Black Swans and Greenwashing Solar and Wind

by: Greentech Media November 21, 2008 | about stocks: FAN / KWT / PWND / TAN    

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By Eric Wesoff

We at Greentech Media spend quite a bit of our time reporting on renewable energy technologies.  We live, breath, and eat renewable energy.   But today I received some bad news from Vinod Khosla, an investor sort, who spoke at Palo Alto Research Center on Thursday.

According to this Khosla guy (if you have any background on him, let me know) many of the market sectors that Greentech Media covers are essentially greenwashing and certainly not a solution to our climate issues.

  • Photovoltaic panels in the booming $20B PV market? Not scalable and not sustainable without subsidies.   PV panels on roofs in Germany or San Francisco?  No way.  Not when Germany has the same solar resources as Alaska.  “Rich San Franciscans and Germans putting PV on their roofs only delays the problem and diverts money from where it’s needed.”
  • Those wind turbines from GE and Vestas?  They’re good but there’s little upside for innovation, the Betz limit is being approached, and the available good sites are declining.  And without storage, they don’t provide spinning reserve.
  • Those Prius hybrids driven by Bay Area liberal socialists?  Not a solution to the climate or energy problem.  Better to take that money and paint your roof white to improve the earth’s albedo.  And they certainly don’t meet the Chindia test.  To meet the Chindia test they have to compete with the $2500 Tata Nano.  “Hybrids are an inefficient carbon solution.” 
  • Biodiesel?  Nope, not a great idea.
  • Zero emission buildings?  Fashion and fad.
  • Clean Coal?  “FutureGen” is more like “NeverGen”
  • Carbon Capture and Sequestration?  VK says, “I do not believe carbon sequestration can work economically.”
  • T. Boone Pickens’ plan for LNG and wind?  “A dead-end street.”
  • New battery technology for EVs?  It’s unlikely that Li-ion or Ni mH chemistries will yield significant breakthroughs according to The Vinod.
  • Certainly, Energy Efficiency is a good thing?  Sorry.  According to Vinod “The Buzzkill” Khosla, “Too many people in the environmental movement think that efficiency is the answer.  Efficiency is valuable but not the sufficient.”

According to Mr. Sunshine, we need “relevant scale” solutions attacking oil, coal, cement, and steel.  “500 million people on earth enjoy a lifestyle that 9 billion people will want in 2050.”

Second only to the greenwashed concepts mentioned above, Mr. Khosla’s pet peeve is bad forecasting based of extrapolating the past when we should be “inventing the future.”

Khosla is looking for “black swan solutions” that cause “technology shock” and cites a few start-ups both in and out of his large cleantech portfolio that might provide the technology shock we need.

Kior’s biocrude replaces crude by utilizing thermal cracking - simulating the millions of years that turns trees and dinosaurs into oil.  According to Khosla, “They are making amazing progress” and are “Producing a barrel of oil a day.”

Transonic makes a “third type of engine” with an injector ignition technology that can create 100mpg diesel Priuses.

Calera is another potential black swan that can create cement that, “sequesters carbon dioxide rather than emitting it.”  Khosla said that, ”We’ll know in the next six months [if it’s for real]”

EEStor is not a Khosla portfolio company (they’re funded by KPCB, et al.) but not by choice.  “We didn’t get a chance to invest.”  “I can’t tell you if it will work, but if it does it completely changes the economics of hybrids.”

Other black swans to look for are in algenol and in energy storage.  

Solar PV, Wind, and biofuels are “little markets” according to Mr. Khosla’s audacious presentation and worldview. 

According to him, the new green is “Maintech” not “Cleantech” and we need to go after huge markets like engines, lighting, appliances, cement, water, glass, and buildings and not fritter away our time and effort on PV and wind.

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This article has 29 comments:

  •  
    Nov 21 09:38 AM
    Are you serious about Khosla? Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, former GP at Kleiner Perkins, current head of well respected venture shop Khosla Ventures.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 09:51 AM
    Eric,
    thanks: perhaps you should tell Vinod Khosla to check the combination of deepwater offshore wind energy and hydrogen production
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 10:21 AM
    Finally a truth teller!! Khosla puts his money where his mouth is as a major investor in green technologies. He has enormous credibility.

    Solar and wind power? Off-cycle - they generate peak power at mid-day or at night, not at the time of peak demand. Energy storage at a scale required to meet demand is not economic in most places.

    CNG or hydrogen? CNG uses 4x the volume of liquid fuels; would you buy a car with no trunk? Free hydrogen hardly exists in nature, and producing it takes more energy than it delivers.

    Let's hope Vinod is heard before our esteemed Congress appropriates funds to support more dead-end technologies.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 10:24 AM
    He doesn't mention Blacklight Power (the ultimate Black Swan), which like EEStor, if it works, it changes everything.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 10:56 AM
    Without nuclear, France would be 100% dark. Honest scientists understand this reality regardless of the presumed risks.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 11:57 AM
    rrbatch wrote: "Solar and wind power? Off-cycle - they generate peak power at mid-day or at night, not at the time of peak demand. "

    Huh? Mid-day is one of the times of peak demand (evening is another). One of the advantages of solar PV power is its peak production at the time of peak demand. Source: Wikipedia.

    I keep reading claims that wind is strongest at night. Where does this myth come from? Maybe there are locales where that is the case, but in general, winds are diurnal. Source: IWEA
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 21 01:20 PM
    This is the most falacious thing I've read in a long time.

    Subsidies for fossil fuels are about 5 to 10 times as much as for renewable energy.

    As this link shows:
    on oil subsidies
    www.heatisonline.org/c...

    "subsidy programmes from 1918 are still in place"
    "I'm not aware of any oil and gas subsidy that has ever been phased out," said Koplow, the leading expert on U.S. energy subsidies"
    "in a time of skyrocketing oil prices and profits, why did the George W. Bush administration in 2005 authorise an additional 32.9 billion dollars in new subsidies over a five-year period?"

    "Koplow's 2007 report to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development puts the annual U.S. subsidy at an average of 39 billion dollars a year."
    Another estimate puts oil and gas subsidies and tax credits at $84 billion a year.
    www.setamericafree.org...

    "Estimating U.S. oil and gas subsidies is very challenging. Subsidies rarely involve cash payments. Instead scores of U.S. government agencies and departments create hundreds of programmes to support the U.S. energy sector. And there is no requirement for the federal government to keep track of all this."

    "Energy subsidies are often simply hidden from public scrutiny. It's only recently been revealed that 40 companies granted leases between 1996 and 2000 for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico do not have to pay royalties for the publicly-owned resource. This is worth nearly a billion dollars a year in lost revenue to the federal government."

    "This massive government intervention distorts energy markets, making it very difficult for alternative energy sources to compete without similarly massive subsidies. "And it promotes America's addiction to oil," Larsen added."

    The average effective tax rate on integrated
    oil operations has fallen from 21.5 percent in
    the early 1980s to only 8.7 percent in the 1990s (both
    figures are significantly below the statutory rate of 35
    Coal and nuclear are also heavily subsidized.

    Anyone who makes statements about solar and wind needing to be subsidized shouldn't be listened to becuase it is sheer nonsense.
    Fledgling industries are what should be subsidized, not mature industries making the biggest profits in American business history.

    McCain wants to build 45 nuclear plants by 2020
    The American Wind Energy Association forecasts that installed capacity could grow from 11,603 MW today to around 100,000 MW by 2020. That's 100 gigawatts, or a nearly 90 gigawatt increase. 90 gigawatts is the same or more than you would get from 45 nuclear plants. The windfarms estimate is probably way too conservative. We can build them faster with a little political will to do so. Wind cost about a third of what nuclear does to build.

    and that's just wind. Solar can do much more.

    Denmark already has 20% wind power. Parts of Germany and Denmark have 40% wind power. We are told that wind and solar are too intermittent. Why isn't that a problem in Denmark. Could it be because they have no oil company lobby?

    Pickens' plan has two good ideas, wind power and HVDC transmission lines to distribute power from windfarms in Texas and the midwest, and from solar plants in the southwest.
    Trading wind for gas makes no sense because it is much more efficient to burn the gas in a power plant than in a car. And wind is too intermittant to operate as base load as gas can.

    Solar thermal plants with heat storage,in the southwest, can replace coal plants with the ability to put out base load power. These plants can be built in 2 to 3 years. They can put out steady power day and night. They will provide power at 5 to 8 cents a kilowatt within five years.
    Solar thermal power plants in the southwest, at rates competitive with coal and gas, could power the whole country, using less land than we now use for coal plants and mining. and the tax dollars spent over 35 years or so would be about what we now give oil companies in the form of tax credits and subsidies every 5 to 10 years.
    Joseph Romm in this great article says:
    "It would be straightforward to build CSP systems at whatever rate industry and governments needed, ultimately 50 to 100 gigawatts a year growth or more."
    www.salon.com/news/fea...

    100 gigawatts equivalant in nuclear would mean building 50 or more nukes a year. That my friend will never happen.
    and
    "The key attribute of CSP is that it generates primary energy in the form of heat, which can be stored 20 to 100 times more cheaply than electricity -- and with far greater efficiency"

    Add photovoltaics all over the country to the solar plants in the southwest and you have solar energy on a vast scale.

    The remarks about hybrids are false. Plug in hybrids would give the average driver 100 miles to the gallon overall. The higher initial cost would pay for itself in 5 years if gasoline is $1.75 a gallon. Think you'll see gas that cheap in the future?

    Sensible plans are at.

    www.setamericafree.org...
    A Blueprint for U.S. Energy Security

    www.repoweramerica.org

    climateprogress.org

    www.sciam.com/article....
    Solar thermal a better choice than the concentrating PV emphasized here, but shows what we can do and what it will cost.

    more info on solar thermal at:
    solarsouthwest.org/ Solar Soutwest Initiative

    All in all this article is complete rubbish
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 05:00 AM

    Winds are diurnal in places such as California where windfarms are placed in gaps in the coastal mountains in order to capture the winds generated by pressure differences between the ocean and interior as the dry interior warms and cools every day much faster than the does the air over the ocean. Many other regions such as Eastern Canada do not have a diurnal pattern. Instead you see a seasonal pattern where the wind blows more strongly in the autumn and winter than in the spring or summer.

    On Nov 21 11:57 AM m. melius wrote:

    > rrbatch wrote: "Solar and wind power? Off-cycle - they generate peak
    > power at mid-day or at night, not at the time of peak demand. "<br/>
    >
    > Huh? Mid-day is one of the times of peak demand (evening is another).
    > One of the advantages of solar PV power is its peak production at
    > the time of peak demand. Source: Wikipedia.
    >
    > I keep reading claims that wind is strongest at night. Where does
    > this myth come from? Maybe there are locales where that is the case,
    > but in general, winds are diurnal. Source: IWEA
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 06:34 AM
    build more geothermal power plants,
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 09:23 AM
    Meanwhile the most important element of a long-term solution went right past everyone, although it was mentioned in the article... population control! (and it's corollary, Family Planning -- you know the Family Planning that was axed by Bush long ago). The only real way to avoid a huge energy crunch soon, short of discovering a completely new source of energy, is global population control. Fewer people will need fewer resources -- and that'll reduce global warming too!
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 09:49 AM
    geothermal - brines @ some localities are potentially a source of lithium. if the battery people are correct we are going to need a lot of lithium - from domestic sources,
    > jack
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 10:08 AM
    Finally an article that tells it like it is. At times it seems like the whole environmental movement is cursed with dreamers who see things the way they wish them be rather than the way they really are. Solar and wind power are fine for what they are, but they are niche power sources and are not the answer.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 10:19 AM
    In the US, over half the population is within 100 miles of the ocean and last I heard, the waves on the ocean keep going up and down 24/7/365. Just how long will it take some genius to put a generator in a buoy ? Or a monster generator in a floating platform. Geez Louise. Yes, intricate technology is fun, but what about KISS ?

    Then, of course, there's the TIDES ... What are we thinking ? What are we smoking ?
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 11:14 AM
    For a look at near-term breakthrough energy technology, see the recent article on our website entitled: How to kick-start economic recovery.

    Energy storage and transmission lines will be possible with Ultraconductors. There is a bit about the UltraGrid on the MPI website. More can be learned by going to the lower right corner of the page and clicking on the word Ultraconductors. These are the practical equivalent of room temperature superconductors and are expected to be available as wire and cable in about 3 years. Ultraconducting Magnetic Energy Storage will be the equivalent of Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage, but at room temperature. It can replace batteries and also provide factory built 8 foot diameter storage rings for utilities and industries.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 12:20 PM
    Guess what, there are Black Swan solutions in energy-efficiency and conservation, too. Don't forget that if you could reduce energy-consumption for buildings, etc. by 50%, that's a big impact. Still nothing beats pricing energy to reflect all its externalities (middle-east military costs included). If you want spur innovation and behavior (and raise some funding for it), then there's nothing like the price mechanism. The cost of gasoline, really is about $5/gallon when you start adding the costs of subsidies, environmental damage, patrolling the Persian Gulf (even before the was that was 50 cents/gallon), etc. Yup, a tax to do full-cost accounting is best. Does Amtrak lose money? That's a stupid question. Does I-95 lose money? Of course it does, and many times more than Amtrak does - and that's just to maintain it.

    Vinod throws his money around on a lot of ventures some good, and some bad. He's just hoping to hit a home run with one of them. He's certainly not the most prescient VC in the cleantech arena by a long-shot.

    He also seems to forget that while Black Swans are important, there's a lot to be said for a the combination of a many other solutions (they are not only additive, but often have an enabling effect on others. Lighter materials can not only lead to major breakthroughs in wind-turbine blades, but also lighter vehicles, and less energy-intensive processes to manufacture them, etc.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 12:35 PM
    Give the guy a cave and a club - but no prize blonde to drag around.....
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 01:07 PM
    After spending a over a year attending pnm electric integrated resourced planning meeting, I learned a little about electric power generation.

    Result was that I discovered that the laws of thermodynamics, heat rate, and capacity factor are important in evaluating power generation technologies.

    Alternate energy sources appear weak on BTUs IN required to produce BTUs OUT which are required to generate electricity.

    1 kilowatt hour = 3412.14163 BTUs, I read on Internet.

    Coal, oil, and natural gas are hard to beat for BTU content.

    Big suprise to me was how many BTUs per pound coal contains. About 8,800BTU/pound, even for low-grade subbituminous Powder River Basin coal.

    From what was learned, electric shortages in the US may appear within the next several years.

    See FOIL 9.

    home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...



    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 04:38 PM
    Hi,
    I am author of the article and of course I know who Vinod Khosla is. Next time I'll use emoticons for the humor impaired.
    Eric Wesoff


    On Nov 21 09:38 AM NjordWind wrote:

    > Are you serious about Khosla? Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, former
    > GP at Kleiner Perkins, current head of well respected venture shop
    > Khosla Ventures.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 22 08:22 PM
    This article is crap! You wasted my time. Shame on you.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 02:21 AM
    Often the interference for establishing new technologies comes from those that inherently have nothing to gain. The USA has several obvious choices; those energy choices, while not perfect mark time, and protect our dollar, our jobs. We use homegrown energy thereby keeping Dollars here, OR we use others energy(iraq,s.a.,ven.,... etc) and continue dollar destruction. Dollar destruction is comming so we need to move post hast.

    Pickens Plan is as HE stated -just a stopgap until we develop other technologies...
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 08:03 AM
    I remember seeing a man that Invented a solar engine, Where is that at? People who want to down play solar and wind must be crazy, It's FREE and doesn't have to be produced! They are here everyday. So, people are talking B.S. Energy Corporations don't like FREE, so the propaganda Continues.There are a lot of alternative energy plays out there, but they are doing all they can to block them! We have a Free energy system, but, Like I said , it all boils down to the Dollar, and under that system, all will be done to make sure you don't see it. The Energy Revolution will need a Revolution to get that going. Watch the movie,The Saint, I think it was the last one made,it's about free energy and politics to Block it! I believe that's what is going on now.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 08:05 AM
    Exxon's tax rate for the first nine months this year was 48%. This amount of money is more than the bottom 50% of all US individual tax payers will pay.


    On Nov 21 01:20 PM frflyer wrote:

    > This is the most falacious thing I've read in a long time.
    >
    > Subsidies for fossil fuels are about 5 to 10 times as much as for
    > renewable energy.
    >
    > As this link shows:
    > on oil subsidies
    > www.heatisonline.org/c...;Method=Full
    >
    >
    > "subsidy programmes from 1918 are still in place"
    > "I'm not aware of any oil and gas subsidy that has ever been phased
    > out," said Koplow, the leading expert on U.S. energy subsidies"
    >
    > "in a time of skyrocketing oil prices and profits, why did the George
    > W. Bush administration in 2005 authorise an additional 32.9 billion
    > dollars in new subsidies over a five-year period?"
    >
    > "Koplow's 2007 report to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
    > and Development puts the annual U.S. subsidy at an average of 39
    > billion dollars a year."
    > Another estimate puts oil and gas subsidies and tax credits at $84
    > billion a year.
    > www.setamericafree.org...
    >
    > "Estimating U.S. oil and gas subsidies is very challenging. Subsidies
    > rarely involve cash payments. Instead scores of U.S. government agencies
    > and departments create hundreds of programmes to support the U.S.
    > energy sector. And there is no requirement for the federal government
    > to keep track of all this."
    >
    > "Energy subsidies are often simply hidden from public scrutiny. It's
    > only recently been revealed that 40 companies granted leases between
    > 1996 and 2000 for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico do not have to pay
    > royalties for the publicly-owned resource. This is worth nearly a
    > billion dollars a year in lost revenue to the federal government."
    >
    >
    > "This massive government intervention distorts energy markets, making
    > it very difficult for alternative energy sources to compete without
    > similarly massive subsidies. "And it promotes America's addiction
    > to oil," Larsen added."
    >
    > The average effective tax rate on integrated
    > oil operations has fallen from 21.5 percent in
    > the early 1980s to only 8.7 percent in the 1990s (both
    > figures are significantly below the statutory rate of 35
    > Coal and nuclear are also heavily subsidized.
    >
    > Anyone who makes statements about solar and wind needing to be subsidized
    > shouldn't be listened to becuase it is sheer nonsense.
    > Fledgling industries are what should be subsidized, not mature industries
    > making the biggest profits in American business history.
    >
    > McCain wants to build 45 nuclear plants by 2020
    > The American Wind Energy Association forecasts that installed capacity
    > could grow from 11,603 MW today to around 100,000 MW by 2020. That's
    > 100 gigawatts, or a nearly 90 gigawatt increase. 90 gigawatts is
    > the same or more than you would get from 45 nuclear plants. The windfarms
    > estimate is probably way too conservative. We can build them faster
    > with a little political will to do so. Wind cost about a third of
    > what nuclear does to build.
    >
    > and that's just wind. Solar can do much more.
    >
    > Denmark already has 20% wind power. Parts of Germany and Denmark
    > have 40% wind power. We are told that wind and solar are too intermittent.
    > Why isn't that a problem in Denmark. Could it be because they have
    > no oil company lobby?
    >
    > Pickens' plan has two good ideas, wind power and HVDC transmission
    > lines to distribute power from windfarms in Texas and the midwest,
    > and from solar plants in the southwest.
    > Trading wind for gas makes no sense because it is much more efficient
    > to burn the gas in a power plant than in a car. And wind is too intermittant
    > to operate as base load as gas can.
    >
    > Solar thermal plants with heat storage,in the southwest, can replace
    > coal plants with the ability to put out base load power. These plants
    > can be built in 2 to 3 years. They can put out steady power day and
    > night. They will provide power at 5 to 8 cents a kilowatt within
    > five years.
    > Solar thermal power plants in the southwest, at rates competitive
    > with coal and gas, could power the whole country, using less land
    > than we now use for coal plants and mining. and the tax dollars spent
    > over 35 years or so would be about what we now give oil companies
    > in the form of tax credits and subsidies every 5 to 10 years. <br/>Joseph
    > Romm in this great article says:
    > "It would be straightforward to build CSP systems at whatever rate
    > industry and governments needed, ultimately 50 to 100 gigawatts a
    > year growth or more."
    > www.salon.com/news/fea...
    >
    >
    > 100 gigawatts equivalant in nuclear would mean building 50 or more
    > nukes a year. That my friend will never happen.
    > and
    > "The key attribute of CSP is that it generates primary energy in
    > the form of heat, which can be stored 20 to 100 times more cheaply
    > than electricity -- and with far greater efficiency"
    >
    > Add photovoltaics all over the country to the solar plants in the
    > southwest and you have solar energy on a vast scale.
    >
    > The remarks about hybrids are false. Plug in hybrids would give the
    > average driver 100 miles to the gallon overall. The higher initial
    > cost would pay for itself in 5 years if gasoline is $1.75 a gallon.
    > Think you'll see gas that cheap in the future?
    >
    > Sensible plans are at.
    >
    > www.setamericafree.org...
    > A Blueprint for U.S. Energy Security
    >
    > www.repoweramerica.org
    >
    > climateprogress.org
    >
    > www.sciam.com/article....
    > Solar thermal a better choice than the concentrating PV emphasized
    > here, but shows what we can do and what it will cost.
    >
    > more info on solar thermal at:
    > solarsouthwest.org/ Solar Soutwest Initiative
    >
    > All in all this article is complete rubbish
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 08:05 AM
    I remember seeing a man that Invented a solar engine, Where is that at? People who want to down play solar and wind must be crazy, It's FREE and don't have to be produced! They are here everyday. So, people are talking B.S. Energy Corporations don't like FREE, so the propaganda Continues.There are a lot of alternative energy plays out there, but they are doing all they can to block them! We have a Free energy system, but, Like I said , it all boils down to the Dollar, and under that system, all will be done to make sure you don't see it. Watch the movie, THE SAINT, It's a movie about what I'm talking about. Politics to Block FREE Energy that does Exist.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 08:12 AM
    What a bore.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 11:37 AM
    Wind is your freind........Wind is the trend!!! Sure, you do NOT place wind power in places where the wind does not blow!! But, you do NOT POLLUTE the way other solutions are mentioned..........Bla... is great in technology, we need to power the planet without polluting the planet!!!
    Obama is going to place WIND in the middle plains states and power without polluting while making GREEN JOBS at the same time putting Americans to work building wind turbines!! Vestas is great example powering 40% of some countries with wind power and yet the USA is less than 1% wind............someti... USA does NOT think nor plan............NOT this new coming President intent on building Green and Smart!!! The solution is NOT to pollute our world further than we have already melted the polar caps! Get on board the Wind Train about to leave the station despite the current 70% off white sale on wind stocks!
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Nov 23 05:54 PM
    Vinod Khosla should talk to Kirk Sorensen about LFTR technology. Kirk was invited to to Washington on November 3, to give a presentation at a workshop on Post-carbon energy issues, sponsorder by the renouned Dr. Jim Hanson. Kirk must have made an impression. In his latest briefing paper Tell Barack Obama the Truth – The Whole Truth
    Hansen makes the following statement:

    Nuclear Power. Some discussion about nuclear power is needed. Fourth generation nuclear power has the potential to provide safe base-load electric power with negligible CO2 emissions.

    There is about a million times more energy available in the nucleus, compared with the chemical energy of molecules exploited in fossil fuel burning. In today’s nuclear (fission) reactors neutrons cause a nucleus to fission, releasing energy as well as additional neutrons that sustain the reaction. The additional neutrons are ‘born’ with a great deal of energy and are called ‘fast’ neutrons. Further reactions are more likely if these neutrons are slowed by collisions with non-absorbing materials, thus becoming ‘thermal’ or slow neutrons.

    All nuclear plants in the United States today are Light Water Reactors (LWRs), using ordinary water (as opposed to ‘heavy water’) to slow the neutrons and cool the reactor. Uranium is the fuel in all of these power plants. One basic problem with this approach is that more than 99% of the uranium fuel ends up ‘unburned’ (not fissioned). In addition to ‘throwing away’ most of the potential energy, the long-lived nuclear wastes (plutonium, americium, curium, etc.) require geologic isolation in repositories such as Yucca Mountain.

    There are two compelling alternatives to address these issues, both of which will be needed in the future. The first is to build reactors that keep the neutrons ‘fast’ during the fission reactions. These fast reactors can completely burn the uranium. Moreover, they can burn existing long-lived nuclear waste, producing a small volume of waste with half-life of only sever decades, thus largely solving the nuclear waste problem.

    The other compelling alternative is to use thorium as the fuel in thermal reactors. Thorium can be used in ways that practically eliminate buildup of long-lived nuclear waste. The United States chose the LWR development path in the 1950s for civilian nuclear power because research and development had already been done by the Navy, and it thus presented the shortest time-to-market of reactor concepts then under consideration. Little emphasis was given to the issues of nuclear waste. The situation today is very different. If nuclear energy is to be used widely to replace coal, in the United States and/or the developing world, issues of waste, safety, and proliferation become paramount.

    Nuclear power plants being built today, or in advanced stages of planning, in the United States, Europe, China and other places, are just improved LWRs. They have simplified operations and added safety features, but they are still fundamentally the same type, produce copious nuclear waste, and continue to be costly. It seems likely that they will only permit nuclear power to continue to play a role comparable to that which it plays now.

    Both fast and thorium reactors were discussed at our 3 November workshop. The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept was developed at the Argonne National Laboratory and it has been built and tested at the Idaho National Laboratory. IFR keeps neutrons “fast” by using liquid sodium metal as a coolant instead of water. It also makes fuel processing easier by using a metallic solid fuel form. IFR can burn existing nuclear waste, making electrical power in the process. All fuel reprocessing is done within the reactor facility (hence the name “integral”) and many enhanced safety features are included and have been tested, such as the ability to shutdown safely under even severe accident scenarios.

    The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is a thorium reactor concept that uses a chemically-stable fluoride salt for the medium in which nuclear reactions take place. This fuel form yields flexibility of operation and eliminates the need to fabricate fuel elements. This feature solves most concerns that have prevented thorium from being used in solid-fueled reactors. The fluid fuel in LFTR is also easy to process and to separate useful fission products, both stable and radioactive. LFTR also has the potential to destroy existing nuclear waste, albeit with less efficiency than in a fast reactor such as IFR.

    Both IFR and LFTR operate at low pressure and high temperatures, unlike today’s LWR’s. Operation at low pressures alleviates much of the accident risk with LWR. Higher temperatures enable more of the reactor heat to be converted to electricity (40% in IFR, 50% in LFTR vs 35% in LWR). Both IFR and LFTR have the potential to be air-cooled and to use waste heat for desalinating water.

    Both IFR and LFTR are 100-300 times more fuel efficient than LWRs. In addition to solving the nuclear waste problem, they can operate for several centuries using only uranium and thorium that has