coal2nuclear.com                Getting serious about ending Global Warming

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About the Author 

The intent of this web site is to encourage individuals, companies, and institutions to explore ways our unlimited nuclear energy can be used to end the threat of Global Warming.  This is an educational web site expressing a pro-energy "Professional Opinion" about Global Warming.  Holding a Bachelor of Science Degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Western Michigan University and a Professional Engineer registration in Control System Engineering in the State of California (CS-400), I am an engineer who specialized in electronic control systems for very large industrial applications.  I worked for a utility engineering consultant (Commonwealth Associates, Jackson, Michigan, 1956 - 1960) on electricity generating plants and spent 1959 doing instrumentation electrical on Fermi l, a fast-neutron breeder reactor power generating plant located at Monroe, Michigan. 

I spent 28 years in Upjohn Pharmaceutical's electrical engineering unit (Photo: 1996 retirement party snapshot).  Upjohn was Michigan's largest non-Detroit consumer of electricity, big enough to have dual 138,000 volt "Hi-Line" transmission lines feeding their main production complex's substation in Portage, Michigan.

This unsponsored educational web site about the environment and energy independence is the pro bono effort of a retired engineer who has spent 40+ years working in and around heavy public electric utility and large industrial energy management systems.  Holding three patents in control systems and one in acoustics, in 1982 the Association of Energy Engineers granted the title of "Certified Energy Manager" to the author.

Accuracy: Born Digital? I make very heavy use of Wikipedia, a good place to start.  I'm definitely not a "Nuclear Nerd" or expert, I'm trying to present only honest, verifiable facts and practical proposals on this web site.  I think I know in general terms what I am talking about but will often revise or add items as they emerge from the fog of thought, afterthought, or new knowledge.  I try to keep the information presented on Coal2nuclear referable to experts.  I'm not a recognized expert in anything, certainly not nuclear energy or climatology.  I know I can be terribly wrong, confused, and able to misstate anything.  Please let me know if you think I've got something wrong. 

CONTACT:

Coal Yard Nukes are an "Open" electricity generation platform.  The author encourages others to write their own "Coal Yard Nuke" stories for newsstand magazines like Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and Popular Science. 

I will be delighted to provide assistance and information beyond what appears on this web site.  Ganging up on Global Warming is fair play.  What better subject for the Digital Citizens that inhabit the Creative Commons?  http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/12448 

  email contact  

Please include Coal2nuclear in the subject line to keep it from being automatically deleted.

I believe that cheap and easy solutions rarely work.

About The Web Site  

My Objective: To have these ideas for CO2 mitigation on all the CO2 mitigation lists along side all the others.  We might need to move very quickly some day. 

I am also concerned we substantially increase our electricity energy supply rapidly since we will need abundant electrical energy to surmount difficulties caused by both climate change and oil shortages.

The Idea: The idea of converting from coal-burning boilers to small pebble-nuclear boilers to mitigate CO2 is very obvious, so I suspect the reason others aren't talking about it is because the idea is extremely politically incorrect.  There are thousands who could tell this story better and tell it through more widely read media.  I'm hoping they do so.  This is my version in the only media available to me.

Much incorrect and misleading information about nuclear technology is being published these days - often in popular science magazines like "Scientific American".  These articles typically repeat the clichés, ignorance, and fears of things nuclear from Cold War propaganda 40 years ago, frequently by long out of touch authors twice as old as that.  I'm trying to get things right and not add to the large amounts of misinformation that is causing so much anxiety in the general public about both Global Warming and its most effective cure, nuclear electricity.  Global Warming is at least partially the result of our government closing access to nuclear electricity technology to all except the largest, most powerful, most conservative and most subservient industrial companies.  This created the living definition of a "Closed Platform", leaving the world with no choice but to burn ever-increasing amounts of fossil fuels.

Whatever the problems of nuclear, they are nothing compared to climate change.

After perhaps 5 years of a young engineer's enthusiasm for wind energy during the first energy crisis in the early 1970's, it finally dawned on me that even thousands of windmills - which may have worked well for small villages hundreds of years ago - won't keep a modern mega-city alive.

One of the author's mid 1970's energy management projects using a Honeywell Alpha 3000 computer - green cabinet - and Honeywell Data Gathering Panels - boxes on wall.  Installer is an Upjohn Pharmaceutical Co. electronics specialist. 

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About the Site's Contents   

I'm a retired engineer who is pointing out an overlooked solution to both the Global Warming and the Energy Independence problems.  Part of the 'adventure' of this web site is that I'm quite certain I'm exploring some uncharted territory.  What more could any engineer ask for?  When you arrive first, you get to pick the low-hanging fruit.

Four unique tools to fight Climate Change and Energy Dependence

1. An analysis of the Global Warming CO2 situation that shows CO2 Super-Mitigation measures we can take to end Climate Change quickly.

2. A way to repower a coal-burning power plant to a CO2-free nuclear power plant that continues to produce 100% of its much needed electricity.

3. A way to make an inexpensive new nuclear power plant using "off the shelf" coal power plant parts: The 'Hybrid' power plant.

4. A way to make endless carbon-neutral oil from hydrogenated algae using the abundant hydrogen and heat energy made available by TRISO nuclear fuel.

 

Originally named "NuclearCoal," because of the TRISO pebble's unique potential to replace coal fires - this web site is divided into multiple "Subject Section" chapters plus essay pages by others:

Other Pages:

  Ending Global Warming  Covers the NOAA and CARMA numbers that indicate we can end the CO2 that's overwhelming nature.

  Pebble Technology   How pebbles work, how pebbles are made, and how High Temperature Gas-cooled pebble bed Reactors (HTGR) work.

  Repowering the "Big Bend" power plant from coal to nuclear.  Overview of considerations for actually repowering a large coal burning power plant with nuclear.  Also, a project management plan outline for repowering the world's 5,000 major coal burning power plants in the shortest possible time.

  Links to other web sites  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) - Working Group III, Mitigation, Pebble Bed Reactor, Peak Oil, and book Web Sites.

The first essay page: "Things Everybody Should Know About Energy," is Bill Hannahan's essay on our energy options.  I invite thoughtful essays by others - especially those who disagree with the premise of this web site.  Disagreers are always a rich source of things you didn't think of.  "Word" and other email-able files emailed to me work just fine.  Notice: Hyperlinks to germane downloadable .PDF files and spreadsheets are available - check out Bill's essay.

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The fact that there is a long trail of Pebble and Prism high temperature nuclear power plants - several of commercial size - actually built and run commercially over the last 50 years is clear evidence that many in the nuclear community are convinced that pebbles offer benefits unachievable by conventional nuclear reactors.  That a half-dozen such designs are in progress today is strong evidence that no insurmountable barriers appear to have been encountered.  The United States is currently engaged in both improving the TRISO fuel particle and the overall reactor design.

Repowering coal burning power plants with nuclear pebble energy is an excellent way to end Global Warming quickly.  Nothing new has to be invented, and, if determined by competent engineering firms, costs and results are predictable.  Power plant conversion has sufficient merit to justify adding it to the pool of well-known ideas such as wind, solar, etc.  The only remaining unknowns are the design details of the heat exchangers, the overall control system and the silo + building design details that are specific to a particular facility.  I cannot take these details any further - they are clearly the domain of others. 

If you are in a position to aid my efforts - grants, etc., in publicizing this idea, please do so.  You are in a position to share this web site with your friends.  Well-publicized attacks will also be appreciated.

Please feel free to use the author's CO2 Balance Diagram in your presentations either for or against Global Warming. Thank you.

TECO, Consumers Energy, Westinghouse, Babcock&Wilcox, Combustion Engineering, Riley, ESKOM-PBMR, and General Atomics have nothing to do with this paper.  They are entirely unaware I am using their plants and products as "concrete" examples in my advocating the principle of repowering coal-burning power plants to nuclear power.

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The Fine Print

I'm a retired industrial electronics engineer with a professional engineer's license in the area of control systems.  My very limited time in the nuclear engineering industry was my first job and that was limited to a year doing instrumentation design on Fermi l, a fast-neutron breeder reactor power generating plant located at Monroe, Michigan.  While I've been associated with industrial and utility power systems my entire 40 year career, I'm speaking my speculative thoughts on this web site as a private citizen and, as such, am not professionally responsible for my statements or any reference or source I may happen to cite.  They, of course, are innocent of anything said or inferred on this web site.

ETHICS I'm not taking any money or anything else from anyone to mention any idea, product, service or person on this site.  The National Society Of Professional Engineer's Code of Ethics states: "Engineers shall acknowledge their errors and shall not distort or alter the facts".  Engineers are ethically bound to be absolutely truthful when it comes to all aspects of their work.  Leaving out crucial information or giving a false impression about facts is an unethical practice.  I see no reason to abandon the NSPE code of ethics just because I'm retired.  Opinions will vary widely but facts are facts. And facts do change over time.  If anything I've stated as a fact is wrong or outdated, please send a source of the correct information and I will make changes.  Thank you.  -- Jim Holm 

Free use is granted for non-commercial purposes of all non-copyrighted materials on this Website. Acknowledgement would be appreciated

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my effort to advance understanding of issues of environmental and humanitarian significance. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml  If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

LINKS DISCLAIMER: These pages contain hypertext links to information created and maintained by public and private organizations. These links provide additional information that may be useful or interesting and are being provided consistent with the intended purpose of the Coal2nuclear website.  Coal2nuclear does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information.  Coal2nuclear does not endorse the organizations sponsoring linked websites, the views they express, or the products and services they offer.

 

Disclaimer:  The author does not guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of the information contained in this presentation of his personal opinion. 
 I am a retired electrical/electronics engineer, not a nuclear engineer, climate scientist or even a "Grassroots Green" environmental enthusiast.  This is an on-going personal engineering project.  What is presented here is publicly available climate and technical data organized into a new plan that provides the maximum Global Warming reduction possible at the least cost in the least amount of time.  I hope you find what is presented here entertaining, informative, and perhaps even surprising.  
 

 		 

This is an internet-based document and I link Wikipedia to provide brief background summaries at the encyclopedia level.  No encyclopedia should ever be considered the ultimate reference.  Site ethics.  Thank you for visiting my web site.  Please return. 

(TECO, Consumers Energy, Westinghouse, Babcock&Wilcox, Combustion Engineering, Riley, ESKOM-PBMR, and General Atomics have nothing to do with this paper.  They are entirely unaware I am using their plants and products as "concrete" examples in my advocating the principle of repowering coal-burning power plants to nuclear power.) -- Jim Holm     

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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison

Don't believe everything you think

“You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.”

____________    "People will do anything to save the world ... except take a course in science." -- Howard Hayden    ____________

 

Patience hell.  Can't expect the greens or politicians to understand what this web site is saying.
We retired engineers are just going have to design these conversion projects ourselves.

 

 

 

Want to Engineer Real Change? Don't Ask a Scientist.

"Though many people mentally link science and engineering, there is a fundamental difference in philosophy between the practitioners of the two important fields. Scientists like to study and find answers to questions that no one has yet solved. Engineers like to design and make things using the knowledge they can find in textbooks, graphs and reference material along with the practical knowledge that they can gain from actually engaging in their craft.

They know that they do not have a perfect knowledge of the universe, but they also know that their knowledge is good enough to create many amazing things. If they find a hard roadblock during the creation process, they are reasonably confident that they will find a way around the obstacle. Both science and engineering are important disciplines, but there is a time and a place for each to have primary influence. When it comes to addressing the world’s energy, climate and water supply challenges, there is no doubt that it is mainly an engineering problem, not a science project."  -- Posted by Rod Adams, Adams Atomic Engines, Jan 18, 2008
 

“When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we “believe in climate change”. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity’s activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.”  --- Dr Vicky Pope, UK Met Office, Head of Climate Change.

 

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