Fix energy and you fix the economy
June 7, 2008 · Print This Article
The one thing that everyone likes to do is gripe and moan when the unemployment numbers go up, or when energy costs go up but no one makes the link between the two. The fact is that as the cost of energy goes up our cost of goods and services will as well. Businesses in order to stay competitive have to cut back. Many try to reduce costs, but it will usually mean that many have to layoff workers.
The media loves to talk about gas prices at $4.00 per gallon, but what they neglect to tell us is that in many parts of the country diesel is approaching $5.00 per gallon. Most people don’t view this as a big deal unless you drive a diesel pickup but what most people forget is that everything you need to survive is transported by truck, train, and/or ship all of which rely on diesel to get products to market.
Now there are signs of hope, voters this week in one S. Dakota county approved a measure to allow a new refinery to be built there that will refine mostly diesel and jet fuel from supplies coming from Canada. This was just a step in the process but a very important one. While we haven’t built a refinery in 32 years our refining abilities for diesel have been reduced even further, diesel and jet fuel are easier and normally less costly to refine than gasoline but in the last few years the environmental nazis have forced more additives and garbage into diesel that makes it more costly to refine.
The reality is that we have to do a better job of extracting oil within our borders, and directly off our shores. We have to work harder at buying from our direct neighbors, Canada and Mexico. We must do a better job at building refineries. We need to focus our technology investments to things we know that work. Make sure we can extract every bit of power from oil and coal, focus on hydrogen for tomorrow as it seems to be the only fuel that seems viable. Solar, electric cars all sound nice but the reality is we’ve been chasing dreams of solar for over 30 years and we still don’t have a technology that is cost effective for broad use.
Low energy costs are what drives the world economy as we go so goes the rest of the world with us. It’s time to expel the idiot environmentalists that got us into this mess and get on with the business of increasing our energy supplies today and our options for the future.
William “Bill” D. Peterson, M.S., P.E.
300-YEAR SNF DISPOSAL SOLUTION
Professional Mechanical Engineer
Professional Operations Research Engineer
68 W Malvern Ave
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115-3025
Tel 801-906-8761, Email paengineers@juno.com
Senator Monday, June 02, 2008
U.S. Senate Committee on Energy
FIXES: nuclear-hydrogen fixes fuel, GCC & economy. 300-yr solution fixes nuclear.
SUBJECT: Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) can be disposed of in 300 years. The U.S. needs to build 1,150 new nuclear power plants, by 2020, to replace the use of oil with nuclear-hydrogen, to fix GCC, balances trade and stabilize the U.S. economy.
REF: “This man addresses nuclear fuel storage, GCC, hydrogen fuel production, and peak oil all at once. How do we get him to the right place (as opposed to here)? Does he need to seek out a friendly legislator, someone in DOE/NE, Bob Marlay, or someone else? Read it and see if there is any merit for us to assist him in finding an opening.” It originally came to me via the DOE phone operator.
Peter Karpoff, peter.karpoff@hq.doe.gov Thur, 6 Mar 2008
Dear Senator,
Disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the single most critical path item to fixing these things. Our new “FIX”, the 300-year SNF disposal solution requires 300-years of intermediate storage and reprocessing that in the past has not been possible. At some time during the 300 years the SNF needs to have 5-9s (99.999%) of the transuranics separated from the fission waste. After 300 years of storage of the fission waste, the radioactive decay has reduced the radioactivity so that it qualifies it as low level waste Class-C. The transuranics containing the plutonium is used up in new fuel. The 96% part of SNF that is U-238 uranium is simply stock piled for future use as fuel. INL and Argonne have demonstrated 5-9s separation. This is the SNF “fix” for the GNEP (global nuclear energy partnership), which the U.S. must do to for the whole world! Then, with nuclear power, hydrogen (H-2) can be manufactured to replace gasoline and diesel. With nuclear electric generation we can end the need to burn fossil fuels. This ends CO-2 emissions, fixing the U.S. part of global warming. Nuclear is a U.S. technology, with our doing this for the world we can balance trade.
It is in the power of President George Bush to enable the “FIX” by enabling my 300-year SNF storage / disposal. for America’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), at the same time enabling nuclear-hydrogen for end-of-oil fuel, abruptly stopping fossil fuel burning, and so fixing Global Climate Change (GCC) and substantially repairing America’s imbalance of trade and economy.
IN THE SENATE on January 21, 1997, by the 105th Congress, 1st Session, A BILL To amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was enacted. In that, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was amended in part to read as follows:
(D) Within 18 months of a determination by the President that the Yucca Mountain site is unsuitable for development as a repository under subparagraph (B), the President shall designate a site for the construction of an interim storage facility. If the President does not designate a site for the construction of an interim storage facility, or the construction of an interim storage facility at the designated site is not approved by law within 24 months of the President’s determination that the Yucca Mountain site is not suitable for development as a repository, the Secretary shall begin construction of an interim storage facility at the interim storage facility site as defined in section 2(19) of this Act.
The interim storage facility site as defined in section 2(19) of this Act shall be deemed to be approved by law for purposes of this section.
In the BILL is strong language instructing the Secretary to use private industry to accomplish an SNF solution. For six years Peterson has been proposing SNF disposal by the 300-year combination of 5-9s (99.999%) separation of the transuranics from the fission waste, 300 years of storage of the 3% fission waste, which by radioactive decay is reduced to low level waste Class-C. The 1% of SNF that is the transuranics containing the plutonium is used in new fuel. The 96% part of SNF that is U-238 uranium is simply stock piled for future use as fuel. INL and Argonne have demonstrated 5-9s separation. This will be the processing of the GNEP. So in 300 years the SNF is disposed of, disposed of for the U.S., and disposed of for the world.
Peterson has been seeking funding of $20 million dollars per site for up to five sites to select, purchase land, and license 300-year SNF storage / disposal sites. Peterson first submitted an NRC license application for the first site 10 years ago. He has not had funding to pay NRC costs so the application became dormant. However the environmental and social research was done and the condition of the application is complete, so Peterson has asked NRC for license approval in 60 days of an upgraded application made with $1.5 million in fees. NRC has indicated they will try.
The U.S. use of oil for fuel needs to and will discontinue and the remaining reserves need to be carefully used for their chemical value, otherwise, future uses like plastics will be forever lost. So the price of oil might soon go to $500 per barrel. Using nuclear power to separate out hydrogen (H2) to burn it back to water makes good sense. To do this will require the energy of possibly 500 new nuclear power plants. The White House Report on energy needs for the 21st century says 1300 to 1900 new power plants will be needed by 2020. Considering that these plants are of the natural gas peaking type, only 350 standard nuclear plants would fill this requirement. Up to 300 more nuclear power plants are needed to replace 450 coal fired power plants. So the U.S. needs 1,150 new nuclear power plants. Five 300-year SNF storage / disposal sites would be a good start to handle their SNF needs, more for the GNEP.
Similar needs will arise for the 400 other nuclear plants operating in other countries around the world. It is most critical that the U.S. be prepared for doing the GNEP program. Nuclear energy is an American technology and it would be best if America could oversee it world wide so that it is used rightly. The GNEP program might save the world from abuses having very severe consequences.
I have said that YM will not work unless the SNF is first reprocessed. It simply makes no sense to bury the heat-making cesium (Cs) and strontium (Sr) then have to get all of that heat back out of the mountain, when it can be done with convection air cooling. SNF must be reprocessed. The immediate resource of the transuranics should not be wasted. So it needs to be used in new fuel. And it would be an irresponsible waste to bury the 96% part of SNF that is U-238 uranium. It is simply wrong to waste that valuable resource. So as conceived, Yucca Mountain will not work.
Our most critical need for the 300-year SNF storage / disposal solution is for our nation to do the GNEP. We do need the nuclear-hydrogen fuel. We do need to fix GCC and the economy. But more than anything, the world needs the assurance of peace that would come by the GNEP. So lets talk. The Congress with the President and can consider the 300-year SNF storage / disposal alternative. It’s cost effective. The five sites I am now proposing will cost far less than finishing YM, and YM would not fix this.
Even the much smaller cost to get one to five sites NRC licensed would invite the expansion of nuclear power and be worth while.
Sincerely yours,
William “Bill” D Peterson
cc:
President George Bush
Secretary Samuel Bodman
Former Senator Bennett Johnston
Congressman David Hobson
NRC Commissioners Peter Lyons and Greg Jaczko
NEI Chairman John Rowe
Carter “Buzz” Savage
Reference: U.S. Patent Application No. 11/899,209