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Project Merlin: A 3 to 5 Year Plan

Project Merlin Index:
Project Merlin
Project Merlin Execution
Taking advantage of the lessons learned in the computer world.   ---   How to drive quality up while driving cost down.
Mass producing pebble bed reactors for the world's power plants.   ---   Think assembly line 'Coal Yard Nukes' from perhaps 6 different countries.
Mass producing pebbles and prisms.   ---   Pebbles are silicon, so think high-tech brick factories, located in perhaps 20 different countries.
HTR-10 - Mass producing the pebble bed reactor builders and operators.   ---   China's Tsinghua University's teaching reactor is in operation.
E Bonds to Pay For Coal Yard Nukes   ---   Unlike World War II "E" bonds, this time the "E" will stand for "Environment"
Three other ways we can eliminate substantial amounts of CO2   ---   We can knock another 20% off our CO2 production by changes in other areas.

Project Merlin:* A 3 to 5 Year Plan

"We've done it before and we can do it again."

*Suggested initial planning phase codename.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY:

To make enough reactors quickly enough, PBMR would have to license their reactor to be built simultaneously in as many as 8 different countries.  This system worked well during during World War II where, for example, excellent British designs were built in huge volume in American plants.  Times have changed and globalization of heavy industry has made this an even better idea.

Example: The impressive British Rolls-Royce "Merlin" aircraft engine was also built by the Packard Motor Company in the United States.  With the greater availability of the Merlin engine, the American P-51 Mustang, a remarkable airframe but hampered by it's General Motors-built Allison V-1710 engine, was re-engined with the Merlin engine to produce what many consider the best overall piston-engine fighter airplane ever built.  And, in just several years, the Americans built more than a total of 15,000 Mustangs in several different factories around the United States.

Overall, 168,000 Merlin engines were built in 5 different factories with the most, over 55,000, coming from Packard.  4 Merlin engines powered the huge British "Lancaster"  heavy bomber, 2 powered the amazing British "Mosquito," and, of course, it was the engine used from the very start in both of the also-famous British single-engined "Spitfire" and "Hurricane"  fighters.

The Merlin name came from the bird (a small falcon) rather than King Arthur's legendary magician.

As it was in the decade before World War II, the world is again in a period of disbelief as we watch and ponder the slowly gathering storm of climate change.

I see the PBMR reactor as the "Merlin engine" that will provide the CO2-free power we absolutely must have to win the war on Global Warming.

Project Merlin Execution

Initially, there should be a conference of all the world's high temperature, gas-cooled reactor experts followed by a conference of potentially impacted power producers.  Identification of potential project participants.

This plan picks up at the point where the decision has been made to upgrade existing coal burning power plants to Coal Yard Nukes and to build additional power plants using the "Hybrid" idea.

PROJECT SCOPE:

The world's installed generation capacity in 2005 was 3,900 gigaWatts, or 3,900,000 megaWatts.  To replace that much electricity using 1 megaWatt wind turbines and being mindful they only average 1/3 their rated power, we would need 11.7 million wind turbines.  To get the job done in 10 years, we would have to install about 3,200 wind turbines every day of those ten years.  This illustrates the blind alley the wind people are driving us into with their overblown promises.

Turnabout is fair play.  At best, a single PBMR pebble bed can produce 180 megaWatts of electricity.  An astute reader pointed out that it would take 21,700 PBMR reactors to replace that 3,900,000 megaWatts of electricity.  That comes out to 6 reactors a day for 10 years.  That's why it's so important to go after the 5,000 biggest ones first.  Say the 5,000 worst account for 1/3 or 1,300,000 megaWatts, which would consume the output of 7,300 PBMR reactors or a world-wide build of 2 a day for 10 years.  Right now, the Chinese alone are completing one coal plant every week.  And their sky is much the worse for it.

That brings up another issue.  How many power plant generation units has the world built per day since the end of WWII?  It's been 63 years or about 23,000 days since V-J day when WWII ended.  Let's say all power plants were built since then.  A 63 year old plant would be completely worn out.  We know there are 141,000 generating units in operation now.  So, 141,000 units / 23,000 days = 6.2 units / day for 63 years.  Does this give you any clue as to how big the CO2 problem really is? 

Worldwide, electrical generation and distribution systems represent the largest industrial capital investment.  These figures clearly illustrate why the world won't throw away that much money in electricity generation equipment just for clean air.  Not only must we move away from coal as quickly as possible, we must do it as frugally as possible.  Al Gore's dream doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell if he doesn't push real hard for COAL YARD NUKES.

The only POSSIBLE way to end this 11 billion tons a year of power plant CO2 is to convert coal plants to nuclear.  We simply can't build our way out in time.  Again, the Master Key is to convert those 5,000 biggest polluters first.

The materials constraint is graphite.  Graphite is used in large quantities in both in the reactor body and in the fuel itself.  Again, fortunately, graphite is a form of carbon and can be readily manufactured from common coal.  Depending upon its trace chemistry, graphite can modify free neutron behavior in a variety of ways.  Graphite is not flammable but materials associated with it, such as binders, may be. 

A PBMR takes over 1,000 tons of both nuclear and non-nuclear graphite.  The world produced 1.1 million tons of natural and 0.16 million tons of synthetic graphite in 2006.  Additional graphite can be made from coal at added cost.  This means the world has sufficient mineral, industrial, and construction resources to make, install, and fuel at least 1,260 PBMR reactors every year if all graphite was devoted to the task and supply remained constant.  That's about 3 PBMR reactors and fuel a day.  I do not know how much graphite could be mined if the graphite market was like the oil market.  Perhaps 3 times as much, with half being synthetic from coal.  Again, this reminds us just how big the job of CO2 fighting is.

CONSTRUCTION PROJECT SCHEDULE: (An Outline Under Construction itself)

Safety trumps everything else.

In times of dire emergency, time is no longer on your side.  You have to "Go with what you got."  We cannot wait another decade while the Generation-IV pebble bed is perfected and tested.  Job 1: Accept the PBMR reactor and PBMR pebble as the only standard high-temperature conversion reactor for the first 1,000 installed units.  Accept that whatever it is, it is "good enough" for emergency CO2 mitigation work.

First Conversions: Under IPCC authority and using South African-built reactors from inventory, build 8 demonstration conversion facilities (on existing old 50 to 100 MWe generating units) in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, China, Japan, India, Russia and Brazil so local engineers and contractors can see the Coal Yard Nuke power plant modification in the context of their local equipment and construction methods.  This will also give them insight on how they can build additional new very low cost 'Hybrid' nuclear power plants out of locally available equipment using local construction methods.

Concurrent with "First Conversions," Main body of world-wide conversion work:

First 180 Days: Secure 8 different reactor builders in the 8 different countries.  They would have overall responsibility for their products and to subcontract heat exchangers designed to the specific needs of customers using their reactors.  Since several billion pebbles will be needed every year, as many as 20 different countries will need to build pebble manufacturing facilities.

Second 180 Days: Build tooling and production facilities for building reactors, heat exchangers, and pebbles.  Begin engineering on specific conversion projects.

Third 180 Days: Build initial reactors, heat exchangers, and pebbles.  Break ground on at least 16 full-size pilot conversion projects in the 8 different "home" countries.

Fourth 180 Days: Install and test equipment at 16 full-size pilot conversions projects.  Energize.

Fifth 180 Days: tbd

Sixth 180 Days: tbd

Seventh 180 Days: tbd

Eighth 180 Days: tbd

Ninth 180 Days: tbd

Tenth 180 Days: tbd

Taking advantage of the lessons learned in the computer world.   

Standardized devices does not mean identical devices.  Like railroad cars, they only need to be identical where they connect.  Leaving the space in between "malleable" provides space for improvements in safety, cost, performance, capacity, or anything else that may be deemed now or later to be desirable.  Freedom like this always ignites furious competition among us technical geeks.  It always turns out that super-standardization is super-stupid in the long run.

What does this mean for us?  Standardize external dimensions - where things touch and connect to other things.  The external size of pebbles.  Where the pebble bed reactor connects to its steam generator (for a hybrid power plant) or supercritical water heater (for a Coal Yard Nuke).  These are some of the important interfacing points.

The steam generator sizes, temperatures, and turbine steam line connections will have to accommodate whatever temperature, layout, and line sizes the original plant presents.  This would be something like your home getting a new furnace.  Always some "file and fit" work needed here.

Mass producing pebble bed reactors for the world's power plants.  

Any country that can make a superheated steam boiler that will last several years before burning out can make acceptable pebble bed reactors.

Production lines provide substantial quality and cost benefits.  That's good because over 25,000 will be needed.

Conventional nuclear reactors require some of the world's largest castings and forgings.  Only a few countries can make them.  It's questionable if the United States has the industrial might to do this kind of very heavy work anymore.  China, Japan, Korea, Russia, perhaps Holland and Germany come to mind.

 Pebble nuclear could be considered 'light' nuclear.

(Right) Example of a highly government-regulated, physically large, multi-million dollar product being made at the rate of one a day.

Almost as simple as a farm silo and of modular design to facilitate mass production, Pebble bed reactors are 20 feet in diameter tubes, about 90 feet tall, are made of thick, radiation-proof, high temperature sheet metal, capable of running at very high temperatures like a boiler, are installed in hermetically sealed, very heavily steel bar reinforced underground concrete silos.

Some of the wind is at our backs.  Since these reactors are limited-life and built as a stop-gap solution to an emergency, we can sacrifice a lot of thermal efficiency for simplicity and reliability.  A really good precedent for a generic Coal Yard Nuke reactor was the World War II liberty ship.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship   Read the story, it's inspiring and reminds us of a day when the citizens of the United States were not afraid of their own government and the government wasn't afraid of it's citizens.

There is no steam in the reactor to explode so the traditional concrete and steel steam explosion containment vessels needed by conventional reactors are unnecessary, with reinforced concrete silos with bolted tops being used for reactor containment instead, thereby providing a huge saving in both cost and construction time. 

The competition arising from simultaneous mass production of standardized pebble bed reactors in as many as 8 different countries will bring about an amazing drop in both the reactor's fabrication complexity and cost while creating "build quality" competition.  Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Brazil, Holland, Russia, South Africa, or China are possible early manufacturers. 

Countries with High Temperature Gas Reactor programs (Doppler Broadening reactors) include China (Pebble Bed), Japan (Prismatic), South Africa (Pebble Bed), Russia (Prismatic), Netherlands (Pebble Bed), Germany (Pebble Bed, inactive), U.S. MIT (Pebble Bed) & General Atomics (Prismatic), Great Britain (Magnox, old), North Korea (Magnox), India (Thorium CHTR).

http://www.indian-nuclear-society.org.in/conf/2005/pdf_3/topic_03/T3_CP3_Dulera_Paper1.pdf  Indian Compact High Temperature Reactor Paper

Mass producing pebbles and prisms.

TRISO Pebbles are being produced at the present time ONLY at a pilot plant near Pelindaba, South Africa.  At one time it was suggested that four full pebble plants be built in various parts of South Africa to assure the world a steady supply of pebbles.  The pebbles South Africans are currently making were actually developed by the Germans for a reactor they shut down about 20 years ago.  The German pebble is considered the best spherical design.  South Africa, rich in uranium, have licensed the pebble and its manufacturing technology from the Germans.

Also, not to forget the pebble's sibling, the General Atomics prism-shaped Doppler-Broadening fuel element.  General Atomics is partnering with Russians in the manufacture of prisms so that means a second path to self-controlled nuclear fuel exists and we may have technology, quality, and cost choices.  General Atomics and Babcock and Wilcox are U.S. companies with TRISO Pebble manufacturing experience in the distant past.

The United States produced the very first pebbles, and many others are thought to have produced at least small quantities of Doppler Broadening fuel elements for laboratory investigation.  The technology is not extremely high, is largely ceramic, and has been around for a long time.  However, like conventional nuclear fuel rod manufacture, a pebble's radioactivity demands isolation from human operators so automated production with extremely consistent quality is where the high technology aspect will come into play.

To meet the pebble/prism demands of a three-year emergency program for the "Coal Yard Nuking" conversion of all the world's coal-burning power plants, pebble/prism manufacturing plants will have to be set up in many of the 20 uranium or thorium-rich countries currently mining, processing and selling uranium or thorium ore on the world market at the same time as the mass production of the reactor-boiler modules is begun in perhaps 8 different countries.  Eventually, there would be a big enough stockpile of all kinds of spent fuel pebbles to justify adding recycling facilities to the pebble plants.

TRISO Pebbles are a very versatile fuel form and, in addition to the "classic" Uranium, both pebbles and prisms could take advantage of MOX and Thorium blends, along with various long burn breeding blends, some of which would be designed to produce as high as several hundred thousand mega-watt days (mWd) per ton output, as compared with the typical 40 to 80 thousand mWd delivered by our generation II reactors.  There's a great deal of variety out there to fuel a very competitive new energy market.

Since nuclear fuel pebbles/prisms are small, many different uranium and thorium producing countries could be competing fuel vendors because the transportation costs of nuclear fuel, one three-millionth as heavy for the same energy as coal, would be negligible.  One ton of uranium currently provides almost 100 thousand MegaWatt-Days of electricity per 1/15 recycling in a 33% efficient conventional reactor and an average freighter can carry 30 to 40 thousand tons.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_ship

Mass producing the pebble bed reactor builders and operators.

(Below) The HTR-10 Pebble Bed Building at China's Tsinghua University              

We could have converted all our coal-burning power plants to pebble beds in the same time as we've been in Iraq.  The war in Iraq has dragged on longer than United States' participation in World War II.  During the time WWII took, the United States alone built 3,200,000 (that's three million, two hundred thousand, folks!) military vehicles - from Jeeps to tanks to 80 aircraft carriers and thousands of support vessels along with training over 5 million fighting men.  That's a hell of a lot of steel and muscle.  Realize also the Russians, Brits, Japanese and Germans combined more than matched us.  Don't ever try to tell anyone who knows a little WWII history that the entire world combined can't build, make pebbles, and train operators, for perhaps 20,000 pebble bed reactors worldwide in the same time period.  Don't forget we did the entire Manhattan Project in less than 5 years.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

Today, most reactor operators are trained like airplane pilots on reactor-simulating computers that duplicate the actual reactor control room computers.  There are perhaps six things a conventional PWR reactor operator needs to keep in mind when operating a reactor in "cruise" mode.  I haven't the foggiest notion of what, if anything, is needed to "cruise" a pebble bed.  Simulators have proven to be an effective way to train airplane pilots since before WWII.  Almost every country has at least a national airline, so almost every country knows how to make this type of training happen quickly.

For example:  http://www.microsimtech.com/  PC-based Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (and others) Nuclear Power Plant Simulator for Microsoft Windows XP.  You can download a demo from this web site and take a test drive of your favorite type of reactor.  Available: PCTRAN Personal Computer Transient Analyzer - ABWR Advanced Boiling Water Reactor - ARS Advanced Reactor Simulators  - SFP Spent Fuel Pool Accident Simulator - AP1000 Westinghouse AP1000 PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) - Areva EPR Generation III-Plus PWR EPR - TRIGA Experimental Pool Reactor Simulator

Also:

http://www.ae4rv.com/store/nuke_pc.htm  Nuclear Power Plant Simulator for Windows PCs - Vista compatible, Pocket PC version available.  $9.95, Download Free Demo.

"E" Bonds to Pay For Coal Yard Nukes?

To pay for the power plant conversions, we could be urged again to buy "E" Bonds - this time the "E" would stand for Environment.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bond

Three other ways we can eliminate substantial amounts of CO2:

Our buildings: Half the energy used by the average building is for heating or cooling.  Where fossil fuels are now being used, convert residential, commercial, and industrial heating to electrical heating to further reduce CO2 emissions from (typically high-sulfur) heating oil, gas and coal.  Residential gas or oil furnaces would need to have their burner module replaced with an inexpensive electrical module, much like we did when we converted from residential coal to gas or oil right after WWII.   Residential electric heat, heat pumps, and air conditioning are electrical already so no change would be needed there.

Our vehicles: Using only nuclear heat, produce only synthetic CO2-neutral gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel made by using CARBON-NEUTRAL crude oil manufactured from algae or its much less practical equivalent, the "Air + Water + Energy = Oil" technology.  Our 3-way catalytic converter equipped cars are good to go as they are by just using the new gasoline*.

Our ships: The world's 30,000 large ocean-going ships burn about 5 million barrels of oil every day - 1/4 of U.S. daily consumption.  An ocean-going ship has about a 30-year life.  We would burn only synthetic CO2-neutral diesel in existing ships and equip all new ships with only nuclear engines. http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2025725,00.html  CO2 output from shipping is twice as much as airlines · Maritime emissions not covered by Kyoto accord · Studies suggest 75% rise in 15 years as trade grows
 

* All countries would have to build their automobiles to California's current "Partial-Zero Emission" standards to take full advantage of CO2-neutral gasoline.  Partial-Zero Emission cars are already available.  Most U.S. and foreign manufacturers have several models of this automobile type in their product line already for selling in California.  I drove a "Partial-Zero Emission" Camry in California's coastal mountains for a week - ran great, very good mileage.

It's really possible.   France closed its last coal mine in April, 2004.

(End Of "Project Merlin" Page