Figure 1
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I would like to start by thanking the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) for hosting this presentation.
There must be much better public and political appreciation of the enormity of the CO2 problem and the measures necessary to mitigate it.
1) During the 1920s high resolution spectrometers were used to examine light emitted by the sun, stars and various radiation sources here on Earth.
2) It was found that for each gas there are characteristic photon frequencies at which the gas molecules reflect incident electromagmetic radiation back toward the radiation source. If such reflection occurs mainly at thermal infrared frequencies the gas is known as a "greenhouse gas". When a greenhouse gas is added to the atmosphere around a solar illuminated object the result is an increase in object temperature (warming) due to the "greenhouse effect".
3) During the early 1960s the large steerable radio telescope at Jodrell bank in the UK was pointed at the planet Venus. On the basis of radio telescope data UK astrophysicists concluded that the surface of Venus is very hot (> 600 degrees K) due to the "greenhouse effect" caused by CO2 in the atmosphere of Venus.
4) During the mid 1960s the USA and USSR sent multiple space probes to Venus. These probes confirmed that the Venus atmosphere is primarily CO2 and that due to the greenhouse effect the surface temperature of Venus is very high.
5) The measured surface temperature of Venus lies in the range 460 C at night to 474 C during the day. Due to broad band thermal infrared absorption by CO2 the temperature increase due to the greenhouse effect is larger than was originally anticipated.
6) In January 1970 a small book was published that summarized the results of accurate measurements of Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration made at Mona Loa, Hawaii during the period 1957 to 1969. As shown in Figure 1, these measurements indicate that the average atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising every year.
Figure 1
7) In 1970, I already knew some of the properties of CO2 and it was immediately obvious to me that the ongoing accumulation of CO2 would, within a few human generations, prevent continuing human existence on planet Earth.
8) The right hand side of Figure 1 shows that in spite of contrary political claims, in recent years mankind has totally failed to slow the rate of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
9) Glacier ice cores show that for centuries prior to the industrial revolution the atmospheric CO2 concentration was stable at about 275 ppm. During the 1950s the atmospheric CO2 concentration was about 315 ppm. Presently the atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 425 ppm and is rising at about 2.5 ppm per year. The recent data trend indicates that the atmospheric CO2 concentration will reach 550 ppm by 2070, twice its stable historic value.
10) Interpreting this data is simple. Two hundred years ago, when Earth's population was about 1 billion people, natural processes could permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere faster than mankind produced CO2 by combustion of fossil fuels (then primarily coal). However, today, as Earth's human population exceeds 8 billion, mankind produces CO2 much faster than natural processes can permanently remove it.
11) At this point I should point out that almost all government and fossil fuel industry claims with respect to projected CO2 emission rates and reductions are misleading NONSENSE. The only data that counts are actual atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements. Reducing the measured atmospheric CO2 concentration requires a sustained 20X reduction in the rates of fossil fuel extraction and fossil CO2 emission.
12) Building more fossil fuel infrastructure will not prevent further CO2 emission nor will storing compressed CO2 underground. The fundamental problem is that CO2 is a very low energy state chemical compound, meaning that to change CO2 into any stable form that is suitable for permanent carbon storage requires additional energy.
13) Solving the atmospheric CO2 concentration problem requires complete halting of fossil fuel extraction. Parties who claim otherwise are simply burying their heads in the sand. Moreover, it is not sufficient to simply displace our own use of fossil fuels. We will not achieve atmospheric CO2 concentration reduction and hence climate mitigation unless we also stop fossil fuel extraction by less affluent parties in foreign lands. In this matter we must develop cost effective technologies for sustained complete fossil fuel displacement both at home and abroad. To plan for less is to plan to fail.
14) The main means by which nature removes CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean is photosynthesis. However, trees provide no permanent CO2 sequestration because when they decay they release their accumulated carbon back into the atmosphere.
15) The major long term natural CO2 removal processes are bio-matter growth that is then trapped in lake and swamp bottoms and shell forming ocean plankton. The trapped bio-matter eventually anaerobically decays into fossil fuels. After death Plankton shells sink to the bottom of the ocean forming sea bottom dust that eventually consolidates into carbonate rock. The common problem with these processes is that they rely on limited sunlight to provide the intermediate energy required for reforming CO2.
16) Today most of the CO2 produced by combustion of fossil fuels is either stored in the atmosphere, which raises the atmospheric CO2 concentration or is dissolved in the ocean, which lowers the ocean pH. Both of these effects have serious adverse life altering consequences.
17) Natural excess CO2 removal is photosynthesis limited and takes many centuries.
18) There is another important CO2 effect that has received little explicit public recognition. When CO2 is added to the atmosphere over dry land the land surface temperature almost immediately rises to make the infrared (IR) power emission balance the solar power absorption. Hence there is little heat absorption by dry land.
19) However, when CO2 is added to the atmosphere over ocean water there is little immediate water temperature rise but there is ongoing heat absorption by the water equal to the difference between the solar radiant power flux and the IR radiant power flux. This net heat absorption melts floating ice and leads to gradual ocean warming that in turn raises the wet bulb temperature and enables major ocean storms.
20) In 1972 one of the Apollo 17 astronauts took a famous visible light photograph of planet Earth from deep space. The scientific significance of this photograph was not fully appreciated until about 25 years later. I show this photograph as Figure 2.
Figure 2 - EARTH AS VIEWED FROM OUTER SPACE VIA REFLECTED SOLAR ILLUMINATION:
Earth From Space Apollo 17 Dec. 1972
21) Examine Figure 2. The brilliant white is sunlight reflected from ice crystals, mostly in clouds. Precise measurements show that in 1999-2000 about 29.7% of the incident solar energy was reflected. Notice that in the warm equatorial region there are few ice crystals resulting in low local solar reflectivity (albedo) and high solar energy absorption whereas closer to the south pole the ice crystals are very dense causing high local solar reflectivity and low solar energy absorption. Try to remember this latitude dependent ice crystal distribution. It is important.
22) Knowledgeable people in the USA became concerned about the possible Earth climate implications of the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. In the mid 1970s the USA used several low orbit satellites to record the basic thermal infrared spectrum of planet Earth. I use the word basic because thermal infrared spectrometers require cryogenic cooling and in a primitive satellite environment the cryogenic coolant, usually liquid argon, helium or nitrogen, quickly boiled away. Hence these observations were limited to a few low Earth orbits.
23) Using the satellite recorded Earth IR emission spectrum, in 1979 the US Academy of Sciences reported to then US president Jimmy Carter that doubling of Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration from its historic value of 275 ppm to a future value of 550 ppm would by itself cause an average temperature increase over dry land of about 5 degrees F (3 degrees C).
24) By 1980 early thermal neutron nuclear power reactors had been field proven and around the world about 400 such power reactors were either committed or built with a total thermal output of about 1200 GWt.
25) Circa 1985 the fossil fuel industry realized that nuclear power was an existential threat to fossil fuel energy market share and attempted to make nuclear power economically unviable by lobbying governments in both Canada and the USA. This lobbying took the form of public scare tactics, unreasonable regulation of nuclear power, funding of political parties that promoted use of fossil fuels in preference to nuclear power and dissemination of falsehoods about climate change and nuclear energy.
26) During the 1990s the USA adopted a pro-fossil fuel policy, in which parties who challenged that policy with contrary facts had their employment terminated. One of the worst offenders was Bill Clinton, who changed clean air laws and who terminated the highly successful multi-billion dollar US fast breeder reactor development program. Similar politics occurred in France. Today the main beneficiaries of that US development program are Russia, China and to a lesser extent, India.
27) Some of the scientists at US NASA were not deterred by the foolish and misguided US federal government policy. In November 1996 they sent a unique spacecraft toward Mars. This spacecraft, known as the Mars Global Surveyor, had on board its own continuously operating cryogenic refrigeration system that allowed it to precisely record thermal infra red spectra. In my view the most important spectrum that it recorded was from planet Earth, not Mars. This spectrum is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
28) Please take a moment to study Figure 3. The horizontal axis, labelled Wavenumber, is the infrared frequency divided by the speed of light. The black line is a graph of the received infrared power as a function of wavenumber or frequency. The area under the black line is proportional to the total thermal infrared power emitted by Earth. On the left hand side of this graph the received infrared power is partially suppressed by water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. In the middle of this graph is the large notch due to CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. That notch is wider today because this data was acquired in 1996 and there has been further CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere since then.
29) However, the real killer in Figure 3 is the red line. It shows that in 1996 the average Earth emission temperature seen by the spacecraft was about 270 degrees K. Today the red line will be about 1 degree C higher. Remember that the melting point of ice is almost pressure independent at 273.16 degrees K. The atmospheric ice crystals visible in Figure 2 are gradually melting. That ice crystal melting reduces Earth's visible light reflectivity (albedo), causing increased solar energy absorption.
30) The reduction in albedo increases the absorbed solar power, which in much of Canada doubles or triples the temperature rise as compared to heating from CO2 alone, which you may recall is 3 degrees C at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 550 ppm. Melting of the ice crystals shown in figure 2 will eventually cause an average temperature increase on Earths surface of about 17.2 degrees C. That is lethal for most large land animals.
31) Let me summarize this matter bluntly. The atmospheric CO2 concentration is 425 ppm today. At 2.5 ppm per year we will reach 550 ppm in:
125 ppm / (2.5 ppm / year) = 50 years.
32) If present fossil fuel use trends continue that 2.5 ppm per year rise in CO2 concentration will increase to 5 ppm per year, reducing the CO2 concentration rise time to about 33 years. If you fail to act now, in about 33 years time the average temperature over much of Canada will be 6 to 9 degrees C higher than the preindustrial reference. If you think that we have a wildfire problem now, you have seen nothing yet. Continuation of this warming will eventually cause an over 17.5 degree C increase in average temperature which will cause an extinction of large land animals.
33) The accompanying MATH SLIDE shows how Earth's temperature T is affected by the changing atmospheric CO2 concentration and the changing albedo A.
34) In the near term a major consequence of the temperature rise will be massive human migration from the tropics toward more temperate countries. Already the USA and Europe are not able to control immigration via their southern borders and the situation will become much worse during the decades to come. I remind you that desperate people do desperate things. From a moral perspective tropical residents believe that they have been wronged by the developed world's unbridled use of fossil fuels, so from their perspective you deserve whatever they do to you.
35) Today you have a binary choice. You can either be a leader and take effective action to mitigate climate change or you can fail to do so and become a victim of thermal extinction. Half measures that do not actually prevent further rises in the atmospheric CO2 concentration will only delay the inevitable.
36) Today world wide combustion of fossil fuels (natural gas, natural gas liquids, oil, coal) continuously produces about 21,000 GWt of heat. Wind and solar electricity generation contribute little to the world thermal power requirement. Due to emerging country expectations, a world wide dependable thermal power supply capacity of about 40,000 GWt will be required by the year 2070.
37) Present thermal neutron nuclear power reactors produce about 1400 GWt of heat. Even if tripling of that capacity is achieved by the year 2050, as envisaged by some present politicians, the total reactor thermal output will barely meet 15% of the 2050 thermal capacity requirement for fossil fuel displacement. There will be no climate mitigation. This is a reality that present politicians of all political stripes are unwilling to face.
38) There is also a nuclear fuel problem. Existing thermal neutron reactors harvest only 0.5% to 1% of the energy potentially available from natural uranium. Sustainable supply of the thermal power necessary for climate mitigation requires much more efficient Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs) and repeated fuel reprocessing. For basic reasons related to reactor physics those reactors must convert abundant U-238 into fissile Pu-239. Existing prohibitions regarding breeding and use of nuclear fuel containing plutonium must be abandoned.
39) A major benefit of repeated nuclear fuel reprocessing is elimination long lived radio isotopes from nuclear fuel waste. The remaining nuclear waste isotopes are short lived and naturally decay away in less than 300 years.
40) This fuel breeding reactor technology was developed in the USA and France during the period 1964 to 1994 and then was discarded due to exaggerated fears promoted by the fossil fuel industry lobby.
41) An important safety advantage of sodium cooled FNRs is that they operate at low pressure as compared to thermal neutron reactors that are cooled with high pressure water. At reactor operating temperatures sodium remains a safe low pressure liquid whereas water instantly flashes into high pressure steam.
42) In order to finance construction of Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs), one must first have a certain source of FNR core fuel.
43) In Canada the only practical source of FNR core fuel is reprocessing of used CANDU fuel. In Ontario we have 60,000 tonnes of used CANDU fuel, so there is nothing other than foolish government policy and regulation preventing us from recycling it to obtain FNR fuel.
44) The physics and chemistry of the required fuel recycling are well known. However, development of a safe fully automated hot nuclear fuel recycling facility of sufficient capacity to meet near term Canadian requirements will likely take 5 to 7 years from a standing start.
45) Both fuel reprocessing and reactor construction require regulatory reform. The concept that private industry should finance development of complex new regulations must be abandoned. In view of the developmental urgency we would be better off with engineered safety than with poorly implemented regulatory safety. Remember that many existing power reactors were built before the present regulatory framework even existed. Responsible engineers are not stupid.
46) It is essential that government decisions relating to nuclear mitigation of climate change be made by technically fully informed persons, not by politicians responding to public opinion polls.
47) Simply displacing existing fossil fuel use in Canada requires a total reactor capacity of about:
40,000,000 people X 10 kWt per person = 400 GWt.
48) If Canada is to reasonably take in another 40,000,000 people migrating from tropical countries the construction target becomes 800 GWt. This target is far beyond present Energy and Electrification Ministry planning which is only about 1 GWt / year for Ontario. At present we only have about 30 GWt of reactor capacity in Ontario.
49) A further constraint is residential accommodation. The present national residential construction capacity is about 235,000 residential housing units per year, which is insufficient for the projected immigration rate of about 1,000,000 people per year.
50) The combined capital requirements for reactors, buried district heating, electricity system expansion and new accommodation are huge.
51) Preliminary engineering has shown that the largest reactor size suitable for urban installation for distributed district heating is about 1 GWt. The limiting factor is that it is impractical to install dedicated heating supply and return water mains larger than about four feet in diameter under most existing city streets.
52) The side elevation of a 1 GWt sodium cooled Fast Neutrron Reactor is shown in Figure 4. Each such reactor can meet the entire energy needs of about 100,000 people.
53) 
Figure 4 - 1 GWt FNR Side Elevation
54) This FNR features: an atmospheric pressure sodium pool, sodium fire suppression, passive setpoint temperature control, walk away safety, natural circulation of Na for long term reliability and sufficient natural circulation of the NaK heat transport fluid for fission product decay heat rejection.
55) The roof over the reactor space is designed to safely withstand the pressure difference caused by a major tornado directly overhead and to prevent penetration by man portable anti-tank weapons.
56) There are 8 heat exchange galleries outside the reactor space. Underneath the heat exchange galleries is space for argon storage bladders. These bladders allow constant pressure thermal expansion and contraction of the argon over the sodium pool.
57) The nuclear island has 1 m thick reinforced concrete inner and outer walls stabilized by radial shear walls sufficient to safely absorb a low angle aircraft impact.
58) As shown in Figure 5 the footprint of this reactor and its adjacent support equipment is about one city block.
59) 
Figure 5- FNR Site Plan
60) Figure 5 shows the central nuclear island, surrounded by a 10 m wide laneway. The nucleaar island is pipe connected below grade to 8 turbo-generator halls and 4 corner cooling towers. The district heating pipes allow additional heat disposal via remote heat exchangers and remote cooling towers. Note that, including 20 m wide perimeter roads, the facility footprint is (154 m X 154 m).
61) Electrical switchgear is located above the turbo-generator halls.
62) Four radial lanes provide truck access to the four nuclear island airlocks.
63) Support facilities for parking, sub-assembly storage, material storage, offices, construction, operation and maintenance must be nearby and will likely require about the equivalent of another city block.
64) Due to 30 past years of political procrastination, realizing the required FNR deployment rate will likely also require further investment in Intense Neutron Generators to meet transition core fuel requirements.
65) The political thinking in other provinces is even more irrational than in Ontario. Recently Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, of which I am an alumnus, built an entire renewable energy facility with no provision for teaching sustainable nuclear power.
66) There is no simple solution to this matter other than to force necessary changes in government. It is essential to change high school, college and university core curricula so that graduating students value and demand rapid deployment of sustainable nuclear power. Then within few years their voting influence should be enough to force major governmental policy changes.
67) Motivating efficient use of clean energy by the public will require major changes in retail electricity rates and in wind and solar generator compensation. Consumers must learn that about 90% of clean electricity system costs are related to dependable capacity, not energy. Consumers must also appreciate the need for a preponderance of synchronous generators with sufficient moment of inertia for grid frequency stabilization.
68) Wind and solar electricity generation, without massive energy storage, provide no dependable capacity. However, wind and solar energy are suitable for some applications, such as production of the heavy water needed by CANDU reactors and the metallic sodium needed by FNRs.
69) Presently Ontario exports surplus clean electricity at about $0.01 / kWh instead of making surplus clean electricity supply capacity available to Ontario consumers for fossil fuel displacement and hydrogen production. This foolish policy must change. The fossil fuel companies will object to this price competition, but so be it. If fossil fuel companies want to improve their return-on-investment they must invest their ill-gotten gains into production of sustainable nuclear power.
72) My final comment is that the primary responsibility of professional engineers is ensuring public safety. In this respect it is essential for both PEO and OSPE to bring truth to public discourse regarding CO2 accumulation, planetary albedo, climate change and the requirements for climate change mitigation.
73) I have shown you that the only technology that can sustainably mitigate CO2 driven climate change is fuel breeding Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs). The only technology that can economically provide the required FNR start fuel is heavy water cooled and moderated CANDU reactors. Every day and every dollar that are wasted doing something else threatens both your own future and the very existence of humanity.
74) Today in Canada we have a fossil fuel industry that in effect controls federal government energy policy, we have a federal government that blocks essential recycling of used CANDU fuel and we have a provincial government that prefers to burn natural gas rather than invest in additional nuclear power capacity.
75) We should do all necessary to make mitigation of climate change with sustainable nuclear power a ballot box issue in coming elections.
76)Thank you for your attention.
77) QUESTIONS?
This web page last updated October 21, 2024.
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