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Ford Previews Next-Generation Hybrids

14 February 2008

by Jack Rosebro

Speaking at the 2008 SAE Hybrid Vehicle Technology Symposium in San Diego yesterday, Sherif Markaby, Global Core Engineer for hybrids at Ford Motor Company, provided some technical details of the coming 2009 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids, due at the end of the year, as well as of the 2009 Escape and Mariner hybrids, which are scheduled to be released in a few months.

All four hybrids will share a new powertrain that combines a 2.5L inline four-cylinder engine with a series-parallel transaxle. While the basic layout and packaging of the powertrain and related components remains for the most part unchanged from the 2005-2008 Escape component architecture, many of those components have been redesigned for improved efficiency.

Markaby also noted that Ford has sold 70,000 Escape hybrids to date, and that some units have reached 200,000 miles in service with no service problems.

The next-generation hybrid system applied in the Fusion, for example, will provide a more than 60% improvement in city cycle fuel economy over a non-hybrid I4 engine, Markaby said, and a more than 80% improvement over a V6 on the city cycle.

Variable-Voltage Converter (VVC). The new powertrain’s inverter assembly utilizes a DC-DC buck-boost converter, which Ford refers to as a Variable-Voltage Converter, to step up the voltage potential of current from the battery pack before it is synthesized into a three-phase AC waveform to power the transaxle’s two electric motor-generators.

Every model-year 2004 and up Toyota/Lexus hybrids utilizes a buck-boost converter; however, this is the first time that the architecture has been employed in a mass-produced passenger hybrid vehicle built by another manufacturer.

Stepping up voltage allows the powertrain to produce a given output using less current, which reduces resistance losses and increases efficiency. It also allows the manufacturer to use a smaller, lighter battery: the 275V, 5.5Ah, 27 kW peak power NiMH battery pack used in the new Fusion/Milan hybrids features improved cell chemistry, and is more compact, for example, than the 2005-2008 Escape hybrid’s 330V battery pack.

One of the most important attributes of VVC, according to Markaby, is “reducing the cost of the battery.” Previous Escape and Mariner hybrids used a stand-alone air conditioning loop to cool the battery pack during peak operating temperatures: the new powertrain uses only a forced-air ventilation system.

High-Efficiency Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). The 2.5L iVCT I-4 engine gets variable valve timing on the intake side (Intake Variable Cam Timing, iVCT), as well as a wide-band lambda sensor in place of a conventional oxygen sensor. The compression ratio in the engine is 12.3:1.

Idle-stop and start events are much quicker, and enable greater efficiency with as many as two times the starts and stops in a given driving cycle as the previous system. The quicker engine shut-downs and pre-positioning (for the next start) also reduces O₂ build-up in the engine’s catalyst. Decel Fuel Shut-Off (DFSO) mode and electric-only mode have also been expanded.

High-Efficiency DC-DC Converter. The conventional DC-DC converter, which steps down system voltage to run the vehicle’s 12V accessory bus and charge the auxiliary 12V battery, has been redesigned to operate at higher temperatures. The unit remains liquid cooled, and can switch at higher frequencies.

The VVC variably boosts traction battery voltage to operate the motor and generator more efficiently. Click to enlarge.

High-Efficiency Transaxle. The maximum RPM of the new transaxle’s permanent-magnet synchronous motor-generators has been increased, and a new low-drag transaxle fluid has been formulated. The higher available voltages from the variable-voltage converter allow greater torque at higher speeds. Typically, such voltages also enable a more efficient recuperation of kinetic energy via regenerative braking.

Update on the SCE PHEVs. Markaby also made mention of the plug-in hybrid Escapes that Ford is delivering to Southern California Edison (SCE) for V2G research. The PHEV Escapes use a 10kWh Li-ion battery pack, and are getting as much as 120 MPG in testing. The PHEV powertrain operates in three distinct modes: electric drive (ED) mode, blended mode (a combination of engine operation and charge-depleting electric drive), and conventional hybrid mode.

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"..with a series-parallel transaxle."

Does this mean that is can run as either a series or parallel hybrid like the BYD? I could do with less marketing speak and more straight talk when it comes explaining their new products.

I would assume that they mean that it is a full hybrid that can run in EV only mode. However, that EV only mode may be under 35 mph for a few miles. This is not exactly a worthwhile "feature".

Now, if it could run in series hybrid mode with the engine and alternator running as a genset powering the motor and charging the batteries in a range extender configuration and go faster than 35 mph, I would be interested.

Posted by: sjc | Feb 14, 2008 12:33:32 PM

"The PHEV Escapes...are getting as much as 120 mpg in testing."

Now your talking!!! Put me down for one of those!

Posted by: Schmeltz | Feb 14, 2008 12:45:17 PM

"The PHEV Escapes...are getting as much as 120 mpg in testing."

Is that 120 mpg energy equivalency or are they ignoring electrical consumption and merely tabulating the gasoline use?

Posted by: Mark Gutting-Kilzer | Feb 14, 2008 12:53:51 PM

@ sjc -

I'm guessing there are two electric motors on either side of a clutch in the transaxle. If the clutch is open, you're in series hybrid mode, useful for low speeds, reverse gear emulation and recuperative braking. Once you close it, you're in parallel mode, which saves fuel and increases available boost torque at higher speeds.

Of course, in Ford's private dictionary, the term could also refer to a Toyota-style single-mode compound hybrid. In that setup, part of the engine power is always routed electrically and the rest mechanically to deliver a continously variable transmission ratio using just one set of planetary gears.

@ Mark Gutting-Kilzer -

they are almost certainly ignoring the fuel inputs at the power stations, because (a) they vary by region/country and (b) marketing types like big numbers regardless of what they really mean. There is as yet no agreed-upon technical standard for measuring the aggregate fuel economy of a PHEV or E-REV.

Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Feb 14, 2008 1:33:29 PM

Will the hybrid fusion also be made in Mexico?

Posted by: Chad | Feb 14, 2008 1:36:59 PM

I know that single-digit range or low-speed restrictions of "EV mode" seems like a useless feature to many, but I personally value it as a nice complimentary feature. One may not be able to use EV mode all the time, but it's a feature that is certainly useful in traffic jams, parking lots, and driving around residential areas.

I'd love to see that perfect EV some day, but for now, hybrids with some EV features will probably be the right-now vehicle that can appeal to masses. It took almost a decade for hybrids to get to where it is today, and I think pure-EVs will take some time to gain some traction in the mainstream.

Posted by: Charles S | Feb 14, 2008 1:48:53 PM

You can bet that 120 mpg figure ignores the energy used in creating the electricity. When I hear 120 mpg, I think more in terms of 60 mpg costs and even less in equivalent energy.

Posted by: sjc | Feb 14, 2008 2:31:32 PM

Ford is licensing the Toyota patents, so it's a planetary transmission that blends the properties of series and parallel hybrids. The list of improvements planned sounds just like the list of improvements that Toyota released in the 2004 Prius.

Posted by: Wes | Feb 14, 2008 2:42:42 PM

"Ford is licensing the Toyota patents, so it's a planetary transmission that blends the properties of series and parallel hybrids. The list of improvements planned sounds just like the list of improvements that Toyota released in the 2004 Prius."

Maybe a couple Wes,

But you didn't see the Ford internal memo disputing this 3 or 4 years ago. Please stop this canard, Fords Patents on this system is over 200 homegrown ideas, it mayb ebe over 300.

Give credit where credit is due....

Posted by: Egeek | Feb 14, 2008 2:50:56 PM

This is just solid engineering producing improvements. Its nice to see it occurring. As 21st century Science deflates the power of GHGs to only a tenth of a single degree or so per century, and so deflates concerns over AGW caused by GHGs, nonetheless there is a definite and valid concern for hydrocarbon fuel availability to provide enough for the entire world. There is simply not enough to go around for everyone if that is the only choice.

But it is not. Substitution is finally arriving for Ground Transport.

Reducing hydrocarbon demand from 20 mpg to 120 mpg for liquid hydrocarbons is a reduction of some 600%, of that commodity,even as electrical demand grows. If the US demand for Oil fell by 600% with an automotive fleet of such vehicles, the US demand would drop from 21 million BBD to around 3.5 million BBD.

It becomes not only possible, but probable to envision the US becoming independent of the Oil Sheiks and the Commissars who bottleneck petroleum supply while stealing their citizen's wealth.

I must say I can't think of a better reward to the Chavez's and Putin's and the House of Saud.

Even if the present US electrical supply is currently produced with about 70% total hydrocarbons, almost exclusively coal and gas, that will change in the next decade. While such PHEV vehicles also replace current vehicles in the US automotive fleet. By then, the US will be generating only 50% of its electricity from coal and gas. Half or more of US electricity will be supplied by a last generation of uranium,(doubling to 40%), falling water, essentially constant, and assorted miscellaneous other sources adding a per cent or even a percent and a half of supply. We will then be well positioned to harness clean,inexhaustible, Fusion when it starts getting practical around 2030 or so.

We will have clean air in the US in only a half a decade, at most. That is a triumph that merits a a national holiday, as it was a bi-partisan effort over 40 years in the creation. Too Bad the EU is a couple of decades away from such progress. We will have clean air, and clean inexhaustible energy for all.

It is so refreshing to see the world getting better, in spite of the Leftist propaganda attempts to depress and convince everyone that they must submit to sharing the misery. While putting the commissars in charge, to supervise the equal misery for all,(except themselves, of course!).

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 14, 2008 3:16:19 PM

To add to Stan's diatribe:

The demand for oil won't be replaced as quickly by China, they will adopt some of the most efficient technologies and techniques (even if manufacturing limitations prevents the same level of efficiencies it will make an impact). Of course China will adopt them in the best way they know how...steal the technology...

Posted by: Patrick | Feb 14, 2008 4:07:30 PM

@Patrick,

The technology will be available and the Chinese companies may actually be building it for export to the US. But China is about two years behind the Japanese in adopting emissions standards internally. The Japanese, in turn, are about half a decade behind the EU in implementing emissions standards internally; and they pattern their standards after the EU model.

Since the EU is almost two decades behind America, it may be three decades before the Chinese actually equip their domestic fleet with emissions abatement equipment that they may be exporting to America in only a half dozen years or less.

Too Bad.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 14, 2008 5:29:27 PM

All four hybrids will share a new powertrain that combines a 2.5L inline four-cylinder engine ...

How nice is it to see an American car company choosing to use I4 vs v6 and v8, like we are seeing from many other American "green" car offers.

Maybe a corner really is being turned...?

Posted by: Mike L | Feb 14, 2008 9:13:04 PM

At least Ford is trying to produce full hybrid sedans. Unlike the less than innovative green vue line. The battery for the Fusion/Milan is only 5.5 Ah compared to the Prius 6.5 Ah battery. At a 60% increase in city mileage means from 24 MPG to around 38 MPG. Don't know if it is the old EPA figures or new ones. The Prius new EPA figures around the 44-46 MPG.

Stan's off in his own world again. 40% nuclear? Really? From what? There's only 6 applications for COL licenses so far and that doesn't mean that they will even be built.

To do what you believe nuclear is going to be in a mere couple of decades would require the building of at least 90 GWe worth of reactors. In an era when the economy might turn down, the utilites are going to mass build them? This isn't field of dreams. Try going to any board with the idea of build it and they will come and they'll rightly toss you on your behind.

All this in the 15-20 years before your crystal ball belief that nuclear fusion will come and save the world? Right Stan. There is no evidence that a viable commercial fusion reactor will be built by then.

Great planning ability there, hope that something new emerges that doesn't really exist now. Heck, why not say that nanotechnology will be around by 2030 too while your at it, so that we can keep pigging out in our non sustainable lifestyles.

If the air is so great in the US, why are the north eastern states suing the US industrial heartland? Because of all the clean air? You keep saying that Europe is behind the US in emmissions by decades? Where does this come from?

Leftist propaganda? Stan, most of the clean air act was created by "leftists" and is still considered by many conservatives to be propaganda. What makes it anything that disagrees with you leftist? In fact, there is little fact in your diatribe but there is many emotional appeals and barbs. Commissars, Stan? Painting a picture that your viewpoint is american as apple pie and anything that isn't such as any hint socially oriented programs is part of some communie plot? Geez, McCarthy would be proud of you.

I don't believe in a future utopia and yours, like most, is totally unanchored in any reality but your own.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/com_reactors.pdf

Posted by: aym | Feb 14, 2008 9:27:30 PM

Aym

Don't bother, Stan Peterson like to please himself with his utopia and ridiculous faith that american car technology is so good that is going to save us from the next energy crisis. Technology and especialy american technology is going to save us, well what he forgot in is blind naive way of thinkin is that technology doesn' make energy is quite the opposite inded : energy makes technology. What he also forgot in his primitive anti-leftiste conviction is that the most advanced car technology happened to be in leftiste oriented countries (Germany, Sweeden, Japan)where social policy means something and where people have a decent level of education because more money is put in schools than in weaponry unlike america were people are on average shamely ignorant and clueless about everything.

american car industry is crapy, inefficient, ugly unproductive and unsustainable. GM, Ford and Chrysler are just starting to meeet quality standards that Japaneses companies met 15 years ago.

Europe behind america when it comes to environment ? most of the chemical in food industry or cleaning stuff that you can freely buy here in america couldn't be sold in europe because they don't pass safety and inocuity regulation in europe. If cars emissions ar so advanced in US compared to europe you can thanks the "leftiste corrupted california"

Posted by: Treehugger | Feb 14, 2008 11:27:54 PM

WOW Treehugger very emotive diatribe of your own. Come on the US auto industry is not solely to blame. Mostly they make cars for Americans that like big cars and trucks. Now why is this.

You could say they just want to rip the consumer off and destroy the environment. If they just did that they would of quickly gone out of business years ago. Their image is set by their product path, consumers, media, and their business model. They have been stuck in the role worse than your favorite TV role has his.

Now convince people to buy small cars or hybrids and every manufacturer will make them. No company has such a big technical leap in this area and the others can't follow. Lets support any greener alternative that any car produces. If you gotta have your big car a hybrid Escape or in 2009 Fusion you might be a good choice.

Posted by: Mike H | Feb 15, 2008 12:27:45 AM

Treehugger,

Once again, while somewhat entertaining, your comments are unproductive and completely off base. I cannot recall a single instance of anything you have ever said to be useful, let alone factual. You seem most focussed on baseless personal attacks on others and making generalizations about things for which you have proven to know very little about.

"Energy makes technology"? I love how you attempt to make some profound statement and then elect not to explain it at all, as if that statement was in any way intuitive.

I could pick you apart on a number of other things (SwEEdish car tech, the food industry/chemical stuff, your inability to grasp the geographic definition of Europe), but I am not going to this time. I have concluded that you are just an angry person who needs to vent somewhere, and you have simply chosen to use this site to do so. I just wish you would tone it down a bit.

Posted by: Angelo | Feb 15, 2008 4:07:02 AM

"Since the EU is almost two decades behind America... in adopting emissions standards internally..."

Hmm, I think you ought to back that one up Stan.

I assume you are talking about the red herring NOx restrictions motivated by smog in unusual climate areas (like coastal california) rather than CO2 emissions per mile tragets on auto production. Whos leads on the latter?

If the residents of west coast america were not putting down quite so many miles in their cars, they might not need the T2B5 restrictions for clean air in the first place...

I agree that the targets of Euro V and T2B5 are a good push to improve local atmospheric conditions for the public, but when it comes to energy consumption per household - Europe is very gladly behind on that one.

Posted by: Tim | Feb 15, 2008 7:33:18 AM

I have nothing against america or europe or for any belief in something. In the history of things, everything is tainted to some degree and less than idealistic to some extent or another. There is nothing really evil, it's systemic from the ways things are, but there is certainly nothing virtuous either.

I don't believe quite that larger cars are the natural evolution of an increasingly affluent society. True costs of energy are being shielded by policy and by how we account for things. This distorts choices so that the US which has relied on cheap energy has created an infrastructure which requires cheap energy to work and it lacks the political/social will to realize it and change. From short term energy solutions like water heaters to larger cars & SUVs to urban sprawl.

Europe has tried to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy. This had led to higher energy intensities (J/GDP $). Japan which has to import virtually everything has done the same policy.

These are social choices which have economic impacts, in the short and long term to individual countries and with globalization to the world based on policy implementations. These policy implementations affect public viewpoints and affect the market. Whether they affect the market like in europe or like the US is in the end a choice especially since we elect the people who create policy.

Posted by: aym | Feb 15, 2008 7:51:40 AM

aym,

I think I understand what you're trying to say in a very long-winded way - that in a free market economy society develops according to the financial pressures on it - basic capitalist concept - fair enough and I agree. But this site is devoted to 'Green Cars' - that means, the interest and aim of the contributors and readers is the reduction of the impact on the environment of vehicles.

I think it is very important to have the debate over how the metrics Nox emissions per BHP.hour and co2/unit benchmark distance are used to measure the greeness of a vehicle.

If the g Nox per BHP.hour of a vehicle is low, but vast volumes of fuel are used to propell a single person a few miles in slow traffic - that is not green to me.

While I understand the value of very low pollutant concentrations to the high quality of life expectations in small areas of the planet - the consumed fuel must obviously come into the value of the car somewhere too - as those emissions are thought to have much longer lasting and further reaching effects. Most people posting here agree with me on that, I'm sure.

I get very upset when european technology is rejected on the basis of air purity restrictions, when it is using vast amounts of energy less that the vehicles that meet these standards.

You only have to look at the European vehicles engineered to meet these US standards to see the difference in emphasis either side of the water: most are large and use V8 spark ignited engines, and all have greater cylinder capacity than european versions.

The market pressures are changing, and one simple solution, that nicely compliments all the technologies presented here is simple - *drive smaller lighter cars*.

Posted by: Tim | Feb 15, 2008 8:42:42 AM

Sorry for all the splurge, guys.

I just want to add that I agree with Mike H among others that I do think that the Hybrid SUV is a great addition to US offerings. If you are going to accelerate a large chunk of metal, at least do it more efficiently. If the long range, large vehicle habit can't be broken, I hope Hybrids get market take-up in this sector.

Posted by: Tim | Feb 15, 2008 8:57:20 AM

"america were people are on average shamely ignorant and clueless about everything."

Especially English.

Posted by: sulleny | Feb 15, 2008 2:21:27 PM

Stan,

I don't doubt that the Chinese won't pay too much attention to toxic emissions but I bet they do care about efficient engines for energy price reasons. Toxic emissions will probably be reduced as a byproduct of this and not an effort for health of the population.

Posted by: Patrick | Feb 15, 2008 3:10:04 PM

aym,

I don't know from where you get your numbers but there are 32 nuclear power plants in the early pipeline, preparing for or seeking COLs, or getting ready for them. Please check the NRC web pages such as:

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactor-licensing.html

Those 32 plants would be equivalent to about 60 of the 100 odd current running plants. The current plants are bifurcated in power output, with a earlier first and later second wave of designs. Since these new standard designs are about a third larger in output than the current running second wave plants; and two thirds larger than the first wave of current plants.

They won't double nuclear generation to 40%, all by themselves, but will easily raise it to well over 30% and there surely must be a few more plant orders that will emerge in the next decade and a half. After all, this backlog has developed from zero in only two years.

All but a couple are sited in currently existing nuclear sites with other existing nuclear plants, so siting opposition will be less. In fact, most of the opportunity for obstructionism is now already done with, as the Westinghouse designs are now already approved as "standard designs"; and the GE designs are almost finished with their multi-year approvals as "standard designs". While other standard designs are being sought, they represent little of the existing base of current plants.

No more construction delaying critiques are allowed under the new laws, except for NRC itself, and provable malfeasance by not following construction standards.

This is much less likely, as the plant manufacturers are undertaking to supervise the construction under fixed price, fixed delivery, contracts. This is totally unlike the environment in which we principled critics, could, and did, critique the one-off designs, sloppy construction, and rump construction contracts often done by firms who had never undertaken to build a nuclear plant before. Today you simply can't tie up construction, under the revised laws, like we could back then.

So they are in th pipeline, and they will be built, and built in under 4 years from first concrete; and operating generating electricity in under 5 years.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 15, 2008 4:41:42 PM

Angelo

Why should I lower my tone when Stan Peterson is allowed to post provocative, anti-european, anti-leftiste, anti-environmetalist, global warming denial and above all politicaly biased opinion ?

It is not because I am angry against Stan than I am angry in general and I welcome progresses in fuel efficiency and renewable energy which is what I am looking here.

You are not knocking the right door

Posted by: Treehugger | Feb 15, 2008 5:09:23 PM

Patrick:

Google “ Environmental Kuznets Curve “

Posted by: Andrey | Feb 15, 2008 8:14:17 PM

aym,

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated tyhe first clean air regualtions. Who founded hte first nationla parks?

Hint Iit wasn't Socilasits. Despite the left's insistance in rewriting history.
Tell me of the enlighted clean air and water standards of the Communists of East Europe, China or for thst matter the Socialists of West Eutrope. Or for that matter the dumkopfs in the Democrat Party who would allow nothing to be built anywhere, inlcuding clean up facilities.

I worked at Princeton's Plasma Physics Lab. I have an insight to what is happening in the field. The USA is even now planning the next generation of Fusion reactors as the funding for the National Compact Stellerator eXperiment, NCSX, and the International Thermo Nuclear Experiemntal Reactor, ITER tail off in the next 18 months.

The proposed next major US fusion reactor, the National High-energy Torus eXperiment, NHTX, is not even a true Physics experiment, any longer. It is a fusion engineering research reactor whose prime purpose is concerned with with finding, designing, and evaluation the Plasma First Wall and Divertor materials. The NHTX just simply assumes that it will be able to fuse deuterim and Tritium, have a Q of 2-5, (making 2 to 5 times more Fusion energy than put in to get it started) and will be run merely to exercise the environment to test materials for constructing commercial Fusion power plants.

THAT is where the actual state-of-the-art is, in Fusion. No longer concerned with merely trying to prove Fsion is possible or to make fusion energy, we are now identifying the optimum materials with whch to constuct a fusion plant. If you had to speicfy the components to build a Fusion plant tomorrow, I could quote satisfactory materials to be used from several catalogues of available martensitic steels, Silicon Carbide composites, or Vanadium or Titanium alloys produced by vendors of such materials.

But they wouldn't be perfect for the job. We will be ready to start designing the first official prototype of a Fusion power plant in 21015 or so. In some respects the ITER in Cadarache France, IS ITSELF, a crude prototype of a production fusion powerplant.

For economic reasons we chose not to make steam and spin generators with the 500-700 Megawatt ouptut of heat from ITER. Instead to save money, the Research community will merely heat a lake with the wasted heat.

Realistically, ITER is an intermittant source meant for constant scientific and engineering experimenting rather than meant to run continuously generating electricty, but it has all the size and most of the complexity needed for a commercial 500 Megawatt plant.

The official developemnt program calls for an IMFIF and CDF to perfect construction material choices for First Wall, breeding blankets, and divertor materials, but there are nontheless suitable and acceptable construction materials, available off the shelf.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 15, 2008 11:09:36 PM

aym,

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated the first clean air regulations. Who founded the first national parks?

Hint It wasn't Socialists. Despite the Lefts insistence in rewriting history.
Tell me of the enlightened clean air and water standards of the Communists of East Europe, China or for that matter the Socialists of West Europe. Or for that matter the dumkopfs in the Democrat Party who would allow nothing to be built anywhere, including clean up facilities.

I worked at Princeton's Plasma Physics Lab. I have an insight to what is happening in the field. The USA is even now planning the next generation of Fusion reactors as the funding for the National Compact Stellarator eXperiment, NCSX, and the International Thermo Nuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER tail off in the next 18 months.

The proposed next major US fusion reactor, the National High-energy Torus eXperiment, NHTX, is not even a true Physics experiment, any longer. It is a fusion engineering research reactor whose prime purpose is concerned with with finding, designing, and evaluation the Plasma First Wall and Divertor materials. The NHTX just simply assumes that it will be able to fuse deuterium and Tritium, have a Q of 2-5, (making 2 to 5 times more Fusion energy than put in to get it started) and will be run merely to exercise the environment to test materials for constructing commercial Fusion power plants.

THAT is where the actual state-of-the-art is, in Fusion. No longer concerned with merely trying to prove Fusion is possible or to make fusion energy, we are now identifying the optimum materials with which to construct a fusion plant. If you had to specify the components to build a Fusion plant tomorrow, I could quote satisfactory materials to be used from several catalogs of available martensitic steels, Silicon Carbide composites, or Vanadium or Titanium alloys produced by vendors of such materials.

But they wouldn't be perfect for the job. We will be ready to start designing the first official prototype of a Fusion power plant in 21015 or so. In some respects the ITER in Cadarache France, IS ITSELF, a crude prototype of a production fusion power plant.

For economic reasons we chose not to make steam and spin generators with the 500-700 Megawatt output of heat from ITER. Instead to save money, the Research community will merely heat a lake with the wasted heat.

Realistically, ITER is an intermittent source meant for constant scientific and engineering experimenting rather than meant to run continuously generating electricity, but it has all the size and most of the complexity needed for a commercial 500 Megawatt plant.

The official development program calls for an IMFIF and CDF to perfect construction material choices for First Wall, breeding blankets, and divertor materials, but there are nonetheless suitable and acceptable construction materials, available off the shelf.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 15, 2008 11:16:04 PM

@Aym,

For a reasonable survey of where we are and where we need to go in Fusion, here is a power point presentation that says a lot. Disregard some of the technical talk and recognize that ST is short hand for Spherical Tokamak. As design choice that leads to globular reactor plasmas as opposed to more traditional donut like structures as in ITER. This design choice leads to cheaper and smaller production power reactors.

http://www.psfc.mit.edu/~g/spp/Presentations/Ono-ST-Path.pdf

The proposed "Aries-ST" is a production Fusion power reactor, to be built in the 2030s time frame.

Also recognize that the Component Test Facility, CTF, and the International Fusion Materials Test Facility, IFMIF, are nice to have but not really required steps, They serve to develop "optimum" materials to be used in constructing a Fusion power plant.

We could, and can go directly from ITER, a crude combined Physic experiment, (essentially the last), and a crude engineering Prototype, (the First) and confirming experiment. It is likely that someone will do exactly that. The US Fusion Contingency Plan for the late teens is called a "Fusion Breakout" and budget funding is already being planed for it, in DOEs Long range facility plans.

Then we could proceed to construct a true Demonstration plant, without all the political featherbedding for a decade or more for choosing "optimum materials".

Back when the officially approved Road map to Fusion was defined in the late 70s, that was before the world had any experience with carbon composites, Silicon Carbide composites, and with low radio-activation steels. Titanium was a metal reserved for SR-71 spy planes and not mere golf clubs.

In the meantime these materials been developed and have come along for other applications and are now orderable off the shelf. They would more than suffice.

But politics intrudes. For example, Japan has been promised the IFMIF, when it compromised and let the EU and France put the ITER facility at Cadarache.

Political deals logrolling, and nothing more keep it afloat. There is not a doubt that IFMIF will be built; but it is an increasingly irrelevant step, and not needed. Someone, the US, the EU, or the Chinese will simply bypass it, and push on without the data that it would provide.

Indeed the proposed NHTX is actually a "push-on-without it" step addressing the tougher materials questions of specifying a suitable design for a "First Wall" and "Divertor" materials that take the high Neutron flux and heat from a controlled sun which is the plasma. Don't forget that all the fusion reactors built to date, and even those for near tomorrows, have FWs and Divertors made of something that was suitable and that survives this bombardment.

The heat loads are nothing special for the first wall at only 2 MW/meter squared. Plenty of our technical applications face higher heat loadings and operate for long periods. Boilers, jet engines, re-entry vehicle bodies, rocket motors, and some present power plants components, all routinely see greater heat loading than that.

As for neutron flux, we WANT that to breed Tritium and the materials to do that are known. The Divertor that exists to exhaust and removes spent ash, (helium), and escaped plasma, from the reactor has even been addressed and proved workable in NSTX after extrapolation from CDX and LDX smaller experiments.

Neutrons dislocate atoms within a solid and eventually it swells and becomes weak, needing replacement. But a liquid first wall isn't hurt by that. Lithium which melts at a low temperature, can become the first wall in the Divertor and absorb Tritium, for reuse, and also take neutron bombardment without losing any strength. As a liquid film on a substrate, it has none and is a constantly recreated liquid. It even acts as a Tritium breeder itself, but that is not its prime purpose. It actually helps maintain the Thermo-nuclear plasma fire by its cleansing action.

IFMIF is concerned with designing the Lithium-laced breeder blankets that transmute Lithium into Tritium for fuel. The CTF is just a more sophisticated NHTX materials experimental environment,allowing long term testing of materials.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 16, 2008 6:32:34 PM

Stan,

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/com_reactors.pdf

This gives the status of the sites seeking something in the way of all the various stages of gov't licensing, which I gave before as of dec 2007, which you obviously didn't look at.

It describes 6 reactors that have applied for COL out of 24. Out of the 24, only 4 have even applied for an early site permit. They don't even overlap, except for one in virginia.

Even with the licenses being applied for, there is no guarantee that the reactors will be built. I have seen documentation where generation 2 reactors still renew their site licenses for over a decade. If they decided to go for a newer reactor design, they would have to go over the process again, which they haven't even bothered to do.

The builders say they can built a plant for $1500 to $2000 per KW of capacity. Trouble is, the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the U.S., have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt. 2007 estimates put the cost of installed nuclear power without interest costs between $3000 and $6000 per KW.

http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2047917

They are huge costly projects whose risks are such that only the largest and most diversified energy companies can even contemplate making them. They incur huge liability and risk. Estimates for a 2 reactor plant is in the vicinity of 13 to 14 billion US dollars (total from CEO of FPL)(cheaper per plant build, could be as low as 5 billion each est from builder of Texas plants). That is larger than the capitalization of every US utility except Exelon. Utilities are hardly risk takers.

Look at the EPR in Finland. Projected finished date is now 2+ years and counting. Extra cost 3 Mrd(billion) Euros. Original cost was only supposed to be 2.5 Mrd Euros. The alternative energy solution was dissmissed because it was estimated to cost 3 Mrd Euros.

Would that alternative energy solution have cost overruns? Megaprojects usually do, but due to the modular design, it wouldv'e been pumping power into the system as it was being built and the costs could've been managed over the stages.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_28/b3992063.htm

I have nothing against the nuclear industry. I just don't have unrealistic expectations from it or of it's costs and liabilities. Given a possible recessionary period (& its impact on energy demand), and the costs and the risks, the scenario of a huge portion of the US capacity being nuclear is low. As I have pointed out, to get 40% today would require 90GWe of new nuclear capacity to be built overnight. Highly unrealistic scenario.

In a 2030 scenario, there is also the cost of decommissioning or upgrading the older reactors which only have 20 year extensions to their licenses as well.

Licensing is just the first steps, it isn't being in the pipeline. No financing or debt structuring has yet to finialized for any projects. Without that, it's only talk. Talk and planning aren't in the pipeline.

Posted by: aym | Feb 17, 2008 9:25:21 AM

In simple fact the power ind has learned that the best way to tackle this is to test a few plants to see if they realy do work out cost wise and timewise and of course see if anything icky pops up like lawsuits slowing things down; This stage is paid for entirely by US and thus the first takers have NO risks at all.

Only once they are sure what the REAL costs are will they mass produce nuke plants to replace all the old nuke abd coal plants.

As doe fusion yes they can and likely will push fusion forward if things start to go bleepy. It will cost ALOT to rush it but the way things are going that looks exactly how it will come to pass.. a giant public works project to force fusion... say 1 trillion bucks would do the trick just as I expect a trillion dollar rush to replace oil infratructure with h2 and electric will alsocrop up.

Posted by: wintermane | Feb 17, 2008 10:16:28 AM

wintermane

You reasoning is based as if america was infinitely rich, that was the common thought so far, but we clearly see the limit of this now. Don't forget that in the next 10 years you will see oil market moving away from the US$ and this will depreciate the $US further slashing out 50% of US financial power. Also with the oil crisis coming the economy will struggle ang growth will be affected, debt will soar and wealth shrink. So the time will not be at mega-irrealistic project, especially if they are not proven technicaly. The industry will have to make a choice and I am pretty sure the fuel cell will be sacrificed for the PHEV. We already see this trend in the new budget, as well as in California orientation

Posted by: Treehugger | Feb 17, 2008 11:31:39 AM

Stan,

no one is disputing that a technically feasible fusion reactor can be built. Technically, we have been able to fuse hydrogen for years. That is not or has it ever been the point. The question remains on the EROI and ROI and it's commercial viability and it's acceptable impacts on the environment.

The EROI right now is less than 1. It takes more energy to put in than you get out as of right now. Once that happens, you have to create an EROI that factors thermodynamic energy losses. Then you have at least create a design that can at least power itself. After all that, you have to have a design that can compete with other sources. In 20 years? They've been saying it for over the last 20 years. ITER is suppose to be able to reach and break an EROI of 1. Other engineering constraints even make it more unsuited to produce commercially feasible electricity. And it's not supposed to come on line until 2016.

Q ratio is different than that of EROI. Estimates for a practical commercial reactor have a q of 22, 15 might do, and 30 might be possible. ITER is supposed to have a q of just above 5. You put out the q number as if a q>1 means that it is commercially viable. It does not.

There is no way to perfect a material to withstand the conditions. From the neutron radioaction creating high energy crystal lattices (which is a danger in present reactors when they break) to the creation of lots of low level waste. Any shielding material will become radioactive over the long term. What are the costs involved with shutting down the reactor and replacing it on a constant basis. Not only that, it will be large-scale, to exploit the economics of scale. What do you do in the in-between time it needs to be shut down. Or is going to like today's nukes.

ITER costs 15 billion US for 500 MW thermal and it takes more energy to run than it than it makes. Current estimates put a fusion plant at 5-6 billion euros compared to an EPR at 2.5 billion euros (estimated cost). Estimated costs to develop fusion is around 60-80 billion euros over 50 years. Given the costs associated with it, most scientists believe the cost of producing electricity by fusion will be higher than any of today's methods.

Estimates put the radiactive material as equaling that of a standard plant but it will be lower level short term waste, which has short lifespans. That's if the proper materials are used and not the off the shelf solutions you seem to think are immediately there without having to research them and the long term effects.

The timeline for ITER to start is in 2016. The DEMO project, as a follow up demonstration of commercial fusion power is set to only be in the construction phase between 2024 and 2033. The Japanese put feasibility in the 2030-50 range as well.

With this information in mind, an estimate of fusion reactors coming online to save the day by 2030 is optimistic to say the least. More like 50-60 years from now. All that, and there is no guarentee that the power will be economically competitive at all.

Giving a technical lecture (of things I already know even), have little bearing on the commercial viability of fusion or of it's obvious timeline problems. Given the nature of these types of projects, it will be more likely delayed further than sped up unless intervention (& massive amounts of money) are thrown at it, your own personal optimism for it notwithstanding.

Posted by: aym | Feb 17, 2008 11:46:06 AM

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated tyhe first clean air regualtions. Who founded hte first nationla parks?

You are assuming political parties represent statically social responsibility and belief. It obviously does not.

They may have been created under republican regimes but they do not represent the mores and ideals of what is typically defined as the "right".

What happened in the eastern bloc is typically what happens in totalitarian regimes where the state decides that industry and modernization takes precedent over what people desire out of where they live. What countries who call themselves socialist do, does not represent the typical mores and ideals of those who are defined as being on the "left".

Such things happen too in countries where industry and right wing policies are placed over the overall good of the people. Such corporatism is a typically espoused part of fascism and is not socialistic in any sense and is considered part of the right though it may not represent the typical "right".

No one has tried to rewrite history. I am well aware of the true nature of history and who has done what over the years. Couching things in the veil of patriotism, nationalism and political/social beliefs is an emotional arguement, not one based on facts. The right is typically aligned with business to the detriment of all that interferes with it or can interfere with it.

The "right" , the "conserveratives" whatever you may want to call them, consider it leftist propaganda anything from the EPA, the clean air act, regulations that protect national parks that interfere with what they believe their rights are, even if these instituitions were originally by regimes on the right.

Posted by: aym | Feb 17, 2008 12:33:44 PM

Aym

Very good and fair answer which I hope will nail the stinky beak of Stan Peterson

Posted by: Treehugger | Feb 17, 2008 11:17:44 PM

aym,

When you chose to look at the 32 sites that are laying the foundation to seek a license to build a Nuclear plant. You are quite correct in saying that "only" 7 plants have actually gotten as far as having formally submitted a complete COL request.

But you misunderstand the process completely.

A Utility doesn't just decide one day it would like a Nuke and so it applies for a COL license to build one. For several years prior to that, there are preliminary tasks that cost substantial amounts of money to the Utility and take effort that must be spent before going forward to seek a COL.

Predicting electrical demand in the future, proving internally and then to a Utility Commission that the generation capacity is needed is the first step; and then that a Nuke is an acceptable answer; acquiring an option on land; followed by several years applying for and seeking an approved EPA Environmental Impact Statement is next. Lots of Soil tests, Earth quake suitability determinations, waste heat disposal impacts, determining opposition, proving available corridors for electrical output for high tension lines, et cetera, are just some of the obvious concerns.

You can judge the realistic aspects of a Utilities intentions by how much money they have committed and SPENT, to get as far as considering applying for a NRC COL, formally.

Under our laws that is what must be done. How else do you think that the NRC can predict which Utilities will file for COL licenses to build a Plant, and when, in 2008 or early 2009?

To build a plant the Utilities spent millions over many years, before applying for the license COL. The NRC is not just predicting in the dark, they KNOW, what specific Utilities are planning to do and when, as they have been approached and involved with the Utilities decision making for several years prior to the formal license application submission.

So you are technically correct to say only 7 licenses have been formally applied for to date, but all the 32 plants predicted by the NRC,not I, are still validly in the early pipeline as I said. That is amazing since the first "Standard design" was only approved a year and a half ago, after about five years of technical consideration and review. GE's approval is still a year or more away, but they have been at it for almost three years already.

Therefore I stand by my statement that, as the NRC says, there are 32 Nuclear plants, each much larger than current nuclear plants, in the pipeline to be built in the next decade or so. These Nukes will provide the power for our coming electric autos.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 18, 2008 2:20:45 PM

@ wintermmane,

You are quite correct. Utility managements having been burned once, and are now very cautious. But in the Nuclear Interregnum in the US, these firms did not simply, do nothing. Most of the AP1000, USBWR and EPRs have track records for adhering to construction schedules and also have successful operational experience in Japan, the EU, or elsewhere.

Much of that concern has therefore been allayed to some degree by that experience. Perhaps once upon a time, America did it first, but not in this case. Other nations served as the guinea pigs of the new GEN III+ nuclear plants. The domestic Utilities are under heavy pressure to build something. Solar is a figment of imagination by some hopeless non technical political proponents.

There is simply no one to order a 1000 megawatts of Solar or Wind electrical generation from, even if the Utility management was determined to build such generation. Coal engenders opposition. Over the past few decades the demagogues and opposition has not allowed them to build much capacity, and their fossil plants have all been converted from oil to coal plants, and are literally antiques. By and large, they were meant for retirement 20 years ago and barely limping along.

They have already purchased as much peaking gas turbine generation that they can, and gas availability is now questionable as well as costly. The Utilities need base load capacity.

They have survived by shaving their reserves form an assured 20% reserves that guaranteed reliable service, to in some cases a few percent, that will guarantee, rolling brownouts or occasional blackouts when a generator goes down, for whatever reason.

In crazy California, there is not even any reserve margins, and they must import power today. Outside Utilities don't have the excess to sell to California, any more. It is virtually assured that the denizens of that state will face third world power reliability soon, having succumbed to the loons for far too long.

How else do you think the backlog of 32 plants was created in only 18 months?

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 18, 2008 2:32:54 PM

aym,

There are three steps to a commercial Fusion power that must be proven.

1) Scientific feasibility, achieving Break even and then Net Power, needs demonstration.

2) Technical Feasibility, being able to generate a surplus of power for a long time and at the size and scale needed for reasonable commercial usefulness, needs to be demonstrated.

3) Commercial Feasibility, being able to generate power at a reliable and cost effective price versus other sources, to resell profitably, must be demonstrated.

We had completed step 1 in the early 1980s; and depended then on ITER to achieve the second step, technical feasibility. ITER was proposed BECAUSE Step 1, had been achieved.

While waiting for ITER, that Technical Feasibility criterion has been satisfactorily solved already, in ITER's absence, in a dozen smaller sites around the world. But no one site is is suitable for doing it all.

ITER now, will bring all of the solutions, from whatever sources, together in one experiment and on a large scale. It is now nothing but a confirming experiment, in that sense. What was supposed ro be a 10 year operational experimental lifetime will now be condensed into only a few years of confirming demonstrations of accomplishments from elsewhere. That saves a decade or more.

From what is now known, despite ITER not being available, the world is already embarked on determining Commercial Feasibility. The US/UK Spherical Tokamaks geometries, were chosen with a view to simpler, less costly, commercial Fusion power plants. NSTX has proved they work, and NHTX will extend that too. Probably before ITER even sees First Plasma.

From where we are now, Future Costs for a future commercial power plant can now be reasonably projected. That is not, a down to the penny projection, but the cost of all typical and necessary components have been identified, and can be fairly price estimated, now.

Fusion is or will be competitive with Coal and GEN IV fission Nukes, and much cheaper than Solar or Wind or other daydreams.

The materials available today are much better than the 1970 choices were, when this official schedule was dreamed up. And we are already well into beginning the materials improvement search.

In parallel with ITER construction, efforts such as the US NHTX reactor, a short cut to CTF and IFMIF, will save another decade from the politically correct three plus decades to commercial Fusion power.

The "magic materials" that CTF, & IFMIF were to seek, is "Silicon Carbide composite" and "Liquid Lithium" film, on substrate, for the Ddivertor facing materials. Titanium or Vanadium alloys will serve as structural materials inside the shield and martensitic steels can be used for all other structural needs. High Temperature Superconductors are being proved in at least 7 reactors, and they were undreamed of in 1980 when the schdule was first drawn up. The Fusion Plant will have radio-activation just barely 100 times over ambient that decays to ambient in 15 years. Compare that to present Fission plants that contain Radio-activation materials that are 10**5 to 10**6 over ambient radioactivity, and won't decay for a few hundred years. The materials "problem" is ALREADY solved.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Feb 18, 2008 4:51:29 PM

Stan,

I am well aware of the process of licensing in the nuclear power industry.

You fail to mention that the present licensing system was in place since 1989 and formalized in the 1992 Energy Act. This did not lead to any reactor orders or COLs and led to the DOE's 2002 change in policy to put even more "carrot" initiatives.

You say it costs millions of dollars for the process but fail to mention that the DOE pays for half of the application process since 2002 under it's Nuclear Power 2010 program. For example, 2 consortia will receive, no-strings, 550 million from the DOE to go through the licensing and first of kind engineering site work. These were for the plants at North Anna Va,Bellefonte Ala, & Grand Gulf Miss.

The NRC knows because they are supposed to be told and in this case they are also doalling out some of the cash. Also a company telling the NRC they have the intention of going for an COL doesn't mean how much actual money or effort will be put into it, even though the announcement would put them on your list of certain builders.

Also by producing reactors on already used sites, most of the information that goes already into the licensing process. There are also over 120 cancelled nuclear power plants in the US from the 70's that can reuse the information already gathered for new applications, thereby hugely reducing costs.

You fail to mention the tax credits (1.8c/KWh)that only go to the first 6 GW of production produced for the first 8 years of production up to $125 million/ann. To qualify for this, the COL has to be in place by dec 2008 and start construction by 2014 and be finished construction by 2021. This was put in the 2005 Energy Act. It also includes insurance to cover any delay from new plants (first 6 only).

This of course has caused of flurry of companies trying to get under the wire for the few coveted incentives. These are not industry wide or long term incentive programs. Without them market conditions will naturally revert to a situation more like pre 2002.

Things like carbon taxes may make the nuclear option more actractive or even more subsidization, but to theorise on possible changes of government policy and law on the market and it's effect to create an environment more suited to nuclear and basing an outcome would be pure speculation. With that approach you could argue that solar is going to provide x % of the power because the government would throw y dollars at it.

Your assertion is that the pre-certification process to create standard designs since 2005 helped to create new orders. That is not true. Older reactor designs (gen 2) have been pre-certified for years. They are not considered.

In 2005, the system 80+, the ABWR (ie Japan 1996), and the AP600 of what is considered the new gen III+ designs were already available. The ABWR has been certified for years, it was used in the building of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Units 6 & 7, completed in 1996 and as such the design has existed since the 90s. Pre-certification of reactor designs to speed the process of building has been formalized since the Energy Act of 1992 and many reactors including new designs have been certified for years, as my example of the ABWR shows, way before 2005.

I did not say the utilities on the spur of the moment decided to put in an application for a COL. Any intelligent management has created plans for different continguencies. Looking deeper, millions are spent on different possible strategies and on viability reports including alternative power ones which never see the light of day as a real physical project.

In the 60's, the US Atomic Energy Commision believed that the US would have a 1000 nuclear reactors by 2000. As a legacy of the 70's more than 120 nuclear reactor orders were ultimately cancelled. The statement of intention of applying for a COL or even getting it does not equate to the an end result of a nuclear reactor built.

From the EIA "...table does not represent a forecast of actual plant constructions, nuclear capacity additions, or dates that any specific actions will occur..."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/com_reactors.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nucenviss_2.html

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33442.pdf

Posted by: aym | Feb 19, 2008 10:02:36 AM

Most of the AP1000, USBWR and EPRs have track records for adhering to construction schedules and also have successful operational experience in Japan, the EU, or elsewhere.

Where are the AP1000, USBWR (???), or EPRs that have been on track and have successful operational experiences?

There is no actual AP1000 built yet. Construction to begin on the first one is in China 2008/03.

The first EPR is in Finland. 2+ years behind schedule and 1.5-3 billion euros over budget. Adhering to construction schedules and costs?

USBWR??? Let's assume that you're talking about the ABWR by GE. Only 3 of these plants have been built by the Japenese. And yes they were on time. Operationally,I'm not going to comment on that. It's spotty since the reactors are in plants with older reactors and there have been company shenanigans. One plant was shut down due to an earthquake beyond the pervue of normal operational parameters so I find no fault in that but if the fault line is actually found to be under the plant, the cost of shutting it down (it's the world largest nuclear plant with 7 reactors) or upgrading it too withstand another earthquake will be enormous.

If talking about the old gen 2 BWRs, on track construction was one of the problems that killed it. No one has bothered with it even though the designs are certified and COLs could be made with them today.

Worldwide installed solar energy is in the 5-6 GWp range. This gives an average output of around 1.2 GWe. In 2006, Germay alone put in almost 1 GWp of installed capacity. A US company just signed a 170 million dollar deal with a Chinese company to upgrade a factory to produce 1.5 GWp worth of solar cells.

How else do you think the backlog of 32 plants was created in only 18 months?
COLs or intention to file COLs do not equate with finished plants. The 70's has seen the demise of over 120 nuclear plant plans that already have gone through lots of the regulatory hoops of the era. As for the intention to file COLs, well maybe it has to do with the sweetheart tax deal the companies are getting for the first 6 GW of reactors or the DOE paying half or more of the COL process.

http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/1/3133012.html

Posted by: aym | Feb 19, 2008 10:55:42 AM

Overall, I find the discussions on this board educational and interesting. Unlike many other sites, it hasn’t gotten TOO insane yet.

In defense of Stan, it is obvious that the US has to add significant base generation capacity in the next several decades. Unless there is some unforeseen technological breakthrough in renewable energy or some other technology, the US will be building a significant number of Nuclear and/or Coal base generation facilities in the next 2 decades. No amount of currently feasible renewables or conservation can possibly meet US power demand growth in the foreseeable future. As soon as the average American fully understands the level of pain and depravation the radical American left is proposing, they will be thrown out of power and sent back to their enclaves in CA and MA where they belong.

Just look to South Africa to see what could happen to the US if the radical green zombies and the NIMBIES delay needed power infrastructure investments for a few more years. If the US ends up in a long term power emergency like South Africa, the people responsible for causing the problem better hope they can get asylum in some European country to keep from loosing their heads.

Posted by: Yukaburbahoe | Feb 19, 2008 11:09:10 AM

Stan,

The material problems haven't been solved. You keep talking about the NHTX reactor for instance. It was designed as a test bed for material especially for diverter section. The P/R ratio in ITER would only be 24MW/m, the NHTX is supposed to be in the 50 range, a commercial one in the 100 range.

Obviously if the knowledge existed today, we wouldn't need these test reactors to test the various components. We obviously don't have the complete expertise of how a commercial reactor would work or its effect on it's structural materials or how it interacts. Without that knowledge, one cannot make a correct assessment on the materials and engineering. One cannot make economic models to the cost liabilities of the physical plant. That's why these test reactors and material tests are being done. The necessary knowledge is obviously not complete.

Fusion is or will be competitive with Coal and GEN IV fission Nukes, and much cheaper than Solar or Wind or other daydreams.

...Challenge 7 - economic viability - incorporates the solutions adopted to resolve all the other challenges. Assuming plant capital cost scales with the tokamak volume, one can expect DEMO capital costs in the region of 14euros/We based on the cost estimates for ITER. Those of PROTO will then be typically 8euros/We and, with economies of series production of fusion plants subsequently, capital costs could reduce to ~ 4euros/We. This should be compared to today's fission and coal plants at ~ 3eros /We and 1.5euro /We respectively.

http://www.iter.org/Reactors.htm

Competitive? Hardly. 33% more than projected nuclear costs from ITER itself. The source is hardly anti-fusion either.

From the EIA wind power today is cheaper then nuclear. LCoE in 2004 dollars for new production is $55.80 per MWh for wind and 59.30 for nuclear based on a 2006 report. You can bet they used the known Gen IV reactors for their calculations.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/0484(2006).pdf

Nowhere have I seen the feasibility of getting fusion earlier. The given timeline for DEMO to come online is in 2033 at the earliest. Given the nature of such projects, it will the later than sooner. DEMO doesn't even include a timeline for an actual production commercial reactor. After DEMO, a PROTO test reactor is envisioned for final ironing out by doubling DEMO's electrical output.

This isn't a created from a timeline based on 80's tech but the best the international community can come out with today.

Posted by: aym | Feb 19, 2008 12:19:40 PM

AYM,

I keep seeing wind power being compared to Nuclear in cost. Please explain how an intermittent power source like wind can possibly be used for base generation. Photovoltaic solar has the same problem. Thermal solar is a bit better, since you can store heated liquid overnight, but cloudy/rainy/snowy weather even screws up thermal solar more often than is acceptable for base generation. The reserve capacity and geographic diversity needed for a mostly renewable base generating grid would make it very cost prohibitive. Even with a geographically diverse, overbuilt solar/wind base generation system, the vagaries of weather would make it far less reliable than our current coal/nuclear/hydro base generating system.

Imposing more pain and depravation with a less reliable electric grid on people accustomed to a power grid with 99.9% plus reliability is a non-starter. This is why all serious proposals to reduce carbon emissions from power generation have to include new fission reactors as their centerpiece. All proposals that include significantly reducing the reliability of the electric grid, are (and should be!) political suicide.

Posted by: Yukaburbahoe | Feb 19, 2008 1:21:15 PM

Btw the U.S. only covers 2.6% of its energy needs with nuclear. So, nuclear will definitely not solve any energy or carbon emission problems in the future.

U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh

Therefore: 13.4% of the U.S. energy consumption is electricity consumption.

NOW the nuclear contribution to the U.S. electricity consumption is 19.6%.
19.6% * 13.4% = 2.6%

This information is actually from the nuclear lobby:
tinyurl . com / ypv7sn

According to the IAEA the known uranium reserves last 80 years. After 60 years of development there are still no breeders. And the few which are running are extremely expensive per kWh and have constant reliability issues.

If France wouldn't have all the energy storage lakes in the Alps and all the inefficient electric heaters running at night, it would not know what to do with its inflexible nuclear power.
Nuclear power is stored in the storage lakes now, renewable power will be stored in the storage lakes in the future.

There definitely won't be a fusion reactor in the next 30 years.
And there definetly won't be an affordable fusion reactor solving energy problems in 100 years.
tinyurl . com / 22tq4s

Our sun system already has a perfectly working fusion reactor and currently 97% of the world economy depends on it. And this won't change in the future.

Btw, Wind is already number one in newly installed power in Europe. And in 2005, China (with only 20% of the world's population) installed already 77% of all solar thermal collectors.
It works.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 19, 2008 2:11:07 PM

Oops, Breeders are nowadays called Gen IV reactors.

Sorry for this mishap.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 19, 2008 2:15:51 PM

@Yukaburbahoe,

My response was to the cost of fusion, which according to ITER would be higher than today's nuclear power and by EIA computations, therefore, higher than wind.

As for the vaguries of wind, no one is sugesting that wind in itself will be the only power source or that it become the defacto supply of base power.

Best practices in utility operations prohibits any one source of energy becoming the only energy supply. Diversity in supply creates more resiliance in the system and better ability to withstand market/regulatory/environmental changes. No one technology has all benefits and no negative aspects. Only by blending them can optimal solutions be created and even then time will change the mix.

With today's utility grid, it is estimated by that around 20% of the capacity can come from a source as variable as wind, without major infrastructure upgrades. That is at least if the US infrastructure is similar to the United Kingdoms' where this study took place by the national power company. The Netherlands has the ability to buffer it's electrical system through the continental grid. There is no reason why other countries could not do similar things.

There is nothing about the intermittancy of wind in some areas. It is quite consistant.

Here is a link to US wind resources. The US has an installed capacity of 12000 MW, 10000 MW of which was built only in the last 8-9 years.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/

I'm not against nuclear. But I'm certainly not going to support it with blinders over my eyes. I'm also not going to let other people try to pass something incorrect as the truth.

With that in mind. Here's some info on the uranium supply situation vis-a-vis consumption. It's not as dire as 70-80 years but it must be remembered that it is the supply at today's prices in an open system. The price will effect the cost of the electricity.

I believe that doubling the cost of uranium would case the cost of electricity from nuclear to go up 9%, though I'm not too sure whether it is from production, generation or levelized cost. This would theoretically increase the amount of available uranium by 10x. From a 1980 Scientific American article, a 10x increase of price would increase the supply by 300. The total estimated amount of uranium from conventional sources is estimated to be 15-29 (from 2007 IPCC report) Mt range.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Uranium_supply

And also would like to add that not all GEN IV reactors are breeders, just some designs are.

Posted by: aym | Feb 19, 2008 6:41:49 PM

Not the costs of Uranium are important.
When the energy needed to extract uranium is higher than the energy produced by nuclear power plants, nuclear power plants can simply not provide the world with a significant amount of power.

tinyurl . com / 32xtyo

Of course there's more than plenty of uranium in granite but that doesn't solve anything.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 20, 2008 12:13:19 AM

Numerous factual inaccuracies in this thread. I'll address a few:

There is simply no one to order a 1000 megawatts of Solar or Wind electrical generation from... (Stan)

Large turbine manufacturers (e.g. Vestas, GE, etc.) today can handle a 1000 MW order. Note the largest wind farm today (Horse Hollow in TX) is 735 MW, with turbines from two vendors. The Hartland project in ND includes two 500 MW phases for 1000 MW total.

They won't double nuclear generation to 40%, all by themselves, but will easily raise it to well over 30%... (Stan)

Even if magically installed today the 32 planned plants would only bring nuclear's share to about 28%. If all 32 somehow manage to be up and running in 10 years nuclear's share will be roughly 25%.

Btw the U.S. only covers 2.6% of its energy needs with nuclear....
U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh
(Fusionillusion)

It's misleading to equate TWh(e) with TWh(t). Nuclear provides about 8% of US raw thermal energy (roughly 8.5 EJ out of 104). The DOE puts US "useful energy", after thermal losses, at about 10400 TWh, of which nuclear provides between 7-8%.

I believe that doubling the cost of uranium would case the cost of electricity from nuclear to go up 9%... (aym).

This obviously depends on your definition of "cost of electricity from nuclear". Uranium (U308) consumption is very roughly 0.05 pounds per MWh. At $25/lb a few years ago uranium thus contributed $1.25/MWh or 0.125 cents/kWh. At around $75/lb today it's three times that. Not until $200/lb does it hit a penny per kWh. Of course miners are working overtime to open new mines even at $75/lb, so any spike to $200 is likely to be short-lived.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 20, 2008 7:06:07 AM

Thought about some references:

US energy consumption by sector.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

The UIC page was recently changed so that a doubling of price only increases the cost by 7%.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

According to this site, which gives a more complete mathematical model, creates a picture of much higher percentage increases to the cost of electricity when uranium prices go up as well as a methodology of increasing the efficiency and lowering fuel use.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

Posted by: aym | Feb 20, 2008 8:46:32 AM

Actually the facts below are valid.
It's in fact misleading when nuclear power includes the thermal losses into the power output (unless this waste heat were actually used, which it is not).

U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh
(Fusionillusion)
Therefore: 13.4% of the U.S. energy consumption is electricity consumption.

NOW the nuclear contribution to the U.S. electricity consumption is 19.6%.
19.6% * 13.4% = 2.6%

This information is actually from the nuclear lobby and they wouldn't lie about it, would they:
tinyurl . com / ypv7sn

One can say that electricity has a higher 'energy value' than pure fuel (oil, gas, coal). However, if electricity is used to power inefficient electric heaters, such as in France, there's really no difference between electric and pure thermal energy.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 20, 2008 9:29:23 AM

It's in fact misleading when nuclear power includes the thermal losses into the power output

Why is it misleading to include thermal losses for nuclear but not misleading to include them for coal, oil, natural gas, etc.?

Your approach counts the thermal output of a coal or natural gas powerplant, but only counts the electrical output of a nuclear powerplant. That's absurd. Similary you count thermal energy in every gallon of gas burned instead of the mechanical energy actually applied to the car's drivetrain.

The best approach is to count only "useful energy". Waste heat exhausted from a powerplant (nuclear, coal or natural gas) or out a car's tailpipe does not count. Thermal heat which is used productively instead of wasted (e.g. space heat, industrial boilers, co-gen, etc.) does count. Based on this approach DOE says useful energy is about 10500 TWh. Nuclear provides about 800 TWh, or 7.5% of our useful energy.

Although 7.5% is technically correct, it errs on the pessmistic side. If we converted to 100% nuclear we would NOT need all 10500 TWh because we'd use heat pumps instead of electrical resistance for space heat. As such nuclear electricity production would need to be about 9200 TWh, less than 12x today's level.

We have about 100 nukes today. Add 700 larger Gen 3+ nukes and we'd have enough useful energy to be 100% carbon free. Of course that assumes we all drive EVs and so forth. I don't pretend such a single-fuel future is possible, or even desireable. But it's easily within our capability.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 20, 2008 7:25:59 PM

There is evidence of the limited role nuclear actual plays in total energy consumption.

By supplied, I believe the evidence points in the direction of doggydogworld but in terms of consumption, the evidence points to Fusionillusion.

Most of the consumption statistics separate coal used directly and that used in electricty production. Included in electricity production is nuclear. This can be seen in the final consumption graph in the iea-us link. This means, he is correct in his logic. You may try to argue that the stats are sqewed but I believe that the IEA has treated all sources equally.

On the other hand, taking into account the energy losses for production and working backwards and looking at the source energy needed to supply that consumption gives a different picture.

Where thermally, nuclear supplies around 9% of the heat for its contribution to just electricity production. This should not be surprising since we have thermal losses. The same can be seen in coal where thermally it supplies 24% of the thermal energy but mainly contributes this to electricity production. Other fuels more directly apply their energy and are more efficient in other consumption roles. The less steps between source and use the better in terms of efficiency.

Actually, if we converted everything to electricity (nuclear or not), we would need to produce more energy than the present 100 quadrillion BTUs presently used for our consumption. People only use a portion of their energy use in heating. While it is true that the residential energy use has a high component the same can't be said for transportation.

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/country/m_country.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nuclear_is_not_the_answer_to_global_warming

Posted by: aym | Feb 21, 2008 9:15:26 AM

We have about 100 nukes today. Add 700 larger Gen 3+ nukes and we'd have enough useful energy to be 100% carbon free.

Actually nuclear power is definitely NOT carbon free.

Depending on the Uranium content and the hardness of the Uranium ore it can almost reach the CO2_g/kWh levels of a natural gas combined cycle power plant:
http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/partG.pdf

Besides there's simply not enough Uranium to power 700 nuclear power plants for many decades.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 22, 2008 10:27:35 AM

Not to mention the dependence on foreign uranium...

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 22, 2008 10:29:48 AM

Actually, if we converted everything to electricity (nuclear or not), we would need to produce more energy than the present 100 quadrillion BTUs presently used for our consumption.

Probably not, Aym. It's true you need up to 3x more thermal energy if you switch industrial heat from fossil to electric because powerplants average 33% efficiency. Most heat is space heat, though, which heat pumps at 3:1 COP can provide with no increase in primary energy. Meanwhile, switching transport to electric actually REDUCES primary energy because our cars average only 17% efficiency. Would transport savings offset industrial losses? Probably, but in reality most industrial processes would not switch to electric so primary energy consumption of a "95% electric" society would definitely be lower than today.

Anyway, my concern is the incorrect 2.6% number. Nuclear provides 8% of US primary or thermal energy (8 quads out of 100). Similarly, nuclear provides about 7.5% of US useful energy (2.7 quads out of 36). These numbers are not in dispute. You can only get 2.6% by dividing nuclear's useful energy into total thermal energy. That's a (deliberate??) distortion -- you must compare thermal to thermal or useful to useful. Serious people don't mix and match as they please just to get a number they like.

FusionIllusion, real researchers are embarrassed by Van Leeuwen and Smith. No one cites them. Their assumptions are unrealistic and their exponential ore grade curve is silly. Real miners use different techniques for low grade ores (e.g. in situ leaching). Van Leeuwen and Smith also promote your 2.6% fallacy. If you want to be taken seriously you need to use better sources. Spend some time on the DOE sites or international equivalents. Here's a lifecycle study (one of many) with realistic numbers plus a reserves study which shows 100+ year supply. That's with conventional reactors which waste 99% of uranium's energy. Gen4 reactors can use it all, extending supplies by a factor of 60. Politics are a problem. Safety is a problem. Waste is a problem. Supply is not a problem.

http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pdfs/Annex_IV_Dones_et_al_2003.pdf
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526140.700-uranium-reserves.html

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 24, 2008 7:10:17 AM

Okay, you're talking two different things at once. I'm just talking energy used, not a total change into all energy efficient electric whatevers. That is not a fair comparison.

We aren't starting in a position of high energy efficiency and then you're going into a what if this changed and that changed. I just looked at it from an absolute energy use amount and assumed that end user efficiencies would be the same. I must admit though that the efficiency change of automobile electrification was temporarily overlooked, so my bad in that regard.

Counting on who you look at though, efficiencies for cars widely vary. In a popular mech mag it took 4.5 barrels of oil to produce 91 gallons of gas to take a 33 MPG car from NY to CA. It took a ton of coal to produce the energy to get the electricity to move an equivalent car (Honda EV plus) the same distance. The EV was supposedly only 21%.

http://www.apec-conf.org/2006/APEC_2006_Plenary_3.pdf

As for the nuclear energy providing so 2.5% or whatever. I don't think it can be disputed. We are talking about how energy is end used and its sources. We consume oil, gas, and coal more directly than we do nuclear.

http://www.iea.org/textbase/stats/pdf_graphs/USBSFC.pdf

This is how it is presented as consumption. Coal, though doesn't show as it's 23.8% by source. Most of it is consumed in electricity production. If all the reactors shut down tomoorow, the only thing that would be needed to be replaced would be the electricity production lost. It wouldn't matter if it came from solar or whatever. We are consuming the electrical energy. It is not the higher number you suggest. It is the basic energy inputs of our socio/economy.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

Posted by: aym | Feb 24, 2008 6:44:06 PM

doggydogworld,

1. Van Leeuwen and Smith use data from the nuclear lobby.

2. Van Leeuwen and Smith do indeed mention in situ leaching in their reports.

3. Do you seriously want to solve future energy problems with in situ leaching?

4. IAEA mentions 80 years as far as uranium reserves is concerned (with the current rate of consumption).

5. Gen4 is just a name. You can't beat physics with marketing names.

6. The costs of the Superphenix breeder reactor were at over $4 per kWh. Wind ist at $0.05 per kWh.

7. After 60 years of development there is still no commercial breeder reactor available.

8. IEA values electric energy from nuclear 3 times higher than electric energy from hydro. That's a (deliberate??) distortion -- you must compare useful to useful. Serious people don't mix and match as they please just to get a number they like

9. The 2.6% number is indeed from the DOE.

Posted by: | Feb 25, 2008 4:27:26 AM

Btw, the Swiss PSI is definitely not a credible source. They do nuclear research and are highly dependent on Swiss tax funding. They have to do anything they can to pretend that nuclear will solve future energy problems otherwise their funding will be cut. Keep in mind, nuclear received over 50% percent of the energy R&D funding over several decades and they haven't solved anything.
Also, their data regarding photovoltaics is too high and they cite their own papers and they disregard solar thermal power plants.
And of course it is still cheaper and more efficient to install solar thermal collectors to heat water than to install nuclear power plants and heat pumps to do the same.

According to IAEA the uranium reserve last 81 years:
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 25, 2008 5:38:50 AM

FusionIllusion,

1,2,3 - Van Leeuwen and Smith take some industry data but their most significant conclusions come from their ore grade curve which is an absurd extrapolation. Companies mine gold from much lower grade ores with a fraction of the energy VL&S use in their "analysis". Such silliness has no place in energy discussions. I am not a fan of ISL or even of nuclear, I simply want accurate data instead of propaganda.

5,6,7 - There are a handful of commercial fast reactors today, the basic technology is quite old. The breeder is dead, new fast reactor designs focus on a closed fuel cycle with full burnup instead of breeding fuel for other plants. Will Gen4 plants be cost-effective? I don't know, nor does anyone else. The only way to find out is build a few and gather data to make reasonably accurate projections. Of course it also depends on what price you attach to CO2.

8. If so they goofed as bad as VL&S.

9. Whatever. Nuclear provides 8 quads of raw thermal energy out of the 100 quad US total. That's 8%. Nuclear provides 2.7 quads of useful energy out of the 36 quad US total. That's 7.5%. These statements are irrefutable. If you want to do some other sort of calculations to get a number you like better, knock yourself out.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 26, 2008 4:06:28 PM

Definitions of energy consumption:

Energy consumption is reported as consumption of electricity and other energy. Consumption of other energy includes the consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and gas

http://report.chemind.fi/energyconsumptio

The amount of energy - liquid, solid, gaseous or electricity - used by an individual in a given year in a given geographical area

http://www.planete-energies.com/content/energies/consumption.html

Frankly trying to redefine how it has been historically calculated to suit your own views is not correct either.

The energy needed for our present cars, buildings and industrial processes and machines are set. The inputs to these are electricity and various fuels. Redefining source as consumption does nothing to change how present energy forms are used. People just use the electricity, whether it comes from coal or nukes or from solar. That's how you get charts like this

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US

The way electricity and other energy is defined in consumption is defined the way it is. Trying to obfuscate it with mumbo-jumbo is something else.

Yes it supplies 9% of the energy supply but it supplies much less in consumption the way almost everyone defines it. People consume the electricity. They don't consume the thermal energy directly.

Posted by: aym | Feb 26, 2008 8:15:49 PM

Look at this scenario.

Everything basically stays the same. Turn every nuclear reactor to a coal plant. The prices are frozen. To the end consumer, will anything really have changed?

The cars will have to use the same amount of oil, the same amount of electricity will be used in the same computers. That is how the IEA defines energy consumption.

Yes the source/supply for that consumption has changed but the consumption itself hasn't.

Posted by: aym | Feb 26, 2008 8:44:50 PM

Your IEA table puts nuclear at 9%. I've got no problem with that.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 27, 2008 12:11:34 PM

One can give electric energy a higher 'energy value' than pure fuel (oil, gas, coal, uranium).

But simply including the wasted energy going through cooling towers distorts the facts.

By your math, electric energy from coal or nuclear power plants have a higher value than electric energy produced in hydro, wind, wave, geothermal, solar or even combined cycle gas power plants - which is nothing else but wrong.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 27, 2008 1:23:06 PM

Will Gen4 plants be cost-effective? I don't know, nor does anyone else. The only way to find out is build a few and gather data to make reasonably accurate projections. Of course it also depends on what price you attach to CO2.
Great idea, why don't we keep on waiting and throw tax money at this loser technology?
By the way: Between 1974 and 2002 60% of all OECD energy research funding was wasted in nuclear research while only 8% went into hydro, solar, wind, biomass, tidal, wave and geothermal combined.
And guess what? Nuclear produces less energy than renewables worldwide.

I simply want accurate data instead of propaganda.
Here you go:
According to IAEA (nuclear lobby) the uranium reserve last 81 years:
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 27, 2008 1:43:14 PM

I never said that the source of the energy doesn't put nuclear at 9%. TPES stands for total primary energy supply.

Take a look at the table at the row TFC. Stands for Total Final Consumption or site delivered energy, what basically is pumped into our cars, factories, homes, computers, etc that people use in their lives. The TPES after losses. What does it have under nuclear? A zero. People don't consume nuclear power, they consume electricity created from nuclear.

Under TFC totals that means that electricity roughly provides only a fifth of our energy requirements. Nuclear provides an even smaller fraction since it is a fraction of electricity. If we roughly say that a fifth of US electricity production is nuclear, a fifth of a fifth is only around 4% of consumption, not quite the 2.5% bandied about but far lower than the 8-9% that is it's contribution to the primary energy supply.

Both numbers are basically consumption at different points but descriptions and well blogging are not the easiest way to get ideas across.

Posted by: aym | Feb 27, 2008 1:59:18 PM

Take a look at the table at the row TFC. Stands for Total Final Consumption or site delivered energy, what basically is pumped into our cars, factories, homes, computers, etc that people use in their lives. The TPES after losses.

It's TPES after some losses. This DOE chart depicts US 2002 primary energy, all losses, and useful energy:

https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php

Note that all branches show losses. It makes no sense to measure nuclear AFTER losses but measure oil, gas, etc. BEFORE losses. The fact that customers purchase some energy 'post-loss' and some energy 'pre-loss' is irrelevant. The customer only cares about useful energy (post-loss). How many miles will his car go, how many degrees he can heat or cool his house.

Useful energy is what really matters, and nuclear provides 7-8% of useful. Primary energy is sometimes measured, and nuclear provides 8% of that. It makes no sense to look at a mish-mash of some primary and some useful and declare nuclear at 2.6%. It's pure propaganda.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 28, 2008 8:44:16 AM

By your math, electric energy from coal or nuclear power plants have a higher value than electric energy produced in hydro, wind, wave, geothermal, solar or even combined cycle gas power plants - which is nothing else but wrong.

First, it's not "my math" it's just primary energy. I agree primary energy does not properly handle hydro, etc., which is why I prefer to work in terms of useful energy. The DOE chart linked above puts US useful energy at 35 quads. Nuclear provided 7-8% of that. End of story.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 28, 2008 8:52:01 AM

So you're basically claiming that electric energy from nuclear power has a 3 times higher value than pure energy from natural gas.

One can call this indeed propaganda.

(At least according to the DOE the electric contribution is only 13.4% of the total energy consumption and not a fifth:
U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh
= 13.4%.
You can check for yourself:
tinyurl . com / ypv7sn )

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Feb 28, 2008 10:20:03 AM

The TPES after losses is after transmission losses. What basically what comes to the consumer where he/she/it uses it in whatever fashion they want with the equipment they have.

As for the losses. Who says they don't exist in the TFC part of the chart for the other forms. Your graph may not show it but it does on the chart. Distribution, transformation losses are a part of it for fossil fuels as well as nuclear. This is the power that gets to the end user consumer.

...makes no sense to measure nuclear AFTER losses but measure oil, gas, etc. BEFORE losses.
Wrong, the TFC measures what the consumers get after losses in transformation and transportation for BOTH. Both get equal treatment. Losses in transmission as well as transportation before it gets to the end user consumer for whatever they want at whatever efficiencies there may or may not be. Its just a fact that energy conversion losses for electrical plants are on the order of 60%+.

Coal's contribution to electricity suffers the same effects of transformation/transmission loss as does nuclear. Oil energy losses are accrued when they get transformed into it's products.

We aren't talking about useful energy. We are talking about want the consumer gets, whether it's for an SUV or a Prius.

How many miles will his car go, how many degrees he can heat or cool his house.
This is an arguement for efficiency. It isn't an a viable arguement about what is consumed by the end user. In fact it doesn't matter what the efficiency is of whatever they are trying to do. They still has to get x amount of gasoline or electricity or natural gas or whatever to do whatever they want, no matter what the efficiency is. Thats the amount being quantified when consumption is discussed.

What gets to the transportation, industrial, commercial, home, etc. sectors is the energy consumption by the society for use in cars, computers or whatever. Useful energy is interesting in that it basically tells the actual work done. The minimum energy need to everything that is being done with no losses but so what.

You still have to get the energy forms to the consumer in the amounts that they need and eat the inefficiencies and take the losses.

You are totally ignoring the forms of energy and their proportions as it gets to the consumer. Everything you've given is either in terms of source or in terms of generalized useful work of what all that energy did. By fuel, is already defined as by source and useful energy doesn't tell what the aggregate demands for energy are by whatever form that society needs.

It totally ignores the energy requirements of the consumer. They don't use x amount of general energy. They uses x amount of gasoline, y amount of electricity, z amount of whatever, etc and etc. This is what is defined as final consumption.

How you source it is dependent on technology. How you can change it is dependent on technology and usage/developement patterns. But what he/she/it gets in whatever form (gas, electricity, etc) is what is defined as final consumption.

Frankly you may define it as you wish.

If your assessment of consumption is correct then why is it not labeled as you describe it? In graphs of total final consumption, why isn't nuclear there? In the table from the IEA, TFC has the nuclear value at 0. At the level of the definition, people consume electricity, from whatever source and obviously not nuclear. That's why it's 0.

For any organization that describes what the energy uses/demands of society are, they don't define consumption anything like you're trying to do.

If you're going to talk with others about consumer consumption or societal consumption of energy then you have to use the general (IEA, UN, etc) agreed upon definitions of it, not your personal one. So stop trying to redefine it to your personal view of what it should be.

The definition of final consumption includes only the electricity created from nuclear. Not the rest of it. My nuclear to coal plant scenario above aptly describes the consumption condition being measured. The TFC wouldn't change under it but the TPES would. Nuclear energy has no bearing on TFC(ie consumption) except its contribution to the electricity being consumed.

http://www.iea.org/dbtw-wpd/Textbase/nppdf/free/2005/key2005.pdf

pg 31, consumption graph no labels with nuclear on it at all.

http://www.planete-energies.com/content/energies/consumption.html

definitions of energy consumption in above posts.

Thanx FI, for the 13.4% figure. I was just doing a guesstamate.

Posted by: aym | Feb 28, 2008 1:04:37 PM

So you're basically claiming that electric energy from nuclear power has a 3 times higher value than pure energy from natural gas.

FusionIllusion, it's not my claim. Large companies make huge profits converting 3 kWh of Natural Gas into 1 kWh of electricity.

Frankly you may define it as you wish......
In graphs of total final consumption, why isn't nuclear there? In the table from the IEA, TFC has the nuclear value at 0.

Aym, as you note it all depends on the definition. By the defintions in your IEA table, nuclear provides 0% of our energy. Other calculations put nuclear at 2.6% and others at 7-8%. Which is "correct"? They all are, depending on definition.

Let's say each month Joe buys ten liters of Coca-Cola and Bob buys one liter of Coca-Cola 10:1 concentrate. If you define consumption as liters purchased, Joe consumes ten times as much as Bob. This definition is "correct" and useful for purposes such as estimating delivery truck loading. But for business planning purposes the Coca-Cola company will consider Bob and Joe's consumption to be equal.

Energy which has crossed the Carnot barrier (e.g. electricity) is valued at a 3:1 ratio vs. energy which has not (oil, coal, etc.). 3:1 is just a rule of thumb -- for industrial heat it's almost 1:1 whereas for cars it's more like 5:1. TFC ignores this 3:1 ratio, which is OK for some purposes but not for others.

Let's say Bob drives a Lotus Elise and Joe drives the nearly-identical electric Tesla Roadster. To drive 230 weekly miles at the EPA-rated 23 mpg Bob consumes 10 gallons, or 340 kWh, of gasoline. To drive those same 230 miles Joe consumes about 60 kWh of electricity. TFC says Joe consumes 82% less energy than Bob. Based on TFC a Tesla marketeer might claim electric cars can reduce our transport energy demand 82%. But energy analysts would call this claim a distortion because they understand Joe's true consumption is the 180 kWh of primary energy needed to generate his electricity.

Again, the 82% reduction TFC gives us is not "wrong". It's just not the appropriate measure for calculating energy needs. DOE created concepts such as useful energy and primary energy to help evaluate energy needs. The original claim in this thread said nuclear supplied 2.6% of our "energy needs". But that 2.6% is a TFC-like number. DOE and energy analysts would properly call that claim a distortion just like the Tesla marketeer's 82% reduction. Energy analysts understand you must compare primary-to-primary and useful-to-useful. Mixing apples and oranges is a tool of propagandists, not truth-seekers.

Posted by: doggydogworld | Feb 29, 2008 2:57:34 PM

It was not about energy needs. It was about consumption and how it's defined. You want to change it, so that there is no consumer.

No matter what, the consumer must receive energy in whatever format that is appropriate for his needs to use it. It doesn't matter if the efficiency is zero or near 100. He still gets it, and pays for it, & uses it even if it all gets lost due to whatever inefficiencies exist.

TFC doesn't compare energy use at all. In your tesla/lotus comparison they use the energy they use. TFC would say that since both cars travelled the distance they both consumed the energy they used to get to that distance in terms of gasoline and electricity. It is not a comparison between the two but what the two used in the situation. It isn't about efficiency between the two. Both were used.

The total energy consumption/used by bob & joe would be 400 kwh by your numbers in this limited fashion. Say a fifth of the electricity was provided by nuclear, 12 kwh. Then the contribution of nuclear to the this consumption was only 3%. It doesn't matter if the nuclear plant operated at 1% efficiency or 99%, it's contribution to bob's and joe's total car energy use is just 3% because it provided only a portion of the electricity which was a portion of total energy consumed.

In terms of needs, especially societal energy needs, it typically stops at the consumer needs. Not the needs of useful work. No one really talks about useful work. When running a plant or trying to supply gasoline, they talk about supplying the end consumer, which are entities and not what they will do with it.

As for your claim it is a distortion, it is what fundamentally is what the consumer needs to use his/her/its home, vehicles and tools and survive. It is what drives the market to create that supply. It is the consumer that must be gone through for energy to be used for it to be transformed into useful work but it still must be acquired by the consumer.

Ignoring this basic fact, this truth, is what allows distortion to be perpetrated. Consumed energy must be acquired from primary energy sources before it's turned into useful work by a consumer.

Final consumption, end user consumption, societal needs isn't defined by source or useful work. It is defined by the consumer and what they are receiving and using now.

Posted by: aym | Mar 1, 2008 9:11:37 AM

Large companies make huge profits converting 3 kWh of Natural Gas into 1 kWh of electricity
Actually a combined cycle power plant turns 1.7 kWh of Natural Gas into 1 kWh of electricity.

And a combined heat power plant turns 1.2 kWh of Natural Gas into 1 kWh of USEFUL energy.

Posted by: Fusionillusion | Mar 2, 2008 3:56:14 AM

I read that in power generation and distribution, location is a key factor. If you double the load at the end of a transmission line, it quadruples the losses.

That says that a gas turbine plant located 10 miles from you can get power to your home AC with fewer loses than the nuclear plant 100 miles from you.

When you consider that power consumption on summer days in Southern California can be 3 times the average usage during the year, the line losses can be 9 times as much in the distribution.

Posted by: sjc | Mar 3, 2008 1:31:28 PM

Hi all
The debate between mike and treehugger is somehow attractive for me and the point is tolerating to hear opposed opinions and envisaging the facts and phenomena from a different point of view. It may seem a little bit ridiculous that an eastern (Asian) person wants and intends to talk about liberation and interaction among American gentlemen, but sometimes it’s needed for everyone.
Technology history and technology progress goes in it’s way endlessly and we, humans follow it in our own manner regardless we are European, American, Chinese, Japanese and so on. The only main difference is who among us is awake and when the others hear the sound of Exigency alarms.
But the technology in it’s general concept belongs to the history, to the human race, all, and the benefits and dues only comes from being cute or dumb, creative or consumptive, awake or slept when the sun rises, the concept of being in the proper place at the proper time and in the proper position, Prosperity, but not chance at all. Every succeeded effort owes to its predecessor successes and more to it’s prior defeats. Remember Tom Edison who has spent five years to discover the ways which not concluded to the main discovery, LIGHT. …

Although it is so complicated in first glance, it is as clear as More or Less as the main concept of mathematics an infant knows professionally when dividing the chocolates between his sister and himself, as the relation between Energy and Technology is clearer than it, Clearer than necessity of any explanation and quarrel. Let’s test ourselves:

Life needs Energy
Some energy is being expended for Technology
Technology Saves Energy
And
Goes on the Life

Here comes the matter of cost and benefit, tangible and also Intangible, Physical and Mental

Let’s Simulate:

Wheat in the hands of the farmer, worried eyes and look
Needed for food
Dispersed on the earth,
Threat of hunger
Hope of flowering, blossoms
Grief, if slept or alone while grasshoppers swarming,
Mirth, when rain comes, unexpected
Festivity when blossoming
Prosperity, when juicing
And again and again
in the circle of Hope, grief, mirth, festivity and prosperity at the end …

Posted by: GholamHossein | Mar 4, 2008 4:40:33 AM

me want fast car

Posted by: medrivecar | Apr 7, 2008 1:47:23 PM

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