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The Energy Spectator
Coal Is the Future?
The latest in '70s wisdom from the Atlantic’s James Fallows.
Three weeks ago I wrote about the Weekly Standard’spublication of an Amory Lovins anti-nuclear tract represented a low point in lack of understanding about nuclear power.
That record didn’t stand for long. This month the Atlantic Monthly has topped everything with a cover story by senior editor James Fallows, “Dirty Coal, Clean Future.” This will probably stand as an all-time monument to the American intelligentsia’s lack of curiosity about nuclear energy.
Fallows, you may remember, started in the 1970s as a Naderite before becoming President Jimmy Carter’s principal speechwriter. Then blazing a trail that has become well worn, he jumped ship and wrote an exposé of Carter’s ineptness. (It was he who confirmed that Carter spent time scheduling the White House tennis court.) In any event, Fallows landed on his feet, becoming a senior editor at the Atlantic where he has reinvented himself as an expert on computers, China’s economic development, and flying his own airplane.
In all these years, however, Fallows has never quite lost his 1970s mentality. Nor has he shed an annoying Thomas-Friedmanesque habit of making points by dropping the name of the latest high government official with whom he chatted. (Unlike Friedman, he does spare us the details of what they were eating.) Without these inflections, he probably never could have written the 8,000-word tome in which he tells us, “Sorry, folks, wind and solar energy are never going to make it. We’re just going to have to live with ‘clean coal’”:
To environmentalists “clean coal” is an insulting oxymoron.… But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal — dirty, sooty, toxic coal — in more sustainable ways… because there is no plausible other way to meet what will be, absent an economic and social cataclysm, the world’s unavailable energy demands.
Is nuclear energy anywhere in sight? Fallows does mention it four times, always in passing. The longest reference notes that France has “much heavier reliance on nuclear power to generate electricity. Nuclear plants are expensive and obviously create waste-disposal problems, but they emit practically no greenhouse gases.” This, however, appears in parentheses and stands aside from the main argument. Fallows has not the slightest curiosity or information about how nuclear power is developing in the world, or what it is even about.
Instead, Fallows is telling his equally uninformed audience in the gentlest or manners that their dreams of a solar and wind utopia are all forlorn. Quoting Robert Bryce’s Power Hungry,he notes that, despite all the subsidies and mandates we have pumped into wind and solar construction, “the absolute increase in total electricity produced by coal [between 1995 and 2008] was about 5.8 times as great as the increase in wind and 823 times as great as the increase from solar.” Even if wind and solar “doubles or triples, the solutions we often hear the most about won’t come close to meeting total demand.” Thus, coal is the future.
Even that is not really true. Without nuclear, we are likely to go instead with natural gas. Drawing on recent discoveries in shale formations, utilities have been building gas plants as the course of least resistance. All this leaves us tremendously vulnerable to rising gas prices, since the price of fuel makes up 90 percent of the cost of gas-produced electricity — as opposed to 25 percent in nuclear, where most of the expense is in construction. Utility executives regard these gas investments as extremely shortsighted, but what can you do? It’s the only thing government and environmentalists will allow. California, which is already ten years further down this road, gets 40 percent of its electricity from natural gas, twice the national average.
What defines Fallows’ argument, however, is his extraordinary lack of understanding of what nuclear is about. “[A]fter a century in which medial diagnosis and treatment, computer and communications systems, aerospace and nanotech industries, and nearly every other form of technology have routinely achieved the magical,” he writes, “energy production is essentially what it was in the time of James Watt. With the main exception of nuclear-power plants and the hope-for future exception of practical nuclear-fusion systems, we mostly create electricity by burning something that was once underground - coal, oil [or] natural gas.”
That’s like saying that, except for the invention of the gasoline engine, we essentially drive around the country in the same way we did in horse-and-buggy days.
Let’s talk a little science here. Burning coal or any kind of combustion for that matter means transforming infinitesimally small amount of matter into energy in the electrons that surround the nucleus of the atom. These transformations take place according to Einstein’s formula, E = mc2. But the electrons make up only 0.01 percent of the mass of the atom. The remaining 99.99 percent is in the nucleus. That means the energy we can draw out of the uranium nucleus is 2 million times as much as we can get from the same volume or weight of coal or any fossil fuel.
Here’s what that looks like in everyday life. A 1,000-megawatt coal plant is fed by a mile-long, 100-car “unit train” arriving at the plant every 30 hours. Coal now constitutes more than half the country’s railroad freight. On the other hand, refueling a 1,000-MW nuclear plant requires a fleet of six tractor-trailers arriving at the plant with a new load of fuel rods once every 18 months. Does that seem like an improvement over James Watt?
Fallows discovers this in China but doesn’t grasp the significance:
Another government energy expert in Beijing said that the only serious limit on how fast Chinese power companies can increase their use of coal is the capacity of the country’s transportation system.… “Right now railroads are at capacity, you have entire highways being blocked with coal trucks, and the problems cascade,” [he said.] Part of the reason China has committed some $80 billion over the next decade to build light-rail networks across the country is to get human passengers off the main rail lines, opening up more capacity to move coal.
In all these discussions with Chinese officials, however, Fallows somehow never manages to discover that the Chinese are also building 30 nuclear reactors — more than half the 55 under construction in the world. Among them are four Westinghouse AP1000s, a model for which our Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not yet managed to approve the design. China is building a whole “nuclear city” at Haiyan. It has reverse-engineered the AP1000s and developed a reactor of its own design. Within five years, China will probably join France, Russia, Japan and Korea in marketing reactors around the world. At that point, the worldwide Nuclear Renaissance will kick into high gear.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (67) | Leave a comment
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Shamus| 11.23.10 @ 6:21AM
Carter made it illegal to reprocess nuclear fuel. This created a disposal problem that remains unsolved. Japan and France get a significant portion of their energy from nuclear power and neither country has had any problems with their plants.
Kenny| 11.23.10 @ 6:50AM
1. Yes, Jimmy Fallows is a shameless name dropped. So addicted is he to this, that in his Atlantic article on clean coal, he cited the discredited Michael Mann multiple times -- Michael Mann of 'Hide the Decline' fame. In case you need a reminder on Mann, here's an oldie but goodie link to help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAlMomLvu_4
2. But at least Fallows recognizes that wind & solar are not meaningful sources for our energy needs or that of the world. That more than many, if not most, enviros know (or will admit to).
Stuart Koehl| 11.23.10 @ 7:18AM
While nuclear is no doubt the way to go for the United States and most of the developed world, there remains a substantial role for coal in meeting the world's energy needs, especially in the developing world, where (a) there is neither the money nor (b) the necessary technology base to sustain a nuclear power industry; and (c) the strategic situation makes it undesirable for us to allow them to get one. Coal technology is cheap, mature, easily mastered and strategically benign. As Bjorn Lomborg points out, the fastest way to reduce environmental degradation in the Third World is rapid electrification, which is the prerequisite for industrialization, clean water and modern services. Coal can do that for them; nuclear can't.
Don't make perfect the enemy of the good. There is room for both nuclear AND coal AND oil AND natural gas in the world's energy future. There may even be a place for otherwise uneconomical "renewables" such as wind and solar, but only on a small scale, in places where the creation of a conventional power grid is either economically or logistically impossible.
Stuart Koehl| 11.23.10 @ 7:19AM
By the way, Tucker:
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Dan Hirsch| 11.23.10 @ 8:52AM
Stuart,
How can you say "While nuclear is no doubt the way to go for the United States and most of the developed world..." in such an offhand manner?
You have used the rhetorician's trick of inserting an assertion in a dependent clause thus causing most people to overlook the its tentative nature and unwittingly accept it as true. This is a ploy commonly used by attorneys in questioning witnesses and advertisers in their marketing messages.
In presumably logical discourse, it is a less than honorable device. Especially when you later in the same post rely on the reader's consumption of the assertion to accept your other points.
Stuart, you are a very well informed, smart guy. I have said so before, but skip the sleights of hand. Plain facts will serve us all better. You have plain facts, just use them.
Shamus| 11.23.10 @ 10:53AM
Natural gas seems like the easiest way to supply energy. It requires much less investment up front than nuclear and might be tolerated by ecotards.
Patrick| 11.23.10 @ 12:51PM
Sorry to disappoint you, but nothing, absolutely nothing is tolerated by ecotards.
If mankind was tomorrow reduced to mud huts, hunting and gathering, they would still be shrieking about environmental impact.
In the end, liberalism has nothing to do with an issue, and everything to do with feeding and venting an inexhaustible supply of frustration and outrage.
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 6:33PM
That may be true, for us, but most countries don't HAVE sufficient stocks of natural gas in which to power their generators. As with coal, or oil, or any other "natural" sources in areas where those sources don't exist in relative abundance, they'll be subjected to the constant need to IMPORT natural gas. How would that be any "easier" or "better" than "traditional" sources?
It would be much better, more sensible, for US to help those other countries build and maintain nuclear power plants as the fuel source, uranium, while being relatively rare world wide, is so efficient that not much is needed to generate vast amounts of energy and could be easily, as compared to any other fuel source, transported, exported, to other "undeveloped" countries.
The same is true of nuclear "waste." While it is very dangerous, not that much is actually produce, in comparison to, say, coal ash, and it can be, safety and easily, transported and stored where appropriate.
No, nuclear is the future, for those who are able, or willing, to think the issue through carefully.
John DuBose| 11.26.10 @ 6:35PM
Tight shale gas reservoirs are all over the world.
There are however plenty of places where the political situation is so scarry that no company will risk its people and money to go get it. They rightly fear that the local government will just seize it.
Louis Jenkins| 11.23.10 @ 8:28AM
All this talk about World Energy make me nauseated. Let's address the needs of this country and forget about everything else. We haven't had a nuclear plant built since the 70s. We haven't had an oil refinery built since then either. What gives? Natural gas is the only electric plants getting built because it is plentiful. We need nuclear energy, and until the Greenies are run off from the District of Criminals we will continue to fall behind. These people are more than satisfied to see the USA lag, and the further behind we are, the better they like it. When Carter started the Dept. of Energy the whole problem began, and while their budget increases each year, there is no electrical energy. Even our infra-structure (powerlines, etc.) is lagging. The problem can be simplified-ditch the DOE (and eliminate or neuter the EPA).
Nobama| 11.24.10 @ 2:57AM
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, yet about this issue, there is reason to wonder. We have been forced into a dependent, neutered position by Eco cultists. When you recognize that these cults bear great resemblance to Marxist revolutionaries, and sometimes funded by interests outside our country, the possibility we're being set up is real and palpable. I say the GOP president in 2012 must declare a state of emergency on America's energy infrastructure. Special provisions via executive order or act of congress to set aside ALL enviro litigation while that infrastructure is restored should be one of the first orders of the day. The Abolition of any and all climate/eco funding is equally necessary. We're just feeding a 12 headed monster that seeks to destroy us.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 9:13AM
Cant anybody do long division anymore?
Look at this whopper:
"The energy we can draw out of the uranium nucleus is 2 million times as much as we can get from the same volume or weight of coal or any fossil fuel"
Huh? 2 million times as much? 2 million?
That figure is a bit high. By 8000 percent.
Take some 1000 megawatt power plants.
A coal plant uses 3 million tons of coal per year
A gas plant uses 1.3 million tons of gas per year
A nuclear plant uses about 130 tons.
The ratio is not 2 million.
It is 25 thousand for coal
It is 10 thousand for gas
Tim the Enchanter| 11.23.10 @ 11:23AM
Chris- thought someone would catch this- it's not exactly hyperbole, but it's close. I remember in one of my physics textbooks about proportional energy/force levels of the four known energy sources. The lowest was gravitational force. The second was the "weak force" that hold atoms and molecules together. The third was chemical- baselined at one, since chemical is the most common. Last (and greatest) was nuclear, which came in at 1000. (sorry, but I don't remember the first two; I do remember that they were numbers with very large (or small, depending on one's interpretation) negative exponents).
John Tjostem| 11.23.10 @ 12:30PM
Actually we need to build breeder reactors and close the fuel cycle. Then we can achieve the two to three million ratio for nuclear power as to soft coal on a weight basis. In our minds eyed, however, we picture quantity on a volume basis. Since nuclear fuel is 19 times heavier than coal, we must multiply the 2-3 million by 19, which gives us something in the order of 50 million times greater energy than contained in comparable pile of coal. Closed cycle breeders extract all the energy from the nuclear fuel and leaves only fissions products which have relatively short half-lives. Our current LWRs extract only 3% of the energy and leave the rest as long half-life waste. They are also expensive to build because the operate under very high pressure which mandates an expensive 1000 ton reaction vessel and the so-called billion dollar doom.
Russia has a successful breeder reactor, the BN 600 which has served for 30 years and has proven to be the most reliable reactor in their fleet. They have sold two updated BN 800s to China and they have one soon ready to go on line. Russia is working on the concept of placing reactors on off shore floating platforms. Maybe Russia and China will bring floating reactors to our coasts to market cheap power to our utilities. California might be looking for cheap power when natural gas prices go up. If we opt not to buy their power our exports will not be competitive. Russia has a 30 year head start on us with the BN600. I recall when Japan position off-shore plywood factories on ships along the Oregon coast and caused the closing of our plywood mills. Will it be dejavu.
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 6:40PM
You're confusing the difference between "can" and "do," what is possible and what is achivable.
Yes, we can extract 2 million times as much energy from a given amount of nuclear material as opposed to coal, but only in a "perfect" scenario. It doesn't mean that we DO extract that much energy.
Look at it this way: we, using current technology, are only able to extract a fraction of the potential energy that is available from coal, or gas, or oil. This is because there's no way we can make any system100 percent efficient. Not even STARS are 100 percent efficient. It's not how the universe works. Why should "nuclear power" be any different?
William Tucker| 11.23.10 @ 9:42PM
The energy release from splitting a carbon-hydrogen bond is 1 electron-volt. The release from splitting a uranium atom is 200 million eV. Since the uranium atom weights about 100 times as much as the hydrogen-carbon molecule, the general figure for energy per weight is usually given as 2 million. This of course is a theoretical figure. There are many other considerations. A uranium fuel pellet will not achieve nearly that level since it is only 3 percent fissionable U-235. The 25,000 figure Mr. Haynes gives for coal is probably accurate for present purposes. That's still a very big number. Also, as several readers have pointed out, there are advanced technologies such as the integral fast breeder that can come much closer to the theoretical limit.
PCP Smoker| 11.23.10 @ 9:38AM
Nuclear plants are desirable, but also come with problems, some integral ( waste, regulatory oversight, maintenance requirements) and some external (NIMBY syndrome, easily demagogued, etc.). When it comes to cost and reliability, coal is unbeatable.
The business of clean coal has been addressed with low sulfur coal, and can further be addressed via scrubbers and other cleaning devices.
We are the Saudia Arabia of coal, let's get it off the ground, to the plants and let's make energy cheap again.
Russell Seitz| 11.23.10 @ 10:20AM
Poor Chris Haynes has sportily hoisted himself on his own petard by eliding nuclear fuel inventory with burn rate-
only tens of kg of 235 per 100 tonnes get MC2'd annually
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 12:06PM
Well, neither Misseurs Tucker nor Haynes (yes, I like to write like the Wall Street Journal sometimes) has specifically stated whether they mean energy per mass of mined material or energy per mass of fuel at the plant.
I assume Mr. Tucker would be talking about at the plant, since he is mentioning the huge trains of coal cars arriving at the coal plant vs. the few semi's arriving at the nuke plant.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 11:05AM
Poor William Tucker.
He says we can draw out of the uranium nucleus is 2 million times as much as we can get from the same volume or weight of coal.
But there is no method for converting the nucleus into energy. The best you can do is fission. In Fission, you end up with the same number of protrons and neutrons. Only a smidgeon of the mass gets converted to energy. You get 25 thousand times, not 2 million.
John Tjostem| 11.23.10 @ 4:14PM
Chris Haynes,
Your point is correct for our current generation light water reactors (LWRs). They utilize only 3% of the nuclear energy stored in the uranium fuel. However Mr. Tucker is correct in his statement that uranium fuel contains 2 million times as much energy as stored in a similar weight of coal. In fact he is a bit conservative. Hard coal or anthracite has a higher energy density than soft coal. For soft coal the ratio is closer to 3 million to 1. You equate volume and weight. That does not work because uranium is 19 times more dense than coal so the 2 million must be multiplied by 19 or 38 million times more energy on a volume basis. Nuclear fuel energy density is 50 million times that of coal on a volume basis.
This example may help us conceptualize the tiny amount of nuclear fuel needed to run a 1 GW reactor for a year. The energy density of nuclear fuel (uranium or thorium) is 2 to 3 million times that of coal on a weight basis. Uranium or thorium is 19 times heavier than coal, so when compared on a volume basis we must multiply the 2 to 3 million times 19, which gives us about 50 million times more energy than coal.
One ton of coal fills my pickup bed to a depth of one foot. That coal fed into a coal fired power plant will generate about 2400 kWh which is the amount of electricity used in two months in the average American home. One ton of uranium or thorium loaded into a breeder reactor that burns up 100% of the nuclear fuel will last for one year producing 8 billion kWh. Since nuclear fuel is 19 times heavier than coal, my pickup box filled to a depth of one foot would contain 19 tons, enough nuclear fuel to keep a 1 GW reactor running for 19 years. Or stated another way a year’s supply of fuel would occupy only 2 cubic feet of space and the resulting fission products would also be contained in a 2 cubic foot space. After storage for 10 years 83% of the fission products contents will have decayed to stable elements. The remaining 17%, about a third of a cubic foot, will be radioactive for 300 years. It is a question about calling this material radioactive waste, as these radioactive fission products have great value in medicine for treatment of cancers.
Tim th Enchanter| 11.23.10 @ 11:18AM
Can someone PLEASE answer this question: WHY should a small bunch of smelly, tree-hugging hippies be allowed to hold the energy policy of an ENTIRE nation hostage?
John Tjostem| 11.23.10 @ 5:03PM
They get support from big oil, gas, and coal. Exon had a gross income in2009 of nearly 40 billion/month. The largest holder of nuclear power plants has total capitalization of less than 30 billion. It is easy for the big folks to fund advertising and lobbyists to influence policy. Natural gas has recently been advertised heavily on the media. This campaign is bringing utilities into natural gas electricity generation hand over fist. Many fear that this fossil fuel monopoly will make exorbitant electric rate hikes. We have a surplus of generating capacity at present. This is effective in keeping new nuclear out of the mix. We need get more R &D funding into our DOE budget for low cost emission free energy.
It appears that the transition from fossil fuel to a replacement fuel cannot occur fast enough to prevent some continued drop in our standard of living. This lower living standard can be minimized if government makes a major investment in R&D to develop the most economically viable replacement energy sources. The American Energy Innovation Council, the AEIC, calls for a national energy policy that would increase U.S. investment in energy research every year from $5 billion to $16 billion. Bill Gates, a member of the AEIC, said that he was stunned that the DOE budget for R&D was only $5 billion; by comparison the National Institutes of Health invests a bit more than $30 billion.
It would be good if an equivalent amount of kWh from dirty coal were taken out each time that emission free generation enters the grid. We have to remember that fossil fuels are finite and the external costs in increases in health care and lives lost is large. Nuclear power has extremely low external costs. Nuclear waste is contained and will provide energy for next generation reactors.
owyheewine| 11.23.10 @ 11:25AM
Mr Tucker is normally right on in his arguments favoring nuclear energy, and I agree with the need to get busy building nuclear plants. He does need to go back to his science books and study a little thermodynamics however. Burning fossil fuel does not convert mass to energy. Energy from combustion is chemical, not nuclear. Stored chemical energy (from millenia old plant life) is released by oxidizing carbon and hydrogen to CO2 and water. Getting thinking about nuclear energy right is hard enough without using unsound scientific arguments. That's a tactic best left to anti energy zealots.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 11:54AM
Sorry, owyheewine, I missed your comment before I wrote mine.
I definitely don't think Mr. Tucker meant to spread any BS here, but, dang, all you've got to do is ask for a little check help (no, not from another journalist; he's gonna have the same zero-level science/math background as the rest).
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 7:03PM
Actually, a small portion of the mass IS converted into energy during a "chemical" reaction.
Even in "molecular" events like a chemical reaction, atoms are stripped of their electrons, changing the total mass of the original atoms, including the nucleus! You can't change the mass of an atom, which is what happens during a "chemical" reaction, without changing the energy state of the entire atom, nucleus included. Some of that mass is converted into momentum, the very energy needed to "move" those electronics, to "reorganize" the atomic structures that are needed to "create" "new" molecules during a chemical reaction.
Even when the "reactions" end and those 'free" electrons "recombine" with atoms to create a new molecular structures, not all of that momentum is converted back into mass as there is natural resistance to the recombining of atom structures, the addition of electrons with the nucleus of atoms.
You can actually detect that energy "emerging" from the reaction as "radiation," usually as electromagnetic radiation (infra-red in most cases), just like with a "nuclear" reaction) . It's just that the energy loss is so small, when compared to a "nuclear" reaction, that's it's nearly imperceptible.
William Tucker| 11.23.10 @ 8:56PM
I am often challenged on this, but have had it verified for me many times by highly trained physicists. The great discovery of quantum mechanics in the 20th century was that what we have called "chemical" reactions actually involve imperceptible gains and loses of mass in the electrons. Here's the way it is explained on pg. 224 of Kenneth W. Ford's The Quantum World: "When gasoline is burned in an automobile engine, less than one billionth of the mass of the gasoline is transformed into energy." No one has ever been able to measure these minute quantities, but we know from plugging the energy release into Einstein's equation what the mass should be.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 11:50AM
"Let's talk a little science here. Burning coal or any kind of combustion for that matter means transforming infinitesimally small amount of matter into energy in the electrons that surround the nucleus of the atom."
William, come on now! If you're going to talk science, you have to learn some science first.
Here it is: Combustion does not involve transformation of any matter to energy. No, the electrons don't get converted into energy in combustion or any other CHEMICAL reaction. In a chemical reaction, energy is neither created nor destroyed (1st law of thermodynamics, in a simpler form).
In burning of hydrocarbons, as in any chemical reaction, the electrons of different atoms are put in different patterns (different orbits around the nucleus) to create molecules or re-arrange molecules. None of them are lost or changed into energy. If the reaction is exothermic (as in combustion), meaning energy is released during the reaction, that just means the stable state of the resultant products has lower potential energy than the potential energy that was in the reactants initially.
Man, you guys write these columns without even asking a chemistry or engineering friend to check your work for 5 minutes, is that it? That's no way to write a column, son.
BTW, I agree with the premise of your article - I am very much pro-nuke, if that makes you feel any better. I just don't see a reason to spread some BS science, even in an article that is otherwise truthful. People who know better will lose faith in your knowledge. I'm getting there myself; don't push me.
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 7:17PM
"None of them are lost or changed into energy."
That is not entirly true. Where do you think the "heat," the energy that is released during a chemical reaction come from? It comes for the minute amount of MASS that is converted into energy during a chemical reaction! "molecular" energy is stored as MASS in each atom of that molecular structure. It's the only 'storage" system that would contain that "extra" energy for more than a few milliseconds at a time.
Do entire electrons" dissipate" into energy when a chemical, molecular, reactions occurs? No, of course not. But that doesn't happen in a nuclear reactions ether. But the mass of the elections, the mass of the atoms themselves ARE changed. Some mass IS lost in every single reaction that produces energy. It's the mass that "supplies" that energy.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 8:59PM
No, not true at all. The energy that comes from an exothermic chemical reaction is that converted from the potential energy of the electron states of the reactants as they go to lower potential energy in the products.
No, none, nunca, zilch electrons get destroyed in the process (well, maybe one in a billion that ends up in the toilet nearby). When a compound is made, the electrons of the former separate atoms now are in shared orbits in the product molecules (that's for covalent bonds). Now, if you end up with an ionic bond that means that electrons moved from one type atom to the other (still, to a lower overall energy state).
I would agree with your 2nd paragraph, Ray, except for the last sentence. There is some very slight relativistic effect, but this is not any significant reason for the release of the energy. This is why it takes energy to break up the compound that was formed via an exothermic reaction. (Example: Water is obtained from burning of Hydrogen with a big release of energy, but it takes energy to break water up into it's two components of Hydrogen and Oxygen.)
Also, in a nuclear reaction, some of the mass of the original atoms is indeed GONE. I don't know enough nuclear theory at all to say whether it comes from destruction of neutrons or protons or smaller particles.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 9:16PM
One type of fission nuclear reaction:
*****************************
U + n --> Nd + Kr + 2 n
Total mass before the reaction ( mass of U-235 + 1 neutron):
= 235.0439 u + 1.0087 u = 236.0526u
Total mass after the reaction ( mass of Nd + Kr + 2 neutrons):
= 147.9169 u + 85.9106 u + 2 x 1.0087 u
= 235.8449 u
Difference in mass is ~ 0.207 atomic weight. Note that the Krypton and Neodymium formed are not the same isotopes shown in the periodic table.
ARealist| 11.23.10 @ 12:14PM
The US nuclear power plants operating today were ALL designed (not built, designed) in the early to mid 1970s; about 35 years ago. A nuclear generating facility built today would have a modern design; simpler and easier to operate, better safeguards, less complex, and more stupid-proof.
France, which produces a major portion of its electricity using nuclear power, stores all its radioactive waste in ONE BUILDING (about the size of a warehouse) and recyles much of its spent fuel, and the fuel of other nations for re-use.
The US Navy has shown - over a 50 YEAR PERIOD !!!! - that nuclear power can be used safely (and this in steel ships and subs, plying salty seas and full of high explosives !!).
PCP Smoker| 11.24.10 @ 12:49AM
You are right that safety is not an issue, but the private industry would not survive if they were to mirror the actions, procedures, and safety practices the nuclear fleet does. They'll be bankrupt in about 2 years. Former nucs don't have to worry about cost, the taxpayer picks up that tab.
PattyMor| 11.23.10 @ 12:50PM
The goal of the elites is not to produce clean energy; its to impoverish us all so they can control you. Obami has said it more than once. We eat to much and consume too much of the earth's resources.
Vote DemoCrat and RINO Republican and continue to vote to be enslaved by our own government.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 1:17PM
Correct. Burning fossil fuel does not convert mass to energy. Same with an atomic reactor.
The reason is this: Mass and energy, they're the same thing. Neither the total mass, nor the total energy changes.
The equivalence is given by Einstein' formula E=mc^2
c^2 is a constant. It has a value of 19.7 Trillion Btu's per pound.
You boil water, the steam has more mass than the water.
Say you boil 20 million tons of water. You get 20 million tons, plus 2 pounds, of steam. If you used an atomic reactor to do it, the atomic fuel got 2 pounds lighter.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 3:20PM
WT??? Public skools in action I guess.
No, mass and energy are not the same thing. Einstein's equation relates the quantity of energy that a quantity of mass can yield via a nuclear reaction (in fission, not nearly all of the mass gets converted, of course, but a small fraction does, yielding a shit-ton* of energy.)
When you boil water, you end up with the same mass as you started with, it's just changed it's state (or some of it has).
Say you boil 20 million tons of water. You get 20 million tons, plus 2 pounds, of steam. If you used an atomic reactor to do it, the atomic fuel got 2 pounds lighter. Dude, this reads like physics on acid. You do realize those small pieces of paper weren't to be eaten until the next Phish show, right?
I really, really, hate to do this, but, hey Russell from Cambridge, how bout help me out. I know you are deluded about politics and freedom, but I think you are a science/math type. This request is for today only (Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010) and expires at midnight.
* Not an real English or SI unit, BTW, just means the same as an "assload" or a "whole lot".
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 8:06PM
"When you boil water, you end up with the same mass as you started with, it's just changed it's state (or some of it has)."
No, you do not. For anytime an atom, even those within a molecular structure, changes it's energy states, like when you boil water and "add" momentum" to those molecules in the form of generating "steam,", there is energy emitted from the atoms within that molecule which in the form of electromagnetic particles, usually referred to "light" or "radio" waves. Since those particles themselves have mass, the mass of the molecule or atom itself which emitted it must decrease. Unless all of that emitted energy is "captured" or "trapped" by mass (something that is not possible in a universe that is mostly empty space, is mostly devoid of mass), some of that mass-produced energy (no pun intended) is never recovered.
Craig Goodrich| 11.23.10 @ 2:09PM
Odd that he quotes Robert Bryce's Power Hungry, which discusses natural gas and nuclear extensively (and the advantages of each), and still seems so ignorant of the total folly of attempted sequestration of CO2.
By the way, the Japanese have built the world's cleanest coal plant -- the Unit #2 Isogo Plant -- on a peninsula, where the fuel will probably be brought in by barge. Article at http://www.masterresource.org/.....ant-today/
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 4:36PM
Dear Mel Torme
That Einstein, about 1910, he said mass and energy are the same thing. Any kind of energy atomic, chemical, potential, heat, kinetic.
So when you add energy, you add mass. At the rate of 1 pound per every 19.7 trillion Btu's of energy.
Say an electron, or some other particle, speeds up, its mass goes up. Theyve shown that in those accelerators. Same thing happens with a car. Goes faster, it gets heavier.
You lift a weight, its mass goes up.
You charge a battery, its mass goes up.
You boil water, it's mass goes up. The molecules have more energy. Vibration. So they have more mass. So those molecules, each of them weighs more. You cool the water back down, the mass goes back down.
And an atomic reactor, the mass is conserved. So is the energy. The fuel loses mass. The boiling water gains it. A 1000 megawatt plant, about 4 lbs per year.
owyheewine| 11.23.10 @ 5:33PM
It's me and Mel, pal (sic)
I don't know where you got your science training, but you need to demand a refund.
The laws of physics say both mass and energy are conserved. The exception is at the atomic level when very small fractions of the mass of a molecule is converted to energy.
A pound of water will yield a pound of steam, no more no less. Fuel plus the oxygen to burn it yield the exact same weight of combustion products.
Are you an Ivy Leaguer?
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 6:23PM
Yeah, unfortunately for Mr. Haynes, there is no law prescribing conservation of tuition. That damn Newton; he screwed the pooch on that one.
So, tuition money can indeed be destroyed, and it doesn't take a nuclear reaction either, just a lot of dope and a left-wing humanities department.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 6:04PM
"You lift a weight, its mass goes up."
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 6:20PM
That was weird - I don't recall mashing [Submit]. It's either windows 7 or a flashback from the windowpane that Chris is on.
I was wondering why my workouts were getting so difficult. I thought it was my age, but yeah, maybe the weights are getting heavier as I lift them. I should go for isometrics, huh?
Seriously, Chris you are confusing Einstein's relativity theory with his famous E = mc**2 equation. You can't just take any equation and make it mean whatever you want. You have to know the assumptions behind the equation and what it applies to.
You've got multiple contradictions in that one post there:
""So when you add energy, you add mass"
That would mean neither energy nor mass were conserved.
"And an atomic reactor, the mass is conserved. So is the energy. The fuel loses mass. The boiling water gains it.." How is the energy conserved?
In actuality, the fissionable Uranium U-235 or whatever else, splits many of it's atoms' nuclei into totally different elements by bombardment of neutrons. During this process mass is converted into energy, and the energy release = (speed of light) squared x mass lost. That is in a nuclear reaction.
Short of a nuclear reaction (fission or fusion), any process, be it a change of state, chemical reaction, purely mechanical process, etc. the amount of energy accumulated in a control volume = the amount of energy coming into the CV via the boundary - the amount of energy leaving via the boundary. In addition, the mass accumulating in the CV = the mass entering via the CV boundary - the mass leaving the CV boundary.
Go Cornell! (I guess???)
Ray| 11.23.10 @ 7:40PM
"Short of a nuclear reaction (fission or fusion), any process, be it a change of state, chemical reaction, purely mechanical process, etc. the amount of energy accumulated in a control volume = the amount of energy coming into the CV via the boundary - the amount of energy leaving via the boundary."
Have you forgotten about the emitted energy that never returns to the atomic (or molecular) structures when chemical or nuclear reactions occure? You know, the energy, stored within an atomic structure as mass, that leaves that "boundary" and isn't stopped until it interacts with another mass and is "converted" into a new, combined, mass (but never at 100 percent, for even the "absorption" of energy into mas releases a small amount of energy itself), like when a radiated energy "particle" encounters another form of mass?
Contrary to popular belief, there's no such thing as 100 percent "conservation." Some energy is lost in every reaction, never to be absorbed by anything because the universe is NOT one big contiguous mass. There's empty space everywhere, even between atoms. As long as energy is located in "empty" space, as long as it's not "stored" in atomic structures, it has no effect on anything and is "lost."
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 8:15PM
Ray, you're confusing the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. "Lost" is not the same thing as "destroyed". You can have energy go to waste heat of the surroundings, and indeed the usable energy goes down. That is an increase in entropy.
The 2nd law says that no real-world process is "reversible", which means that the sum of the entropy within a control volume and the entropy of the surroundings will increase during any process.
Thom| 11.23.10 @ 5:19PM
These are all fine discussions on the merits of nuclear power but they are also purely academic as long as we can’t build larger numbers of said plants economically. The North Korean’s built an enrichment plant in a fraction of the time we could under the best of regulatory circumstances. The only place we can build series reactors in any number at all is for the Navy and they are immune to the millions if not billions thrown into the court system to stop commercial nuclear power. Nothing is going to change until this matter rises to the level of national security and the large scale production of nuclear power plants operates under real world economic conditions. We can build all the plants we want but if they take 10-15 years to build and license we aren’t going to be able to afford what they produce. There is a bigger elephant in the room that must be dealt with before more commercial plants can be built and operated at a profit.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 6:24PM
I'm not Ivy Leaugue. I work in a power station. My training on energy: Hatsopolous and Keenan, 1965. Two brains form MIT
Youre right. The laws of physics say both mass and energy are conserved. But youre wrong about that exception. There's no exception.
As I said, in a reactor, the energy is conserved. So is the mass. The fuel loses both, the water gains both.
And other interesting stuff. You lift a tank of water. Its temperature goes up. Its vapor pressure goes down. Not by a lot.
owyheewine| 11.23.10 @ 7:45PM
You are still wrong. On the conservation of mass and energy and on the effect of lifting water. (Chemical Engineer with 35 years of highly compensated experience). You apparently have made an effort to educate yourself, but your interpretation is faulty. You do have a lot of company, however.
motiger76| 11.23.10 @ 7:14PM
I didn't read through all the comments, but does anyone realize that you need coal plants for baseline power, even when you build nuclear plants? Using natural gas for power generation is a waste, it should be saved for heating and transportation uses. For that matter, why in the world don't we build some coal gasification plants in this country. The resulting fuel can be used like diesel. Finally, California should build a nuclear power plant whose power is used to desalinate water. They could irrigate as much of the west as they wanted to and give everyone out there green lawns and 30 minute showers. Please, California, shut up about our water problems. you have a stupid problem.
Thom| 11.23.10 @ 7:22PM
motiger76, could you explain this statement
" does anyone realize that you need coal plants for baseline power, even when you build nuclear plants"
Christopher Holland| 11.23.10 @ 7:43PM
'The dream of wind turns out to be a fatuous illusion' - I wish I had written that!
Thom| 11.23.10 @ 7:54PM
Given that neither wind or solar are subject to demand loading that has always been the case without some level of steady state power source which are either nuclear or fossil fuel based. You can't run an AC grid based on the variability of the wind and randomness of solar being a 6-10 hour window where there isn’t cloud cover. Only people devoid of any understanding of economics would think you can power this country with a source that is subject to the weather or part time use and still produce something affordable. Wind can supplement at best but solar has always been a pipe dream outside of local use in the desert. Fatuous illusion is just a good start on what this fraud is all about.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 8:07PM
Well, if youre into credentialism, Hatsolpolous, he started Thermo Electron Co. Keenan, he was BMOC ME prof at MIT. The steam tables.
They wrote this in 1965. "The change in energy of a system is equal to the change in mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light". Their defintion of a sytem, it applies to a tank of water
In fact Einstein, he figured this out his formula from his relativity for all systems, using heat cycles, like Carnot's. Nothing about atomic reactions only.
That tank of water. From Einstein, you increase the energy, you increase the mass. You can lift it, or put in on a fast trailer truck. That adds energy. So it gets heavier. And from Maxwell's formulas you can figure out it gets hotter too, provided the tank is insulated.
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 8:48PM
I gotta admit, after reading the last section of my old physics book (the one on special relativity) that an increase in kinetic energy (i.e. increased electron speed in the atoms of a substance) does result in the mass increase, though not an increase of the "rest-mass".
I think I stand corrected somewhat. However, a potential energy increase, such as an increase in chemical or gravitational energy would not result in said minute increase of mass. So, your lifting of a weight business still does not cut it with me, and the same with the stuff Ray said - though I need to reply to him.
You get into this relativistic stuff, and your really need to be on acid to understand it. I guess that's why you don't have guys like Einstein putting out that kind of research anymore. The stuff's illegal now. ;-)
You've got me thinking of s__t, I haven't thought of in a coupla decades, Chris. Thanks!
Thom| 11.23.10 @ 8:14PM
I think we all agree that one x of 5% enriched something is equal to millions of x times the energy that coal can produce and if we close the “loop” on fuel reprocessing given the inefficiencies of the original amount of enriched something we can get nearly all the energy out of that x of something and produce not only abundant electrical energy but cheaper than what we can today but only after we solve the political problems….
The technical problems seem well in hand but the political ones seem immune to whether you get a million times more energy out of a pound of uranium vs. 10 million pounds of coal. In fact it seems anything that approaches a solution to the so called stated problems is that which is fought the most hence the core problem here is not about energy at all but about power and control….. solve the political problem and the rest will follow……
Led Display | 11.23.10 @ 8:51PM
Oil offsets by ethanol are not that significant. It's like fusion: it takes a lot of energy to produce the energy - with a somewhat disappointing net benefit.Fiber Optic Splice Closure
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 9:23PM
Dear Mel Torme
Thanks for your note. I dont know how to convince you, but you add energy in ANY form, the mass goes up.
Not just kenetic energy, but potential, heat energy, atomic, chemical energy, whatever. If you come to agree with it, the significance of E=Mc^2 will become much less hocus pocus.
Remember the units of velocity squared: Btu per lb. Same as the units for gh, or cpT
Einstein's c^2 is 19.7 trillion Btu/lb.
Like me, I suggest you were taught by people who didnt understand this, or perhaps they mislead you, in an unsucessful effort to help make it simple. I only figured this stuff out when I got old and I was astonished.
I'm not sure I agree about no Einsteins any more. I think we are beginning to learn about how information controls life. As you say its illegal, so like Einstein, its Off-Broadway. Largely its struggle is just to find good language and terminology. Like 170 years ago, when the word "energy" didnt exist. They called it "living force", which made it all very confusing.
William Tucker| 11.24.10 @ 11:01AM
To Chris, Mel and Larry,
Thanks for a great discussion on the particulars of infinitesimal energy transformations at the quantum level. I'm glad you guys finally found grounds for agreement. I learned a lot. There isn't any need to adopt this in-your-face, Internet-style rant on a subject like this. It's serious, difficult science and needs level-headed exchange. And Larry, where else but on the Spectator could you find an intelligent discussion on the ins and outs of quantum energy? Certainly not on the mainstream media. This stuff is important. If the average person understood it, we'd be building reactors left and right.
Mel Torme| 11.24.10 @ 11:46AM
Mr. Tucker, I think I missed the one comment of yours for a while, in which you did say you discussed these scientific points with some physicist buddies. In that case, I'm sorry about what I said regarding fact-checking. I do get upset dealing with people on-line sometimes. and one of my peeves is journalists (in general, not you ;-)
I think if you were to ask any engineer or Bachelor/Master's degree chemist about this, he would answer like my first post (without the ranting, of course ;-), but if you were to talk to a physicist or Doctorate level Chemist, he would probably get into the relativity details about how energy/mass are the same, etc.
Thanks again for writing back. I don't think the particulars of infinitesimal energy transformations at the quantum level will help our country solve it's problems, but I like it more than beating my head against the wall arguing with neocons about the US defense of S. Korea - ohhh, speaking of which let me get back to that.
led display | 11.23.10 @ 9:42PM
just see see!!
Mel Torme| 11.23.10 @ 9:46PM
On the contrary, Chris, I had great teachers. It's just that, in engineering, the relativistic effects are so insignificant for any real world process, except for nuclear reactions.
Any chemist or chemical engineer who studies the burning of coal or natural gas, for example, will not be interested one wit about some tiny change in mass. He will deal with the molecular structure of the hydrocarbons and how much potential energy can be released from the molecules as the atoms separate from each other and re-combine with Oxygen. It's all about conversion of energy from one type to another, not at all about any change of mass.
Along the same lines, the mechanical engineers or chemical engineers designing the plant will look at mass flows (of the air, the fuel and the products), and any tiny amount that is theoretically lost due to relativity won't amount to a hill of beans - not even a microscopic hill of beans.
Larry| 11.24.10 @ 4:50AM
If you like Major League Baseball, the 70s are not a bad place to be stuck in. But when it comes to energy policy, being stuck in the 70s is a VERY bad place. While Fallows is correct that coal will have to be used for now, his lack of interest in and mention of nuclear power is disturbing and shortsighted.
And will you guys keep your physics/quantum mechanics discussions to yourselves? I don't want to read science discussions in a political blog, okay? I get plenty of science education over at WUWT.
chris haynes| 11.24.10 @ 1:20PM
Dear Mel
Very true. I'm am talking the ultimate academic minutia.
Bob K.| 11.24.10 @ 6:03PM
Here is a short review of Energy Density written by a Physics Professor at a University in California in a course for non-science students. It is the 1st chapter from the text book.
Russell Seitz won't have to read it because he probably could have written it. The rest of us here will find it informative.
I got it from my son who has a teaching fellowship in Physics at a University in Boston and is studying for his PhD. It is very interesting and you can even learn things by casually reading it. It won't take long.
http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching.....gy-F08.htm
Bob K.| 11.24.10 @ 6:20PM
You will note the paragraph headed: MORE SURPRISES--COAL IS DIRT CHEAP. About 1/2 way down.
bill fish| 11.25.10 @ 10:35AM
Reading the comments, some people are confused about the energy-mass relation.
Let us start with, say, 10^25 molecules of water at 0K (absolute zero kelvin). Measure the rest mass.
Now add thermal energy till the assembly of 10^25 water molecules reach, say, 300K and 1 atm. Measure the rest mass of said 10^25 water molecules. Of course temperature is a statistical number so there will be some spread in the measurements if the experiment is repeated many times but the measurements will be tightly clustered around a value.
The rest mass has INCREASED by virtue that the
internal energy has increased. Where did the extra mass lie? Short answer: intermolecular potential for the most part and interatomic potential for the rest.
It seems some people have difficulty reconciling the concept of potential with rest mass. A proton has a finite mass but the rest of its isolated (key word is "isolated") constituents, namely quarks, is close to infinity. So you combine 3 particles of (closely) infinite mass to get a particle of finite mass. How come? Clue: the very large inter-quark potential.
bill fish| 11.25.10 @ 11:31AM
looking at the previous posts, some people are confused about rest mass. It is the inertial mass as measured when the center of mass of the system is at rest.
The effective mass of a moving particle is greater than the rest mass of said particle. And for all you know, said particle is an assembly of many subparticles moving around but bound by various types of potentials.