Fission Energy's Future - An Embarrassment of Riches, or Just an Embarrassment? (Daniel Meneley)

Fission Energy’s Future An Embarrassment of Riches, or Just an Embarrassment?

Dan Meneley, PhD, PEng, FCAE, FANS, FCNS, FCSSE Adjunct Professor, University of Ontario Institute of Technology Chief Engineer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (retired) Potential energy stored in uranium or thorium atoms is more than sufficient to satisfy human needs for all time, at least as long as life as we know it exists on this planet.

We have in our hands a solution to the world energy crisis. At the same time, nuclear energy can help solve other crises such as water supply, food supply, and environmental cleanliness. Nuclear energy can help mitigate negative aspects of climate change from any cause.

Introduction The energy crisis is nearly upon us. We must avert it. What can be done today, with the tools we already have in hand? What can be done tomorrow, with the tools we know?

The demand for change is urgent and yet the world does not yet feel the present danger.

The Best Next Step to Human Survival For a number of good reasons, uranium was chosen first as the element to be exploited in order to reach the goal of “plentiful energy” (Till & Chang, ISBN 978-1466384606).

Many nations of the world have invested in building large infrastructure to do the job of extracting energy from uranium.

The thorium option has been investigated, but to a much lesser extent. (Stanford, ANL) Both of these options are feasible. The choice between them is simple – one option has a wellestablished, large and powerful logistic base and the other does not.

The key next step: “We must leave oil before it leaves us.” (Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency).

Choosing Uranium It is urgency that sets our short-term goal.

We are lucky – the means for correcting the short-term crisis is at hand. It is water reactor technology that is already fully developed, so that thousands of new generating stations can be built quickly around the world.

There is enough cheap petroleum still available so that people who lack the skill, resources, or knowledge to build and operate nuclear plants can survive and thrive on petroleum and other fossil fuels – but only if rich countries move quickly into nuclear fission energy based on technologies that we already have in hand.

What Other Options Do we Have?

The world is blessed with numbers of experts in nuclear energy extraction technologies who have excellent ideas for new and better options.

None of these alternative technologies (excluding the Integral Fast Reactor) is ready to build NOW. For various reasons, time-consuming R&D and testing stages are needed for ALL other options.

It would be embarrassing if we had only completed R&D of promising concepts but had not had time or money to build a big energy production fleet, when the energy crisis hits us.

For this reason, we must place these new technologies at a second level, at a lower priority, as we proceed to build a large number of copies of existing plant types.

R&D projects may be, and likely will be, continued in a number of countries around the world. This is appropriate if – and only if – this work does not interfere with the main task. That task is immediately to build and operate a large fleet of Generation II/III power plants.