Clean nuclear energy with a simple electricity output stage

University of New South Wales researchers led by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora have made important breakthroughs recently in developing clean nuclear energy technology.

When a proton (a Hydrogen nucleus) fuses with a Boron-11 nucleus it produces 3 alpha particles (Helium nuclei).

That's it. No radioactive fuels. No radioactive waste.

Hydrogen Boron-11 fusion

And another result: For each 11 grams of Boron-11 (one mole) converted to Helium, the energy produced is around 230 megawatt-hours.

At the level of individual nuclei, the mass of the three Helium nuclei produced is about 17 electron masses less than the mass of the Hydrogen nuclei (a proton) and the Boron-11 nuclei that undergo fusion to create them. It is this "missing" mass that appears as energy. Specifically this energy is kinetic energy imparted to the Helium nuclei.

Laser-boron fusion now ‘leading contender’ for energy

"The fuels and waste are safe, the reactor won't need a heat exchanger and steam turbine generator, and the lasers we need can be bought off the shelf," says Warren McKenzie, managing director of HB11, which owns the patents to the new technology.

When coal is used to fuel a high-efficiency low-emission "HELE" ultra-supercritical coal-fired power station, carbon dioxide emissions are 900 kilograms per megawatt-hour. The amount of carbon in the coal needed for each megawatt-hour of electricity generated is 900 x (12 / 44) kilograms. That is coal containing 245 kilograms of carbon is burned for each megawatt-hour.

To generate 230 megawatt-hours of electricity in a "HELE" coal-fired power plant coal containing over 56 tonnes of carbon would need to be burned. It would be converted into almost 210 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Yes. 
That's right. 
56 TONNES of carbon vs 11 GRAMS of Boron-11 for the same electrical energy output.

Coal power plants have another serious handicap. The energy produced when coal is burned is heat energy. Extremely high pressure boilers and turbines are required to spin large generators to convert the heat energy into electricity.

With proton-Boron-11 fusion, the energy produced is in the form of fast-moving positively charged Helium nuclei. This kinetic energy of charged particles can be converted directly into electricity. There is no need for steam boilers, turbines and generators.

A new clean energy technology being developed by @UNSW researchers is a game-changer. See this thread: https://t.co/CJgEtWGomH

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 11, 2019

While the nuclear reactor is being developed, the technology to create electricity from fast-moving charged particles can be done in parallel. For instance, the ion propulsion test facility at the Australian National University could produce streams of ionised gases to use in developing the electricity production technology.

Professor Christine Charles is Head of the Space Plasma, Power and Propulsion laboratory at the Australian National University.

Professor Christine Charles is internationally recognised for her research on ion acceleration in expanding magnetised plasmas and its applications to a new generation of space engines and advanced material processing.

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Update - 5 July 2019 

Progress in research in seemingly unrelated fields may lead to sudden advances, solving tasks that are steps to manufacture small commercial laser-driven fusion electricity power modules.

From this article "Self-Torque: Physicists Discover New Property of Light" on 1 July 2019 for instance -

In 1992, it was realized that light can also possess orbital angular momentum (OAM) when the spatial shape of the beam of light rotates — or twists — around its own axis.
...
In order to realize an entirely new property of light, manifested as a time-varying OAM along the light pulse, JILA physicist Kevin Dorney, University of Salamanca’s Dr. Laura Rego and their colleagues exploited the quantum physics inherent to the high harmonic generation (HHG) process.

“To create that high harmonic generation with light, an intense, femtosecond laser pulse is upshifted to high frequencies of the driving laser by essentially creating a nanoscale radiating antenna from an atom that is in the process of being ionized,” they explained.

“When properly phase-matched, bright, coherent laser-like beams can be generated that span from the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to the soft X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Renewable energy technology is affordable and reliable

Incumbent electricity and transport fuel producers lobby to hold back the adoption of renewable energy, but innovation has now eliminated the logic of their concerns.

When the roll-out of Australia's first-generation electricity supply system was finalised in the 1960's it relied upon simple management strategies for economic use of the capital investment:

• Coal-fired power stations met electricity demand during peak loads during the day and at night heated off-peak hot water systems and stored further energy in pumped hydro storage.
• The pumped-hydro storage system was available to supplement the coal-fired power generation capacity during the highest peak demand periods during each day. 

With the low cost of small-scale energy storage that is now available, it is practical to transfer the 1960's experience with centralised  electricity generation into managing electricity supply for individual homes, businesses and villages...

A large household in Australia uses up to 20 kilowatt-hours of electricity a day - about the same amount of energy that a 5 kilowatt rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) can produce reliably on most days of the year.

For reliable electricity supply, a household only needs to install enough battery storage to provide it with all the energy it needs for just one day. On most days, the solar PV system will recharge all the energy used from the battery storage, and the household can meet occasional peak loads by drawing energy from both its solar PV system and battery storage at the same time.

Solar Battery Storage Comparison Table
Extract from SolarQuotes table

On days where solar PV energy output is below the usual level, the battery storage system can be topped-up overnight from large-scale generators. The large-scale generators can be informed of the total overnight demand well in advance - from data transmitted from battery storage systems, and schedule generation and distribution at times to make use of unused distribution capacity. This is like having supermarkets restocked by trucks using roads at 3 am in the morning to deliberately avoid busy peak-hour traffic.

In periods of extreme day-time peak demands, the large-scale generators can be brought online to supplement the regular levels of demand that are met by solar PV and battery storage of homes, businesses and villages.

This strategy eliminates the need for 'gold-plating' which is the major cause of high electricity prices in Australia: idle capacity for generation and distribution that is kept in reserve for as little as a few hundred hours each year when peak demand reaches unusual, extreme levels.

Improving old coal-fired power stations

Existing coal-fired power stations using low-grade coal might continue to generate particulate and sulphur dioxide emissions until they are decommissioned. Some are fitted with scrubbers and other post-combustion filters to reduce these emissions. This approach reduces the efficiency of already inefficient coal-fired power stations:

The heating value of Indian coal is, on average, about 60 percent of the heating value of coal burned in the United States. This increases the amount of coal that must be burned to generate a given heat input, implying higher auxiliary electricity consumption to run coal grinding equipment, conveyors, and pumps.

Auxiliary generation... will also increase if electricity is used to run pollution abatement equipment, such as electrostatic precipitators ( ESPs ) and flue-gas desulfurization units ( scrubbers ) . We note although coal-fired power plants in both countries have ESPs, only three plants in India currently have scrubbers.¹

In the meantime there are options to increase efficiency and reduce harmful emissions until it is feasible to decommission these coal-fired power stations.

One of these options is to pre-process the low-grade coal before combustion. The technology available to do this has several advantages. It eliminates the particulate and sulphur dioxide emissions and, more importantly, increases the efficiency of these coal-fired power stations. Scrubbers and other post-combustion filters are no longer needed.

Low-grade coal contains relatively high levels of contaminants and moisture content. The moisture content reduces the energy available for power generation when its burned because energy is wasted converting the moisture into water vapour. The contaminants increase the energy that is used to run pollution abatement equipment.

To understand the available technology this simplified model gives a reasonable approximation of what takes place; Consider a process in which carbon and water are placed in a reaction vessel and an environment is created to promote a desired reaction that uses little or no external energy. The reaction breaks down some of the water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen reacts with half of the carbon to form carbon dioxide and the hydrogen reacts with the remainder of the carbon to create methane. The energy released by the reactions with carbon provide the energy needed to break down water  into oxygen and hydrogen.

The methane can be separated to use in place of low-grade coal in the existing coal-fired power stations. There are no particulates or sulphur dioxide to be removed from the exhaust gases. When methane burns, about half the energy is produced by the reaction of carbon with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, and about half is produced by the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to form water vapour. Note that the total amount of energy is the same as would have been produced if all of the carbon had been burned and not pre-processed into carbon dioxide and methane. The moisture content that was present in the low-grade coal has been separated, as water, before combustion. No energy is wasted converting that moisture into water vapour.

Research on this technology was conducted in several countries interested in producing methane from biomass that contains significant amounts of water. That research has advanced into at least three commercially available products. These can be adapted to carry out the desired pre-processing of low-grade coal into methane:

Making renewable natural gas from wet biomass, no #CSG -
1/ https://t.co/cbAnvLLgQi
2/ https://t.co/bA1a1XcUY1
3/ https://t.co/Xyy79DHFEo

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 3, 2017

Upgrading low-grade coal to methane

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1 Chan, Hei Sing (Ron), Maureen L. Cropper, and Kabir Malik. 2014. "Why Are Power Plants in India Less Efficient Than Power Plants in the United States?" American Economic Review, 104(5): 586-90. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.586

Taking the blinkers off energy policy in Australia

The "Resources and Energy Quarterly" by the Office of the Chief Economist for March 2017 has the following Table of Contents:

Contents

Foreword	4
About this edition	5
Resource and energy overview	6
Steel	25
Iron ore	33
Metallurgical coal	42
Thermal coal	51
Gas	61
Oil	73
Uranium	82
Gold	89
Aluminium, alumina and bauxite	97
Copper	113
Nickel	121
Zinc	127
Trade summary charts	133
Appendix	142

Renewable energy doesn't get a mention.

This oversight is the foundation on which opportunities for Australia's economic development are missed.

Two of the energy resources that are included - thermal coal and natural gas - are shown to have outlooks that aren't very promising in the case of coal and are at risk from high domestic production costs and low-cost competition in the case of gas.

Thermal coal exports for example are shown to decline in value by $5 billion per year to about $15 billion per year, though volumes are supposed to remain the same. Not all Australian coal mines will be commercially viable with this outlook that is actually describing export prices falling by 25 percent.

Natural gas exports as LNG are shown to have a large increase in capacity coming onstream at the same time as an even greater increase in U.S. LNG export capacity - with the U.S. exporters able to source feed gas at much lower prices than Australian exporters.

The quarterly report makes a courageous projection of rising volumes and value of Australian LNG exports even though noting some daunting obstacles:

• Australia is not immune from supply-side competition. The United States will make the largest contribution to new capacity. The cost competitiveness of US exporters will largely be determined by the cost of their domestic gas, for which the reference price is Henry Hub. Henry Hub prices averaged US$3.0 per million British thermal units over the first quarter of 2017 (A$3.80 a gigajoule). 
• While Australia's LNG exports are projected to rise, the capacity utilisation of Australian LNG export projects is expected to decline. The price competitiveness of Australian producers is one factor affecting the outlook for exports. Proximity to Asia will be an advantage, although the Panama Canal expansion in 2016 has lowered shipping costs from the US.
•  A large cost for Australia's LNG plants is feed gas. The three LNG export terminals on the east coast — which are largely fed by CSG from Queensland’s Surat and Bowen basins — tend to have relatively high costs for feed gas. Unlike LNG ventures using gas from conventional reservoirs, LNG operators on the east coast will need to drill hundreds of new wells each year to maintain CSG production, with costs of over a million dollars per well.

Australia has an advantage with ample renewable energy resources to overcome the poor outlook for coal and the high-risk outlook for natural gas.

With the price of coal projected to decline to about $2 per gigajoule, and the cost of coal-seam gas likely to exceed the export price of LNG from US exporters, it is increasingly attractive, if not imperative, to export natural gas made from cheap coal and renewable energy.

Several processes are available to achieve this.

The bottom line is that these processes change 1 gigajoule of coal valued at perhaps $2 into 4 gigajoules of natural gas worth $32 by adding 3 gigajoules of renewable energy.

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Available systems to make synthetic natural gas from cheap wet lignite and brown coal

Production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) by hydrothermal gasification of wet biomass https://t.co/qJyOyZw9rr

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) February 26, 2017

Making renewable natural gas from wet biomass, no #CSG -
1/ https://t.co/cbAnvLLgQi
2/ https://t.co/bA1a1XcUY1
3/ https://t.co/Xyy79DHFEo

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 3, 2017

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Trump Approves Natural Gas Export Terminal In Bid For Energy Dominance https://t.co/dwp9Csq1PX#tcot #MakeAmericaGreatAgain #AGW #natgas

— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) April 25, 2017

Energy Secretary says project will create 45K jobs, US world's dominant LNG exporter. Natural gas. https://t.co/1Tse5lGyo7 #auspol #springst

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 26, 2017

Cutting Edge 24/7 Solar Technology

Arizona State University Research Partnership With Cutting Edge 24/7 Solar Technology

Arizona State University and AORA Solar NA announce a collaboration that will begin the development of a hybrid concentrated solar system on the Tempe campus that employs a Solar Tulip to concentrate the sun's energy, turning it into electricity.

Tempe, AZ - March 13, 2014

Solar generated electricity, which can suffer from intermittency issues and related impacts on the grid, is about to blossom at Arizona State University. Work will now begin on the development of a hybrid concentrated solar system, following a contract signing with ASU and AORA to provide research expertise in order to enhance the efficiency of this unique technology.

AORA Solar NA, has agreed to install the first ever Solar Tulip hybrid generating facility in the United States on university land, and ASU faculty, research staff, and students will work hand in hand with AORA to enhance the system. This project includes the installation of a hybrid concentrated solar power plant that employs a Solar Tulip to concentrate the sun’s energy, turning it into electricity. The system produces power 24/7, moving seamlessly from solar to natural gas or biogas and is also promising because it uses little to no water while producing a high quality thermal output in addition to power.

AORA Solar NA, a U.S. company, will work with a multi-disciplinary ASU team to research options to increase efficiency, improve reliability, utilize the exhaust heat and decrease the cost of this Israeli developed technology. AORA will construct the demonstration power plant, which includes a tower (approximately 100 feet high) appropriately called the Solar Tulip, on undeveloped land near the Karsten Golf Course in Tempe. The technology includes a collection of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to heat compressed air to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and drive a gas turbine. The rated output of the Tulip system is 100 kilowatts of electricity and an additional 170 kilowatts of thermal energy, about enough energy to power between 60-80 homes.

At night, or when overcast, the Tulip can use a wide range of fuels to heat the air and is thereby able to produce power and heat round the clock. The system is modular in design, allowing for multiple Tulips to work together, enabling the technology to match growing electric demand requirements. The relatively small footprint makes this system a potentially perfect complement to housing developments, or industrial parks, and offers an option to enhance grid stability in the presence of transient renewable generation.

“ASU is a natural partner for us, not only because of its sunny location, but because of the university’s dedication to innovation and sustainability,” said Zev Rosenzweig, CEO of AORA Solar. “We are excited to make our debut here in the United States with this innovative technology where we will continue to grow and develop the Tulip into a system that cities and industries around the world use to generate continuous energy with renewable resources. ASU’s breadth of research capability will undoubtedly allow us to increase output, and reduce overall costs which will bring us to commercial viability. Our confidence in this project is enhanced with the participation of Project Director, Ellen Stechel, who has spearheaded the concept from the beginning, along with her colleagues Gary Dirks, William Brandt and the ASU LightWorks team.”    

AORA Solar is currently operating two additional research facilities, one located in a solar research park in Almeria, Spain, and the original unit in Israel. These systems can be controlled remotely via computer, a unique capability that provides innovative options for possibilities in the U.S. and indeed around the world, including developing countries.

The ASU/AORA collaborative relationship will not only bring ASU closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025, but it will also benefit students and researchers across multiple fields of study.

“This is another instance in which ASU has brought in cutting edge technology that its students can learn from and help perfect,” said Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan, senior vice president of Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at ASU. “With this collaboration, the university has established a commitment to integrate students, faculty, and staff into research on the Solar Tulip design to bring 24-hour solar/renewable technology to commercialization.”

“The AORA/ASU collaboration provides a multitude of possibilities looking forward,” said Gary Dirks, director of ASU LightWorks. “It is a perfect example of industry and academia coming together and leveraging their unique strengths to create collaborative projects that propel new and viable technology into our energy future. The Solar Tulip has enormous potential both at ASU and beyond.”

AORA Solar has contracted with GreenFuel Technologies, a Phoenix-based General Contractor specializing in environmental energy projects to construct the research plant at the ASU campus. Groundbreaking is expected to occur in April, with the anticipated operation date to be sometime in the late September/early October time frame. AORA Solar and ASU look forward to welcoming university peers along with the public to a ribbon-cutting event at the Tulip’s completion.

“We are pleased to host the Solar Tulip at the ASU Tempe campus,” said John Riley, sustainability operations officer at ASU. “It is a visually iconic piece of technology, helping to illustrate the way ASU is a destination place for state-of-the-art research and facilities.”

This collaboration was advanced by Arizona State University LightWorks, a research initiative that unites resources and researchers across ASU to confront global energy challenges. The LightWorks team provided the vision of required research, identified the multiple research windows in which AORA will participate and is intimately involved in moving the project from concept to fruition. With a proven track record of swiftly and strategically partnering with a diverse set of institutions, LightWorks continues to help overcome challenges in the fields of solar power, sustainable fuels, and energy policy. To learn more about ASU LightWorks, visit asulightworks.com.

Left to right: Gary Dirks, director of ASU LightWorks, Zev Rosenzweig, CEO of AORA Solar and John Riley, associate vice president of university business services and sustainability operations officer.

# # #

About AORA
AORA, a renewable energy pioneer, is a leading developer of applied ultra-high temperature concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. AORA’s modular solar power generation solutions are comprised of very small modular units (100kWe / 170kW heat) that can be linked together into centrally controlled power plants, customized to client demand. When the amount of sunlight is not sufficient, the system can operate on almost any alternative fuel source, thereby guaranteeing an uninterrupted power supply, 24hr/day. To learn more about AORA Solar, please visit http://aora-solar.com/.