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coal2nuclear.com  nuclearoil.com  Global Warming, Water, and Energy Solutions for decision makers.

Rolling Back Global Warming   brings   Energy Independence

Global Warming can be stopped and reversed.  The key: The world's 141,000 fossil fuel power plant units making 70% of Global Warming's accumulating CO2.  Converting just the 5,000 worst coal burning power plants will greatly improve the situation.       It's possible.   France closed their last coal mine in April, 2004.

●  CONTENTS   ●  Summary.pdf   ●  Site Map   ●  Contact   ●  MiniNukes?   ●  The "Right Stuff" - TRISO High Temperature Nuclear Fuel

Preface:                                  ●   Rolling Back Global Warming   brings   Energy Independence

We created the Global Warming crisis in large part because we lost the courage to complete President Eisenhower’s 1953 “Atoms for Peace” transition from coal electricity to nuclear electricity after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.   Industrial societies must have abundant cheap energy to survive so the motive to go nuclear then was to produce “Electricity Too Cheap to Meter."  Nuclear electricity was abandoned after Three Mile Island.  The world now has 141,000 operating fossil-fuel electricity generating units - mostly coal.  Our power plants have brought us, in large part, Global Warming.

Three Mile Island's unfounded, but paralyzing, nuclear fears remain to this day, causing us to ignore the fact that whatever the problems of nuclear, they are nothing compared to Climate Change.  Paralyzing fear is no longer an option.

The most effective CO2 mitigation solutions use nuclear energy.

If we had the will, this is the CO2 mitigation path we would take:

Coal - If the world's 141,000  fossil-fuel electricity generating units were converted from coal-burning boilers to TRISO high temperature nuclear boilers, 70% of Global Warming’s advance would be stopped. 

Oil - If gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel were nuclear-synthesized from the world's unlimited oil-rich algae instead of using fossil oil, almost another 70% of Global Warming’s advance would be stopped, and there would be no "Peak Oil" crisis or oil wars.

Gas - Electricity is a secondary source of energy.  If natural gas heating were replaced with nuclear electricity heating, another 35% of Global Warming’s advance would be stopped.                                                                        (To Larger Image.)

ROLLING BACK GLOBAL WARMING: All three add up to 175% of what it takes to stop Global Warming’s advance.  This means not only can Global Warming be stopped; the pool of excess CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere over the years could be reduced by natural CO2 sequestration at an annual rate of 75% of its current growth. 

At this rate, our damaged atmosphere would be restored to normal in about 60 years.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: Since it is possible to obtain all the uranium we would ever need from sea water, the above three measures would also bring total energy independence.  Recycling nuclear waste down to nothingness, rather than wasting it by burying it, is the wise thing to do.

All three of these substitutions can be worked on simultaneously and are relatively frugal compared to the cost of renewables.  The cost of converting our existing coal power plants to TRISO nuclear should be cheaper than the cost of converting them to "Clean Coal's" Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) system.  CCS also creates about a 25% parasitic electricity loss to power the capture machinery.

To raise public awareness of these facts the author has established an ongoing basic web site book called:  http://www.coal2nuclear.com 

The web site describes ways each of the three major sources of Global Warming carbon dioxide can be replaced in years, rather than decades, using existing technologies and the same multi-national production scale-up methods that served us so well during World War II.

Progress comes from many choices.  –   Jim Holm, November, 2008

The technical span addressed in this web book is enormous.  The author is inviting others who may see their area of expertise here to contribute.

Contents       Four ways (Chapters 3 thru 6) we are harming the environment and ourselves by opposing nuclear energy.

Preface              Rolling Back Global Warming  brings  Energy Independence

Introduction        THE PARADIGM SHIFT: Energy-intensive CO2 mitigation solutions powered by TRISO nuclear energy.

Background       CARBON Overview - Carbon, the fourth most abundant element in the universe.  Understanding what  Carbon-Neutral fuel  means to us.

Chapter One       Sizing up the beast: Sorting Out CO2s. Identifying and Interrupting CO2 Flows to Halt Global Warming's Advance 1 CO2  2 Data  3 Electricity

Chapter Two       TRISO High Temperature Nuclear Fuel.  The new carbon-free energy paradigm.  TRISO Overview  Better than "Clean Coal."

Chapter Three     1. COAL: The TRISO Coal2Nuclear Power Plant Boiler Conversion Reactor.  1 Reactor  2 Demo Projects  3 Details  4 Photos  5 Costs

Chapter Four      2. OIL: NuclearOil's Unlimited Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Oil From Algae. 1 Oil from Algae  2 Green Gasoline  3 Oil from Air and Water 

Chapter Five       3. GAS: TRISO Hybrids  Replace Natural Gas with TRISO Nuclear Electricity.  Our emissions and Energy Goals on the Same Page.

Chapter Six        4. WATER: Nuclear Desalination of Sea Water.  Toilet-to-Tap Water Recycling.  Any of the many mininukes will do just fine.

Chapter Seven    Renewable Energy's Contribution, Energy Conservation's Trap.  Neither renewable energy nor energy conservation will help us much.

Chapter Eight     Environmentalism's Harm  Are environmentalists to blame for Global Warming?  Their ineffective CO2 ideas are endangering Planet Earth.

●  Subjects  ●  Why Upgrade Existing Coal Burning Power Plants To Nuclear?  ●  500 word TRISO Nuclear Fuel Article  ●  About TRISO  ●  About TRISO Pebbles
It's possible to almost stop Global Warming's progression by converting only the world's 5,000 largest coal power plant boilers to TRISO atomic boilers.

1. The end-to-end red up arrows on the left show different fossil-fuel CO2 sources adding their CO2 to the atmosphere for an annual total of 36.7 billion tons of CO2. 
2. The downward green arrows show how much fossil fuel CO2 land plants and oceans were able to remove from the atmosphere during that same year. 
3. The single black up arrow shows how much excess CO2 is left over in the atmosphere every year and is added to the almost one TRILLION tons of excess fossil fuel CO2 that has already accumulated in our air since World War II. 

Your body needs the right balance of many trace chemicals to be healthy.  Like your body, our living planet is a complex and delicate system, using a little CO2 to capture a little of the sun's heat.  Without this trace amount of CO2, the world's average temperature would be zero degrees F.  A little CO2 in the air goes a very long way.

CO2 needs to be a TRACE gas in the atmosphere at around 300 ppm (parts per million) to keep the world's temperature in normal balance.  As long as modern man's annual production of fossil fuel CO2 was less than 20 billion tons per year, nature was able to keep CO2 in the 300 ppm range by slightly increasing or decreasing CO2 levels through plant growth and water respiration. 

Man's extremely rapid and persistent addition of CO2 in excess of 20 billion tons per year is overwhelming nature thus causing our planet to capture and hold too much of the sun's heat. 

NOTE:  The 'Zero' line is the annual ZERO GLOBAL WARMING line. ->

Nature can clean up only about 1/2 of the CO2 produced by fossil fuels.

We have already pushed CO2 accumulation from 300 to about 387 ppm.  James Hansen suggests 350 as maximum.  Most climate experts are saying all hell will break loose before 450 ppm is reached - about 25 years from now.

MAN'S PART: What we have to do right now.  The upper long blue down arrow shows the CO2 produced by the world's 141,000 power plants.  It is a Global Warming "OFF" switch.  Stop those coal fires by converting power plant boilers to TRISO nuclear and we stop 70% of Global Warming's yearly advance. 

The short blue down arrow in the middle shows the CO2 produced by (mainly) natural gas heating.  It is another Global Warming "OFF" switch.  Heat with electricity produced by nuclear energy and we stop another 35% of Global Warming's yearly advance.

The long blue down arrow at the bottom shows the CO2 produced by burning oil.  It is another Global Warming "OFF" switch.  Oil made from plant material - biomass - is carbon-neutral.  That is, biomass REMOVES CO2 from the air to grow it's stalks and leaves, then RETURNS CO2 to the air when it is burned or it rots.  Use oil from biomass instead of oil from the ground and we stop another 70% of Global Warming's advance.

NATURE'S PART BEYOND 'CARBON NEUTRAL:' What nature is doing for us right now.  Nature's annual 20 billion tons of fossil fuel CO2 removal defines the worldwide annual non-carbon-neutral CO2 maximum man plus nature must never exceed.  This clearly defines our fossil fuel energy limits.  Each person on earth can safely cause no more than about 3 tons of fossil-fuel CO2 per year or 316 gallons of gasoline per year.  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/co2.shtml 

There are no such limits as to how much carbon-neutral fuel we can grow and use or how much nuclear fuel we can use.

Think about the implications of totally carbon-neutral "NuclearOil" gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel made using algae feedstock.

Notice also while there is room for some of oil's CO2, we can never again be "Fossil Fule Fools."  We will always have to use oil-based fuels for transportation.  Let's save our CO2 allowances for that very real need or, better still, for rolling back Global Warming.

The tragedy of Global Warming is that we don't have to make CO2 to make electricity.

(Left red up arrows: IPCC - Global Energy Flows 2004 IPCC 2004 .pdf ; Blue Fossil Fuel Power Plants arrow:   CARMA's Data ; Deforestation, other arrows: NOAA - Carbon Tracker NOAA's Data;  Diagram by Marilyn Holm.)   (Divide CO2 by 3.7 to find Carbon.)

The above graph depicts the general amounts and flows of non-carbon-neutral CO2 in the earth's atmosphere.  The following cross-check verifies the accumulation of that CO2 and the overall accuracy of what the graph is portraying.

CROSS-CHECK: Can this diagram possibly be correct? 

A cross-check on the 16.3 billion tons of CO2 "typical annual" CO2 accumulation number used in the graph above is provided by Oak Ridge Labs data and Wikipedia's "annual CO2 change" scatter-plot graph at right.  Carbon dioxide 

THE DATA SOURCE: "Q. In terms of mass, how much carbon does 1 part per million by volume of atmospheric CO₂ represent?   A. Using 5.137 x 10¹⁸ kg as the mass of the atmosphere (Trenberth, 1981 JGR 86:5238-46), 1 ppmv of CO₂= 2.13 Giga tons [billion tons] of carbon." ( http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html  Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Labs.)

THE CHECK: A typical year is about 2 ppm.  2 x 2.13 billion [giga] tons carbon = 4.26 billion tons carbon per year.  Converting 4.26 billion tons of carbon to carbon dioxide: 4.26 x 44/12 = 15.7 billion tons CO2. --- Jim Holm, August 11, 2008

15.7 (cross-check number) vs. 16.3 (graph's number, above) --  When you arrive at the same answer by two completely different methods never using the same data twice - it's an answer well worth considering.

There is an excellent chance these simple calculations identify mankind's best, and perhaps only, opportunity to actually halt the gathering storm of Climate Change.

Extracting and converting NOAA's scientifically more correct "Grams Carbon" into "CO2 Grams."

BACKGROUND: The United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  [ http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ ] has been keeping track of the world's atmospheric CO2 levels at their Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since 1958.  (The thinking is that the middle of the Pacific gives a good world average.  I wonder about the influence of India and China.)  There have been sporadic measurements since the 1800s combined with recent ice core and other archeological measurements to provide historical perspective  .

[ Note: Since we are talking about atmospheric CO2, produced largely by combustion, NOAA makes it confusing when they publish their data in mole fraction carbon instead of CO2.  This is NOAA's explanation:  http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/glossary.html#gl_molefrac   This is not a trivial complaint since the IPCC publishes in Mtyr, or "millions of Metric tonnes of CO2 per year" ("long tonnes"). 

To keep things simple, I'll convert everything to "billions of U.S. (short) tons of CO2 per year."  (A Metric Tonne = 1,000 kilograms or 2,200 U.S. pounds.  A standard U.S. ton is called a "short ton" and equals 2,000 pounds.)  I have the legal right to do this since I went to school before the United States went on any metric binges. ]

(1) NOAA: The world's total accumulating Global Warming CO2 emissions

The balance sheet "educational cartoon" at the right is copied from the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) "Carbon Tracker" web site and shows the approximate situation for atmospheric carbon (not CO2) in units of 10¹⁵ grams of carbon per year.  It illustrates an excess of about 4.4 billion tons of additional carbon accumulating in the atmosphere every year. 

To convert carbon grams to CO2 grams multiply by 3.7. (The atomic weight of carbon is 12, oxygen is 16, so CO2 is 12 + 16 + 16 = 44.  This makes CO2 44/12 or 3.7 times as heavy as a lone carbon.)  In this case, the table is saying about 16 billion tons of additional CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere every year.  December, 2007, table.  For current accurate data see: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/carbontracker/overview.html 

Note that NOAA's atmospheric CO2 account is in GRAMS of CARBON, not CO2, so multiply by 44/12 or 3.7 to get the equivalent CO2 weight.  

Also, 1x10¹⁵ Grams Carbon = About 1.1 billion tons C or 4.07 billion tons CO2

A second source, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), says an excess of 3.2 billion metric tons or 3.5 billion short (U.S.) tons.  It is less clear that they are talking about just the carbon component that is accumulating each year (it's above their figure 2 on their web page):  http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

CONVERTING NOAA's confusing   10¹⁵ GRAMS of CARBON   to   BILLION TONS of CO2:   (The promised carbon-to-CO2 conversions)

Biosphere (Land Plants):       -2*3.7*1.1 Billion tons = 8.2 billion tons of CO2 Removed from Atmosphere every year

Oceans:                                -3*3.7*1.1 Billion tons = 12.2 billion tons of CO2 Removed from Atmosphere every year

                                                                        Total: = 20.4 billion tons of CO2 Removed from Atmosphere every year

Fossil Fuel Burning:              8*3.7*1.1 Billion tons = 32.6 billion tons of CO2 Added to Atmosphere every year

Deforestation:                        1*3.7*1.1 Billion tons = 4.1  billion tons of CO2 Added to Atmosphere every year

                                                                         Total: = 36.7 billion tons of CO2 Added to Atmosphere every year

  Net CO2 Total:   36.7 billion tons - 20.4 billion tons = 16.3 billion tons of additional CO2 accumulating in the world's atmosphere every year.

(2) CARMA: 141,000 Power Plant Units Producing Most of Planet Earth's Accumulating CO₂. 

There are 141,000 power plant generating units in the world.  Some are small Chinese diesel units for isolated villages.  Perhaps 60,000 have boilers, and as such, are candidates for conversion to Coal Yard Nukes even if they happen to run on natural gas or oil instead of coal.  The bigger they are, the more likely they are candidates.  The IPCC has identified the 5,000 worst offenders and they are all in the 'convertible' category.

Note Well: Natural gas produces 2/3 as much CO2 per kWh as coal, oil as much CO2 as coal, so don't regard either natural gas or oil power plants as being anything close to "naturally clean." Data Source:  http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/co2emiss00.pdf  The DOE-EIA web page (Table 4) saying 1.3 pounds of CO2 per kiloWatt hour (kWh) is made by natural gas-burning power plants.  Coal makes about 2.0 pounds of CO2 per kWh.

     Data from CARMA ( www.CARMA.org )

CARMA stated in December, 2007, that world annual electricity consumption was 16.76*10¹⁵ Watt hours causing 11.0 billion tons of CO2 to be produced. 

CARMA is the current source of my data for CO2 from power plants.  I'm confident the data they have gathered is of the same quality as NOAA. 

CARMA states some emission numbers might reflect data as old as the year 2000 and that there may be some missing data. 

Like the power plant CO2 data I developed in the past for this web site and have now removed from use, CARMA's data probably understates today's CO2 emission levels by some small amount.

CARMA makes some thoughtful projections for future electricity growth that, from a CO2 standpoint, can only be viewed with grave concern.  Please visit their web site.

Chapter One, Part Three: Electricity is the big one.  Transportation is only 20% of the entire CO2 problem.

The tragedy is that you don't need to make CO2 to make electricity.
A second tragedy in the making is trying to replace coal-burning power plants with windmills.

The United States' big electricity picture.

Coal @ 2 lbs of CO2 per kWh and natural gas @ 1.3 lbs of CO2 per kWh comprise the vast majority of the energy that's making both our electricity and Global Warming.

U.S. Coal + Oil produce about 2 billion tons of CO2, the gasses about 1.2 billion tons of CO2 for a total of about 3.2 billion of the world's 11 billion tons of CO2 produced each year just by making electricity. 

As you can see, the United States, with 3 % of the world's population, clearly does produce about 25% of the world's Global Warming.  Does that mean we have a moral obligation to clean up more than our fair share?  No.  But since we already have the necessary TRISO nuclear technology developed, we certainly should be able to build ONE SINGLE DEMONSTRATION conversion facility to show the world (including ourselves) how quickly and inexpensively Global Warming can be stopped.

The wind people are overblown.  They aren't even making as much electricity as carbon-neutral wood, an energy source no one has put much effort into.  This gives us a powerful clue at how effective biofuels like algae could be.  In fact, in the context of the "Big Energy Picture," wind and solar will never help much.