scaleablity of a reactor?

[Lerner]

In reply to Rematog’s numbers, the standard way to measure the cost of elctric power is per kWh, right? As I understand his numbers, he is taking 5 MW and dividing that by 100 and calling it a “household”. That gives 50 kW per household. With TOTAL energy consumtion in the US, not just electricity, around 10kW per capita and a household size of about 3, that is not too bad for peak capacity, but remember this is all power–industrial, commercial, transportation, not just your gas and electric bill.

50kW is 36,000 kWh/month, so Rematog’s estimate of $200 per month works out to 0.55 cents per kWh. That’s high compared with LPP’s estimate of 0.2 cents per kWh, but it looks pretty good compared with anything else. That’s the equivalent of 26 cents per gallon for gasoline, not even counting the difference in efficiency of energy use.

[Brian H]

Lerner wrote: In reply to Rematog’s numbers, the standard way to measure the cost of electric power is per kWh, right? As I understand his numbers, he is taking 5 MW and dividing that by 100 and calling it a “household”. That gives 50 kW per household. With TOTAL energy consumtion in the US, not just electricity, around 10kW per capita and a household size of about 3, that is not too bad for peak capacity, but remember this is all power–industrial, commercial, transportation, not just your gas and electric bill.

50kW is 36,000 kWh/month, so Rematog’s estimate of $200 per month works out to 0.55 cents per kWh. That’s high compared with LPP’s estimate of 0.2 cents per kWh, but it looks pretty good compared with anything else. That’s the equivalent of 26 cents per gallon for gasoline, not even counting the difference in efficiency of energy use.

Most of that cost is buried in the goods and services purchased, not appearing in energy bills (you’re including all industrial and transportation costs, etc.) Household energy use is far lower; even including home transportation would only add about $50/mo. to the electric bill if you had BEV transportation. A pure electric lifestyle would not cost more than about $250 for energy at current costs, and perhaps $25 using FF costs.

Speaking of pure electric, some McGill students in Quebec, Canada, have successfully put together electric snowmobile modifications, and are now selling the conversion in low volumes to the public. http://tinyurl.com/ElectricSnowmobile

[Aeronaut]

10 miles from an 80 pound battery! I’m impressed. I think the prospect was saying is “I need a 20 mile range”.

Thanx for the breakdown on your numbers Brian. While a 15 minute sample is enough to miss entire A/C and furnace cycles, I’m sure the university was reading the power meter every month, too, so your numbers of 15kW expected load yielding 100% headroom make my numbers look a lot brighter. What really made my day, though, is the idea of selling FF to the utilities as an energy conservation plan. The real trick is going to be how to accurately forecast how much headroom is needed to cover growth during the permitting/financing cycle as it stands (or is perceived by the utility’s Board) at that moment. Remember, they’re working on a 50 year planning cycle.

Another number that needs to be more precisely defined imo is that my load calcs were based on 240V * 30A=720W max clothes dryer (not the more meaningful RMS value of 509W). Not really sure what the meter would actually record, but it’s easy to see a 30A breaker as 120 volts. (ask me how I know 😉

Eric, thanx for pointing up my decimal slip- I’m so used to interpreting .55 as 55 cents that I’d gritted my teeth and figured it as the cost of pioneering- throw in a few more reactors, especially if the feds are buying the peak load units.

The township model that I’ve been looking at may not be the best approach in my rural county, although it could improve Grid reliability at a verrry granular level. The six adjoining counties, however, have around 40 to 45% of Michigan’s population, and a lot of these farmers are getting way up in age. But still, one thousand acres for a GW plant boggles my mind’s eye. Yes, we have the isolation, but acquiring that much land without the hard feelings of eminent domain could take 50 years. It would also eliminate large chunks of several roads.

On the plus side, “snipping” a high voltage transmission line out there would let this plant feed two cities, and it would only take maybe 50 miles total transmission line construction to bring most of this 7 county region’s transmission lines into this plant…. and the posts feeding these farms and houses are almost certainly already there, permitted, and amortized.

Rematog, how difficult would it be to sell your management the design concept of 3 or 4 modules high, 25 to 50 modules wide, per bank, with the option of designing the building to function (or retrofit) as a containment building? Thanx.

edit- Just looked at my 1993 plat book for the county. These large blocks average 200 to 300 acres each, and few are adjoining. This looks like Rematog’s plant needs roughly 2 square miles, and the only way to do that without a LOT of negotiating is to talk the State out of a relatively small part of the public hunting/rec area beginning on the west edge of my township. Next township over has a large lake that’s a HUGE camping and boating draw, so even out here it’s going to be a huge challenge just to acquire a large block of land.

[Aeronaut]

Somewhat deeper research led to buying a new county plat book/atlas yesterday and snagging Michigan’s energy stats from the EIA Saturday. This showed me that my initial siting (by map) would be only 15 miles from the major regional transmission line. On a trip to the big city yesterday I had a chance to scout that line for nearly 20 miles towards the next major city. (This is one of the cool things about living halfway between 4 major cities). The last leg gave me a chance to eyeball my first site choice, which is heavily wooded with some wetlands. EPA and tree-hugger lobbies would be an endless pain, which I’m trying to avoid. Secondary political ramifications would surely include FUD/NIMBY lobbies. I also found a tributary(?) transmission line only 7 miles from that site. This would have given us 3 wires to tee-splice into so the plant could send and receive grid power.

The jackpot was re-discovering a GM stamping plant with a 6 wire stretch of the transmission line already going over the edge of the parking lot and a local distribution transformer yard a block away. The last of GM’s maintenance people are scheduled to be re-assigned about the time Eric physically completes Baby. This site occupies nearly one square mile, and GM’s leaving has already put one heckuva lot of hurt on that city’s tax rolls. In Grand Rapids, this site is called GM Plant 1. Plant 2, on the north side, is another single-purchase tract with similar characteristics. While Plant 2 would definitely need to be bulldozed, Plant 1’s ceilings are at least 30 feet, high enough to double-stack FF modules using the existing cranes.

Here’s the module dimensions I sketched out yesterday, which are so roomy that they could probably end up being built at 2/3 of each dimension- i.e.- stacked 3 high:
Core swap/service apron: 20 feet.
Module: 40′ long, 20′ wide, 15′ high.
Services Alley: 20′ joins 2 stacks.

Here’s how it could look in a 1.3 million square foot building with 30 foot ceilings: (this building may actually be larger and higher- your mileage may vary)

50 modules wide=1,000 feet
16 modules arranged in 8 banks= 1,200 feet.
1,600 FF modules @ 5MW ea. =8GW (on the south side of town)

Combined with a new building on Plant 2’s site could maybe- just maybe- power the entire county, which is built around moderately heavy industry, machine builders, tool and die shops, etc. That concept should be fairly easy to sell politically. The luster of mothballing 28 coal-fired boilers just might turn this into the eco-status symbol needed to overcome the NIMBY/FUD, which is due to not knowing anything about FF’s inherent safety and other benefits.

Now, let’s assume that Eric’s testing and calibrating using only D-T fuel this year, and the pB-11 salsa delivers 3 or more verifications between August and November 2010, so the press release that rewrites energy history goes out during a major election cycle. Most of Michigan’s elected officials are up for re-election this year. I’m currently compiling an initial contact log for all candidates. What I intend to do is place as many as 1,000 calls to staffers on the first round, which will sort out who the Players are. The second round would hopefully be 1,000 calls or less. Both rounds will be selling the need to protect their political credibility by making Alternative Energy THE hot topic, and having a plan in place showing that they seen FF coming at least a year before the headlines and are ready to integrate it due to concerted public/private planning and and alignment of pooled resources.

Multiplying this strategy by 50 states could make Alternative Energy THE hot topic of the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races. Leveraging the existing political pressures should raise public awareness of FF’s benefits while short-circuiting the NIMBY/FUD votes (but not the rhetoric) with no budget and very little effort compared to a paid advertising PR blitz. As Spock said in the original series, “Chance favors the prepared mind”.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Somewhat deeper research led to buying a new county plat book/atlas yesterday and snagging Michigan’s energy stats from the EIA Saturday. This showed me that my initial siting (by map) would be only 15 miles from the major regional transmission line. On a trip to the big city yesterday I had a chance to scout that line for nearly 20 miles towards the next major city. (This is one of the cool things about living halfway between 4 major cities). The last leg gave me a chance to eyeball my first site choice, which is heavily wooded with some wetlands. EPA and tree-hugger lobbies would be an endless pain, which I’m trying to avoid. Secondary political ramifications would surely include FUD/NIMBY lobbies. I also found a tributary(?) transmission line only 7 miles from that site. This would have given us 3 wires to tee-splice into so the plant could send and receive grid power.

The jackpot was re-discovering a GM stamping plant with a 6 wire stretch of the transmission line already going over the edge of the parking lot and a local distribution transformer yard a block away. The last of GM’s maintenance people are scheduled to be re-assigned about the time Eric physically completes Baby. This site occupies nearly one square mile, and GM’s leaving has already put one heckuva lot of hurt on that city’s tax rolls. In Grand Rapids, this site is called GM Plant 1. Plant 2, on the north side, is another single-purchase tract with similar characteristics. While Plant 2 would definitely need to be bulldozed, Plant 1’s ceilings are at least 30 feet, high enough to double-stack FF modules using the existing cranes.

Here’s the module dimensions I sketched out yesterday, which are so roomy that they could probably end up being built at 2/3 of each dimension- i.e.- stacked 3 high:
Core swap/service apron: 20 feet.
Module: 40′ long, 20′ wide, 15′ high.
Services Alley: 20′ joins 2 stacks.

Here’s how it could look in a 1.3 million square foot building with 30 foot ceilings: (this building may actually be larger and higher- your mileage may vary)

50 modules wide=1,000 feet
16 modules arranged in 8 banks= 1,200 feet.
1,600 FF modules @ 5MW ea. =8GW (on the south side of town)

Combined with a new building on Plant 2’s site could maybe- just maybe- power the entire county, which is built around moderately heavy industry, machine builders, tool and die shops, etc. That concept should be fairly easy to sell politically. The luster of mothballing 28 coal-fired boilers just might turn this into the eco-status symbol needed to overcome the NIMBY/FUD, which is due to not knowing anything about FF’s inherent safety and other benefits.

Now, let’s assume that Eric’s testing and calibrating using only D-T fuel this year, and the pB-11 salsa delivers 3 or more verifications between August and November 2010, so the press release that rewrites energy history goes out during a major election cycle. Most of Michigan’s elected officials are up for re-election this year. I’m currently compiling an initial contact log for all candidates. What I intend to do is place as many as 1,000 calls to staffers on the first round, which will sort out who the Players are. The second round would hopefully be 1,000 calls or less. Both rounds will be selling the need to protect their political credibility by making Alternative Energy THE hot topic, and having a plan in place showing that they seen FF coming at least a year before the headlines and are ready to integrate it due to concerted public/private planning and and alignment of pooled resources.

Multiplying this strategy by 50 states could make Alternative Energy THE hot topic of the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races. Leveraging the existing political pressures should raise public awareness of FF’s benefits while short-circuiting the NIMBY/FUD votes (but not the rhetoric) with no budget and very little effort compared to a paid advertising PR blitz. As Spock said in the original series, “Chance favors the prepared mind”.

I’m not sure if there is any problem in stacking FF modules, but, e.g., a ‘cube’ of 10x10x10 units would be 1,000, generating 5GW, and would take up perhaps 100′ x 140′ on the ground, plus a certain allowance for internal access corridors and cooling ducting. Connectors and transformers, etc., would occupy more acreage. But it seems like a viable alternative to the side-by-side arrangements envisaged by Rematog.

Of course, co-opting existing plant space being mothballed, etc., has advantages, but if stacking is possible, then all sorts of options open up. Imagine an FF hi-rise or two on the outskirts of a medium-sized city, supplying all commercial, industrial, and residential power. It could even be load-sensitive, since stopping and restarting individual modules to make 5MW changes in output would (I assume) be relatively easy.

To speculate even more widely, embed banks of modules in the ground, in holes left by emptying out landfill sites (by reducing them to valuable elemental form and syngas with plasma-torching). Etc.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

I’m not sure if there is any problem in stacking FF modules, but, e.g., a ‘cube’ of 10x10x10 units would be 1,000, generating 5GW, and would take up perhaps 100′ x 140′ on the ground, plus a certain allowance for internal access corridors and cooling ducting. Connectors and transformers, etc., would occupy more acreage. But it seems like a viable alternative to the side-by-side arrangements envisaged by Rematog.

Of course, co-opting existing plant space being mothballed, etc., has advantages, but if stacking is possible, then all sorts of options open up. Imagine an FF hi-rise or two on the outskirts of a medium-sized city, supplying all commercial, industrial, and residential power. It could even be load-sensitive, since stopping and restarting individual modules to make 5MW changes in output would (I assume) be relatively easy.

To speculate even more widely, embed banks of modules in the ground, in holes left by emptying out landfill sites (by reducing them to valuable elemental form and syngas with plasma-torching). Etc.

That would be really cool to get a module that small. I have a hunch that engineering dogma and fire codes are going to make first generation power station modules more along the size I listed above. There really should be no reason not to be able to stack units, as long as structure and magnetic shielding (if needed) are properly planned. Passive magnetic shielding may be why Rematog envisioned it the way he did, since doubling the distance quarters the field strength. Even if they do have to be arranged horizontally, we have a LOT of large empty factories around here with roughly a million square feet each and ceilings beginning at 14 feet high.

High rise brought the image of an old power plant to mind. Imagine how high you could stack units given an 80 or 100 foot ceiling. In new construction, the FF modules could become an integral part of the building’s structure, much like stacker cranes in “automated” warehouses.

As long as the fuel is heated, load corrections in 5MW chunks could be sensed and executed in less than a millisecond- essentially instantly. Physical relays would probably make it more like a second or two if they are used.

I just changed my profile’s site link to point to the url I got yesterday, Subatomic Precision. I’m working it up to be the 5 to 10 page minisite that I send politicians, reporters, and editors to. Page one is up. Comments are welcome.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:
…

I just changed my profile’s site link to point to the url I got yesterday, Subatomic Precision. I’m working it up to be the 5 to 10 page minisite that I send politicians, reporters, and editors to. Page one is up. Comments are welcome.

Comments are impossible! No button or link for them.

A single quibble, so far: “Unfortunately, the first proven nuclear reactions of either type were nuclear weapons. ” Not so. There were fission reactors in, e.g., Chicago earlier. http://www.lanl.gov/history/road/chicago-reactor.shtml

[Aeronaut]

Thanx, Brian. I’d forgotten all about the Manhattan Project. Doh! I’ll correct that in my next round. I just added the “how to analyze a reactor” page and cleaned up the header. I’ll set up the mailbox later this morning and link to it on the contact page.

[Rematog]

One simple reason for not stacking units. Real estate, esp in the country, is cheaper then structural steel. Think about the structural steel need for a 20 story (10 module) high power stack. Thats about the height of our boilers. They sit on an 11′ (yes, feet, that’s not a typo) thick concrete slab and the main columns have flanges about 2″ thick, somewhere around 200 lb per foot WF beams.

Land is cheaper. Plus, you’d need cranes, elevators…all those things equal dollar signs.

Two reasons boilers go up. Hot gases rise and molten slag falls.

Plus, until about 1960, all boilers were natural circulation. It’s only been since the 90’s that supercritical once thru boilers became common. And for natural circulation (of the water in the boiler tubes) the tubes must go up and down with the steam drum on the top of the boiler.

Gravity, you’ve got to love it, it never fails and costs nothing.

Rematog

[Brian H]

Rematog wrote: One simple reason for not stacking units. Real estate, esp in the country, is cheaper then structural steel. Think about the structural steel need for a 20 story (10 module) high power stack. Thats about the height of our boilers. They sit on an 11′ (yes, feet, that’s not a typo) thick concrete slab the the main columns have flanges about 2″ thick, somewhere around 200′ per foot wide flange beams.

Land is cheaper. Plus, you’d need cranes, elevators…all those things equal dollar signs.

Two reasons boilers go up. Hot gases rise and molten slag falls.

Plus, until about 1960, all boilers were natural circulation. It’s only been since the 90’s that supercritical once thru boilers became common. And for natural circulation (of the water in the boiler tubes) the tubes must go up and down with the steam drum on the top of the boiler.

Gravity, you’ve got to love it, it never fails and costs nothing.

Rematog

Location, location, location. In the countryside, space is less expensive than steel, but clearly not in urban centers. Sometimes convenience to other facilities or markets etc. is of overwhelming importance.

But if stacking is possible, it will be used when appropriate and desirable and economically sensible, I’m sure. I.e., not a critical issue.

[Rematog]

Bye the Bye,

“Engineering dogma” (codes such as ASME, ASTM, various Electrical Codes) and the fire codes (NFPA) were created to save lives. Look up early 20th century boiler explosions (an example being the Grover Shoe Factory disaster) and fires (such as the Triangle factory, or the more recent Hamlet chicken processing plant fire). Yes, we may be a bit conservative, but remember engineering is based much more on empirical knowledge then on theoretical science. And people are hurt or killed when we make a serious underestimation of the perversity of nature.

A Licenced Professional Engineer, such as myself, has a duty to protect the public, just as a medical doctor has his oath. So when you go to bed tonight, in a house with a water heater (look up water heater explosions), be thankful for engineering dogma and fire codes.

Rematog

[Aeronaut]

I know you’re right, Rematog. When I was confused by the National Electric Code book, my dad (a retired production engineer) told me it was confusing because it was written by fire investigators, not electricians. I’ve worked in a lot of factories as an employee and as a contractor, and have only seen a few that used their space and volume anywhere near effectively.

Consider the differences in sea-based reactors. Would you expect an attack sub’s reactor room to be identical to one of a carrier’s reactor rooms?

Nonetheless, I believe the dimensions I floated above should fly at the module level. Can they stack? What do you think minimum spacing for magnetic separation would be for slam-dunk permitting by the NRC and other agencies?

Last but not least, I have no idea what two to eight GW of transmission transformer(s) and switching looks like, but Plant 1 has a huge parking lot under six existing transmission wires. Two other parking lots can easily handle fusion power plant staffers’ parking spaces. Any ideas how many GW the existing transmission lines could handle if they were tee-spliced to act as twelve lines?

Getting even 1 GW out of this building would be 1kW/square foot (!)

[Rematog]

Brian,

Your right, stacking is not critical, any would be based on design and operations considerations. In major urban areas, might be economical….. but you’d need to get the plant permitted first….you know my opinion about that.

Aeronaut,

Example, the switchyard on a 1.7Gw plant I’ve drawings for is a square about 700′ on a side. I’d imagine that there would be some economies of scale for large plants, but remember, high voltages require greater separation, hence more size.

As for transmission design, I’ve no experience with it. I’m an M.E., you need to ask that one of a double E.

Rematog

[Aeronaut]

Rematog wrote: Brian,

Your right, stacking is not critical, any would be based on design and operations considerations. In major urban areas, might be economical….. but you’d need to get the plant permitted first….you know my opinion about that.

Aeronaut,

Example, the switchyard on a 1.7Gw plant I’ve drawings for is a square about 700′ on a side. I’d imagine that there would be some economies of scale for large plants, but remember, high voltages require greater separation, hence more size.

As for transmission design, I’ve no experience with it. I’m an M.E., you need to ask that one of a double E.

Rematog

Too cool for school! I think that former parking lot is big enough for 3 or 4 of those switchyards w/o optimizing. We have 3 utilities statewide, and each is operating a fission plant. I imagine all three are close to retirement age. Might be able to talk one or more of them into a pilot plant…

Found some specs and pix of the UN’s version of FF in case anybody’s interested: http://www.icdmp.pl/pf1000.html Other than 24 cathodes, its in Baby’s ballpark for energy, current, voltage. This is from a very determined string of Google searches for competitors/independent verification candidates that ultimately led to Wiki. Go figure, right?

[belbear]

Aeronaut wrote: [
Found some specs and pix of the UN’s version of FF in case anybody’s interested: http://www.icdmp.pl/pf1000.html Other than 24 cathodes, its in Baby’s ballpark for energy, current, voltage. This is from a very determined string of Google searches for competitors/independent verification candidates that ultimately led to Wiki. Go figure, right?

That’s a big 10-404 on that link. Stripping the pf1000.html produces a dry message “It works!” Must have a good sense of British humor 🙂

[Author]

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