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National Energy Security
Maximizing our Natural Gas and Coal Reserves with Molten Salt Reactors
Authored By: Jon Paul Morrow eGeneration Fellow Michael Goldstein J.D. eGeneration Fellow
TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 Coal Liquefaction ................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Cutting-‐edge High Temperature Fission Technologies to the Rescue ......................................................... 3 Benefits .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Natural Gas: Extending the Boom ................................................................................................................................ 4 Natural gas companies should embrace producing Synthetic Natural Gas with Nuclear Molten Salt Reactor technology .................................................................................................................................................... 6 Long-‐Term Energy Policy ................................................................................................................................................ 7 What if Compressed Natural Gas and Liquid Natural Gas are not adopted by the public as transportation fuel? ........................................................................................................................................................... 8 Developing Molten Salt Reactor Technology is a Preferred Solution to the Crisis of Energy Independence and National Security .......................................................................................................................... 9
“DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF ADVANCED LIQUID CORE MOLTEN SALT NUCLEAR REACTORS WILL REDUCE THE GEOPOLITICAL INFLUENCE OF MIDDLE EAST OIL PRODUCING NATIONS, AND THEIR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, WHILE SUSTAINING AMERICAN INDUSTRY” Michael S. Goldstein, J.D. Retired Naval Intelligence Officer
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The United States should develop and deploy on an industrial scale advanced nuclear liquid core molten salt reactors, especially those fueled by Thorium, for the conversion of American coal, natural gas, and other carbon sources to large volumes of liquid transportation fuels. Production of large volumes of synthetic liquid transportation fuels, especially synthetic gasoline and synthetic diesel fuel, has the potential to lead to American energy independence and completely eliminate Middle East oil-‐producing nations as a geopolitical force. The current low price of crude oil would drop precipitously and the resultant low price would become permanent. The Middle East would be driven from the transportation fuels market, and would thereby lose the financial ability to support terrorist nations and non-‐state terrorist organizations. As will be explained below, the development of Molten Salt Reactors would be a boon to the American coal and natural gas industries, which MSRs would complement; they would not compete. In fact, the adoption of Molten Salt Reactor technology will be a boon to American industry and job creation in general. This would also occur without prejudice to the United States oil industry, because these new nuclear reactors have other properties, which will significantly lower the production costs of American oil, much of which is presently unrecoverable at a reasonable price.
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COAL LIQUEFACTION The process of converting coal into liquid transportation fuels has been around for many years. Coal liquefaction was first developed in 1913 in Germany. In 1925, Fischer and Tropsch developed the FT (Fischer Tropsch) process to convert Synthetic Natural Gas into intermediate wax products, which were finally converted into diesel, naphtha and kerosene using a hydro-‐ cracking unit. The Fischer–Tropsch process was then developed by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the "Kaiser-‐Wilhelm-‐Institut für Kohlenforschung" in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany in 1925. The process is a key component of solids to gas and gas to liquids technology, which produced a synthetic lubrication oil and synthetic fuel in the form of synthetic diesel fuel and synthetic kerosene and naptha, typically, from coal, natural gas, or biomass. During the Second World War, Germany produced large amounts of transport fuels via Direct Coal Liquefaction (DCL) and Indirect Coal Liquefaction (ICL) technologies. This was an expensive process, adopted primarily due to German insufficiency of natural petroleum resources. Today, the world’s largest Coal-‐to-‐Liquids (CTL) production capacity is located in South Africa, based on locally available low-‐cost coal. Numerous demonstration units have been built elsewhere, but only a few industrial plants are currently under construction and most of them are in China. Performance and costs of coal liquefaction plants have been reviewed as the result of an interest in alternative production of transport fuels driven by the 2008 oil price peak. A study on liquefaction of Illinois No. 6 bituminous coal concluded that commercial coal to liquid plants using the U.S. Midwestern bituminous coal offer good economic opportunities. The investment cost of a CTL plant with a production capacity of 50,000 barrels per day of diesel and gasoline is around $4.85 billion USD. The coal preparation and gasification in the CTL process account for almost 50% of the total investment cost, the rest of the cost being for the GTL (Gas to Liquids) process. The economic viability of these projects depends heavily on crude oil prices. A crude oil price of $72/bbl USD provides a 19.8% rate of return of investment (ROI). Oil prices higher than $44/barrel and $55/barrel provide rate of investment greater than 10% and 15%, respectively.
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According to the Energy Information Agency, when the price of crude oil is considered, this technology would have been market competitive since 2005. The two largest reasons why this technology has not been widely adopted are: v The risk of crude oil prices falling to a price that would not make this technology economically feasible. v Because the coal to liquid process itself is powered by burning coal, large amounts of CO2 are produced. Meeting present CO2 emissions standards adds too much cost to the process for it to be competitive.
CUTTING-EDGE HIGH TEMPERATURE FISSION TECHNOLOGIES TO THE RESCUE Proven next generation technologies like Liquid Core Molten Salt Reactors (LCMSRs) can produce working heat at a temperature needed to power the conversion process without producing CO2. Moreover, LCMSRs can power this process at a superior price point. Cost estimates, and nearly four decades of taxpayer funded research at national laboratories, that included an operating proof of concept research reactor, have shown that LCMSR designs can produce zero-‐carbon electricity at $.02 per kilowatt hour which is half the price of coal burning generated electricity. If applied at only a conservative 25% savings to the coal liquefaction process, which is an already a robust and mature industrial technology, LCMSRs could reduce the price necessary for a 10% return on investment for an equivalent barrel of crude to $33 per barrel (a price not seen in a nearly a decade). This price is not just highly competitive— it is potentially market dominating.
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BENEFITS There are a myriad of benefits to developing a next-‐generation fission-‐powered coal liquefaction process, including:
v Developing an important new market for coal products, reenergizing a strategically vital American industry v Jumpstarting the U.S. economy, thanks to an abundant, affordable, reliable supply of environmentally-‐friendly electric and fuel v Building a pathway to true energy independence, reducing the need for crude oil imports from unfriendly countries v Creating new, well-‐paid American jobs v Reducing America’s carbon footprint to a point beyond that suggested by the Kyoto Protocols Accord v Curtailing risks of environmental disasters due to oil spills v Eliminating the significant carbon footprint of crude oil transport vessels v Limiting military presence in unstable regions of the world necessary to maintain reliable crude oil imports v Providing synthetic fuels, produced from a coal liquefaction process, allows the creation of environmentally cleaner fuels than those produced from crude oil. v Produce domestic and good paying American jobs.
NATURAL GAS: EXTENDING THE BOOM A manufacturing renaissance is under way in the United States, and it is being driven in part by a natural gas boom thanks to new natural gas wells and shale fracturing technology. The questions on everyone’s mind are: How long will this natural gas boom last? Is there a way to maximize our domestic benefit ? Is there a way to prolong this manufacturing renaissance? Although not without a carbon footprint, natural gas is a clean and environmentally friendly energy resource that is expected to constitute an increasingly greater part of world energy consumption over the next few decades. While current natural gas reserves are more than sufficient to meet the forecasted demand, natural gas often has to be stored and transported over long distances from gas well to the consumer, as winter consumption still far exceeds the rate of production. The logistical transportation and storage challenges posed by natural gas potentially could be solved by transporting and storing natural gas in liquid form (LNG, Liquefied Natural
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Gas). Such liquefaction, storage, and transport are associated with considerable cost and use of energy, however, which currently places these technologies out of the realm of economic feasibility for the domestic American market. The same is not true for foreign markets, however, where prices are currently higher than in is our domestic market. Furthermore, natural gas has historically been a very price-‐volatile energy resource, even with massive domestic reserves, making it financially attractive to produce synthetic or substitute natural gas from coal, petrocoke, biomass or municipal solid and organic wastes in order to secure a more stable long term price by means of diverse and stable feedstocks. Converting much less price-‐volatile raw materials into a synthetic natural gas that can be used in an existing natural gas network offers greater flexibility in addressing the storage and the distribution aspects of natural gas. The conversion of solid fuels/feedstocks as a general source of energy makes these sources another domestic source of inexpensive synthetic liquid transportation fuels to replace Middle East oil. The low American natural gas prices have sparked interest in large-‐scale Liquid Natural Gas exports to higher-‐priced markets, such as Europe and Asia, where LNG storage and transportation makes sense. While high volumes of LNG exports would increase profits to the oil and gas sector, the resulting increase in domestic gas prices will potentially disrupt the growth in domestic manufacturing, natural gas fleet vehicle conversions, and electricity generators. Consequently, the United States is faced with a critical policy decision today: how to balance future demand for LNG exports with the realization of domestic value added opportunities of cheap natural gas. Why are we not converting current potential feedstocks, such as coal, into SNG (Synthetic/Substitute Natural Gas)? The answer, not surprisingly, is the current cost of the process to turn coal into Synthetic Natural Gas. With natural gas prices at record low, and with current SNG technology, it just isn’t profitable to produce SNG because it cannot compete with the glut of cheap natural gas on the market. Energy is a major cost in producing SNG, however. If the cost of production of energy can be reduced, the cost of Synthetic Natural Gas will also be reduced. The conversion of coal and other feedstocks into Synthetic Natural Gas takes place in several steps, all of which require energy: v Gasification of coal, petrocoke, biomass or waste to produce a gas rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide v A shift conversion process to adjust the ratio between hydrogen and carbon monoxide
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v Acid gas removal, where carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfides are removed in a washing process v High temperature methanation to convert carbon oxides and hydrogen to methane (Synthetic Natural Gas) followed by drying and possibly compression of the product SNG to pipeline conditions v Production of oxygen for the gasification process in an Air Separation Unit v Recovery of sulfur from the acid gas removal unit, for example by converting the sulphur to concentrated sulfuric acid in a Wet Sulfuric Acid (WSA) unit Instead of using Synthetic Natural Gas, a carbon producer derived from the process, to power the process itself, the heat from a modular MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) can be used to power the process. A thorium powered MSR reactor has the potential to cut the cost of heat by more than half, which would radically reduce the cost of producing Synthetic Natural Gas. An additional benefit is that because Molten Salt Reactors can be made very small, they can be placed very close to coal sources (and other feedstock resources) so Synthetic Natural Gas could be produced upon demand, thereby greatly reducing the need to store and transport Synthetic Natural Gas over vast distances.
NATURAL GAS COMPANIES SHOULD EMBRACE PRODUCING SYNTHETIC NATURAL GAS WITH NUCLEAR MOLTEN SALT REACTOR TECHNOLOGY As traditional coal fired power plants are replaced with natural gas plants due to environmental regulations, and as additional natural gas peaker plants are needed on the grid to complement intermittent power supply generators, domestic natural gas usage will dramatically increase over the next decade. Additionally, it makes sense to allow export of our natural gas to nations that will pay a premium for this resource. As demand for natural gas increases, though, the price for natural gas will increase as well, and because there is such a massive swing in the electrical generation sector to use natural gas domestically in place of coal, our domestic economy will be dramatically and negatively impacted by any rising cost of natural gas as it raises the cost of electricity. As the cost of electricity raises the negative impact upon the economy will likely cause greater regulation and controls in the natural gas industry, which means reduced profits for natural gas companies. It is this fear by the public and legislators that may kill many LNG export terminal projects if nothing is done to alleviate the situation.
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Another concern is that just as fleet owners of diesel trucks are converting to LNG, doubts about long-‐lasting low natural gas prices could very easily slam the brakes on the developing natural gas transportation fuel sector. In the long term, the transportation fuel market for the natural gas industry offers the potential of far more profit per cubic yard of natural gas than the electrical generation sector because of the mass sale to individuals rather than volume sales to electrical generator utilities. Demonstrating to the public, legislators, and the transportation industry that developing Molten Salt Reactor technology over the next couple decades to produce Synthetic Natural Gas will head off any long-‐term spikes in the price of domestic natural gas due to exportation would allay fears and promote long-‐term investment. Because MSRs would also produce electricity at a much lower cost than does natural gas, and will naturally supplant electrical generation derived from natural gas, it makes sense to let market forces transition a large portion of the natural gas electrical generation sector to a much higher profit transportation fuel market over the next several decades.
LONG-TERM ENERGY POLICY It makes sense for U.S. policy makers to embrace private industry exporting our natural gas to higher profit markets in other countries, as long as there is no long-‐term negative effect on the U.S. economy. If the natural gas industry can demonstrate through investment in Molten Salt Reactor technology that they can extend the domestic natural gas boom, potentially in perpetuity, with economically viable Synthetic Natural Gas production, there would be little reason to stand in opposition to licensing Liquid Natural Gas export hubs in the U.S. This would be a free market windfall for the American natural gas industry. Additionally, as recently related by Samuel Thernstrom1, America has vast untapped reserves of oil in the form of EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) plays from traditionally played out oil fields, and from heavy oil reserves. These reserves need tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide in various forms in order to harvest usable oil. The process to produce Synthetic Natural Gas produces large amounts of high purity carbon dioxide that, unlike with traditional coal fired power plants, is easily captured and can help fuel yet another renaissance in the oil recovery industry. Domestic Synthetic Natural Gas plants can help spur the domestic oil industry through inexpensive carbon dioxide used in Enhanced Oil Recovery to dominate world markets, especially including those in the crude-‐rich Middle East.
1 Thernstrom, Samuel: “The Next Shale Revolution?” The Weekly Standard (December 29, 2014), pp. 22-‐29
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WHAT IF COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS AND LIQUID NATURAL GAS ARE NOT ADOPTED BY THE PUBLIC AS TRANSPORTATION FUEL? While Compressed Natural Gas is much cheaper than the current market price of gasoline, and Liquid Natural Gas offers semi-‐truck fleet owners large savings over the present cost of diesel, there is a large drawback in the cost of converting gasoline and diesel engines to the use of either CNG or LNG. Then there is the chicken and the egg question of the infrastructure required to support convenient refueling of vehicles using CNG and LNG on the road. Will the market make it happen, or would unwonted government intervention be required? It might not happen at all. Thankfully, a robust and proven technology can again come to the rescue. GTL (Gas to Liquid) technology is a well-‐proven and already economically viable process to convert natural gas or Synthetic Natural Gas into Synthetic Gasoline and/or Synthetic Diesel Fuel. In fact, Sasol Ltd. of South Africa is breaking ground in 2015 on an $11 billion Lake Charles, LA Gas to Liquid plant that will produce 96,000 barrels per day of diesel fuel and other chemicals (source). Using a Molten Salt Reactor to power this type of conversion can make the Gas to Liquid process even more profitable, and produce transportation fuel that is even more competitive in the American market.
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DEVELOPING MOLTEN SALT REACTOR TECHNOLOGY IS A PREFERRED SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY Developing Molten Salt Reactor technology makes sense from several different perspectives across many different energy sectors. Some MSR designs can consume 98% of present day nuclear waste stockpiles while producing electricity, thus eliminating a long-‐ standing, and previously almost unsolvable, environmental problem for the traditional nuclear industry and our national security. Molten Salt Reactors can be adapted for use as the power source for oil refinery production and the fractionation process, which would reduce the cost of gasoline and other petroleum based chemicals in the crude to fractional distillation process. MSRs can be used to produce the massive amount of cheap electricity required for the economically viable plasma gasification of municipal solid waste, which would dramatically reduce the amount of wastes placed in landfills and produce Synthetic Natural Gas at the same time. Molten Salt Reactors can be adapted for use to transform kerogen shale plays into crude oil using either the reactor’s high heat or electricity it produces. Molten Salt Reactors can produce economically attractive high temperature heat that can be used in heavy oil recovery for remote areas such as Alaska’s North Slope. Not only can the carbon dioxide and ammonia produced from manufacturing Synthetic Natural Gas be used for enhanced oil recovery, but also this high purity carbon and ammonia can be used in next generation FO (Forward Osmosis) desalination plants to produce fresh water very cheaply (much more cheaply than using reverse osmosis). (source) With the hundreds of ways that MSRs can impact multiple industries, first movers and adopters of Molten Salt Reactor technology have the potential to realize many market benefits over those that do not embrace the technology. America’s being the first nation to adopt, deploy, and commercialize Molten Salt Reactor technology will create United States energy independence. Moreover, the development of Molten Salt Reactor Technology will lower the world price of oil and defang the hostile Middle East oil producing countries’ hold over America and their financing of terrorism worldwide.
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