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The monetary value of a nuclear power station in an energy system lies more in its dependable electric power and dependable heat outputs than in its energy output. There are more economic alternative non-fossil sources of energy, but they lack dependability. Dependable generation is also required to black start and stabilize an electricity system.
There are two methods of producing nuclear energy, fission of high atomic weight elements and fusion of low atomic weight elements. Both methods are explored on this web site.
However, from a practical public electricity supply perspective nuclear energy released via continuous fast neutron fission of heavy elements is the only dependable source of non-fossil power that can sustainably and economically fully displace fossil fuels here on Earth.
The sun is powered by fusion so renewable energy is actually fusion energy. However, due to the rotation of planet Earth about its axis and due to the inclination of that axis with respect to Earth's orbital plane at any particular point on Earth's surface solar and wind energy production is both intermittent and seasonal. Solar and wind electricity generators require efficient daily and seasonal energy storage and related efficient long distance transmission to convert interruptible electricity into dependable electric power. Unless the geography is very favorable, such as in British Columbia, Quebec and Norway these storage and transmission costs are prohibitive. It is usually more practical to price dependable electricity and interruptible electricity differently so that applications which require dependable electricity pay the related extra costs and applications such as partial fossil fuel displacement and electrolytic hydrogen production, that can function with interruptible electricity, do not pay the extra costs required to achieve electricity supply dependability.
Advances in Fast Neutron Reactor (FNR) technology have rendered obsolete past concerns about nuclear reactor safety and nuclear waste disposal. However, the present wasteful use of the limited inventories of U-235 and Pu-239 as fuels for water moderated reactors is an enormous concern. As fossil fuels are phased out the amount of available dependable electricity will be constrained by the limited available U-235 and Pu-239 inventories. It will take over a century to double the fissile isotope inventories via breeding in Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs).
Another concern is squandering of limited public resources on development of new reactor types that are not fuel sustainable. It is imperative to apply the limited public resouces to deployment of liquid sodium cooled Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs), because FNRs provide the only technology that can sustainably fully displace fossil fuels. An advantage of liquid sodium over other possible primary coolants is that it is chemically compatible with the steel for economic FNR fabrication.
Other than via renewable energy, fusion based electricity generation is difficult and expensive to realize on Earth. For fundamental thermodynamic reasons, as long as low cost fission fuels are available, the cost per kWhe of Earth based fusion energy production will remain much higher than the cost per kWhe of Earth based fission energy production.
The possible avenues of future nuclear fuel cost relief are breeding of Pu-239, U-233 and H-3 in FNRs and mining He-3 from the surface of the moon. In theory it is possible to breed H-3 in fusion reactors but sustaining controlled fusion reactions on Earth is extremely difficult. The problems include a low density plasma, a small fusion reaction cross section and large ongoing plasma energy loses via energetic neutron emission. The fusion reactor size required for maintaining a self sustaining fusion chain reaction is believed to be too large for economic construction.
It is the intent of this author to eventually produce web pages addressing all of the above mentioned topics.
This web page last updated March 24, 2019.
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