Nuclear
Repowering
of Tampa's BIG BEND Power PlantHome & Index Page Sitemap About Prolog Introduction A Quick Tour Footnotes & Links
StoppingClimateChange.com
Nuclear
Repowering
of Tampa's BIG BEND Power Plant
Home & Index Page
Sitemap
About
Prolog
Introduction
A Quick Tour
Footnotes & Links
coal2nuclear Repowering Example
How ThorCon's™
ThorConIsle nuclear barge power plants could quickly decarbonize coastal
megapolises
electrical grids
like Tampa, Florida, by repowering their huge coal power plants with inexpensive
mass-produced nuclear power plant barges.
ThorConIsle - Design
Paper.pdf
ThorCon exec_summary.pdf
Tampa's
1969
'Big Bend' Coal Power Plant
Disclaimer:
This web site is free speech Climate Change and energy opinion talk, not
professional engineering advice, made without the knowledge or approval of any
cited entities.
Fewer than 2% of all coal power plants are making
almost 30% of all Climate Change.
500 megaWatt(e) ThorCon™ Molten Salt Reactor
Modules
(Pairs of 250 megaWatt(e) reactors powering a single
500 mW electricity
generator.)
http://thorconpower.com/
http://thorconpower.com/thorcons-green-nuclear-power-gains-momentum
http://euanmearns.com/thorcon-molten-salt-fission-power-plant/
(Detailed description)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HP98Y61wnw&feature=youtu.be
Introductory video presented by
ThorCon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfsOYzOpYRw
ThorCon - Indonesia Thorium Consortium Completes ThorCon Technology
Pre-Feasibility Study - 14142672.pdf
Big Bend is about number 250 on the list of the world's largest 1,200 coal burning power plants with Taichung, in Taiwan, being #1. This group of 1,200 makes 30% of all Climate change.
Over the next several years as many as 50 different North American companies will be unveiling their versions of as many as 10 different types of new Small Modular Reactors (known as SMRs). These fourth generation reactors are designed to be mass produced by the thousands like airplanes and ships.
In the world of energy, cost is usually the most powerful market force and nuclear heat can be as much as 2,000 times cheaper than coal, something coal has always known and feared since the 1950s.
From what I've seen, the far more costly and dangerous first and second generation nuclear power plants we've come to know and love are hopelessly obsolete and mindlessly expensive.
Old fashioned nuclear reactors typically are high pressure water cooled and over 1,000 megaWatts in power creating the potential for very powerful above ground steam explosions (think Chernobyl). Many of the new modern Generation IV reactors are unpressurized molten salt (think lava), which is incapable of exploding, smaller than 300 megaWatts in power, will be used in large numbers like today's big stationary diesel and aeroderivative engines and usually designed to be located at the bottoms of underground silos for extreme safety. Molten salt reactors can be built much smaller, cheaper, and lighter if necessary. The first molten salt reactors were intended to power airplanes.
Once I understood the concept of the "CMO", or Cubic Mile of Oil equivalent , as a way to get my brain around the size of the energy we are obtaining from fossil fuels, I understood why windmills, solar cells, and old-fashioned nuclear reactors simply could not provide sufficient energy to replace fossil fuels as a way to stop Climate Change.
Nuclear energy is, however, big enough to replace the worst source of Climate Change, coal, along with powering massive biofuel chemical processes to replace oil and natural gas. This combination does provide an economical way to stop the growth of Climate Change while continuing to provide enough energy for everyone on earth to live a comfortable and plentiful life.
This page introduces the reader to a nuclear technology that appears to have the "Right Stuff" for quickly ending about 1/3 of all the world's climate changing CO2 - the amount of CO2 being emitted by the world's 1,200 largest coal burning power plants . By comparison, the world's other 70,000+ smaller coal power plants are almost innocent bystanders. I should point out that a typical coal power plant has 4 to 6 boilers so we are probably talking 6,000 or so small nuclear reactors.
Few people have ever been exposed to the entire global electrical system. More money is invested in the world's electrical systems than any other industry. You can get an idea of how large electricity power really is from these folks: http://www.platts.com/Products.aspx?xmlFile=worldelectricpowerplantsdatabase.xml
Knowing that only 2% of the world's coal burning power plants are making almost 30% of ALL Climate Change makes obvious nuclear repowering of the world's 1,200 largest existing coal power plants is the world's best opportunity to reach the Paris Climate Change goals of 2050.
This web page is an introduction
to the idea of replacing a large coal burning power plant's boilers with
advanced molten salt nuclear reactor heated steam generators installed in
ocean-going barges rigidly parked next to the electricity plant's turbine
gallery building. When the barges go away for refueling, repair, or plant
decommissioning,
their radioactivity goes with them. Replacing coal boilers with nuclear boilers
isn't a new idea: Hook-ons2.pdf.
This introduction to molten salt reactors is divided into four parts:
1.
Nuclear Repowering Tampa's 'Big Bend' Coal Power Plant.
A 12-page ticket to the early world of molten salt reactors:
Molten Salt Reactor Adventure.pdf
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Ideas on this web site always need
to be properly vetted by competent engineering companies such as Bechtel or
Fluor before anyone should even consider taking these ideas to the bank.
The Devil hides in the details. Engineering a detailed preliminary design of a
pilot plant for something untried is a good way to vet an idea. - Site Author
Part 1
Nuclear Repowering of Tampa's 'Big Bend' Coal Power Plant
Most of the world's
1,200 largest coal burning power plants, like Tampa's Big Bend, are located
on navigable water to facilitate their purchasing of low cost coal by the barge
load.
This makes the possibility of quickly and inexpensively converting them to
nuclear boiler barges to both end their Climate Changing emissions and
substantially reducing fuel costs.
Using inexpensive mass produced standardized nuclear boiler barges to preserve
the very high value of the electricity being produced by world's largest power
plants makes a lot of economic sense. The world simply isn't rich enough to
build a new fleet of nuclear electricity plants.
There are no coal burning power plants in the world too large to be converted to
nuclear by using multiple ThorCon molten salt reactor heated steam generators.
August 2015 U.K. assessment of molten salt
reactor technology:
Molten-Salt Reactor Feasibility Study by EPD (pdf)
Big Bend's repowering idea using nuclear reactor steam barges is very simple: Cut 4 barge slips into the lagoon edge next to Tampa's Big Bend power plant turbine gallery that holds four 450 megaWatt coal powered steam turbine electricity generators. Run new steam piping from the reactors to the existing steam piping in the turbine gallery. With suitable connections and valves, the turbines could then be powered with a wide ratio of coal steam and/or nuclear steam.
ThorCon's extremely simple reactors are to be used somewhat like flashlight batteries. They would come in two modules of two. When one dual reactor module is turned on, it will produce enough steam to make 500 megaWatts of electricity for 4 years before it's fuel is too depleted to make full power. Then the other dual reactor module of the pair of modules is turned on and the radioactivity in the "tired" reactor module has as long as 4 years to die down before it is replaced with a pair of fresh reactors.
The NuScale reactor company published an image of their reactor showing how radiation decays. The small amount of decay heat is easily absorbed into the surrounding water.
Reactor barges would be exchanged as needed for maintenance with the one needing work towed away to a remote dry dock specializing in nuclear maintenance any time refueling or repair was needed. The radiation goes away with the barge.
(Superseded equipment layout sketch)
(Site North is left) Four nuclear
power plant barges, each with two pairs of 250 mW(e) ThorCon molten salt
reactors, to replace Big
Bend's aging four 450 mW(e) electricity generators.
(The barge outlines above are from the earlier coal2nuclear molten salt reactor =
steam generators and are not to scale for ThorConIsles.)
ThorConIsle - Design
Paper.pdf
http://thorconpower.com/
Barges - Ocean Going Workhorse.pdf
Molten Salt Reactor Adventure.pdf
[NOTE: I originally created this page about 10 years ago for my now superseded coal2nuclear web site. The idea then was to just replace the coal burning steam boilers. Now Russia, China, Turkey, and others have actually built entire power plants as ships or barges. The parent company of ThorCon, Martingale, has been making oil supertankers in a highly automated shipyard in Korea for quite some time now. ThorCon saw what everyone else had done and decided that if they couldn't come up with something a lot better, they would forget about it. Now they have an opportunity to build their pilot plant in Indonesia, a country of hundreds of islands with many megaopolis harbors not unlike Tampa Bay.
Most of my coal power plants are approaching the end their useful lives and a cheap, mass-produced, standardized package nuclear power plant using safer, smaller, modern ship-sized reactors makes more sense.
Revision time
again.]
Big Bend - Entire Site - Above Image is 1.12 Miles wide, up is North.
Big Bend Water Environs Showing Access Via Tampa Bay
ThorCon's Proposed "ThorConIsle" Nuclear Island Complete Power Plant
Barge
(Fewer than 2% of all coal power plants are making almost
30% of all Climate Change.)
2 ThorCon 500 megaWatt(e) "Nuclear Island" barges.
(Right) Reactor exchange ship. All the radiation goes away with the red reactor cans.
Reactor cans have enough fuel for 4 years of full power running. Reactor
exchange ship containing up to 5 individually replaceable 4-year reactors.
If something unforeseen happens, or something major needs to be upgraded, or the
barge finally wears out, the
whole barge goes back to the shipyard/factory.
Shore
Installation
At Sea Installation
Preempting the World's 2,000+ New Large Coal Burning Electricity Plants
Seeing the Hotwells jogged my memory about several Big Bend plant
quirks.
1. The facility immediately to the North is an RO desalinator for the Greater
Tampa Water District. At one time that desalinator was the largest in the
Western Hemisphere. I think it currently supplies about 10% of Tampa's fresh
water. The Hotwell water is a brackish mix of Tampa Bay salt and the
Alafia River fresh surface water which discharges into the Bay several miles
North up the shore. As I recall from long ago, the power plant is supposed to
supply the water at 105°F in preparation for pretreatment. Doesn't sound like
much, but over time that's a massive amount of BTUs. A BTU is a BTU regardless
how cold it is.
2. The plant has been designated a Wildlife reservation or something. In
January, Tampa Bay gets chilly for the warm-blooded Manatees so they huddle
around the coal plant hotwell discharges on the South Side of the boilers to
keep warmer. On several occasions I've visited the adjacent viewing deck and
observed the water swarming with Manatees and fish of all sizes - some the size
of rowboats.
3. Storm Surges of more than ten feet above ambient water level are possible in
the event the South edge of a strong hurricane strikes the mouth of Tampa Bay as
it's eye comes ashore heading East Northeast. To make matters worse, I-75 runs
parallel to the shore several miles to the east, it's fill forming perhaps a 5
foot high dyke that, by blocking the storm surge, will cause the water to rise
more than it would if the surge were merely spilling out onto Florida flat
lands.
The U.S. built over 10,000 large vessels during World War 2 - large ocean-going warships, tankers, freighters, etc. "... in 1943 alone the [American] war effort at home had brought into service: 2 fast battleships; 6 fleet carriers; 24 escort carriers; 4 heavy cruisers; 7 light cruisers; 128 destroyers; 200 submarines; ... " (The Second World Wars, Victor Davis Hanson, p153).
A very dim light from a city represents at least one power station, brighter lights reveal several to dozens of power stations.
- The World currently has over 50,000 coal burning electricity generation plants in operation. The decarbonization task we are facing is staggering.
It looks like ThorConIsle barges that need to pass through the new 160-foot wide Panama Canal will be limited to the single active reactor 250 megaWatt model. Looks good for the Suez Canal's 254-foot beam clearance if careful scheduling of the other ships is taken into consideration. The ThorCon drawing above doesn't show draft.
ThorConIsle is an excellent idea for preempting the next 2,000+ new large coal power plants being planned for powering the world's emerging coastal mega-population centers.
ThorCon is suggesting an option of anchoring complete 500 megaWatt electrical power plant barges offshore and feeding their electricity to land via cables like offshore wind farms do.
The simple battery-like "exchangeable when depleted" reactor module power plant ThorCon has come up with is too good to ignore for use in a barge to be located in shore slips adjacent to the world's thousands of existing coastal electricity generating plants - such as Tampa's "Big Bend" - to take advantage of the plant's existing staff, coal power plant grid, rail, and road access.
SAFETY: The first reactor in this league
to be assessed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been the NuScale,
a 50 megaWatt(e) conventional water cooled solid fuel fission reactor currently
being built on the property of the Idaho National Laboratories to add power to
the U.S. Northwest grid.
http://www.nuscalepower.com/smr-benefits/safe
While Oak Ridge Laboratories built and successfully ran a test molten salt
reactor for 5 years, no power plant versions have ever been built, so the NRC is
going to have to do a lot studies before it rules on something this different.
The molten salt cooled and fueled ThorCon reactor uses liquid fuel that resembles molten lava, cooling and turning solid if it escaped the reactor, not sinking into the ground and joining the local aquifer like radioactive water from conventional nuclear reactors, a serious downside to neighbors who have nearby drinking water wells. This one of many fundamental differences between the NuScale and the ThorConIsle nuclear power plants. People live within several miles of Big Bend power plant property and well-proven nuclear powered military ships can pass within several miles of Big Bend power plant property in addition to the heavily populated area surrounding Tampa and it's bayside suburbs. Operating power nuclear reactors this close in just to get Big Bend to "Go Green" is going to require a lot of thinking.
ThorCon 500 mWe (dual 250 mW(e)) Molten Salt Reactor Land Power Plant Modules
http://thorconpower.com/ ThorCon Power, division of Martingale
ThorCon 2017 Specification Sheet pdf
Their motto: "If it isn't cheaper than coal, forget it".
https://neutronbytes.com/2017/12/06/thorcons-nuclear-msr-design-gains-momentum/
- Dan Yurman
"ThorCon employs a moderately high energy density resulting in a
short (4 year) moderator life. A ThorCon plant is made up of one or more 250
MWe modules. Each module consists of two sealed Cans. Each Can houses a 250 MWe
primary loop including a Pot (reactor), pump, and primary heat exchanger (PHX).
The two Cans are duplexed. At any time, one Can is operating and the other is in
cool-down or stand-by mode. The plant is designed so that the change out of a
cooled-down Can is safe and quick."
ThorCon exec_summary.pdf (Written
by a person experienced in building supertankers. Please try to find the time to
read the Abstract. The entire summary will give you some idea of how backwards
today's nuclear reactors are and how the ThorCon was designed to be relatively
inexpensively mass-produced, not unlike an airplane or ship.)
ThorCon Slide Presentation to Oak Ridge National Laboratories.pdf
ThorCon Estimated Heat Balance - From ThorCon web site library. - Blue English conversion notes by site author.
Underground ThorCon 250
megaWatt (e) Nuclear Steam Generator Module
ThorCon Silo Dimensions - From ThorCon web site library. - Blue English
conversion notes by site author.
Liquid molten salt resembles molten hot lava. In the unlikely event some leaked out of the reactor, it would cool and turn solid like a rock, unlike a conventional reactor's radioactive water that could eventually join the nearby ground water under the reactor.
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Big Bend
Largest Coal
Sizing Up Big Coal
Using Taichung
Taichung Power Plant
Nuclear Power Plant Barges
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News Notes
