Hybrid-Nuclear Power: An Unexpected Energy Solution for the 21st Century

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Coal Gasification ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Transportation Fuels ◽  
Helium Gas ◽  
Energy Independence ◽  
Hybrid Configuration

America possesses hundreds of years of low-cost coal resources that are becoming increasingly unpopular due to climate-change concerns. The high cost of conventional nuclear power greatly hampers the building of new such facilities, while the promise of the nuclear gas reactor also remains out-of-reach as a result of technical and competiveness considerations. Hybrid-nuclear power is a breakthrough solution to the emerging energy and climate change dilemmas. This unique technology springs from the observation that roughly half the power produced by a combustion turbine is used to compress air. By using low-cost nuclear fuel and a highly efficient helium gas reactor system with a combustion turbine, power plant output is significantly increased, costs are appreciably lowered and emissions are dramatically reduced. The helium gas reactor marriage with the combustion turbine and coal gasification opens the door for the continued use of our most abundant and low-cost fuel resource, coal. This hybrid configuration dramatically reduces environmental impacts while also supporting the co-production of all manner of liquid transportation fuels, substitute natural gas, hydrogen, and process heat as well as industrial chemicals. Solar and energy storage applications are also readily supported by the hybrid’s inherent flexibility. Hybrid-nuclear energy relies on tried-and-proven technologies as well as the large body of knowledge developed over the 50 year history of nuclear reactors and combustion turbines. The unique characteristics of the hybrid-nuclear approach allow the technology to overcome the engineering, financial and regulatory obstacles that have long held back the full-scale commercial deployment of the high-temperature gas reactor. The emerging hybrid-nuclear technology readily supports energy independence and can simultaneously help revitalize the increasingly challenged US coal and nuclear industries.

Hybrid Nuclear Power: An Unexpected Small Reactor Approach

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Coal Gasification ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Nuclear Reactors ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Helium Gas

The world possess hundreds of years of economical coal reserves that are becoming increasingly unpopular due to climate-change concerns. The ability of renewable energy to supply the planet’s needs is limited. The once bright promise of American nuclear power has dimmed considerably due to the high cost of building new facilities, with the recent events in Japan creating even more uncertainties. Small nuclear reactors are now being proposed, but their limited size creates problematic competitiveness issues. Our energy options for the future are becoming progressively more limited. A completely unexpected solution lies with a hybrid gas turbine designed to cleanly produce large amounts of electrical power using two fuel sources. This recently proposed and unique U.S. technology employs a large combustion (gas) turbine in tandem with a small and efficient helium gas reactor. Relative to conventional methods, the hybrid greatly increases energy production, appreciably reduces costs while dramatically reducing emissions and solid wastes, particularly spent nuclear fuel which is also essentially worthless as bomb material. The commercial potential of the hybrid is unprecedented. The helium gas reactor marriage with the combustion turbine opens the door for the continued use of one of the worlds’ most abundant and low-cost fuel resources, coal. The hybrid-nuclear coal gasification configuration dramatically reduces environmental impacts while also supporting the co-production of all manner of liquid transportation fuels, substitute natural gas, hydrogen, process heat and industrial chemicals. Replacement of the aging fleet of US coal plants with hybrid-nuclear/coal gasification units would dramatically reduce air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions without resorting to the problematic sequestration (pumping into the ground) of CO2. Further, coal sludge waste and ponds would be eliminated. The unique characteristics of the hybrid also sustain the co-production of stored energy (compressed air) and solar power and move both of these expensive green resources into more competitive positions. The hybrid’s unique operational capabilities readily support the electrical grid, particularly the increasing variability caused by greater use of renewable energy. The use of hybrid-nuclear energy plants would significantly extend the life of the world’s fuel resources, to the benefit of future generations. The hybrid relies on tried-and-proven technologies as well as the large body of knowledge developed over the 50 year history of nuclear reactors and combustion turbines. The unique characteristics of the hybrid overcome the engineering, financial and regulatory obstacles that have long held back the full-scale commercial deployment of the gas reactor. The hybrid technology is considerably safer than current reactors. Melting of the nuclear fuel is not possible, the reactor can not cause explosions or burnup, and radiation releases to the environment are extremely unlikely. No operator actions are necessary to keep the public safe. Hybrid nuclear energy is a fail-safe and evolutionary new direction for nuclear power.

Nuclear Power and Coal: An Unexpected Marriage

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coal Resources ◽  
Hybrid Technology ◽  
Energy Independence ◽  
Change Concerns ◽  
New Facilities

America possesses hundreds of years of low-cost coal resources that are becoming increasingly unpopular due to climate-change concerns. The promise of the nuclear gas reactor also remains out-of-reach as a result of technical and cost considerations, while the high cost of conventional nuclear power greatly hampers the building of new facilities. Hybrid-nuclear power is an unexpected breakthrough solution to the growing energy and climate change dilemmas. The emerging hybrid technology can help revitalize the coal as well as nuclear industries while also significantly helping the United States achieve energy independence.

An Unexpected Solution to the Energy Crisis: Hybrid Nuclear Energy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Coal Gasification ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
Major Complication ◽  
Coal Waste ◽  
Hybrid Automobile

The global need for environmentally clean yet inexpensive and reliable energy is a problem that has yet to find a solution. • In one corner are coal plants that can generate low-cost power using abundant reserves of coal, but if emissions are uncontrolled, major health and environmental impacts can occur. • In another corner are natural gas power plants that can produce energy with relatively low emissions, but the cost to the consumer is unpredictable and often high. • Yet another option lies with building nuclear plants that produce emissions-free power, but initial costs are very high and some public unease exists with respect to safety. A major complication is the consensus that burning massive amounts of fossil fuels is a primary culprit behind climate change. While intermittent renewable energy (e.g. solar and wind) and conservation practices can help, the undeniable truth is that the vast quantities of power we continuously consume overwhelm the practical capabilities of the “green” sources. Similar in nature to the fundamentals behind the hybrid automobile, Hybrid-nuclear Energy is an emerging 21st century technology that provides an environmentally sound and economical solution to the power and greenhouse gas dilemmas. This developing energy conversion process uses nuclear and fossil fuels to safely produce reasonably priced electrical power and transportation fuels from our own indigenous sources with the timely benefit of dramatically reduced emissions, particularly CO2. Hybrid-nuclear Energy secures energy independence by using cleaner coal, effectively solves nuclear and coal waste dilemmas, and helps create more affordable nuclear power. These surprising results are achieved by a unique marriage of helium gas reactor, combustion turbine and coal gasification technologies.

scholarly journals A Person-to-Person and Person-to-Place COVID-19 Contact Tracing System Based on OGC IndoorGML

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soroush Ojagh ◽  
Sara Saeedi ◽  
Steve H. L. Liang
Keyword(s):  
Data Model ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Trajectory Data ◽  
Sequential Order ◽  
Human Contact ◽  
Wide Availability ◽  
Data Points ◽  
The Impact

With the wide availability of low-cost proximity sensors, a large body of research focuses on digital person-to-person contact tracing applications that use proximity sensors. In most contact tracing applications, the impact of SARS-CoV-2 spread through touching contaminated surfaces in enclosed places is overlooked. This study is focused on tracing human contact within indoor places using the open OGC IndoorGML standard. This paper proposes a graph-based data model that considers the semantics of indoor locations, time, and users’ contexts in a hierarchical structure. The functionality of the proposed data model is evaluated for a COVID-19 contact tracing application with scalable system architecture. Indoor trajectory preprocessing is enabled by spatial topology to detect and remove semantically invalid real-world trajectory points. Results show that 91.18% percent of semantically invalid indoor trajectory data points are filtered out. Moreover, indoor trajectory data analysis is innovatively empowered by semantic user contexts (e.g., disinfecting activities) extracted from user profiles. In an enhanced contact tracing scenario, considering the disinfecting activities and sequential order of visiting common places outperformed contact tracing results by filtering out unnecessary potential contacts by 44.98 percent. However, the average execution time of person-to-place contact tracing is increased by 58.3%.

scholarly journals The Productive Landscape in the Desert Margin for the Sustainable Development of Rural Settlements: An Innovative Greenbelt for Maranjab Desert in Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2077
Author(s):  
Mahnaz Sarlak ◽  
Laura Valeria Ferretti ◽  
Rita Biasi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Green Belt ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Form ◽  
Low Levels

About two billion rural individuals depend on agricultural systems associated with a high amount of risk and low levels of yield in the drylands of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Human activities, climate change and natural extreme events are the most important drivers of desertification. This phenomenon has occurred in many regions of Iran, particularly in the villages in the periphery of the central desert of Iran, and has made living in the oases so difficult that the number of abandoned villages is increasing every year. Land abandonment and land-use change increase the risk of desertification. This study aims to respond to the research questions: (i) does the planning of green infrastructures on the desert margin affect the distribution and balance of the population? (ii) how should the green belt be designed to have the greatest impact on counteracting desertification?, and (iii) does the design of productive landscape provide the solution? Through a wide-ranging and comprehensive approach, this study develops different scenarios for designing a new form of green belt in order to sustainably manage the issues of environmental protection, agricultural tradition preservation and desertification counteraction. This study proposes a new-traditional greenbelt including small low-cost and low-tech projects adapted to rural scale.

scholarly journals Janus Membrane with Novel Directional Water Transport Capacity for Efficient Atmospheric Water Capture

Nanoscale ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Wu ◽  
Baona Ren ◽  
Haohong Pi ◽  
Xin Zhao ◽  
Miaomiao Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Water Transport ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Transport Capacity ◽  
Atmospheric Water ◽  
Human Survival ◽  
Survival And Development ◽  
Energy Independence

Fresh water scarcity becomes a crisis to human survival and development. Atmospheric water capture with remarkable advantages such as energy-independence, low-cost, etc., has been supposed as a promising way to...

scholarly journals Nuclear power in Australia: A comparative analysis of public opinion regarding climate change and the Fukushima disaster

Energy Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 644-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanne K. Bird ◽  
Katharine Haynes ◽  
Rob van den Honert ◽  
John McAneney ◽  
Wouter Poortinga
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Fukushima Disaster

scholarly journals Preventing Nuclear Weapon Proliferation as Nuclear Power Expands

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegfried S. Hecker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Nuclear Attack ◽  
The Cold War

Raj et al. describe the promise of nuclear energy as a sustainable, affordable, and carbon-free source available this century on a scale that can help meet the world's growing need for energy and help slow the pace of global climate change. However, the factor of millions gain in energy release from nuclear fssion compared to all conventional energy sources that tap the energy of electrons (Figure 1) has also been used to create explosives of unprecedented lethality and, hence, poses a serious challenge to the expansion of nuclear energy worldwide. Although the end of the cold war has eliminated the threat of annihilating humanity, the likelihood of a devastating nuclear attack has increased as more nations, subnational groups, and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

scholarly journals Improvement of turbogenerators as a technical basis for ensuring the energy independence of Ukraine

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
V. V. Shevchenko ◽  
A. N. Minko ◽  
M. Dimov
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Electric Power ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Electric Power Industry ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
The World ◽  
Energy Independence

The paper defines the directions of improving turbogenerators as the basis for ensuring the energy independence of Ukraine. The analysis of the state, problems and prospects for the development of modern electric power industry. Goal of the work is to identify promising directions for sustainable development of the national electric power industry in order to ensure energy security of Ukraine, to conduct a comparative analysis of electricity sources, to confirm the need to improve the main sources – turbogenerators. Methodology. During the research, an analytical analysis of the electricity sources, which are installed at power plants in Ukraine and the world, was carried out, taking into account the growth of the planet's population and its energy activity. Cyclic theory was chosen as the theoretical basis for forecasting. On the basis of this theory, global development trends, advantages and disadvantages of currently used sources of electricity - thermal (including nuclear) power plants and stations that operate from renewable energy sources - have been established. A review of literary sources on the methods of the energy sector forecasting the development, including the development of the energy sector in Ukraine, has been carried out. Originality. It has been established that due to the active growth of the planet's population, with the increase in its energy activity, obtaining electricity from renewable energy sources is not enough, that for the next 20-30 years nuclear power plants will be the main sources of electricity. The internal and external threats to the energy security of Ukraine, directions of development of turbogenerator construction, ways to improve turbogenerators, to increase their energy efficiency, power per unit of performance, to increase the readiness and maneuverability factors, and overload capacity have been identified. Practical significance. The need to continue the modernization and improvement of the turbogenerators of nuclear power plant units, as the main sources of electricity, has been proved. The directions of their improvement are established: increasing the power in the established sizes, making changes to the design of the turbogenerators inactive elements, replacing the cooling agent to keep Ukrainian turbogenerators at the world level, improving auxiliary systems, improving and increasing the reliability of the excitation system, introduction of automatic systems for monitoring the state turbogenerators. Possible limits of use, advantages, disadvantages and problems of using renewable energy sources for Ukraine have been established.

scholarly journals Thermodynamic analysis of high temperature nuclear reactor coupled with advanced gas turbine combined cycle

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (Suppl. 4) ◽  
pp. 1187-1197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Jaszczur ◽  
Michal Dudek ◽  
Zygmunt Kolenda
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Power Plant ◽  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Thermodynamic Analysis ◽  
Thermal Efficiency ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Coal Gasification ◽  
Nuclear Reactor ◽  
Combined Cycle ◽  
Oil Processing

One of the most advanced and most effective technology for electricity generation nowadays based on a gas turbine combined cycle. This technology uses natural gas, synthesis gas from the coal gasification or crude oil processing products as the energy carriers but at the same time, gas turbine combined cycle emits SO2, NOx, and CO2 to the environment. In this paper, a thermodynamic analysis of environmentally friendly, high temperature gas nuclear reactor system coupled with gas turbine combined cycle technology has been investigated. The analysed system is one of the most advanced concepts and allows us to produce electricity with the higher thermal efficiency than could be offered by any currently existing nuclear power plant technology. The results show that it is possible to achieve thermal efficiency higher than 50% what is not only more than could be produced by any modern nuclear plant but it is also more than could be offered by traditional (coal or lignite) power plant.

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