid of that waste, but we cancelled the project and MIT Energy Initiative head Professor Ernie Moniz says we shouldn't build an IFR for decades. He says "it is a low priority." That's bad advice. Doing so just opens the door to the next Fukushima which will lead to even more countries choosing to abandon nuclear for irrational reasons. But if we had a working new reactor design that shuts down safely in disasters with no power requirement, no operator intervention, and no safety systems, and a reactor design that consumes the dangerous waste product from today's nuclear reactors, the reaction to Fukushima would be a call to switch existing reactors to the new safer reactors.
The study recommendations would deny the world that choice. Even though we have a bird in the hand with the IFR which time and time again has proven itself up to the task (and was rated the single best nuclear design overall by an international panel of 242 nuclear experts), Moniz says "don't build it... keep waiting for something better; this is a low priority." It reminds me of the book Waiting for Godot. Godot never shows up. We have a "bird in the hand" solution now. We ought to build it now. If a better design comes along later, that's fine, we can switch horses at that time and ramp that up. But to hold off doing anything right now is just stupid, bad advice that should not be allowed to go unchallenged.
Is Professor Moniz afraid to defend his report? If he's right, he has nothing to fear.
Today, the challenge to debate from Congressman Garamendi, James Hansen, Yoon Chang, Barry Brook, and Ray Hunter remains unanswered.
All of my nuclear friends told me that MIT would never agree to a debate because Professor Moniz knows he'd lose badly.
You can read more about it at AtomicInsights.com
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Nuclear "experts," it appears, are Frank. N. Stines.
The risk associated with building and operating nuclear energy facilities around the world has been kept remarkably low, especially in comparison to all other competitive energy production systems. That supports the assertion that you do not need absolute perfection.
To ignorant people, this might sound hopelessly cavalier, but the search for perfection is the enemy of go enough.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
The establishment way of doing things is to let the oil and gas industry continue to dominate by suppressing nuclear technology. Setting a path of several decades worth of research and development keeps the research dollars flowing to the mighty technical university and does not disrupt the established energy industry. I hear echos of Atlas Shrugged here.
In the meantime, the disruptive technology is fission where almost all of the uranium can be turned into useful energy. Using our current wasteful method, an enriched fuel pellet the size of the tip of my pinkie still contains more energy than a heavy duty pickup truck full of coal. We set 8 pellets of potential fuel off to the side. With a fully developed system that includes IFRs, we would be able to turn those 9 pellets of uranium into the energy equivalent of 180 tons of coal.
That development could enable an energy market disruption worthy of a spirited debate.
Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights
I enjoy your blog and read it all the time
The demand for energy 10 years from now is going to be huge. Instead of throwing more money into research (will take forever), we already have some solid designs such as the Molten Salt Reactor (my favorite). Nuclear is the only energy source we need to focus on... more people die from coal and gas plants than any other type of power plant. It's not on the news because the push against nuclear is simply political and enough people are not informed about the safety and planning put into building these things...trust me I work for an engineering firm who is designing a plant right now.
Matt
The fact that nuclear power is a disruptive technology explains a lot of the irrational policy decisions we see. There is a lot of status quo to be protected in the face of a game-changer such as nuclear.
In medical parlance, this is triage; time is of the essence, you don't wait for perfect conditions. You use the best tools, resources and talent at hand, and pursue Job #1--save the patient. The Integral Fast Reactor may not be perfect, but it is by far the best option we have in our toolbox at the moment. Whatever happened to our quintessentially American "Can Do" spirit? We can do this. Let's get to work.