3_Coal_Replacement

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Chapter 3.
Supersize Part 3: The Coal Yard Nuke Module
Mass produced, quick to install, set and forget.

A nuclear power plant boiler
'with an automatic transmission and power steering'
- designed to make coal obsolete.

A nuclear reactor with an automatic transmission and power steering. Making nuclear energy available to "non-nuclear knowledgeable" users.
Introduction
Part 1   About the BN-800 Coal Yard Nuke Module.
Part 2    Electric Shock: Automatic nuclear reactors making electricity in every small town? The smart "Off-grid" paradigm.
Part 3    Advantages of converting any existing coal power plant from coal to nuclear.
Part 4    Disadvantages of locating a nuclear reactor in an existing coal power plant.
Part 5    Oversized nuclear boilers can make conversion from fossil to nuclear financially attractive.
Part 6    PANAMAX: Nuclear Boiler on a Barge. Mass producing 7,000 nuclear boilers in automated shipyards.
Part 7    The world's 8 automated nuclear-ship capable shipyards are also capable of mass producing Coal Yard Nukes.

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Introduction. There are coal storage yards everywhere because there are boilers everywhere. Many of them are now empty of coal because coal boilers are easy and cheap to convert to cleaner, easier to use, but far more expensive natural gas. Natural gas makes about 60% the Global Warming CO2 coal makes and is far cleaner in ash and chemical pollutants.

The Coal Yard Nuke plan is the logical next step in making nuclear energy available to non-nuclear knowledgeable users.

Modularity is the key to efficiency in heavy industry. The Coal Yard Nuke module is designed to reconcile the conflicting demands of global mass production, global customers, extremely heavy and bulky equipment needing quick and predictable installation, and the technology infusion that converting from heavy coal energy to heavy nuclear energy demands.

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Part 1: The Coal Yard Nuke Concept. About the BN-800 Coal Yard Nuke module.

Introduction: About the BN-800 Coal Yard Nuke Module
An automatic nuclear boiler module for converting coal power plants to nuclear

In the above drawing of a Coal Burning Power Plant, the coal burning equipment (center, faded) has been disconnected
and the electricity generator turbine reconnected to a BN-800 nuclear boiler (right.)
Man standing above yellow box shows size. The red "Hot Tub" is 30 feet in diameter, 45 feet high.

About the Coal Yard Nuclear Boiler Module:

The BN-800 Coal Yard Nuclear Boiler Module is a disposable, mass-produced, automatic nuclear reactor heated boiler intended to be used in large numbers for Global Warming CO2 mitigation.

A "Fourth Generation" reactor design, ROSATOM's "BN" fast-neutron, unpressurized "Hot Tub" reactors have been running continuously without major incident since the BN-350 went on-line in 1973. A 1980 BN-600 is still in service. A BN-800 currently under construction next door to the BN-600 is due to go on-line in 2012. China just bought two BN-800s to power the Sanming City area grid.

The nuclear boiler, shown here on a 110 foot long ocean-going barge, is controlled by computers to eliminate human operator errors. It is an unattended automatic fast neutron nuclear steam boiler capable of replacing power plant coal burning steam boilers. It is a "Set and Forget" module, much like the hot water heater in your basement or garage. Construction Photos .pdf

Getting 15 times the "uranium mileage" of today's reactors, fast-neutron reactors can be set up to run 20 years between refuelings, leaving only 5% of its fuel mass as a safer kind of nuclear waste that's worthless for weapons and incapable of staying dangerously radioactive longer than about 200 years.

The BN-800 Coal Yard Nuclear boiler modules would be mass-produced on concrete barges in the world's eight nuclear-ship capable shipyards, floated to locations next to the turbine building of any of the world's 1,200 largest power plants (most of which are located on navigable water) set on pilings, have a 3 foot thick reinforced concrete containment enclosure poured around it, the containment's sides covered with dirt, and finally, through a new opening in the turbine building's wall, have its steam supply pipes connected to an existing electricity generating turbine.

When no longer needed, the reactor containment's cover dirt would be removed, the concrete containment container broken away, the access slip to the nearby navigable water re-opened, the barge re-floated off its piling sockets, and the reactor-barge towed to a remote disposal facility.

Existing coal burning power plants might locate their reactors at the far side of the coal yard for radiation isolation and containment. The author visualizes a 3 foot thick concrete cylindrical above ground containment vessel buried under a thick mound of piled dirt.

Another concern would be throttle lag due to long steam pipes running between the remote reactors and the turbine gallery. However, big nuclear power plants are slow also, typically 3 hours for a +/- 50% power change.

A BN-800 Coal Yard Nuke installation with a new additional turbine for a power upgrade:

Dual turbines means the reactor would have to have a dual set of appropriately sized smaller heat exchangers immersed in the "Hot Tub."

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Part 2: The Coal Yard Nuke Concept. Electric Shock: Automatic nuclear reactors making electricity in every small town?

Electric Shock:
Automatic nuclear reactors making electricity in every small town?
The smart "Off-grid" paradigm.

Small town diesel. This is the electricity reality for non-megametro America. Small town gas turbine.

Michigan alone has over 300 diesel units, almost all automatic or remote control.

Both diesels and gas turbines burn fossil fuels, make fossil's CO2.

Toshiba 10 MWe 4S. < Small, totally automatic nuclear reactors for small towns. > Hyperion 25 MWe.

It will take not hundreds, but tens of thousands, of nuclear reactors to end Global Warming.

(Above) 2.8 MWe automatic diesel generators for Coldwater, Michigan.

(Below) Hyperion's suggestion on how a 25 MWe automatic rural nuclear power station would be arranged.

What's really going down on "Electricity Street"
Michigan's Generating Unit Types and their Energy Sources
When we talk about new nuclear plants and wind farms we are overlooking the fact all countries have thousands of "Mom and Pop" electricity generators.

Unofficial Inventory of Michigan's Generating Sources Connected to Utility Grids (Nuclear not included)

Source Type	Site MWe	STeam	I C Diesel	Gas T	HYdro	Comb T	CA	Wind T	Pumped Storage	CS
Power MWe	36,343.5	23,689.9	867.1	4,236.8	352.3	3,169.3	2,000.0	1.8	1,978.8	23.0

Generating Unit Count*	220.0	130.0	311.0	102.0	191.0	34.0	15.0	1.0	6.0	1.0

Type Average MWe	165.2	182.2	2.8	41.5	1.8	93.2	133.3	1.8	329.8	23.0

US Extrapolated Count	6,600.0	3,900.0	9,330.0	3,060.0	5,730.0	1,020.0	450.0	30.0	180.0	30.0

*Several units at a single site is typical. Notice the large number of diesels (IC, @ 2.8) and hydros (HY, @ 1.8).

Unit Type Abbreviations:
CA = Combined Cycle Steam Plant;
CC = Combined Cycle Total Unit (use only for plants/generators that are in planning stage, for which specific generator details cannot be provided);
CE = Compressed Air Energy Storage;
CS = Combined Cycle Single Shaft (combustion turbine and steam turbine share a single generator);
CT = Combined Cycle Combustion Turbine Part (type of coal must be reported as energy source for integrated coal);
FC = Fuel Cell;
GT = Combustion (Gas) Turbine (includes jet engine design);
HY = Hydraulic Turbine (includes turbines associated with delivery of water by pipeline);
IC = Internal Combustion (diesel, piston) Engine;
NA = Unknown at this time (use only for plants/generators that are in planning stage, for which specific generator details cannot be provided.);
OT = Other;
PS = Hydraulic Turbine - Reversible (pumped storage);
PV = Photovoltaic;
ST = Steam Turbine, including nuclear, geothermal and solar steam (does not include combined cycle);
WT = Wind Turbine;

Energy Source Abbreviations:
AB = Agriculture Crop Byproducts/Straw/Energy Crops;
BFG = Blast-Furnace Gas;
BIT = (Anthracite Coal, Bituminous Coal);
BLQ = Black Liquor;
DFO = Distillate Fuel Oil (includes all Diesel and No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 Fuel Oils);
GEO = Geothermal;
JF = Jet Fuel;
KER = Kerosene;
LFG = Landfill Gas;
LIG = Lignite Coal;
MSW = Municipal Solid Waste;
NA = Not Available;
NG = Natural Gas;
NUC = Nuclear (Uranium, Plutonium, Thorium);
OBG = Other Biomass Gases (Digester Gas, Methane, and other biomass gases);
OBL = Other Biomass Liquids (Ethanol, Fish Oil, Liquid Acetonitrile Waste, Medical Waste, Tall Oil, Waste Alcohol, and other biomass liquids not specified);
OBS = Other Biomass Solids (Animal Manure and Waste, Solid Byproducts, and other solid biomass not specified);
OG = Other Gas (Butane, Coal Processes, Coke-Oven, Refinery, and other processes);
OTH = Other (Batteries, Chemicals, Coke Breeze, Hydrogen, Pitch, Sulfur, Tar Coal, and miscellaneous technologies);
PC = Petroleum Coke;
PG = Propane;
PUR = Purchased Steam;
RFO = Residual Fuel Oil (includes No. 5 and No. 6 Fuel Oils and Bunker C Fuel Oil);
SC = Coal-based Synfuel and include briquettes, pellets, or extrusions, which are formed by binding materials and processes that recycle material;
SLW = Sludge Waste;
SUB = Subbituminous Coal;
SUN = Solar (Photovoltaic, Thermal);
TDF = Tires;
WAT = Water (Conventional, Pumped Storage);
WC = Waste/Other Coal (Anthracite Culm, Bituminous Gob, Fine Coal, Lignite Waste, Waste Coal);
WDL = Wood Waste Liquids (Red Liquor, Sludge Wood, Spent Sulfite Liquor, and other wood related liquids not specified);
WDS = Wood/Wood Waste Solids (Paper Pellets, Railroad Ties, Utility Poles, Wood Chips, and other wood solids);
WH = Waste Heat (Reject Heat);
WND = Wind;
WO = Waste Oil-Other and Waste Oil (Butane (Liquid), Crude Oil, Liquid Byproducts, Oil Waste, Propane (Liquid), Re-Refined Motor Oil, Sludge Oil, Tar Oil).

Fossil fuels must be OBSOLETED for every use in every corner of Planet Earth.
Otherwise, any advances we make in the struggle against Global Warming will be temporary and fleeting.

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Part 3: The Coal Yard Nuke Concept. Advantages of converting any existing coal power plant from coal to nuclear.

The advantages of converting an existing coal power plant to nuclear.

ADVANTAGES OVER BUILDING A NEW POWER PLANT ON A NEW SITE: COST and TIME

Boiler Replacement Advantages

Boiler Swapping Offers Many Economic and Speed Advantages. A little boiler changing can go a long way. Consider France's experience with changing from coal to nuclear. Now using nuclear fuel to produce 78% of their electricity, France now makes 1/3 the CO2 the United States makes on a per person basis. France closed their last coal mine in April, 2004. Japan now makes over 50% of their electricity from nuclear fuels.

Swapping just the power plant's boiler preserves the power plant, its worker's jobs, its operating permits, the plant's access to cooling water, electrical grids and heavy transportation. What's not to like from a deal like this?

Boiler Swapping Examples: Two quick and simple examples of how both coal and natural gas boilers could be replaced by nuclear boilers are offered: Taichung, perhaps the world's largest coal-burning power plant, and the U.S. Capitol Building Complex, which is heated and cooled by industrial-sized natural gas boilers.

The Advantages of Swapping Out Supersized Boilers: Supersized Power Plants are job one: 2% of the world's 60,000 fossil fuel power plants, 1,200 supersized power plants are making over 3/4 of coal's Global Warming. The world will never be willing or able to provide much money for Global Warming mitigation and we can make it go furthest if we mass-produce a low-cost nuclear boiler to replace coal burning boilers. This will enable us to re-use everything else at the power plant - including an already experienced workforce - a strategy much wiser than building the equivalent amount of generating capacity in new windmills.

As of July, 2008, carbon uncertainties have driven new coal-burning power plant costs to $3.50 per watt to construct (Synapse Energy Economics, Inc.). Florida's new Crystal River nuclear plant has been stated (July, 2008) as $17 billion dollars for 3 gigaWatts, or $5.60 per watt. The author speculates it is unlikely that the construction cost for a new Hybrid nuclear plant would exceed $3.00 per watt for the 10th Hybrid plant built. The 10th conversion of an existing coal-burning power plant to Mininuke should cost less than $1 per watt. Do the homework.

If you owned a supersized coal burning power plant here is the biggest reason why you would want to convert to nuclear:

Permits. Permits. PERMITS. PERMITS. PERMITS!

Would you rather have an existing site that is already permitted or do you want a new site so badly you are willing to fight in court forever against anti-nuclear environmentalists in the pay of your competition?

An existing old coal burning power plant has enormous local support for the idea that adding a small modular nuke electricity generation unit is far better than shutting the plant down.

Always get the identities and photographs of protesters and make sure everyone at every discussion meeting knows where THEY live. Always photograph any protest demonstrations with a wide-angle lens - leaving plenty of space on either side - so everyone can see how few protesters there really are.

1. Already paid for - NO NEW COSTS FOR MOST OF THE EQUIPMENT

2. Already wired to our cities - NO NEW TRANSMISSION LINE RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED

3. Already have cooling water - NO NEW RIPARIAN OR PRIOR APPROPRIATION RIGHTS NEEDED

4. Already have access roads - NO NEW ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED

5. Already have railroad tracks - NO NEW RAILROAD RIGHT-OF-WAYS NEEDED

6. Usually have ample land for several additional future units - NO NEW LAND NEEDED, COAL YARD LAND WILL BECOME LAWN SOON

7. No construction delays - THEY ARE ALREADY RUNNING, CAN CONTINUE TO RUN DURING UPGRADE EQUIPMENT INSTALLATION

8. Already have proven operators who know the equipment - FEWER OPERATORS LOOSE JOBS, EXISTING OPERATORS WOULD BE BETTER PAID

9. Cleaner working environment - NUCLEAR PLANTS ARE CLEAN

[A helpful power plant operator reader suggested I add the following. (Thank you)]

A few advantages you may want to list in terms of BOP. Feel free to use them or not...

1. Construction is made *cheaper* because all necessary roads, water transport and rail lines are already in place. A huge savings relative to a green field plant and even a currently operating nuclear plant.

2. Licensing:
a. Water usage for everything from cooling to potable water. In place.
b. Sewage and waste water discharge. In place.
c. Air pollution (not that it's needed) in place, frees up carbon licenses if this occurs.
d. Hazardous waste storage/processing (all industrial facilities have to pay for this, regardless). In place.
e. Lube oil and chemical usage/storage licenses. In place.

3. Control Room(s). Only a retrofit of the existing coal plant (to bring it up to N-stamp standards) controls have to occur.

4. Grid access. The grid and switchyard is *in place* and ready to swap over. If MW out put is close to the same, it's even possible the same main bank transmission can be used, a huge savings, along with, BTW, all the associated remote monitoring (relays for undervoltage, overvoltage, shorts, grounds, etc etc), already in place. No major transmission upgrades needed if MWs are to stay the same and even then, only minor ones at worse.

5. Human Resources. The coal plant will have trained operators and maintenance personnel many/some/a lot of whom will be able to migrate over (literally by walking) to the new plant after NRC qualifications.

6. Overall reduced footprint. Wildlife (my personal favorite) sanctuaries can be built as security belts around the formally soot-laden, coal spewed, plant site. Allows room for expansion for subsequent PBMR/LFTR use (desalination, chemical/hot process steam usage, etc etc).

If we built nothing but new nuclear, what would we do with all the existing fossil-fuel burning power plants we now have? This is a major economic and grid logistics question no one is asking. Many have 40 or more years of productive and profitable life remaining. This is the most important consideration when second and third world countries think about ending their Global Warming CO2.

FUN COMMENT: (From another reader:)

Jim: Stumbled on your web site and want to congratulate you on your mission. I have been working on a similar unsolicited proposal to convert one of our largest coal plants in [deleted] to nuclear. The interest in the large plants is that one saves the incredible investment in siting, cooling towers, electric generators, some of the lower pressure stages of the turbines( as you are aware the nuclear plants have lower steam pressures and temperatures but multistage turbines can be converted to salvage some of their cost), the condensing equipment, the switching yard, and most importantly the transmission lines and towers. A very rough estimate is that half the cost of a new nuclear plant of the same size could be salvaged. The federal government could loan the money and the utility smart enough to make this change could return the loan in carbon credits. Large nuclear plants are very labor intensive and we obviously need the jobs. Keep pounding your drum. Solar and wind won’t hack it. [deleted] (This author regards this approach viable.)

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Part 4: The Coal Yard Nuke Concept. Disadvantages of locating a nuclear reactor in an existing coal power plant.

Disadvantages of locating a nuclear reactor
in an existing coal power plant.

Proximity: 5,000 sailors on an aircraft carrier live for years within 500 feet of two or more fairly large nuclear reactors.

Environment: Most coal burning power plants are located on bodies of water for cooling. Reactors installed in underground silos located on tropical coasts or flood-prone rivers could be inundated by floods, hurricane/cyclone storm surges or tsunamis.

The neighbors might object:

Fuel shipments and storage:

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Part 5: The Coal Yard Nuke Concept. Oversized nuclear boilers can make conversion from fossil to nuclear financially attractive.

Oversized nuclear boilers make
conversion from fossil to nuclear financially attractive.

The economics of repowering a supersized coal burning power plant: Buy a nuclear boiler twice as large as you need.

Converting a typical supersized coal power plant to nuclear.
Now is another one of those Sputnik déjà vu moments in U.S. history.

Oversized nuclear boilers
make ending Global Warming financially attractive.

The economics of repowering a supersized coal burning power plant: Buy a nuclear boiler twice as large as you need.

Converting a typical supersized coal power plant to nuclear.
Now is another one of those Sputnik déjà vu moments in U.S. history.

Hi David,

The incremental cost of energy from a nuclear reactor can make ending Global Warming financially attractive.

This popped up as I was looking into the financial aspects of the energy mis-match between the BN-800's 880 MWe output and Big Bend's 450 MWe turbines.

Energy is the prize for the man on the street, not ending Global Warming.

That 430 MWe surplus from four BN-800s is a 1,720 MWe near-freebie every man in Tampa can share. Since it is an existing power plant site, all we buy are four more low-cost coal power plant turbine-generators and their supporting equipment. Everything else is already there.

So, in addition to ending Big Bend's 10 million tons of CO2 every year, we get an almost free full sized nuclear power plant's worth of electricity in addition to what Big Bend is already putting out.

Think of the impact on our power bills.

Regards,

Jim Holm

http://www.coal2nuclear.com

There will never be much money available for fighting Global Warming. There is a good reason for this. Ending power plant Global Warming CO2 as such does not buy us one watt of additional electricity. This means getting the most "tons of CO2 mitigated per buck" payback is the most important aspect of fighting Global Warming. No other mitigation effort can even approach nuclear repowering of coal burning power plants in this respect. Renewables add small amounts of additional intermittent electricity but are incapable of ending the production of CO2. Building a windmill does not end CO2 production. Repowering a coal burning power plant with nuclear does so immediately but produces no additional electricity.

The incremental cost of energy from a nuclear reactor makes one way of ending Global Warming financially attractive.

Spreading the cost of a supersized remediation reactor: Say the supersized coal burning power plant had 500 MWe turbines. The BN-800 is rated at 880 MWe. This means there is 380 MWe to spare. What makes this an excellent move is adding an additional, smaller, low cost "generic" mass-produced coal power plant 380 MWe turbine in a new small turbine hall located between the new reactor in the coal yard and the old power plant, while bleeding off the 500 MWe of steam needed for the supersized coal plant's coal turbine. This is a heck of a boost in the amount of new electricity we could obtain while at the same time ending Global Warming CO2. (Click on thumbnail for larger image.)

The United States has over 200 supersized about 1,000 smaller coal and natural gas burning power plant sites,. There are 1,200 supersized power plants and 30,000 smaller fossil fuel power plants in the entire world, half of a total of 60,000 electricity generating installations that include many very small hydro and wind farms. This replacement strategy is a huge cost and time savings compared to building completely new nuclear power plants.

Early estimates are that converting an existing typical 500 MWe coal power plant unit to nuclear would come in at less than half the cost per watt of a new nuclear power plant (currently about $7.00 per watt).

This web page section (Part 4) is trying to take enough money out of repowering to get the cost down to 50 cents a watt or $250 million per 500 MWe unit. Coal Yard Nuke conversion would mean that existing electricity production capacity would be either maintained or increased substantially and jobs would be retained and additional nuclear technicians would be added. Nuclear's cost per kilowatt-hour produced is now lower than coal so slightly lower electricity production costs would be a small additional benefit.

What is it going to cost to END the annual production of a ton of CO2? According to the U.S. Department of Energy, one kiloWatt-hour of electricity produced from coal heat causes two pounds of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. That's the bottom line. 500 MWe for 24 hours is 12,000 MegaWatt - hours or 12 million kiloWatt hours or 24 million pounds of CO2 or 12,000 tons of CO2 per day or 4.4 million tons of CO2 per year. Coal burning power plants have about a 60 year life. Say this plant was 20 years old when repowered to nuclear. That means about 175 million tons of CO2 emissions was avoided over the next 40 years. If the cost of repowering was $250 million and 175 million tons of CO2 emissions was avoided, that comes to $1.43 per ton of CO2 avoided. The government wants to charge $35 a ton carbon tax. Who do you think is going to keep the change?

Repowering a supersized coal burner to nuclear. The new equipment: A BN-800 reactor mounted on a buried barge covered by a huge mound of dirt, and a new "hybrid" turbine (located between the reactor and the original coal burning power plant). The addition of the hybrid turbine almost doubles the electricity output of the power plant for very little additional cost - $300 million installed turbine-generator cost gives us 1.3 billion dollars of new electrical generating capacity at $0.78 per watt instead of today's $3.50 per watt (for a new coal plant - Synapse-Energy Economics, Inc.) or $7.00 a watt (for the new Levy County Nuclear Power Plant ).

This approach ends the Global Warming CO2 this plant was producing while almost doubling its electrical output. What's not to like from a deal like that?

If you want to throw the extra capacity away, here is a drawing without the hybrid turbine.

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Part 6: PANAMAX: Nuclear Boiler on a barge. Mass producing 7,000 nuclear boilers in automated shipyards.

PANAMAX: The maximum dimensions allowed for a ship transiting the Panama canal are:

Length: 965 ft (294.13 m)
Beam (width): 106 ft (32.31 m)
Draft: 39.5 ft (12.04 m) in tropical fresh water (the salinity and temperature of water affect its density, and hence how deep a ship will float in the water)
Air draft: 190 ft (57.91 m) measured from the waterline to the vessel's highest point

A Panamax cargo ship would typically have a DWT of 65,000-80,000 tonnes and a maximum cargo intake of 52,500 tonnes.

Smaller Seagoing Barge: 150' x 40' x 10' 965 Short Tons.

Larger Seagoing Barge: 210' x 60' x 13' 6" 3,050 Short Tons. http://www.mcdonoughmarine.com/index.htm

U.S. River Barge: A typical large barge measures 195 by 35 feet (59.4 m × 10.6 m), and can carry up to 1,500 short tons of cargo. 9 feet of draft is typical.

The BN-800 is about 29.9 feet in diameter, 30.8 feet tank height, 54.5 feet to top of upper guard rail. That makes it a candidate for the 60' wide, 201' long, 13.5' draft, 3,050 short ton, larger seagoing barge.

Mass producing 7,000 nuclear boilers in automated shipyards.

Squeezing the cost of a nuclear boiler down to its practical market value.

Mass production is important to cash-strapped Global Warming mitigation. Never underestimate the power mass production has over price. The Model T sold for $850 in 1909, by 1920, mass production brought the price of a higher quality Model T down to $290, or 1/3 the 1909 price. Mass production is the way to dramatically bring unit costs down and quality up. To date, there have been no mass produced basic nuclear boilers. The author has found several references to such in the literature and has added David Walter's version to this page.

Getting an idea of a BN-800's price. It has been mentioned that a fast-neutron BN-800 cost about 15% more than the equivalent slow-neutron reactor. No explanation was given.

"Westinghouse leaders recognized that they would need a partner with extensive shipbuilding experience, and attracted the participation of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. The two companies created a 50/50 partnership company that became known as Offshore Power Systems. Public Service did not simply make design suggestions; they signed contracts for two plants [each a dual 1,200 MWe barge] designated Atlantic 1 and 2. These contracts provided most of the funding required to complete the detailed engineering drawings, produce the license application, and to build the manufacturing facility." - Rod Adams

Mass Production Construction of a Nuclear Reactor
To end 3/4 of coal's Global Warming we will need to manufacture, transport, install, and fuel about 5,000 BN-800s or equals.
The reactors needed to replace supersized boilers will have to be built by shipyards on barge/foundations for transport.
Rod Adam's article about Westinghouse's reactor-on-a-barge concept Russian nuclear barge. Bill Hanahan's article about a large "Model T" reactor

"Bury the Barge" - The barge/foundation concept.

David Walters from Left Atomics, "A LEFT-WING PRO-NUCLEAR ENERGY PERSPECTIVE, FIGHTING FOR A SAFE, CLEAN AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE WHERE GENERATION IS FOR HUMAN NEEDS AND NOT FOR PROFIT" http://left-atomics.blogspot.com/ David has an idea that's too good to ignore for any future reactor - large or small. David has been working hard with others on what the author hopes will be the successor to the BN-800 - the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor or "LFTR' (called "Lifter") reactor. The LFTR is a reactor that really has the "Punch" needed to replace coal-burning boilers. It has all the power you could possibly want and will deliver it in steam or supercritical water at whatever temperature any turbine designed for coal steam needs.

LFTRs can run well on the very plentiful energy metal, thorium, once the thorium has been made radioactive by spending time in a running power plant reactor's neutron flux. LFTRs haven't been developed by any of the nuclear countries in the past because uranium is plentiful and cheap and LFTRs have no weapons potential.

(Above, Right.) Drawing of a Russian design for a complete nuclear power plant-desalinator, support shops, and administrative offices on a barge.

The BN-800 may have as much as a 40-year head start over the LFTR and Global Warming is clearly not a waiting game. The BN-800 is here and now, a thriving commercial product.

TAICHUNG offers Taiwan (and China) a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: China has already purchased two BN-800s. Taiwan has shipyards. Taiwan could license the BN-800 from Rosatom, build them first for the TAICHUNG project to build Taiwanese expertise in "Universal Remediation Reactors", then build and float them to the rest of the world, becoming the world's dominant country in the manufacture and export of 880 MWe (1 million horsepower) nuclear reactors thermally optimized for replacing the world's large coal-burning power plant boilers. Once they get a few years and a few projects under their belts, their experience and developed manufacturing base would make it highly unlikely any other country could catch up with China. Rosatom could continue to be the fuel vendor.

Since we are talking only about the reactor, not the whole power plant, things are not as large as they may first seem. Russian BN-800 Construction Photos.pdf Using a barge as a foundation could also add a great deal of earthquake resistance to the reactor.

From David Walter's web site: Various approaches to the building of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR).

"The small scale size of the LFTR…maybe as little as 1/3 the size of an equivalent Light Water Reactor for the same MW output...and the ability to build LFTRs from as small as 5MWs up to 1.8 GWs (or bigger) gives LFTR siting a far more flexible deployable possibilities than any other source of energy except, perhaps, diesel electric generators used throughout the world for smaller grids and remote applications.

But the smaller intermediate units, from the 100 to 500 MWs range, used as a replacement for gas fired peaking units (site restricted for environmental reasons and access to natural gas lines) and baseload replacement of coal, allow a more creative approach to application of this, real Generation IV fission energy.

My own contribution to this in the past few years was the "Missile Silo" paradigm. A subsurface structure, with a removable, concrete reinforced 'lid' on top, making for barely any above ground profile.

Excavations can be made using standard industrial reinforced concrete for the floor and sides, much of that modularly cast above ground and installed below ground. The LFTR modules, turbine generator train, etc can be brought in and lowered into place and assembled. Only the control room and, the air/water coolers would be above ground (air cooled condensers or low profile cooling towers/once through cooling if located near surface water supplies).

LFTRs are small because they are operate at normal atmospheric pressure and don't require the huge containment domes and heavy piping you see around nuclear plants today.

But there is another, more fascinating, and perhaps much cheaper way to deal with LFTR sites. Build them on barges in shipyards and ship them whole to any site with navigable sites…like existing coal plants, for example, many that have river or canal access.

The Russians are in the process now of building floating nuclear power plants of the pressurized water reactor style used on Russian maritime vessels and submarines. They are marketing them as being deliverable almost anywhere in the world. The LFTR can follow this paradigm but the floating LFTR is not what I'm proposing.

Secondly, Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and nuclear giant Areva just started construction of their nuclear components factory at Grumman's Newport News Shipyard: to use the facilities, cranes and dry-dock to help build, assemble and ship their components around the globe.

The barge the LFTR would be sitting on would not be a temporary structure designed to either transport the LFTR or as a permanent floating lodge for the power plant.

Here is a generalized outline of how the construction/assembly/shipping/siting would work:

1. Factories and machine shops in the shipyard would upgraded, where needed, to nuclear specifications.
2. These factories and shop would forge, shape, assemble and finish components for the LFTR.
3. Additionally components manufactured elsewhere would be laid out in the shipyard.
4. A barge would be built big enough to transport, either for ocean going or inner-coastal transport, that would be towed to the siting.
5. The LFTR barge would be assembled in the dry dock using existing facilities at the shop yard. Cast concrete comes to mind.
6. As the barge is built from the bottom of the dry-dock up, the main decking would be jacked up over the keel of the barge and sub-assembly of the LFTR and it's main components would be assembled: reactor core, associated piping, heat exchangers, [no turbine, generator, or lube oil for a boiler-only replacement project - JPH] and associated balance of plant equipment.
7. The barge would be built for permanent dry stationing at a prepared site.
8. The site would be excavated and prepared with a temporary caisson off the main navigable waterway. The caisson is like a dam used to block water from flowing into the dry dock.
9. After the LFTR barge is assembled and towed to the site the caisson would be put back in place and the barge/site temporary dry-dock would be drained.
10. The LFTR barge would settle on prepared pre-stressed concrete blocks.
11. The LFTR barge itself would be of steel and concreted design and completely self contained as a nuclear power plant.
12. 1 large LFTR could be transported and sited this way or numerous smaller 100 to 500MW LFTRs on one barge as needed-->All "Factory Assembled".
13. The areas around the barge and supports could then be filled in with spoil or clay or concrete depending on regulations.
14. Hooking up the LFTR to the site balance of plant would commence (station power, grid access, control room, etc).

Charles Barton and others at energyfromthorium.com/forum are noted for advocating that the smaller LFTRs be constructed in-lieu of a larger one because it could be completed basically in a small series of modules and easily trucked and then assembled on site. This would be next to impossible for the larger 1GW-plus reactors as even the smaller-per-MW LFTR of this size is way to big. The advantage of course of the smaller ones is that they could, in theory, be composed of all-assembly line built components mass produced for low price and high volume.

The shipyard metaphor, described above, combines both this concept of factory production with the "line production" of large air craft and ships using existing facilities that give LFTR manufacturers the flexibility of designing any number of sized LFTRs, from the smallest 5 MW (or smaller) which could be shipped on an air plane to multi-module larger sizes of the plus-GW capacity…all factory produced and assembled, ship whole and sited in one fell swoop."

JPH Thought: Water tables at power plants are often high due to the proximity of cooling water. This can complicate sealing a below grade silo. Weather can also be a factor at many of the world's seaside power plants. As an example, the huge Big Bend coal-burning power plant, located on Tampa Bay near Tampa, Florida, is in a hurricane storm surge prone area. Dredging an access channel through the coal storage yard to near the power plant, riving foundation pilings, running the barge in, attaching the barge to the pilings at high tide, then building a super-thick nuclear containment silo around the reactor higher than any possible storm surge - perhaps 40 feet above sea level, finally, mounding dirt or fly ash capped with paving around the silo might also be given consideration.

The bulk dirt handling equipment to bring in and shape the dirt is already on site - the coal handling railroads, barges, bulldozers - should be able to make a 50 foot high by 100 foot in diameter, or a thousand feet long in the case of, say, four reactors in a row, containment mound with an access road along its top in a relatively short time for not too much money.

Unlike conventional water-cooled reactors, the possibility of a catastrophic steam explosion with IFRs or LFTRs doesn't exist - this is why supercritical water "Benson" boilers were invented in the first place - so we are talking radioactive fuel containment and assault resistance much more than steam explosion containment.

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Part 7: The world's 8 automated nuclear-ship capable shipyards are also capable of mass producing Coal Yard Nukes.

Nuclear-ship capable shipyards
are also capable of mass producing Coal Yard Nukes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipyard

United States:     Electric Boat (EB) Private
United States:     Northrup Grumman Newport News (NGNN) Private   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_Newport_News
United States:     Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (NSY) Navy
Russia:               Komsomolsk-na-Amure Shipyard
Russia:               Russian Shipyard No. 10—Shkval -- is located in Polyarny
China:                Hu Lu Dao shipyard
United Kingdom: Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast
France:               Chantiers de l'Atlantique(Aker Yard France)

Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard
Notice nuclear aircraft carrier in center of picture.

Gdynia shipyard

Mass producing the Coal Yard Nuke modules

Any country that can make a superheated steam boiler that will last several years before burning out can make acceptable reactors.

Production lines provide substantial quality and cost benefits. That's good because over 7,000 will be needed.

(Right) Example of a highly government-regulated, physically large, multi-million dollar product being made at the rate of one a day.

Some of the wind is at our backs. Since these reactors are limited-life and built as a stop-gap solution to an emergency, we can sacrifice a lot of thermal efficiency for safety, simplicity, and reliability.

The modular World War II "Liberty Ship" has much to teach us
about building Coal Yard Nuke modules.

A really good precedent for a generic Nuclear Repowering reactor was the World War II liberty ship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship Read the story, it's inspiring and reminds us of a day when the citizens of the United States were not afraid of their own government and the government wasn't afraid of it's citizens.

The competition arising from simultaneous mass production of standardized reactors in as many as 8 different countries will bring about an amazing drop in both the reactor's fabrication complexity and cost while creating "build quality" competition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_ship

Coal2Nuclear ____________________________________________________________ top

NEWS ITEMS for this subject. top

The Coal2Nuclear concept:
"A terrific application for several [nuclear] heaters that can produce 400 MW thermal at about 800 C is to replace similar sized boilers at coal fired power plants. Like Jim Holm, I think that Coal2Nuclear is the best way to make use of the investment at existing coal fired facilities for items like steam plants, electrical distribution, and cooling water. I think the conversion would be a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to install the chemical facilities and plumbing required to capture and sequester CO2. Preventing pollution is often cheaper than trying to cure it." -- Rod Adams, http://www.atomicinsights.blogspot.com/