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Power Earth

Could Nuclear Power Be Used For Carbon Capture? (forbes.com) 197

Posted by EditorDavid from the think-negative dept.
Forbes reports: Nuclear advocates see a vast market for reactors in carbon capture and carbon-based products, not only for the next generation of reactors in development, but also for the aging dinosaurs they evolved from...

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California, for example, is slated to shut down in 2024 and 2025. "If the waste heat from that plant was being combined with electricity production you could be removing 20 million tons per year of carbon from the atmosphere," said Kirsty Gogan, co-founder of Energy for Humanity, at an EarthX panel on Wednesday. "Right now what's happening is these big gigawatt-scale depreciating assets — they're making baseload, clean, emissions-free power, but we're just throwing away the heat, right? Those nuclear plants could be more useful, making a big contribution toward that responsibility we all have to go negative.

"We all try to be neutral, but it ain't good enough. We have to take responsibility for the carbon that's already in the atmosphere and go negative."
That's just one possibility. For example, the article also suggests nuclear energy could be used to generate sustainable aviation fuel (currently made mostly from biomass) from smokestack carbon.

Slashdot reader ogcricket notes the article is based on an hour-long EarthX panel that's now available on YouTube.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Could Nuclear Power Be Used For Carbon Capture? More

Could Nuclear Power Be Used For Carbon Capture?

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  • "we're just throwing away the heat, right?" (Score:3, Informative)

    by random_nb ( 2453280 ) on Saturday December 19, 2020 @11:45PM (#60850136)
    No.

    • It's as if they never even looked at how a nuclear powr plant works. Not even a glance.

      It's amazing, the level of ignorance some people.can write lengthy articles with.
      Like sitting *at* McDonalds, eating a burger, and then really actually not knowing what Coca-Cola is. "They aren't selling drinks, right? I think they should sell drinks. Am I genius, /or what/?"

      • They are "pro nuclear environmental activists" according to their webpage. You could expect someone who takes a clear "pro nuclear" stance to at least know how a nuclear power plant works. It feels like someone just gave them a bag och money to make confusing pro nuclear talking points. Nukes are already as efficient as possible. If more useful energy could be extracted, we would be doing it.

        The claims about carbon capture and synthetic fuels are also confusing the issue. Sure, electricity can be used for

        • Why do you not read the summary?

          They sell the electricity, it is not used to capture CO2.

          The waste heat used for that.

          • Because you have to actually read the articles for that info, which isn't allowed!

            After reading the articles, yep, they intend to use waste heat with this
            https://globalthermostat.com/ [globalthermostat.com]
            and they are working with ExxonMobil! (My spider conspiracy senses are tingling...)

            So, here's a description of the process:
            https://globalthermostat.com/a... [globalthermostat.com]

            The captured CO2 is then stripped off and collected using low-temperature steam (85-100 C), ideally sourced from residual/process heat at little or no-cost.

            Do nukes produce 85-100C waste steam? How much power does it take to run enough fans to push air through the filters? They mention wind powered fans but then the nuke locat

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by amorsen ( 7485 )

              Do nukes produce 85-100C waste steam?

              No. Nukes generally run at low steam temperatures (600K-700K), which is one of the major problems with them. To get half-decent efficiency, they need the cold reservoir to be really cool. Preferably below 300K, but certainly far below 400K.

              You can obviously say "sod it, we will sacrifice a third of our electricity output to get 100C steam". But then it is not really waste heat, is it?

              • Nukes generally run at low steam temperatures (600K-700K), which is one of the major problems with them. To get half-decent efficiency, they need the cold reservoir to be really cool. Preferably below 300K, but certainly far below 400K.

                This is why reactor designs that use molten salt instead of water for heat transfer are so attractive. Even the plain old NaCl that is already used this way in a variety of industrial processes has melting and boiling points so much higher than water that a reactor could be run at ambient atmospheric pressure, meaning much less fancy plumbing, and still be far more Carnot efficient.

            • Yes nukes produce low temp stream. It is what happens after it exists the turbine. You cannot have it condensing in your pipes otherwise water hammer and water impingement will tear the shit out of your turbine blades. So the system runs at a vacuum after the work is performed as it heads toward the condenser. This is one method of getting more work out of your steam.

      • All thermal power plants fully use the heat they generate in the Carnot cycle, but any output heat above ambient temperature is usable for other purposes. In Iceland, one thing that really impressed me was seeing that after a geothermal plant exploited volcanic heat at 300C and produced waste heat as 85C water (in a clean secondary loop, as with nuclear), it could be piped all the way to Reykjavik, 50 km away, with only a 2C loss in transmission, to be used as district heat in the city.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Yes. You can use nuclear energy to recycle all the waste for a city and as back up energy for renewables which are very environmentally sensitive. Else you will be condemning millions to die with harsh environmental conditions disrupt renewable energy supply ie major hail storm over a city who produces and substantive portion of their energy via solar panels, thousands of square kilometres which now need to be repaired/replaced over quite a few months, for a city an extended blackout means many will die.

      Ju

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )

        Else you will be condemning millions to die with harsh environmental conditions disrupt renewable energy supply ie major hail storm over a city who produces and substantive portion of their energy via solar panels, thousands of square kilometres which now need to be repaired/replaced over quite a few months, for a city an extended blackout means many will die.

        Everything about this is absurd. You propose a 100GW+ average (1TW+ peak) solar array, and a hail storm takes out every single panel. Meanwhile the 100GW+ nuclear reactors never have problems causing shutdown of multiple units.

        • Else you will be condemning millions to die with harsh environmental conditions disrupt renewable energy supply ie major hail storm over a city who produces and substantive portion of their energy via solar panels, thousands of square kilometres which now need to be repaired/replaced over quite a few months, for a city an extended blackout means many will die.

          Everything about this is absurd. You propose a 100GW+ average (1TW+ peak) solar array, and a hail storm takes out every single panel. Meanwhile the 100GW+ nuclear reactors never have problems causing shutdown of multiple units.

          Any solar panel system without hailstorm protection is poor engineering. Dunno where poster got his eddymucation. Our local solar systems are doing just fine despite a number of hailstorms over the years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      Nuclear fission trows away heat too. Except when it doesn't' and uses that to desalinate seawater. Or when it is used to provide municipal heat.

      Then the fission products are used for medical, industrial, and food production. From the spent fuel come more fuel. Fuel used to explore space. From pent fuel we get isotopes used to protect us from viruses, bacterium, toxic chemicals. From this we get isottopes to treat and disagnose cancer. From these isotopes we get catalytic converters that make tthe air

      • Re:"we're just throwing away the heat, right?" (Score:4, Informative)

        by Lonewolf666 ( 259450 ) on Sunday December 20, 2020 @03:37AM (#60850476)

        Solar power (not counting batteries) is below 3 cent/kWh in sunny locations now. Cheaper than nuclear. The main thing holding solar back is the lack of cheap, long lived batteries.

        • That, and that we are getting less than 9 hours of daylight at 47 degrees north, and it's been overcast for three days straight.

          There is a limit to what you can do with batteries.

          • That, and that we are getting less than 9 hours of daylight at 47 degrees north, and it's been overcast for three days straight.

            There is a limit to what you can do with batteries.

            And yet: https://aksolarpower.com/ [aksolarpower.com]

            Many Alaskan villages use Diesel power to generate power and heating during the winter. Losing power and heat during the long Alaskan winter is more than an inconvenience, it is likely death. So if supplies of diesel fuel don't make it due to weather, it's bad news. So places are turning to solar in the times the sun is up to reserve their diesel fuel. And when it's up in that neighborhood, it's up a long time.

            One of the things we need to do is get away from the con

        • Solar power (not counting batteries) is below 3 cent/kWh in sunny locations now. Cheaper than nuclear. The main thing holding solar back is the lack of cheap, long lived batteries.

          I've really pushed for nickel/iron batteries. Tough as nails and long lived. Their shortcomings (weight, specific energy, energy retention) aren't a big problem in systems that don't need portability and are almost constantly charging. Build a concrete pad, place the batteries and conditioning hardware, and you have a system.

        • The main thing holding solar back is the lack of cheap, long lived batteries.

          And that's barely true anymore.

          And in some ways, it's never been true.

          A friend of mine ran off the grid for years with a shed full of marine deep cycle batteries. Their major issue was their longevity. On price and capacity, they blew away something like Tesla's Powerwall. He had a regular testing and replacement cycle, which definitely is more than a lot of people would be willing to do. But it was doable.

          Just two days ago we got an article on how battery prices haven fallen 88% in a decade [slashdot.org]. Giant banks ar

      • From pent fuel we get isotopes used to protect us from viruses, bacterium, toxic chemicals.
        You are just silly. How should that work? Hu?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 )

          There's this dinky journal called Nature which summarizes the medical isotope shortage problem thusly:
          https://www.nature.com/news/re... [nature.com]

          If we built recycling facilities for spent reactor fuel we would not only get rid of all the long-term waste, but would have all the medical isotopes we need.

        • From pent fuel we get isotopes used to protect us from viruses, bacterium, toxic chemicals. You are just silly. How should that work? Hu?

          He got caught in a time vortex in 1948 and transported to 2020.

      • Nuclear fission trows away heat too. Except when it doesn't' and uses that to desalinate seawater. Or when it is used to provide municipal heat.

        Then the fission products are used for medical, industrial, and food production. From the spent fuel come more fuel. Fuel used to explore space. From pent fuel we get isotopes used to protect us from viruses, bacterium, toxic chemicals. From this we get isottopes to treat and disagnose cancer. From these isotopes we get catalytic converters that make tthe air cleaner.

        Solar power is expensive. Batteries will not save it becase battterries work on nuclear power too. Batteries will kill solar power.

        Ecstasy is a hellva drug, amirite?

  • Not happening in democracies, this is why: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Sunday December 20, 2020 @12:02AM (#60850168)

    Nuclear power is scary and the the booboisie are and will remain too stupid to accept nukes though the actual volume of nuclear waste is trivial.
    Technical solutions which go against irreversible public attitudes will not be implemented in democracies.

    • Nuclear power is scary

      Only if it is fission and only when you realize that the same population of people you just called stupid is the same population the people who operate nuclear powerplants come from. Also, the problem with the waste is not the volume but the length of time you have to securely store it for which is centuries. That would be like still maintaining a Tudor waste site in the UK today or one of the original British colony waste sites in the US.

      The only real way to solve these issues is with fusion. When you

      • "Let's wait for fusion" is not an option. Not only will this take an unknown amount of development time, but the flat-earth lobby already has a set of fake arguments lined up against it, ready to bury it in lawsuit after lawsuit if it ever gets here. The only way forward is to treat climate as a Covid-level emergency so that the opposition can be denied jurisdiction in the court system.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      So when had France became a totalitarian country?

      • So when had France became a totalitarian country?

        France is slowly moving away from nuclear, because of the reason the gpp mentions

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khchung ( 462899 )

          France is slowly moving away from nuclear, because of the reason the gpp mentions

          Slowly as in how EU was slowly moving to carbon neutral? Or how the US is sending people back to the moon?

          One election later and you could see a complete reverse of policy. With the majority of France's electricity already coming from nuclear, good luck finding any alternative that (1) didn't emit tons of CO2, (2) didn't cost a whole lot and (3) that can make a dent in the next 20 years.

          Not to mention that GP said "Not happening" but it has already happened in France over 20 years ago. You can find any s

    • https://armscontrolcenter.org/... [armscontrolcenter.org]

      Idiot.

      There are over 60 dry cask storage sites across 34 states. Those facilities store the majority of the more than 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in the United States, including nearly 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel.

      • You mean the perfectly good fuel we buried after using literally only 2% of its energy content?

        If you bury fuel and call it waste because you can't use it in a completely stupid, obsolete design (instead of a modern reactor design), I have zero sympathy for your FUD.

        If it wasn't energetic, we wouldn't be having this issue. It, in point of fact, retains 98% of its energy when we presently bury it. Because we're basically fucking stupid, and it's more fun to shoot ourselves in the foot over what presently amo

        • You mean the perfectly good fuel we buried after using literally only 2% of its energy content?
          You burned 50% not 2%. It is 4% - 6% enriched, from that part you burn half, the ret is unuseable uranium. Unless you build new CANDU reactors.

          No idea why you nuclear morons spread this "just 2% burned!! la la la!! We could burn the rest!!!" - No, you can't.

          Because we're basically fucking stupid
          No, _YOU_ are fucking stupid. Or do you really think the nuclear industry throws away 98% of the fuel? WHY THe FUNK WOUL

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        That 80,000 tons is actually 4,000 tons of nuclear waste and 75,000 tons of useful nuclear fuel. We could run modern reactors on the existing 'waste' for a lifetime. After doing so, it becomes actual waste that will decay to background a hell of a lot sooner than it will in it's current state.

        As for safety, it seems that it's a lot easier to get people to protect and keep track of valuable fuel than it is for expensive waste. Make that waste valuable and the bean counters will suddenly find all sorts of res

    • The reason people don't like nuclear is that it is 2 to 4 times as expensive as anything else

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      In actual reality, nuclear power is just exceptionally expensive these days. And it is so ion all three phases: Building it, operating it and decommissioning it. Ohm and you get a rather serious waste problem and a high risk-cost from potential accidents. (Not so potential, after all: Windscale, TMI, Tchernobyl and Fuckupshima).

      Nuclear power is _stupid_ these days. It always was, but that was not always clear. Today it is.

    • Nuclear power is scary and the the booboisie are and will remain too stupid to accept nukes though the actual volume of nuclear waste is trivial.
      Technical solutions which go against irreversible public attitudes will not be implemented in democracies.

      Nuclear power stations cost more to build and to run than either Solar or Wind.

      Even worse, the costs of decommissioning Nuclear power stations cost more than either Solar or Wind.

      The above, of course, considers all the costs involved. Subsidies, provided by governments, will reduce the costs of the operators of nuclear power stations -- but this merely passes on the costs to others, it does not reduce the real costs.

      Technical solutions which are grossly uneconomic should be avoided, regardless of your poli

  • Til the money guys get a hold of it.

  • Yes, but other power sources would be better. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Sunday December 20, 2020 @12:14AM (#60850182) Homepage

    For carbon capture, there are two types: Atmospheric and At Source.

    At Source is the cheapest. Go to any coal plant or natural gas plant and directly convert the exhaust, a far more efficient method than straining the atmosphere for the carbon. But this won't work for small or mobile sources.

    From the Atmosphere is harder, but nuclear makes little sense. The problems with solar and wind is that they time and location variable. Some times and places you get more power than others. But that does not matter when you are sucking air.

    So go to a very sunny location or very windy location and convert whatever power you get into carbon extraction.

    Foolish to waste a nuclear power plant to do the same.

    • Obviously it would depend on the chemical process, but anything you do that can artificially convert a baseload power source to a highly responsive demand-based source via a useful energy sink is interesting. Potential energy sinks that have been thrown around are desalination, carbon capture, district heating/cooling, along with any number of direct energy storage schemes.

      If this is something that can make use of waste heat, all the better. California needs to find a way to make Diablo Canyon economica

      • Potential energy sinks that have been thrown around are desalination, carbon capture, district heating/cooling,

        ... EV battery charging.

        • That works at a grid scale though rather than the plant scale. It can be part of a solution, but you would likely need a local (or nearly so) load that can modulate from 0-300MW instantaneously, in at most 50MW steps.

          • EVs have smart chargers. They can monitor the internet and respond to price signals within seconds.

            My EV charges by the clock, starting at 2 am because that is when my power is cheapest. But direct response to demand would only require a software upgrade.

    • So go to a very sunny location or very windy location and convert whatever power you get into carbon extraction.

      Foolish to waste a nuclear power plant to do the same.
      Not foolish at all. In a nuclear plant you try to use the waste heat.
      If you have surplus electricity it is plain stupid to convert that into heat: the lowest form of energy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There are huge opportunities for developing nations here, particularly in north Africa. They could generate and export vast amounts of clean energy, as well as getting paid for CO2 capture with a decent trading scheme in place.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Well, there's a third option: not burning the fossil fuel at all. You can do this by increasing energy efficiency and by replacing higher carbon emitting sources with lower emitting source (e.g. switching from coal to natural gas).

      The reason I bring this blindingly obvious point up is to bring a less obvious point -- any particular savings route is subject to both economies of scale and diminishing returns, which vary at any point in time. The economically most efficient mix of efforts is going to be like

  • And TFA make bone-headed assumptions nobody else shares?

    (Answer: No [It's the rules :])

  • But more cheaply and more cleanly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Also, solar and wind does not generate a lot of heat. It is, in fact, pretty heat-neutral.

  • I don't like the idea of throwing money into nuclear when it seems like such a dead end in any of it's current forms. If you simply compare projected costs over the next 20 years, nuclear doesn't look competitive, so why put money into the nuclear infrastructure when the real renewables are getting so cheap? Put the money in the renewable and fastest growing power generation and storage markets and you get more return and more green for your money. Plus nuclear doesn't scale well for a global solution sinc

    • If we followed your logic years ago nobody would have invested in wind and solar, keeping instead to cheap coal and natural gas.

      We have cheap wind and solar because people invested in expensive wind and solar years ago. If we don't invest in expensive nuclear power now then we will begin to find out that wind and solar is cheap because it is backed up by cheap natural gas. When natural gas prices go up with diminishing supplies then wind and solar prices so up too.

      Batteries help to lower energy costs by a

  • We live in a culture that values wasting energy on Bitcoin mining far more than environmental concerns, I don't hold out much hope for CO2 reduction by any means now. It's just human nature to value short term gain over long term impact I'm afraid.

  • Any amelioration effects are welcome, but be careful. Global warming is an irritant stretched over a century or three, and god only knows the tech that will be available then (but certainly greater than the difference between now and 1900.)

    But overshoot on carbon reduction? You can induce an ice age in as little as a few years. You just need one summer where the snow doesn't melt, and the abledo is so great, Earth goes into a deep freeze the next winter, and that's it. Billions have starved.

  • Stop it! Just fucking stop it already! The world can't be this crazy

  • How much times needs to be repeated? Nuclear is about 3 times the cost of solar or wind. Costs of nuclear increases with years, the contrary for solar or wind. With such economy ratios the discussion should be closed, but apparently the nuclear lobby has still some hopes.

  • A previous Slashdot post shows one reason why: Battery Prices Have Fallen 88 Percent Over the Last Decade [slashdot.org]

    Proposing nuclear power for atmospheric carbon capture reeks of a solution looking for a problem. Renewable power + batteries are a combination that overwhelms all the pro-nuke power arguments. It's a death knell for a technology that never delivered "power too cheap to meter".

    Unfortunately, some geeks are so blinded by the shear high tech coolness of nuclear energy they've lost the ability to evaluate

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. These people are deranged. Also add that carbon capture can nicely be designed to not need 24/7 power and be directly driven by wind and solar with minimal or no storage in the loop. And, of course, it is massively cheaper, has a far more benign waste problem and no really horrible accident risk.

    • Kind of to pile on with what you're saying: I've read claims that the steam conversion process from heat to electricity, all by itself, is so expensive that any plant based on it will lose out economically to wind/solar/gas.

      So a thermal fusion plant, which heats up water to make steam to make electricity, is an economic non-starter. (Coal is disappearing because of this too.)

      Only direct conversion fusion (not the easiest D-T reaction) could compete by this argument.

      --PM

  • Carbon capture does not need 24/7 power. Solar and wind could be used directly to power it. That would not only be massively cheaper than nuclear, but also comes with a far less nasty waste problem and does not have the horrible accident risk of nuclear either.

    Seriously, the nuclear fanatics will try anything and everything to keep their fetish going.

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