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Section 2:
Replacing COAL heat with NUCLEAR heat.
Fixing a few supersized coal burning power plants, below, will end more Global Warming than all other means combined.

SUPERSIZED COAL BURNING Power Plant        About this idea         Nuclear Boiler Module
 

Replacing "Big" COAL.   30% of all Global Warming. 
 
Global Warming break:  Out of 60,000 power plants, the world's 1,200 largest make 30% of all Global Warming.

The "Coal Yard Nuke" story:
    1  The Supersized Power Plants    Page 1:  A break. The discovery that only 2% (1,200) of the world's 60,000 power plants make 30% of all Global Warming.

     2  The Nuclear Boiler                    Page 2:  It's Sputnik déjà vu again.  A little-known Russian reactor is an excellent candidate for repowering large coal plants.
    3  Coal Boiler Conversion Module   Page 3:  The Coal Yard Nuclear Boiler Module.  A mass-produced, floatable, unattended, disposable nuclear boiler module.
          
    4  Coal Yard Nuke Installations      Page 4:  Set it and forget it.  To end Global Warming we need to produce the same result in 67 different unprepared countries.
           
    5  Practical example: Taichung      Page 5:  Fixing the worst first.  Repowering the Taichung coal burning power plant, the world's largest CO2 producer.

Replacing "Small" COAL.   Another 7% of all Global Warming.

The world's 4,000 next largest coal burning power plants make 7% of all Global Warming.

     6  Save Our Old Coal Plant Sites    4 ways to convert small local power plants from coal to nuclear to save money, end another 7% of all Global Warming CO2.

    7  Clean Coal, Grids, Efficiency      1. "Clean Coal Tech."  7,  W = I2R  The grid's Achilles' Heel: Ohm's law.  8.  Ultra-energy efficiency: Starving ourselves strong.


Overview of this section

1 to 5. Replacing "Big Coal."  We went over the Global Warming cliff of 350 ppm CO2 in the 1980s - about the same moment we stopped building nuclear power plants and resumed building coal burning power plants.  Today, most Global Warming is caused by a few extremely large coal burning power plants. 

A power plant size war, driven by economics, had broken out between the makers of nuclear and coal power plants during the 1970s.  When the world was persuaded in the 1980s to return to coal and give up on nuclear, new coal burning power plants were being offered that were much larger than they were just a decade earlier.  Coal burning power plants had been "Supersized."  Utilities all over the world had been planning on building large nuclear power plants, so the regression to supersized coal burning happened in a flash.

The idea of fixing only the Supersized coal burning power plants got its start when the author analyzed CARMA's power plant pollution database.  The Results: of the world's 60,000 power plants, there are only 1,200 supersized power plants - just 2% of all power plants - and they are making 30% of all the world's CO2 pollution.

The world's 50 largest supersized power plants make almost 10% of coal's Global Warming CO2. 

Since the average supersized coal power plant produces 16 times the CO2 produced by older coal burning power plants, fixing relatively few supersized coal power plants (see image above) would bring about a far greater reduction of CO2 than fixing a much larger number of older coal burning power plants.

Nothing new needs to be invented, developed, or perfected.  In an incredible stroke of luck, a little known nuclear boiler well suited to replace coal boilers is commercially available from the Russians now.  Based on a "next-generation" fast-neutron reactor that duplicates a coal burning boiler, these are well-proven nuclear boilers and have run without major incident since 1973.  The Russians are currently building another one for themselves next door to one that has been running since 1980, and have just sold two more to the Chinese. 

67 different countries have supersized coal power plants.  Most countries are not nuclear-ready so the nuclear boilers will have to be as automatic as the hot water heater in your garage or basement.  This will be far easier to do with the next-generation fast-neutron reactors.  They can run flat-out for over 20 years between refuelings.  Automated manufacturing facilities to mass produce these nuclear boilers by the hundreds already exist - they are the world's eight nuclear-ship capable shipyards.  All that remains to be done is to do it.

The author, a professional engineer, KNOWS the nuclear boiler conversion concept will work well and can end more Global Warming than all other measures combined, so it is the star of this web site. 

 

6. Replacing "Small Coal" is about adding new, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) or just converting their coal boilers to nuclear the 1,000 or so existing small coal burning power plant sites scattered about the United States.  There are another 3,000 or so sites worldwide. Every one of these sites, with their cooling water, grid connections, roads and railroads, and, most importantly, hundreds of skilled employees, are among the world's most important energy assets. 

7. Clean Coal, Grids, Efficiency explains Clean Coal Technologies, the forgotten reason we don't want large, complex electrical grids, and the rapidly diminishing returns from excessive energy efficiency.

 

Utilities Build More "Old-Style" Coal Plants Despite Concerns.
The AP (8/18) reports utilities across the US "are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come." According to "US Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups...more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction." The AP notes that "the construction wave...comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and social costs of fossil fuels, demonstrated by tragic mine disasters in West Virginia, the Gulf oil spill and wars in the Middle East." The construction of coal plants also "represents an acknowledgment that highly touted 'clean coal' technology is still a long ways from becoming a reality." It also "underscores a renewed confidence among utilities that proposals to regulate carbon emissions will fail."