Thorium Based Nuclear Power: A Current Commentary

The following was published in the journal Science Progress http://www.sciencereviews2000.co.uk/view/journal/science-progress, of which I am an Editor and where I write a regular "Current Commentary" column, in this issue with the view to giving some publicity to the prospects and potential advantages of deriving energy from thorium. The final article (containing figures, schemes etc.) can be downloaded from this link http://stl.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/stl/sciprg/2013/00000096/00000002/art00005

Thorium instead of Uranium?

It may well turn out that thorium is a better nuclear fuel than uranium, since it offers the advantages that: (1) it has around four times the abundance of uranium on Earth, overall; (2) practically 100% of it can be bred into the fissile nuclear fuel ²³³U; (3) smaller amounts of plutonium and other transuranic elements are produced than is the case from uranium fuel; (4) the thorium fuel cycle might be used to consume plutonium, thus reducing the nuclear stockpile, while converting it into useful energy. There was a conference held in Chicago, in May 2013, on “5th Thorium Energy Alliance – Future of Thorium, Energy and Rare Earths.” http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

Thorium¹ is a naturally occurring radioactive element, with the chemical symbol Th and an atomic number of 90. The mineral, now known as thorite, was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian priest and mineralogist, Morten Thrane Esmark. In that same year, the element, thorium, was identified in the material by the Swedish chemist, Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Thorium is found in soils at an average concentration of 6 parts per million (p.p.m.), and in most rocks. In higher concentrations, thorium occurs in several kinds of mineral, of which the most common is the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium phosphate, but 6-7% as an average. World monazite resources are estimated to be of the order of 12 million tonnes, two-thirds of which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south coast and east coast of India. The world total of economically extractable thorium is estimated at around 2.61 million tonnes (Table 1)², and Australia and the United States top the list with 489,000 and 400,000 tonnes of it, respectively. Norway has 132,000 tonnes of thorium, which adds to the large energy reserves of this country in terms of gas, oil and coal, not to mention hydropower, from which 99% of its electricity is generated. Other than negligible amounts of a few highly radioactive isotopes, thorium occurs exclusively as ²³²Th. Although ²³²Th is not fissile in itself, it can be converted to a fissile fuel in the form of ²³³U, via the absorption of slow neutrons. Hence, as is the case for ²³⁸U, ²³²Th is "fertile" and may be bred into a nuclear fuel, which in the former case is ²³⁹Pu. Kirk Sorensen, a major proponent for the development of thorium power http://energyfromthorium.com/, in particular in conjunction with the Liquid fluoride reactor, LFR (also called the molten salt reactor, MSR) has offered the following³, in regard to the essential differences between the two elements ²³²Th and ²³⁹Pu, as pertaining to their use in nuclear weapons or “dirty bombs”:

“There are several reasons why U-233 is unattractive for nuclear weapons. One is that it doesn't produce as many neutrons in fast fission as Pu-239. Another is that its properties in very fast fission (such as a nuclear detonation) are poorly understood.

But the biggest deterrent is that U-233 is inevitably contaminated with U-232 during its formation. It is highly impractical to separate them. And U-232 has a short half-life (~80 years) and a decay chain that includes the strong gamma emitter Tl-208. A few months after the U-233 is isolated from parent materials, the decay chain of U-232 begins to set up and the strong 2.3 MeV gammas of Tl-208 would irradiate the weapon, its electronics, as well as providing an easily-detected alert to the world that U-233 was present in a location.

In contrast, the alpha decay of U-235 and Pu-239 are rather easily shielded, making clandestine transport of these weapons much easier, and well as allowing long-term storage with relatively little damage to the electronics of the device. With all these drawbacks, it is not surprising that U-233 has not been utilized in operational nuclear weapons. This inherent physical resistance to proliferation is a powerful argument for the adoption of thorium as a basic nuclear energy source.”

Table 1. World sources of thorium (2007)².

Country	Tons	% of total
Australia	489,000	19
USA	400,000	15
Turkey	344,000	13
India	319,000	12
Venezuela	300,000	12
Brazil	302,000	12
Norway	132,000	5
Egypt	100,000	4
Russia	75,000	3
Greenland	54,000	2
Canada	44,000	2
South Africa	18,000	1
Other countries	33,000	1
World total	2,610,000

Since 100% of naturally occurring thorium can be converted into nuclear fuel (²³³U), compared with the mere 0.7% of natural uranium that is fissile, i.e. ²³⁵U, which is enriched by centrifugation or gaseous diffusion of uranium hexafluoride (UF₆), there is an obvious advantage⁴. Fuel for fuel, the advantage factor is around 30, in favour of thorium - since that from uranium is enriched to around 3% in ²³⁵U - but this is counterbalanced by a depletion of this isotope in the remaining material, which is generally referred to as “depleted uranium” and sometimes used in armaments and missiles. Roughly 1/3 of the power from a U-fuelled fission reactor is due to the fissioning of ²³⁹Pu, generated in situ from ²³⁸U, and so we can ascribe an overall advantage factor of ca 100 for thorium over uranium, though a value of 250 is claimed, when enrichment “losses” for ²³⁵U/²³⁸U and higher efficiencies for thorium reactors are included http://energyfromthorium.com/. It might be argued that the rest (²³⁴U has an abundance of only about 0.0055%) of the 100% of the uranium (²³⁸U) can be converted to plutonium in a similarly effective manner, but this requires fast neutrons in a fast breeder reactor: a technology with certain disadvantages, including the need to handle plutonium – a very toxic material, although there are as yet no reported casualties from it - and fears over its proliferation. Often cited too, is the potential fire hazard of pyrophoric liquid sodium, which is often used as a coolant, although helium, lead or a lead-bismuth alloy have all been proposed as alternatives. Thus, if the latter method is to be avoided, considerably more energy might be extracted from thorium than from an equivalent quantity of uranium. Even on the basis of the "known" 2.61 million tonne reserve of thorium (Table 1), a simple sum indicates that it could provide nuclear power for: [2.61 million (tonnes of thorium)/4.02 million (tonnes of uranium)] x 100 (enhancement factor in favour of Th over U) x 62 years (i.e. the current estimate based on uranium⁵) = ca 4,000 years. Even if we made all our electricity from thorium (currently, 13.5% of world electricity is from nuclear power), there would still be around 500 years worth, and so if governments are intent on nuclear expansion to obviate global warming, thorium may well prove advantageous.

             Ralph W. Moir and Edward Teller (dubbed⁶ as the “father of the ‘H’ bomb” and the real “Dr Strangelove”), made a study of thorium-based nuclear power from which they concluded that research should be reinitiated after being abandoned for more than three decades⁷. There is a comprehensive review published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the subject of thorium-based nuclear power⁸.

The Thorium Age Waits in the Wings.

There are different ways in which energy might be extracted from thorium, one of which is the accelerator-driven system (ADS)⁹. Such accelerators need massive amounts of electricity to run them, as all particle accelerators do. As noted below, an alternative means to use thorium as a fuel is in a liquid fluoride reactor (LFR), also termed a molten salt reactor, which avoids the use of solid oxide nuclear fuels. Indeed, China has made the decision to develop an LFR-based thorium-power programme, to be active by 2020. However, the matter of thorium reactors is not straightforward. Neutrons may be produced from heavy elements by spallation, using high-current, high-energy accelerators or cyclotrons. In this process, a beam of high-energy protons (> 500 MeV) is directed at a high-atomic number target (e.g. tungsten, tantalum, depleted uranium, thorium, zirconium, lead, lead-bismuth, mercury) by which means up to one neutron can be produced per 25 MeV of the proton beam energy. A 1000 MeV beam will create 20-30 spallation neutrons per proton, to be compared with 200-210 MeV released in the fission of one nucleus of ²³⁵U or ²³⁹Pu. If the spallation target is surrounded by a blanket assembly of nuclear fuel, containing e.g. ²³⁵U or ²³⁹Pu (or ²³²Th which can breed to ²³³U), a fission reaction may be sustained, which is an ADS. Here, the spallation-neutrons cause fission in the fuel, and the process is assisted by further fission-neutrons. Since an ADS burns fuel which lacks a sufficiently large fission-to-capture ratio for neutrons to maintain a fission chain reaction, the whole assembly may be instantly turned-off, merely by shutting-off the proton beam, in contrast to inserting control rods to absorb neutrons and make the fuel assembly subcritical, as is necessary in conventional fission-reactors. The latter is often stressed as a key safety feature of an ADS, and while it is true that fission could be stopped almost instantly in an emergency, the substantially greater threat from decay heat would remain, as at Fukushima.

Thorium utilisation

To breed ²³²Th to ²³³U, a driver fuel is needed – either plutonium or enriched uranium – otherwise there are insufficient neutrons generated to keep the process going. As is the case for uranium, in order to use all of the thorium as a fuel, fast neutron reactors are required in the system. The concept⁹ of using an ADS, based on the ²³²Th—²³³U fuel cycle, is due to Professor Carlo Rubbia, in which the core would be mostly thorium, and located near the bottom of a tank 25 metres high, and containing around 8,000 tonnes of molten lead or lead-bismuth at a high temperature – this is the “primary coolant”, which circulates by convection around the core. A beam of high-energy protons from the accelerator, would be focussed along a beam-pipe to the spallation target, inside the core, where the spallation-neutrons enter the fuel and transmute the thorium into protactinium, the decay of which forms the fissile ²³³U. The neutrons also induce fission in uranium, plutonium and possibly any transuranic elements that are present, with an according release of energy. Thus, a 10 MW proton beam might produce 1500 MW of heat. This would accord with a generation of 600 MWe of electricity – allowing for the usual Carnot Cycle energy losses - some 30 MWe of which would be needed to drive the accelerator. However, existing accelerator technology can only produce a proton beam with an energy of 1 MW. A reactor of this kind is sometimes referred to as an energy amplifier. There is a U.K.-Swiss design for an accelerator-driven thorium reactor (ADTR) which has advanced to the stage of a feasibility study, and involves a 600 MWe lead-cooled fast reactor. The proposal is for a ten-year self-sustained thorium fuel cycle, using plutonium as a fission starter, with both the spallation target and the coolant being provided by molten lead. For actual power production, the accelerators would need to be increased in power by an order of magnitude, and massively in terms of reliability (so, I am told). In 2008, a study was made in Norway which compared the advantages and disadvantages of an ADS fuelled by thorium - relative to a conventional nuclear power reactor - from which it was concluded that such a system would be unlikely to be operating in the next 30 years⁹. I note, however, that experiments are being undertaken in Norway to evaluate the properties of a mixed thorium-uranium solid fuel http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF_Thorium_test_begins_2106131.html.

An alternative technology to the ADS, is the "Liquid Fluoride Reactor" (LFR), which is described and discussed in considerable detail at http://energyfromthorium.com/, and reading this site has convinced me that the LFR may provide the best means to achieve our future nuclear energy programme. Thorium exists naturally as ²³²Th, which is not of itself a viable nuclear fuel. However, by absorption of relatively low energy "slow" neutrons, it is converted to protactinium¹⁰ (²³³Pa). The latter either decays further to ²³³U or captures another neutron, which converts it to the non-fissile ²³⁴U. ²³³Pa has a relatively long half-life of 27 days and a high cross section for neutron capture (the so-called "neutron poison"), hence, instead of undergoing a simple and fast decay to ²³³U, a significant fraction of the ²³³Pa consumes neutrons which convert it to non-fissile isotopes, so attenuating the reactor efficiency. To avoid this, the ²³³Pa must be extracted from the active zone of the thorium LFR, so that it may be allowed mainly to decay to ²³³U. In one scenario, this may be achieved by using columns of molten bismuth, with lithium dissolved in it, that are several metres high. The function of the lithium is to selectively reduce protactinium salts to metallic protactinium, which is then extracted from the molten-salt cycle, the bismuth acting mainly as a carrier (solvent). Bismuth has a low melting point (271 °C), a low vapour pressure, lithium and actinides are quite soluble in it, and it is immiscible with molten halides¹⁰. The "breeding" cycle can be initiated using plutonium, say, to provide the initial supply of neutrons, and indeed the LFR could provide an efficient way of disposing of weapons-grade plutonium and heavily-enriched uranium from the world's stockpiles, producing useful energy in the process.

The LFR makes in-situ reprocessing possible, and much more easily than is the case for solid-fuel based reactors. To date, there have been two working LFR's built¹¹, and if implemented, the technology would avoid using uranium-plutonium fast breeder reactors, which need high energy "fast" neutrons to convert ²³⁸U, which is not fissile, to ²³⁹Pu which is. The design of the LFR is inherently safer and does not require liquid sodium as a coolant, while it also avoids the risk of plutonium getting into the hands of terrorists. I maintain my reservations about how long other resources, e.g. oil and gas will last, with which to mine and process either uranium or thorium, but if the latter appears viable in the longer run, I suggest that molten salt (liquid fluoride) reactors might provide a more viable approach than the far more complex (and as yet untested) accelerator-driven systems.

More thorium would doubtless be found if it were looked for hard enough, and so the basic raw material is not at issue. Being more abundant in most deposits than uranium, its extraction would place less pressure on other fossil fuel resources used for mining and extracting it. Indeed, thorium-generated electricity could be piped-in for that purpose. Despite these apparently impressive advantages, the new build of infrastructure would be massive, to switch over entirely to thorium, as it would be to convert to any other new technology, on the grand scale, including hydrogen and biofuels, with attendant costs of materials, energy, labour and other resources. Indeed, this provides the mass of resistance that is to be expected over the implementation of all kinds of new technology. My belief is that, once the “liquid fuels crisis” occurs, which will be the major, and most immediate, consequence of a decline in world conventional crude oil production, “peak oil”, we may be able to produce liquid fuels from coal, possibly using electricity produced from thorium. The problem of nuclear waste is expected to be lessened through the use of thorium, since fewer actinides result from its fuel cycle compared with that from uranium. It is not clear how the development of thorium energy in Europe will be funded, if at all, since much of the Euratom budget is being spent on the ITER nuclear fusion project, and the remainder on uranium-based fission programmes¹².

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) molten salt breeder reactor.

²³²Th, ²³⁵U and ²³⁸U are radionuclides that predate the formation of the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, and were created in the cores of dying stars through the r-process being dispersed galactically by supernovas. Around half¹³ the internal heat of the Earth is produced from the decay of these radioactive elements, along with ⁴⁰K, and it is this effect, unknown at the time of Lord Kelvin, that led him to conclude this planet to be much younger than it actually is, at between 20 million and 400 million years, rather than the currently accepted value of 4.54 (± 0.05) billion years¹⁴. As a result of both historical and technical factors, each of the above type of nuclide tends to be associated with different kinds of reactor: across the world, the principal nuclear fuel is ²³⁵U, as it has been since the dawn of the nuclear age, and this is usually used in light water reactors; ²³⁸U/²³⁹Pu has been used mainly in, liquid sodium cooled, fast breeder reactors and CANDU Reactors; ²³²Th/²³³U is thought best suited to fuel molten salt reactors (MSR)¹¹.

The MSR at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was pioneered by Alvin M. Weinberg, where two prototype molten salt reactors were successfully designed, constructed and operated. These were the Aircraft Reactor Experiment in 1954 and Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment which ran between 1965 and 1969, and in both cases, liquid fluoride fuel salts were used. Fuelling with ²³³U and ²³⁵U was demonstrated during separate test runs. A proposed molten salt breeder reactor (MSBR) was designed at ORNL, during the period 1970-1976, with LiF-BeF₂-ThF₄-UF₄ (in the relative proportion: 72:16:12:0.4) as its fuel, and with a graphite moderator, to be replaced every four years, with NaF-NaBF₄ as the secondary coolant, and a peak operating temperature of 705 °C. However, the MSR program was closed in the early 1970s, in favour of the liquid metal fast-breeder reactor (LMFBR). Research into MSRs then lapsed in the United States, and as of 2011, the ARE and the MSRE remained the only molten-salt reactors ever operated. The MSBR project received funding until 1976, equivalent to $38.9 million from 1968 to 1976 (compensated for inflation to the monetary $ value in 1991)¹¹.

Rare Earth Elements and Thorium Power.

Thorium is present in the ores of rare earth elements, and indeed, there is more thorium available from this source than the world demand for it¹⁵. As a consequence of its radioactive nature of thorium, a hazard is posed from its content in waste produced by the processing of rare earth oxides. However, as we have noted, thorium could be bred into a nuclear fuel and most simply used in a liquid fluoride reactor (LFR), rather than burying it underground in concrete. 97% of world market supplies of rare earth elements (REEs) come from China and look to become insecure in regard to meeting "green" energy targets, since supplies of REEs are scheduled to be retained for Chinese home energy projects. REEs are essential raw materials for the fabrication of high-performance magnets in hybrid cars and wind-turbines. The REE distribution in monazite sands is around 45 - 48 % cerium, 24% lanthanum, 17% neodymium, 5% praseodymium, along with minor quantities of samarium, gadolinium and yttrium. Europium concentrations tend to be low, in the region of 0.05%, and very low concentrations of the heaviest lanthanides in monazite accord with the term "rare" earth for these elements, with correspondingly high prices. The thorium content¹⁶ of monazite is variable and can be as high as 20 - 30 %, although commercial monazite sands typically contain 6 - 12% thorium oxide.

In January, 2013, a controversial REE processing plant was commissioned by the Australian based mining company Lynas in Malaysia¹⁷, where it is argued that environmental protection laws are less rigorous than in Australia. The plant is predicted to produce one third of global demand for REEs, hence breaking the Chinese monopoly. 

Thorium-based power: positive and negative features.

Positive aspects⁴.

Although precise knowledge of the true amount of reserves, globally, is limited, thorium is estimated to be about 3-4 times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust. Very likely, further sources of the material would be found, if they were sought with sufficient assiduousness, noting that the EROEI would fall with the decreasing grade (thorium content) of particular ores. Current demand for thorium (mostly not for power generation) has been satisfied as a by-product of rare-earth extraction from monazite sands, but demand for the metal is relatively low in comparison with that for REEs, so that the thorium ends-up as radioactive waste from processing this mineral. Since thorium consists of a single isotope (²³²Th), it can be employed in thermal reactors without requiring isotope separation, unlike natural uranium, from which the fissile ²³⁵U must be separated and enriched for use as a nuclear fuel in fission-reactors.

Relative to uranium-based fuels, thorium offers a number of appealing features: the thermal neutron absorption cross section (σ_a) is about three times, and the resonance integral (average of neutron cross sections over intermediate neutron energies) about one third for ²³²Th of the respective values for ²³⁸U, meaning that the conversion of thorium is more efficient in a thermal reactor. Although the thermal neutron fission cross section (σ_f) of the resulting ²³³U is comparable to ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu, it has a much lower capture cross section (σ_γ) than the latter two fissile isotopes, providing fewer non-fissile neutron absorptions and a better neutron economy. Finally, the ratio of neutrons released per neutron absorbed (η) in ²³³U is > 2, and over a wide range of energies, which covers the thermal spectrum, meaning that thorium-based fuels might be used in a thermal breeder reactor.

Because the ²³³U produced in thorium fuels is always contaminated with ²³²U, thorium-based nuclear fuel has an inherent proliferation resistance. ²³²U cannot be separated from ²³³U by chemical means, and it has several decay products which emit high energy gamma radiation, alerting to the presence of such materials, e.g. “a bomb in a suitcase”. ²³³U can be denatured by mixing it with natural or depleted uranium, meaning that before it could be used in nuclear weapons, isotopic separation would be necessary.

On a timescale, roughly of 10³ to 10⁶ years, the radiological hazard of conventional uranium-based used nuclear fuel is dominated by plutonium and other minor actinides, but once these have decayed, long-lived fission products once more make a significant contribution. A single neutron capture in ²³⁸U is sufficient to produce transuranic elements, whereas six such captures are generally necessary to so convert ²³²Th. 98–99% of the nuclei in the thorium-cycle fuel would fission either at the ²³³U or ²³⁵U stage, thus resulting in fewer long-lived transuranics. As a result, in mixed oxide (MOX) fuels, thorium offers an advantage over uranium, in minimising the generation of transuranics while maximising the destruction of plutonium.

The advantages of thorium in nuclear waste management, while noting that it produces far less in the way of transuranics, are mitigated by the production of ²³¹Pa. also an α-emitting actinide, with a half-life of 3.3 x 10⁴ years, along with the full range of fission products. It is the presence of the latter, more than their amounts, this is the problem. Indeed, the chemical intractability of thorium oxide makes it a good waste form in its own right, although it does almost preclude volume reduction by separating the few percent of genuine waste from unused material. That said, direct disposal eliminates the plant and secondary waste production incurred in such separation, which naturally is equally available for uranium.

Negative aspects⁴.
The application of thorium as a nuclear fuel poses a number of problems, particularly for solid fuel reactors. Since natural thorium contains no fissile isotopes, it is necessary to add fissile material ²³³U, ²³⁵U, or plutonium, in order to attain criticality. Along with the high sintering temperature necessary to make thorium-dioxide fuel, this is a complicating factor in fuel fabrication. ORNL experimented¹¹ with thorium tetrafluoride as a fuel component, in their run of a molten salt reactor from 1964–1969, which was far easier both to process and to separate from contaminants, which slow-down or actually halt the chain reaction.

In an open fuel cycle (using ²³³U in situ), a higher burn-up is necessary to achieve a favourable neutron economy. Although thorium dioxide performed well at burn-ups of 170,000 MWd/t and 150,000 MWd/t at Fort St. Vrain Generating Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Station  and AVR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor respectively, achieving this in light water reactors (LWR), which are the vast majority of existing power reactors, worldwide, is a challenge. In a once-through thorium fuel cycle, the residual ²³³U constitutes long-lived radioactive waste.

The main objection on the part of the nuclear industry to thorium is its radiotoxicity, greater by an order of magnitude than that of uranium, in consequence of the presence of ²³²U and decay products, therefrom. Thus, a completely new infrastructure would be required, involving more stringent dust control.

The thorium fuel cycle requires a relatively long interval to breed ²³²Th to ²³³U. The half-life of ²³³Pa is about 27 days, which is an order of magnitude longer than the half-life of ²³⁹Np, as occurs in breeding from ²³⁸U to ²³⁹Pu. As a result, substantial quantities of ²³³Pa, which is an effective absorber of neutrons, build up in thorium-based fuels. Thus, instead of undergoing a simple and fast decay to ²³³U, a significant fraction of ²³³Pa consumes neutrons which convert it to non-fissile isotopes, e.g. ²³⁴Pa, and this attenuates the reactor efficiency. Therefore, the ²³³Pa must be extracted from the active zone of the thorium LFR, so that it may be allowed mainly to decay to ²³³U. Eventually, the ²³³Pa would breed into fissile ²³⁵U, but this process requires overall two more neutron absorptions, and hence occurs at the further expense of the neutron economy. The likelihood of transuranic production is also increased.

Although the presence of ²³²U would inhibit its use in a nuclear weapon, ²³³U was once so employed, as part of a bomb core in the MET blast during “Operation Teapot” in 1955, though the energy yield was appreciably less than had been anticipated. 

Current thorium projects¹⁸.

Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), MSR design, has been or is currently ongoing¹⁸ in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Brazil, India, China, France, the Czech Republic, Japan, Russia, Canada, Israel and the Netherlands.

• China. Using components produced by the West and Russia, it was reported early in 2012 that China planned to build two prototype thorium molten salt reactors by 2015. A budget for the project was established at $400 million, which will require 400 workers. China has also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.

• India. This is the "only country in the world with a detailed, funded, government-approved plan" to focus on thorium-based nuclear power. In late June, 2012, India announced that their "first commercial fast reactor" was near completion and would rely on thorium for its fuel. The nation plans to develop up to 62, mostly thorium-based reactors, intended to be fully operational by 2025.

• Norway. In Norway, the privately-owned company, Thor Energy, announced in late 2012, that in collaboration with the government and Westinghouse, it will start a 4-year long trial to employ thorium as a nuclear fuel in one of its existing nuclear reactors.

• U.S. In its report to the Secretary of Energy, in January 2012, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Future notes that a "molten-salt reactor using thorium [has] also been proposed”, while in the same month, it was stated the U.S. Department of Energy is "quietly collaborating with China" on a molten salt reactor using thorium fuel.

• Japan. In the aftermath of three meltdowns at nuclear power plants in 2011, Japan utility Chubu Electric Power, wrote in June, 2012, that they are considering thorium as “one of future possible energy resources.”

• Israel. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York began, in May 2010, a collaboration to develop self-sustaining thorium reactors, "meaning one that will produce and consume about the same amounts of fuel."

• U.K. In Britain, a member of the House of Lords, Bryony Worthington, is actively promoting thorium, which she refers to as “the forgotten fuel”. However, the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) has published a paper on the thorium fuel cycle, finding that, "the thorium fuel cycle does not currently have a role to play," in that it is "technically immature," and “would require a significant financial investment and risk without clear benefits," and which are "overstated." The environmental group, Friends of the Earth UK, are of the opinion that research into thorium-based power might be "useful" as a fallback option.

References.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

(2) Data taken from Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand, Nuclear Energy Agency (June 2008), NEA#6345 (ISBN 9789264047662). The 2009 figures are largely unchanged. Australian data from Thorium, in Australian Atlas of Minerals Resources, Mines & Processing Centres, Geoscience Australia

(3) http://ergobalance.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/thorium-instead-of-uranium.html.

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium

(6) http://nucleargreen.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/edward-teller-listens-as-eugene-weigner.html

(7) http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0930/ML093090346.pdf

(8) http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf.

(9) http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Accelerator-driven-Nuclear-Energy/#.UVA32VevPRk.

(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protactinium

(11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#Oak_Ridge_National_Laboratory_molten_salt_breeder_reactor

(12) http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100022190/last-chance-to-protest-before-the-eu-snuffs-out-thorium-energy-in-europe/

(13) http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/earth-still-retains-much-of-its-.html,

(14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth.

(15) http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2012/11/20/how-to-manage-the-dirty-side-of-thorium-and-assure-its-global-supply/

(16) http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/#.UVGnXlevPRk

(17) http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/lynas-ramps-up-rare-earth-processing-in-malaysia

(18) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#World_sources_of_thorium

University Shambles: How to Ruin the Best University System in the World.

Winner of the 2013 The Authors Show contest: the novel "University Shambles". http://universityshambles.com

 

Write-up of a Lecture to the Ethical Society, given at Conway Hall, Sunday 3rd of March (2013), 11.00. Given by Professor Chris Rhodes: author of the novel "University Shambles" http://universityshambles.com (a black comedy).

(First published in the Ethical Record - The Proceedings of the Conway Hall Ethical Society. April 2013, p12-15). 

Tony Blair, shortly after his inauguration in 1997 as Prime Minister of Great Britain famously said that we needed, “Education, Education, Education”, and that 50% of our young people should attend university. It is not clear exactly what analysis produced this proportion exactly, but currently, the figure is 47%, so the wish has almost been fulfilled. The expansion of the university and higher education sector began long before Mr Blair, and by the time Harold Wilson came to power as Prime Minister in 1964, a wave of new universities had already been initiated, including Sussex, York, UEA, Kent, Warwick and Essex, the so called “plate glass” universities. In 1992, shortly after Margaret Thatcher had stepped down as leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, with John Major assuming that role, the binary divide between the universities and the polytechnics was abolished, and the expansion of the entire university sector was urged-on in earnest, and at an unparalleled scale. It is of historical interest, and germane to this discussion, to consider the origins of the various universities, which initially were Oxford, and then Cambridge, followed by the other “ancients”, e.g. St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, acknowledging others, such as Durham and Manchester Victoria in the nineteenth century, with the creation of the red brick universities (Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield) in the first decade of the 20^th century.

The University of London was created in 1836, by the merger of University College and Kings College, and though with older roots, Imperial College was formally established in 1907. In the city’s East End, the educational component of the People's Palace was admitted on an initial three-year trial basis as a School of the University of London on 15 May 1907 as East London College. In 1910 the College's status in the University of London was extended for a further five years, with unlimited membership being conferred in May 1915. The polytechnics were institutions of a different kind, but some can trace their roots back to the mechanics institutes of the 1820s, and the London Polytechnic to 1838. Around 30 new polytechnics were formed in the 1960s expansion of higher education, and it was Tony Crosland - Secretary of State for Education and Science (1965‒67) – who created the “binary system”. Polytechnics focussed more on “high quality vocational work” and initially on engineering and applied science. Their awards, from B.Sc. through to Ph.D., were validated by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). Among the innovations of the polytechnics were “sandwich degrees” and part-time courses, which were especially appropriate for “professions”, such as engineering, town planning, law, architecture, and for training science technicians. There was far less emphasis on research than in the universities, which tended to be “applied” and often connected to local industry.

By about 1973, practically all the university posts had been filled, in many cases by protégés of the great and the good, often with no formal interview, with little demographic chance for new blood for many years to come. The 1970s saw a rise of militancy and industrial strife in Britain, which culminated in the Winter of Discontent in 1979, with rubbish piling up in the streets, bodies going unburied, and power being seized from Labour by the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher, “The Iron Lady”. As part of an effort to control the trade unions, which had run amok in the previous decade, causing Britain’s competitiveness to decline, especially against the ascending Far East, the Thatcher government began to cut subsidies from industries that were deemed unprofitable, e.g. coal and steel production. The result of this was that the number of unemployed rose to 3 million, and as a countermanding measure, during the 1980s, some 2.5 million were taken from this register and placed on invalidity benefit (“on the sick”), thus setting the seeds of the current “benefits culture”, in an act of political manoeuvring but with dire social consequences. The university cuts began in 1981, with four technological universities, Salford, Bradford, Aston and Brunel, each losing >30% of their funding. This rationalisation process would continue under Sir Keith Joseph, Secretary of State for Education and Science. In 1985, Mrs Thatcher was ignominiously denied an honorary degree from her alma mater, the University of Oxford, but in the subsequent rationalisation of the universities, a substantial number of small chemistry and physics departments were closed, and now many universities have neither. Indeed, as Mrs Thatcher put it herself, in 1988: “Can an institution that has neither a physics nor a chemistry department be called a university?”

1992 was a momentous year for two reasons: (1) the binary divide between the polytechnics and the universities was abolished and, (2) the format of the later Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was introduced. This would ultimately multiply the number of students attending “university” by nearly 400% (2010/11, 47%). However, it also created a bottom layer in a league of (now) 116 universities, while the effect of the RAE concentrated most of the research funding in the top 10. Formerly, the polytechnics received their own funding from local authorities, but along with the other universities, were funded by the HEFCE once all had been awarded university status. So, what was the real reason for re-branding the polytechnics as universities? Was it all aimed in the service of inclusiveness and greater opportunities for the nation’s youth? Not entirely. The collapse of the “old” manufacturing industry in 80s, then recession, meant that record numbers of unemployed 18–24 year olds were projected, and a huge embarrassment for a government that wants to be re-elected. In parallel, due to the decline in British industry, the polytechnics effectively lost their original role. Through the expediency of renaming the polytechnics as universities, and expanding the student population by a factor of four, vast numbers of young people were kept from the unemployment figures, being in education instead. The expansion was however not funded accordingly, and spending per student fell by 40%.

The quality of professors, in the enlarged corpus of universities, is hardly uniform, since in some (mostly new) universities, there are many “professors” with practically no published work. In some subjects, e.g. “pharmacy practice”, awarding a “professorship” is the only way candidates can be paid sufficiently to attract them from the private sector, but irrespective of their academic quality. The latter situation now applies in both the old and newer universities. With such large numbers of students to teach, the character of the job of an academic has changed immeasurably, and there are many staff now employed on teaching-only contracts. All universities have also become much more bureaucratic than they were, in part stemming from the local-authority roots of the polytechnics. It is of concern, that 36% of those graduating since 2005 were employed in sales and customer service roles in 2011, including sales assistants, cleaners, waiters, shelf-stackers, bar-staff, hotel porters and call centre staff, while 14% graduating since 2005 were unemployed in 2011. So, of those graduates who are employed, 42% are in low-skilled jobs. One in three applications for this year’s graduate vacancies are from students who had  graduated last year, or before, and while there are 10 million graduates in the U.K., there are only 9 million “graduate level” jobs. The question arises then, is it really worthwhile to incur a debt of £30,000 to end up working in a job that a school-leaver could have done? It is likely that the increase in fees from £3,000 to £9,000 in 2012, raising that debt to perhaps £50,000, will prove to be a critical element in providing an answer. Certainly, 18 year olds that I have spoken to, are not taking going to “uni” as a right of passage, but considering other options, including apprenticeships. The recent indicators are consistent with a progressive drop in the number of applications, and a declining number of applicants actually taking up university places when offered to them.

A major fault is that the system was expanded overly and too rapidly, and with scant regard to the subjects being studied. The introduction of a “bums on seats” funding policy forced universities to accept the vast additional numbers of students, but the system is now producing more graduates than there are graduate-level jobs. The polytechnics adopted the trappings of universities, but with neither the traditions nor the standards, and tragically, in so doing, good polys lost their strong vocational role in education and society and became bad universities. As noted, the bottom half of the league table of universities are all ex-polys. The quality of the system has been eroded further by a lack of proper standards being implemented over academic promotions: professorships and readerships. The universities have also been over-bureaucratised, with support staff becoming managers over the academic staff, and hence a significant shift in the power base has occurred. By way of remedial action, Professors and Readers should re-apply for their titles against proper national standards for which an independent body is necessary to validate the quality of such candidates, who should be demoted or removed, if found wanting - e.g. to be a science professor, you should be of the quality to be awarded a D.Sc. The system overall needs restructuring, with the former polytechnics in part looking to their roots, as good local colleges, providing more work-related and practical training. Professor Michael Brown, a former Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, stated that the current system was “not fit for purpose”, in regard to preparing graduates for the work-place, and introduced a “World of Work” “WOW” certificate. WOW runs in parallel with the student’s degree programme, and provides training in teamwork, negotiating skills, and a whole host of potentially very useful abilities. It is well regarded by the CBI and by potential employers. Professor Edith Sim, the Dean of Science at Kingston University, has stressed the importance for all universities in improving their relationships with business, but particularly those such as Kingston. Indeed, it is universities like Kingston, ex-polytechnics and mainly teaching-led, who are likely to suffer most under the government austerity cuts, removing 80% of their teaching funding, in comparison with 40% being cut from university research budgets overall.

For a while, Reading College was part of Thames Valley University, following a merger between the two institutions, but TVU has since been disbanded, and RC has gone back to its former name. RC runs apprenticeships with local businesses; catering and hospitality; travel and tourism; motor vehicles; hair and beauty; plumbing, gas and heating; bricklaying; electrical installation and design; barbering; horticulture. It is surely not necessary that every subject be taught in a university, or that it should necessarily be a degree, e.g. catering, tourism, golf-course management, and hotel management. Some degrees fare worse than others, especially in such a tough market, e.g. media and communications, for which employment is down 40% on last year. Not all courses described as apprenticeships are the same, and Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has emphasised the necessity of raising the bar on all such schemes to ensure a common and high standard, perhaps on a par with Germany and Switzerland, nations where technical training is taken very seriously.

In respect of how our future education system and universities will be, the unseen game changer is Peak Oil, which the Canadian economist, Jeff Rubin, has described as “running out of the oil we can afford to burn”. The cost of fuel will continue to rise, meaning the “kiss of death” to the global economy. The U.S. now makes little of its own steel, and instead, ore is mined in South America and brought to China, where it is turned into steel, and the steel is then transported to the U.S. Cheap labour and cheap fuel make this strategy possible, but as fuel costs rise, it will become cheaper to do the mining and processing in the U.S., thus rebuilding the U.S. steel industry, and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. Many industries could be home-grown and we will need many practically trained people, meaning a requirement for fewer universities in their present form, but more colleges. Hence universities must adapt, and are probably entering another transitional phase, no less dramatic than that which began in 1992.

Picturing a Tonne of Carbon, and Energy from Dog-Excrement.

The question of, "what does a tonne of carbon really mean?", was put to me last night at a meeting of Transition Reading, a member of the rapidly growing Transition Towns movement, which I belong to, and which aims to achieve resilience at the level of local communities, to mitigate vulnerability to such external threats as peak oil, climate change and economic insecurity. Very often, measures of grams, kilograms or tonnes of carbon, or carbon dioxide are referred to, but practically these references are meaningless, since they do not readily convey an image of quantity, according to common experience. As a "visual" aid, let us consider what one tonne of carbon dioxide represents. The molar volume of an ideal gas at 25 degrees C (298 K) and standard pressure (1 atmosphere = 760 mm Hg = 101,300 Pascals) is 24.46 litres.

One mole of carbon dioxide (CO2) weighs (has a mass of) 44 g. Thus one tonne of CO2 contains 1,000,000g/44 g = 22,727.3 moles. Hence its volume under ambient conditions is 555,909 litres, or about 556 cubic metres. Again, this is not desperately helpful, and so to aid the "eye", we can imagine a cube, of side length 8.22 metres (27.0 feet), which is about the size of a fairly roomy two-storey house.

Now, if a tonne of "carbon" is referred to, we must multiply the above volume by a factor of 44/12, which is the ratio of the molecular mass of CO2 to the atomic mass of carbon, making around 2,039 cubic metres. Hence our house, still assumed to be cubic, now has a side length of 12.68 metres, or 41.6 feet and is accordingly a quite spacious dwelling.

As a rider to this, the topic of making biofuel from dog-excrement came up in conversation http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/fido-strikes-gold-with-britains-most-noxious-biofuel-dog-excrement-8591702.html which is a recent innovation. At a guess, I reckoned that the raw (dry) material probably has an energy density (that released through combustion) of around 15 GJ/tonne, which is close to that deduced from the combustion enthalpy of carbohydrate (glucose), 2801 kJ/mol  while the biodiesel from it is likely to have a much greater energy density, probably close to 38 GJ/tonne http://www.ipst.gatech.edu/faculty/ragauskas_art/technical_reviews/Energy%20Basics.pdf . Now this brings to mind an exhibition that I saw in the Deutsches Museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Museum in Munich last week, where I noticed a graph of energy density for different kinds of coal, which seemed to indicate that anthracitic coal (getting toward being pure carbon) had an energy density of 40 GJ/tonne, which is much higher than I had thought it to be, at nearer 30 GJ/tonne. So, let's see what the energy density of pure carbon is.

The enthalpy of combustion of solid carbon (in the form of  graphite), C+ O2(g) → CO2(g) = –393.5 kJ/mol. So, that is the amount of energy released by burning 12 g of carbon. Hence, burning a tonne of it would yield 393.5 x 1,000 J x 1,000,000 g/12 g = 32.8 GJ, which is close to my original notion. The quoted values for the energy content of different kinds of coal do vary somewhat, and this link http://rekauk.com/biomass-fuels cites a value for anthracite of 33.8 GJ/tonne. Now, this is very much at the high end of those various estimates that I have seen (typically in the range 27--30 GJ/tonne http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/biomass-energy/) and maybe it is too high, but the energy density given for chicken litter at 13.5 GJ/tonne is close to my original guess on the energy that might be recovered from burning a tonne of dog-shit, if indeed one felt compelled to do so!

Global Warming is Nonsense - According to the "Daily Mail."

The Daily Mail, having recently published an interview with Nigel Lawson, which attempts to convince its sentient readership that Peak Oil is nonsense http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2244822/Thought-running-fossil-fuels-New-technology-means-Britain-U-S-tap-undreamed-reserves-gas-oil.html is now embarked on a mission to alert us to the news that Global Warming is yet another myth http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294560/The-great-green-1-The-hard-proof-finally-shows-global-warming-forecasts-costing-billions-WRONG-along.html. I published a rebuttal to the DM's Peak Oil coverage, in which I emphasised that it is not a matter entirely of how large the reserve (let alone resource!) might be, that will determine the instance and timing of a production peak - of oil, gas, coal or indeed any other finite commodity - http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Peak-Oil-is-Nonsense-...-Because-Theres-Enough-Gas-to-Last-250-Years.html, but rather the rate at which the material can be extracted, according to prevailing physical, geological, economic and technical determinants.

I concluded the article with the line "He's obviously forgotten about climate change", but whatever Lord Lawson's recollections are, the Daily Mail is compelled to the view that anthropogenically-driven global warming is a phantom. Having done some basic sums on the subject, with a German colleague Alexander Koewius http://www.koewius.de/Website/Climate_Change.html, which show that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly CO2,  are expected to elevate the mean global temperature considerably, I find such assertions less than convincing. Rather as resources are all too frequently confused with reserves, to make a case that there is plenty of "oil" to be had, but which in any case say nothing about actually getting it out of the ground - i.e. reserves are static reckonings, while production is a dynamic process - any apparent "flatness" of the recent climate temperature record (if it is real http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/01/10/global-warming-is-not-at-a-standstill-despite-ignorant-claims-in-uk-press/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming) ignores the difference between trend and variation. A lovely illustration of this is of a man walking a dog on a beach. If you watch the dog, he meanders all over the place (variation), but in fact is heading in a define direction, according to his master's wishes (trend) http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend_and_variation.html. As the elements prevail upon us over the longer term, trend is climate, while weather is variation.

Through the latter link http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend_and_variation.html is a video clip which shows that straight lines can be "fitted" which imply an absence of warming over different periods, and yet the overall trend is to a higher mean global temperature. If indeed it were to prove the case that the Earth has stopped warming, then the question arises of "where is the excess thermal energy going?" It has been suggested that some of this is being stored in the deep oceans https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5364/deep-oceans-can-mask-global-warming-decade-long-periods, and if this is so, when it resurfaces, we are likely to be in deep trouble indeed, through the forcing of complex and interwoven mechanisms of the Earth System. i.e. We are likely be hotter, (wetter or dryer, depending on location and sea-level proximity), and hungrier than we thought. Will the variations oscillate with greater amplitude, or run out of control?... we simply will not know the outcome of this, the greatest geo-engineering experiment in human history, until it is concluded, but the consequences of burning all the carbon we can get our hands on are unlikely to be favourable http://math.350.org/.

Wind for Hydrogen - An Update.

This is an update of some numbers from an older posting http://ergobalance.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/ulf-bossel-platinum-and-hydrogen.html in light of the larger commercial wind turbines that are now available http://ergobalance.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/shaky-foundations-for-offshore-wind.html. There is some improvement in the overall figures, but the task of switching from oil to hydrogen remains stupendous.

At the outset, we should note that hydrogen does not occur free in nature but must be freed from other elements, such as oxygen in water, with which it is naturally combined, and the separation of elements requires other forms of energy. Almost all the hydrogen used currently in the world - principally as a chemical feedstock e.g. for oil refining and making artificial fertilizers - is made by steam-reforming natural gas, and there is a CO2 budget that must be costed-in, hence hydrogen from this source is not clean but contributes to CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it consumes natural gas, and so there is a further demand placed on another resource, in accord with the indisputable fact that it takes resources to extract resources. Ideally therefore, that hydrogen should be produced by e.g. water electrolysis using electricity made from renewable sources.

Some while ago, Ulf Bossel pointed out http://www.fuelcellforum.com/reports/E21.pdf there are losses at each stage in the chain of production, storage and distribution for hydrogen. There is obviously a loss of 50 - 60% incurred when the material is oxidised in a fuel cell, but in its favour is the fact that an efficiency of even 40 - 50% is substantially above the Carnot-cycle limit (Thermodynamics again) of around 35% for a typical internal combustion engine. The losses may be summarised as follows: 90% efficiency for rectifying alternating current to DC to run the electrolyzer; 75% overall efficiency (ideal) for the electrolyzer itself; and then the storage of the bulky hydrogen gas either as a highly compressed gas, which takes about 20% of the energy content of the hydrogen to compress it (or as a cryogenic liquid, which takes 30 - 40% to produce); 10% for distribution and say 50% efficiency for the fuel cell itself, which amounts to about a 25% efficiency overall.

There are electrolyzer units http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36705.pdfthat can produce high pressure hydrogen and if each gas-station were to make its own hydrogen by electrolysis, much of the distribution losses (probably 30%) might be avoided. A report has been published by a firm of independent analysts in Germany which is critical of some of Bossel's figures http://mpfc.de/pdf/LBSTonBossel.pdfespecially in regard to storage and transmission, particularly across large distances say from sunny north Africa (if the hydrogen were produced using PV technology which would be much more efficient there) by pipeline to Europe. However, an in-situ arrangement as I allude to would surely get around that, presuming we could make enough renewable electricity, or if there were a grid of electrons (rather than of hydrogen) including north African PV, European wind-power, North Sea wave energy and so on, such power might be supplied to run local electrolysis equipment, which would avoid actual hydrogen transmission. But if Bossel is right, why not use these electrons in a more direct manner?

On a tit-for tat basis, we can make the following calculation:

The heat of combustion of hydrogen is -285 kJ/mol, and so 1 kg of hydrogen = 1000 g/2 g/mol x -285 kJ= -142,500 kJ = 1.425 x 10^8 J.

We get through 82 million tonnes of oil altogether annually in the UK and we use 60 million tonnes of that for fuel. The energy content of oil is rated at 42 GJ/tonne and so that 60 million tonnes "contains" 60 x 10^6 x 42 x 10^9 Joules = 2.52 x 10^18 J of energy.

Hydrogen can be produced at a pressure of up to 10,000 psi by electrolysis at a rate of 60.5 kW/kg of H2. Hence the equivalent H2 to match that amount of oil is:

2.52 x 10^18 J/1.425 x 10^8 J/kg = 1.768 x 10^10 kg H2. Bossel has used the conversion factor of 1.5, i.e. that H2 can be used with 1.5 times the recoverable energy efficiency of gasoline. Since gasoline gives an approximately 14% well-to-wheel efficiency that would make about 21% overall for hydrogen, which seems a bit low and I would think that say 59% for the electrolysis system x 90% for rectification x 50% for the fuel cell = 26.6% is more like it.

However, let's consider the generating capacity the whole enterprise would need. To make 1.768 x 10^10 kg of H2 over a year, i.e. 8760 hours, would require:

1.768 x 10^10 kg x 60.5 x 10^3 (W/kg H2)/8760 = 122.1 GW. But this figure is mitigated according to the efficiency with which hydrogen may be used. If Bossel is right, this becomes 81.4 GW or let's call it a factor of two (which seems more reasonable), making it 61.0 GW.

Either way, we would need a colossal installation of renewables, e.g. 5 MW wind-turbines, with a rated capacity of 5 MW - but an actual output of say 30% if placed offshore, which amounts to 1.5 MW per unit. Hence we would need 61 GW/1.5 MW = 40,667 of them. Probably these could be accommodated in the North Sea in a 202 x 202 square of turbines, and at an average spacing of "ten rotor diameters", i.e.  1.23 km,we are talking about an area of 247 kilometers squared (= 61,113 km^2), which doesn't sound too bad, albeit that the weather in the North Sea is some of the roughest in the world, and so maintenance might prove a problem. If the turbines were placed around the coast of the U.K. mainland (assumed to be 2,500 km in length), at a mutual separation of 1.23 km, 2,033 turbines could be so accommodated in a single strand, and to contain all of them, a band would be created, 40,667/2,033 = 20 turbines deep. Assuming that same 1.23 km separation, this would be 25 km (15 miles) wide. So, how quickly might this farm of 40,000+ wind turbines be created? The question really is one of "how long is a piece of string?" but assuming that one turbine could be fabricated and installed every day, the process would take at least 111 years, and probably far longer, in reality.

As an alternative, around 60 new nuclear reactors could be installed to make the electricity for hydrogen, and on top of the new generation required to replace the decommissioned current 31 reactors, actually equal in output to about 14 1 GW reactors, and so it would be necessary to quadruple this capacity by which means to install a "Hydrogen Economy" in the UK. I have been told that hydrogen could be made more efficiently using the thermal power from a nuclear reactor to run the iodine-sulphur cycle, rather than by electrolyzing water (50% compared to 35%) , but the installation capacity needed remains huge. If Bossel is right and electrons can be used with three times the efficiency than will be recovered (hydrogen actually re-generates electrons in the fuel cell, to turn wheels, in a chemically-fuelled electric car) by turning them into hydrogen, the installation capacity immediately falls to 20 new nuclear power stations, or about 13,555 turbines, which is still enormous but appears more achievable.

I am not ruling out hydrogen altogether but simply making the point that when oil supplies begin to wane, it is not a simple matter of switching from oil to hydrogen, but a new and vast infrastructure must be implemented first, to both produce and use hydrogen. The question looms: is it worth it, or might there not be better ways to deal with our impending transportation problems, such as relocalising society to use less transport? Even those who are profound advocates of the "Hydrogen Economy" need to address the problem that the PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) cell relies on an electrode consisting partly of platinum (about 50 - 100 g worth), which is a metal so rare than only 200 tonnes of new platinum are produced each year, and well below the current and growing demand for it.

Admittedly, the 40% of world platinum that is presently put into catalytic converters could be fabricated into PEM cells, were the putative conversion from oil-power to H2-power to be made, but this is only sufficient to put around: 200 tonnes x 1000 kg/tonne x 1000 g/kg x 0.4/50 g/cell = 1.6 million new "vehicles" on the road each year, out of a world total of about 1,000 million. Hence over a period of 15 years we could replace just 2.4% of the current number. Thus, unless more platinum is recovered on a huge scale (from sources as yet unknown to geology), or some alternative fuel cell technology is brought to a commercial level of development on some similarly immediate timescale, the enterprise looks set to fall at the last fence, in this, the last race that humankind will ever have to place bets on.