This solves Bill Gates Challenge: How to Make Industrial Heat Zero Carbon...But its impossible to reach Gates to Tell Him the Solution

The Problem the World Faces Today Appears to be without Solution

With the Paris Climate Agreement, the world has signed up for deep cuts in the amount of carbon pollution from fossil fuels within a short time period to accomplish this goal.?A second problem, one that is not unrelated to the first, is the problem of potable water in rich, middle and poor countries.?In the United States the depletion of deep underground aquifers by farmers has left more brackish water not suitable for farming, livestock, or human consumption.?Meeting the goal then of ever growing need for energy while rapidly shifting from fossil fuels to zero carbon energy sources is not impossible for there are technologies, including the one that we will describe in the following sections, that can offer hope that technology can adapt to this challenge, but what is lacking is urgency and the path forward to make the necessary changes.?Liberals tend to think in terms of pouring more money at the problem, while conservatives tend to ignore the problem of climate change all together.?Businesses are in the middle, paralyzed by indecision and unwilling to give up on their existing cash cows or out dated technologies. Thus fossil fuels are used even as green energy alternatives might be substituted.?Disruption of current operations for the conversion is dangerous to the bottom line so old plants are kept in operation even when they are known to be inefficient – everyone loves stasis rather than change.

The final reason that we will fail to meet the target is that as Bill Gates pointed out without a real solution to eliminating greenhouse gases from industrial processes – heat needed to make steel or petrochemicals – we can’t get to zero carbon by 2050 with current solutions.?The YTEA Micro-reactor solution is designed to answer that question – there is a way to eliminate 30% of the carbon from private industry at a price that is well within the capital budgets of companies, government, and even individual community organizations, substituting zero carbon heat and electric power at prices at or below those of fossil fuels even after accounting for financing costs of new technologies. ?

Renewables versus Small Nuclear?????

Environmentalists have argued that renewable sources of clean energy from wind, sun, and tides are the best answer to meeting this challenge.?With each of these alternatives there is a problem as none of these offer continuous, uninterrupted, power in a form that is easily substituted for existing requirements for high temperature heat.?Heat from fossil fuel sources is the main source of energy for industrial plants and accounts for on average 30% of the total production of carbon pollution.??At the same time centralized power reactors, even if zero carbon, cannot meet this challenge either.?Thus while it is fine to think of a zero carbon future through renewables, we cannot avoid the obvious problem that without the availability of high temperature heat at dispersed locations then we will not, no matter how much you may want, reach the zero carbon goal of the Paris Climate agreement within the time period or honestly within any time period given that we are after heat, not electricity.??

Of perhaps the better reason to support this kind of small, localized, system for communities and even large agricultural farms facing drought from lack of rain and depleted, brackish water aquifers, is that we can build small scale water desalinization systems as well as localized power systems that can be used in advanced, emerging, and developing countries solving the even more pressing problem of providing potable water for human, animal, and agriculture.

Micro-reactor Advantages

Traditional approaches to zero carbon power from nuclear fuels have meant large, costly, and later difficult to decommission nuclear power systems.?In the end the only use for this energy is in the form of electric power, possibly useful for powering automobiles and residential power requirements, but not for most industrial applications requiring heat at 500 degree Celsius or greater .?Other forms of zero carbon power also produce electricity rather than high temperature heat.?What is unique about the approach to zero carbon and to nuclear power is that can meet the need for both electric power and also for high temperature steady clean heat for industrial applications at prices consistent with current fossil fuel sources of heat and less than the cost of delivered electric power to industry sites.?Small, modular, thorium fueled, subcritical, molten salt reactors with neutrons for fission supplied from outside the system using accelerator driven electrons can be placed near to where the heat is needed.?Hybrid heat and power systems can be used to supply heat for industrial purposes and when not needed, then used to generate electric power for company use or for resale to the electricity grid.

Based on size and materials needed we have estimated costs of building reactors of this small size to be on order of $ 11 million for a pure heat source to $ 14 million for reactors capable of switching between electric power and high temperature heat. ?To fully understand the economics of this system we need to examine the key parts of this small scale power amplifier that uses thorium fuel cycle including burning U233 as part of the nuclear reaction.?Inline chemistry removes impurities that might deaden the reaction and using molten salt mixed with the nuclear fuel allows the heat to be safely removed and then used for purposes of supplying high temperature clean power to where it is useful.?Making the system a hybrid where heat if not needed for industrial uses could be channeled to produce high temperature steam for generating electric power, then a true baseload small sized power system can be developed,?priced at less than $ 14 million dollars for 5 MW(electric) or 10 MW(thermal) power, and open the door for community based electric power in hard to reach rural locations in countries rich and poor worldwide.?Combine the reactor with water desalinization and you have the beginning of solving the problem of water shortfalls for human and agricultural communities often in sight of vast oceans of salt water or underground aquifers of brackish water.?

One advantage of using a cyclotron, such as the one that IBA offers for general use in medicine and even examining contents of shipping containers, is that these systems fit within a defined space and are of a similar dimension to the cubic feet of the reactor itself, and unlike any smaller, newly designed LINAC using forged niobium to reduce the price, these type of machines are now available commercially.?This fixes the price of the reactor to a range that is reasonable for small scale use and deployment. ?

A fully realized system using various designs now being researched and the thorium-U233 fuel cycle we think has many advantages for creating a zero carbon energy solution within the time frame needed to avoid the worst effects of global climate change.?Given that much of the world, outside of the wealthy countries and the subset of emerging nations, or major urban centers in developing countries, lacks access to electric power or high temperature heat for industrial applications, these micro-reactors have a wide scale market?in the millions of units.?For example, to replace all the fossil fuel or distributed power electric heat used in US industry today would require the building of 200,000 of these smaller micro reactors.?Unlike other systems that suggest they are solutions to zero carbon, these reactors are within a price that is easily affordable by companies and communities and can offer heat or electric power below the cost of fossil fuel alternatives even after costs are financed at commercial rates (7% for 15 years).

The YTEA Subcritical Reactor with IBA Cyclotron is a significant improvement on the AMSR technology pioneered by Oak Ridge in the 1960’s.????This reactor, smaller, compact, is a subcritical version of the original ASMR reactor with?many advantages from the point of view of safety, efficiency, and usefulness to solving the problem of creating viable energy sources for a zero carbon future.

1)?????It is a subcritical system and doesn’t require complex control rod system supplying neutrons from an external source – existing commercial cyclotron technology or new, high efficiency, LINACs being researched today using forged niobium reducing costs and increasing efficiencies;

2)?????It is a breeder and burner in equilibrium, once started small amounts of unenriched thorium-salt dry fuels are added as needed.

3)?????The molten salt system is based on Li-7F, BeF and Thorium and Uranium-233 fluorides.

4)?????It is suitable for distributed power and high temperature heat sources substituting for purchases of electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, or coal at industrial plants with excess heat able to be turned into electric power to sell into the power grid.

5)?????The neutron economics are enhanced with the online chemistry and off-gas systems eliminating the normal problems associated with critical light water reactors fuel cells.

6)?????It is walkway safe so can be built in urban and rural settings given it is subcritical and the nuclear reaction only is sustained by the supply of electric energy to the cyclotron or accelerator.

7)?????Molten salt fuels, unlike enriched uranium fuels used in light water reactors and other new technologies using enriched materials, are less likely to raise questions of security given their volume relative to thorium and U233;

8)?????Thorium-U233 fuel has a shorter half-life, closer to 300 years versus 3000 years for spent fuel from light water reactors;

9)?????The cost of this system delivering 10 MWt/5MWe system is estimated to be $ 11 to 15 million dollars.?The cost per MWt from the upper end micro reactor is estimated to be less than 14 cents compared to 14 cents from natural gas, 17 cents from oil, and 30 cents from electricity.?Cost of electric power generation from the reactor is less than 4 cents per kilowatt hour compared to commercial costs of 13 cents or more.??

10)?226,000 units would cover 100% of energy requirements of the US industrial sector in 2014 for industrial heat or electric power on site.

11)?If each system was dual use, it would add 1136 Gigawatts in total to the US electric system of which 762 Gigawatts is needed in these establishments.?Some of the excess power could be resold into the energy grid with some diverted to heat for industrial activities.

12)?Microreactors could be a low risk introductory step for the development of larger power reactors to substitute for existing light water reactors at existing nuclear reactor sites scheduled for closure or as substitutes for coal fired heat at soon to close power plants thus preserving the infrastructure.

The current system we are proposing would meet the heat requirements for most industrial activities with a possibility of for some specialized systems running these at a higher thermal range – up to 900 C.?Unlike fossil fuels, the heat from molten salt transferred through the secondary heat exchanger is a pure heat without extra carbon.?

Target Market

High temperature heat is needed throughout the industrial sector and as of now there is no zero carbon alternative to burning fossil fuels or using electric power.?The proposed reactor would offer a safe and secure solution to this problem by replacing fossil fuels with continuous, high temperature heat and electric power with zero carbon emissions and at prices below those of conventional fuels.?Choosing to introduce this solution to solve the 30% problem of heat used by business units – petrochemical plants to steel mills – makes siting these smaller, subcritical, but still nuclear units in places that are already zoned for risky commercial activities and in business units that are used to working with dangerous by-products.

?

Once the Microreactor is shown to be safe and effective for the industrial sector uses, it can be safely sold for many other uses including as self contained community power systems not requiring fossil fuels (zero carbon solutions in emerging and developing countries)?or to process brackish water or in coastal communities desalinization of sea water cheaply allowing both human, livestock, and farming in water short regions.

The industrial market in the United States would require approximately 200,000 of these units to eliminate carbon pollution, add in desalinization and community power in the United States an this would be another 100,000 units, and the worldwide market is significantly greater.?

Proliferation and Risks of Accident

The thorium fuel cycle offers the potential for a low cost to high benefit system for solving our problem with getting to net zero carbon emissions worldwide by 2050, but like everything, including the continued reliance on fossil fuels, there may be risks.?Thorium fuel cycle involves the transmutation of thorium ore, with its low natural fission ratio, through bombardment of free neutrons (from the electron beam and the spallation in the target) into U233 through a number of steps.?The circulating thorium and now part U233 fuel is mixed with lithium salts and cleaned in a chemical separation step but then reintroduced into the reactor where it burns.?It would not be impossible for groups with the necessary expertise then to find a way to extract the U233 in its pure form and use it in the form of a dirty weapon, but it would be difficult to do and it would give off easily traced gamma radiation.?To avoid this problem the design of the reactor must be such as to make this diversion complex and difficult for amateurs.?Professionals with the necessary expertise could, if this were a useful activity for creating a dangerous bomb, be capable of this even today as the science is well proven.?A car loaded with explosives or an aircraft with JP4 fuel is an even easier weapon of mass destruction.??For this reason we believe developing Microreactors using this low cost and abundant fuel source are worth the risks given the significant reward against higher temperatures and more massive storms.

If All of the Above Makes Sense, then Why Is This Not in the Public Discussion of How to Meet the Challenges of the Paris Climate Agreement??

The history of nuclear energy is written in the current DOE unwillingness to even entertain applications that use thorium as a source of nuclear fuel.?The reasons for this reluctance are tied closely to historical needs of the American government for the dual use of enrichment facilities being developed for the military applications and the unwillingness to think about other, less dangerous, reactor technologies that were contemplated even as far back as the 1950’s when the first of the Eisenhower Atoms for Peace initiatives were started.?Accelerator driven nuclear power using natural uranium was well understood as one possibility but the cost per neutron was considered to high based on the then existing, non-superconducting technologies available.?Thus a choice was made to go with a critical rather than subcritical system in the very early days of the Atoms for Peace program.?The dual use of the enrichment facilities being developed for the military programs was also important.?The result has been that we are left with legacy technologies that are currently 60 years old and at the end of their useful lives, with millions of tons of dangerous nuclear waste without feasible long term storage solution, and a government institution, the DOE, that appears to be unwilling to admit that it is time for a new approach.????There appears to be an aversion in some parts of the DOE to the use of thorium as a fuel of choice and to the successful molten salt design pioneered at Oak Ridge in the 1960’s,?to the point that this has forced the industry to respond with its own outside lobbying group for this fuel.?The result is that looking for government support as a first step in the process of developing this type of new reactor is not a realistic option nor is it a necessary condition for success of this venture. ?Unlike the overbuilt and over budget new light water reactors in Georgia that are unlikely to be finished, to launch this initiative we will need less than $ 50 million dollars that we wish to raise from companies that will benefit from the success of this type of system in the sale of services, materials, design, and equipment, or from the benefit that this type of reactor would offer to coastal communities or others facing water crises or the lack of electric power close to requirements?(emerging countries and or military applications).?

?

???????????

Venture Capital versus Consortium for the Advancement of Microreactor Design and Technology

Our goal is not a science experiment, but a fully functioning design for a small reactor that can be priced correctly to substitute for existing fossil fuel based heat sources in industrial applications.???To effect change and make a difference within the time limits that we have, then only if there are sufficient business and financial support can this product meet the test of selling designs and components to companies for their clients not just in the United States but worldwide. ?Our goal to fund the first phase—the research into the best design and a working version to test alternative mixes of thorium-lithium salt fuels, and get government buy-in to license the design.?While Venture Capital may be a solution or govermment guaranteed loans another, without the support of global suppliers of parts, materials, and engineering design or?energy systems, then this idea like so many others will languish.?By building a consortium of concerned private sector companies with business interests in seeing this type of alternative energy system work and who have the deep pockets to do the research into better designs, components, control systems, corrosion resistant materials, or innovative manufacturing approaches then this type of alternative zero carbon energy system will not be just another science experiment, but will have the commercial push behind it to make it a successful product.??

?No single company will be asked to contribute more than $ 5 million dollars to the research and development effort and no funds will be committed until the entire amount is pledged.?Each initial subscriber will gain a full ownership share of the company with 50% of the shares initially offered to develop the technology.?

Recovery of the funds invested will come from the license of the technology and from the development of specialized services, but the real pay-off for the companies will come from the sale of specialized materials, cm omponents, and even factory built reactors and cyclotrons or LINACs by the companies selected as initial investors in the Consortium.??

The companies that have been asked to consider this proposal are those whose core products will benefit from this new reactor technology.?Given the goal to develop Microreactors that meet specific needs for high temperature heat on site (primarily industrial locations) and at prices for this energy of around $ 11 to 13 million dollars these systems will be within the range of possibility for private companies and small communities in need of low cost electric power or heat for water desalinization without burning fossil fuels (zero carbon heat sources).

By structuring the Consortium Group companies along the micro-reactor value-chain, from raw materials, to semi-finished metal alloys, to pumps and in-line chemistry labs, to design engineering or site planning, construction, maintenance, and general support services for Microreactors of this design or similar, future variants, the goal will be for Consortium members to benefit from the sale of licenses that will lead to an explosion in the market for their core products and services. ?While we will need government support with certification of safety and reliability of the final reactor design, depending upon government financing will slow the rate of adoption by the private sector as replacement heat and power for fossil fuels.?

Phase I of this effort is assumed to be around $ 45 million dollars to develop and fund the Yorktown Research facility with the goal of proving the technology.

Phase II’s objectives are to expand the management team to build-out a full scale company owed collectively by the Consortium with a management team to:

·????????standardize a product design,

·????????stabilize component designs and specifications

·????????get approvals from governmental groups with responsibility for nuclear energy licensing,

·?????????commercializing this new technology through standardization of designs, branding of materials and components, and support services.??????

?

Technical Specifications and Economic Goals

Reactor Design

??????Simplified nuclear core in the subcritical reactor significantly reduces the cost of an accelerator driven system.

???????Molten salt fuel circulates through a neutron field generated by accelerated driven electron beam hitting beryllium/U-233 target surface releasing gamma radiation creating a photo neutron reaction in the molten salt fuels.?Neutrons striking circulating thorium fuel are excited producing heat captured by circulating salt in the primary heat exchanger. [1]

???????Secondary salt heat exchanger transfers heat to industrial uses and to generate steam in smaller, compact, 5 MWe electric generator systems.

???????Industrial heat can be used for applications from smelting metal ores to pre-heating air in blast furnaces.

??????Excess electricity can be resold into the commercial power grid adding a revenue source.

Reactor size is consistent with a small amount of thorium-salt fuel mixture.?At 3 meters x 3 meters x 3 meters (81 cubic feet) the core is transportable ready-built at a factor.?Inside the hastelloy shell a block of solid graphite bricks are predrilled to allow fuel and molten salt mixture to flow freely.?Pumps are used to insure that the fuel flows through and round the shell of hastelloy and stainless steel.?Molten salt fuel is pumped through a primary heat exchange and transfers heat to a secondary heat exchange for use in industrial applications.?The general plan for the reactor is based on the original design for the Molten Salt Fast Breeder Reactor experiment with modifications.?The goal of Phase I is to build a full sized reactor after the design is studied to test out alternative configurations and collect sufficient data on reactor physics and to simplify design to make this systems economical and practical for mass production of components. Phase?2 is o commercialize the concept and support the deployment of reactors while researching new adaptations and designs to improve performance, efficiency, and interoperability with industrial requirements currently using heat from fossil fuels.

?Consortium of Private Companies to Design, Test, Achieve Regulatory?License, and then License the YTEA Micronuclear Reactor?for Commercial Use – Next Steps

This prospectus has been sent to companies that are likely to have interests in seeing this technology gain wide acceptance because this would open new markets for their own core competencies – from materials science to design-engineering-construction.???A virtual meeting will be arranged with all interested companies to discuss next steps and to answer questions on the technology and also on business issues including ownership shares and voting rights.?The?new, company will be organized as a joint effort of the major players with the single goal of solving the problem of dispersed, zero carbon, base-load power using specially designed micro-nuclear reactors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial activities, provide community based power, and water desalinization using ocean seawater or brackish water from depleted aquifers.

For companies with interest in learning more and being invited to a meeting, the date not scheduled, to understand more about the YTEA Microreactor’s technical specification and also the current plans for developing the Yorktown Center for Microreactor Research, please respond to this solicitation by sending an email to the following address expressing your company’s interest in learning more and being invited to the meeting of likely partners in Yorktown or through Zoom or other conferencing software.

Preliminary Phase – Organization of Consortium

A maximum of 15 companies, individual investors, or foundations will be offered ownership shares.

·????????Subscriptions will be for $ 4 million dollar at the start with a reserve of $ 3 million dollars to be used to fund Phase II until remaining shares can be offered to the general public or additional private investors in return for an equal share of 60% of the Consortium voting stock.

·????????No funds will be collected until a minimum of 8 subscribers agree to be part of the Consortium.

?

A Small Company will be organized and management hired to build a test site (currently suggested in the Yorktown-Newport News Area given its resources, government labs, and companies with experience in building power reactors for the US Navy).?A full sized thorium-fueled reactor with a LINAC or Cyclotron to supply electrons to a target will be built and then run at 1 MW thermal with staged development to reach the currently proposed maximum thermal of 10 MW.?

Goals for this Phase 1 include:

·????????Proving that accelerator driven conversion of thorium-lithium fuel can create a stable breeder-burner micro-reactor with a thermal heat of 10 MW or 5 MW electric using a small 1 MEV electron beam from either a commercial IBA Cyclotron or a new, lower cost, small superconducting LINAC (currently under research at Jefferson Lab) using forged niobium metal (a lower cost superconducting material).

·????????Standardizing the design for the reactor core and the in-line chemistry lab, as well as the optimal configuration for drawing off the heat for use in industry or power generation.

·????????Demonstrating to nuclear regulatory agencies and the DOE the efficiency and safety of the system in order to gain regulatory license for this design.

·????????Develop plans for selling licenses and finished reactor systems and kits while organizing a new management structure for Phase II.

?

Research Center to Functioning Joint Venture Company of Consortium Members to Commercialize Small, Safe, Accelerator Driven Nuclear Power for Industry and Community Power and Water Requirements

?

Phase II?builds out from the YTEA Microreactor Research Center a company by drawing on Consortium company human, technical, and financial resources to plan for the development of a company with twin goals:

·????????Public and regulatory acceptance of the modified thorium-U233 accelerator driven Microreactor;

·????????Sale of licenses and certifications for YTEA designs to non-Consortium companies[2]

·????????Branding of YTEA Consortium materials, products, and adaptive designs in Consorttium Microreactors (factory built) and also in Microreactors of similar designs from non-Consortium companies;

·????????Organization of Consortium companies and partners for the purpose of building dedicated production facilities for combing skills and materials into factory built, self contained, centralized reactor designs and LINAC or Cyclotrons;

·????????Continuing the research and making improvements in the design, materials, and fuels used in YTEA Microreactors;

·????????Raising of additional financial support by sale of shares to Consortium membrs or the general public.

?

?

Phase II will turn the Consortium into a joint venture of the consortium member companies by building a management team, likely drawn from ?senior managers from the Consortium companies and also from outside, into a functioning company.?As such it might raise additional funds to speed the adoption and growth of this new product from the public through the share of common stock.

?

?

Appendix A: YTEA Consortium Strategy

?

Why Private First, Public Second… A Private Sector First Approach to Solving the Climate Problem

Government support for the concept, technical help where needed, regulatory support, will be helpful, but if we are serious about rapidly developing this technology and allowing it to spread widely and with a minimum of legal impediments to other non-investors copying the design, then we must structure this company to be more like a non-profit than a for-profit corporation.?By choosing companies to interest in the product who will be direct beneficiaries of this new technology through the sale of products and services, as well as license and royalty payments from the user community, even if the design is copied without payment of royalties the benefits will accrue to the Consortium companies due to their control of the sources of supply of the thorium fuels, specialized materials, components, and acquired knowledge from part of the technical and scientific community that the Yorktown Center will create.

Our solution to the problem of fast deployment is to take the role of Intel rather than Apple for the commercialization of the small business and home computer market.?The goal is to recover from original investments through sale of services and supplies to a fast growing market thus making the license fees low will yield the desired result which is to stop the growth of carbon pollution by replacing fossil fuel heat with clean, zero carbon, safe, subcritical nuclear heat form the thorium-U233 fuel cycle. ??

?

Promotion and Support Services based on the Intel-inside strategy used to rapidly grow the personal computer from a luxury to a necessity

The Consortium management structure will shift once a working prototype is licensed by NRC and the DOE from pure research to research into improvements in materials and efficiency in manufacturing with the possibility of collaborative manufacturing of complete reactor core at factories for delivery to sites using the skills of multiple companies in the Consortium.??With a goal of rapid growth it will be likely that the structure of the Consortium will change and grow rapidly to meet the challenges of developing a new energy and clean drinking water infrastructure around this new, radical, approach to nuclear power ??Additional financing may be needed and decisions on how best to increase the size of the company structure to meet the new needs will be a joint business decision and some of the remaining 50% of the voting shares may be offered for sale to private investors. ??

Our goal is not another science experiment, but a practical solution and one that is profitable both for the companies selling the new systems and for the using community that benefits from the substitution. Choosing to link companies with quite different business lines together in a product that uses all of these skills allows these firms for a small entry fee to participate in a major new industry.?This multi-company approach allows competitors to work together for a single purpose for the good of society and once the products are proven and successful, then benefit from the license of the technology even if they are not directly involved in selling products and services.?This cooperative approach to research and development can speed the growth of this industry at a low entry price thus reducing the risk that companies that are betting millions on unproven and technically difficult technologies including fusion or new design, major nuclear power systems as yet unproven and unlicensed.[3] ?

Initial invitations will be made to companies whose core competencies match the skills needed to make this a successful new product and who can contribute both financial support and in-kind services. Efforts will be made to include in the initial group of companies contacted firms from the Americas, Europe and Asia.

·????????Primary materials companies with experience in high technology alloys including hastelloy and stainless steel alloys.

·????????Industrial equipment manufactures with experience in chemicals, petrochemicals, and corrosive environments

·????????Energy companies including fossil fuel companies searching for green energy solutions to balance out sales.

·????????Systems Integrators, engineering and design, and construction companies

·????????Companies with existing nuclear divisions and experience in working with nuclear materials.

·????????Engineering, design, and construction companies.

·????????Non-profits searching for green energy solutions to meet the challenges of climate agreements.

·????????Private sector investors searching for new products and socially beneficial investment opportunities.

?

?

Why This System Now

In the following sections we lay out the argument for this type of solution rather than pushing for more renewables or building large scale, centralized, power plants.?Our reasoning is that there is no time left to transition and turn around industrial power without radical changes, so that only systems that can be direct substitutes for heat and power where it is currently being needed will solve the problem of the 30% of fossil fuels used by private industry for make the products we rely on.?

To understand why the small, compact, cyclotron driven, micro-reactor with small power output and a small amount of subcritical nuclear materials is the best option we need to recall the last major shift in how we work, the rapid growth and complete victory of the PC over the centralized mainframe computer centers in private industry and the time share computer model that depended upon these monster computing machines.

The PC transformed Business Data and Analysis, the Microreactor can transform Industrial Heat and Power

For a new product to be successful today and to be adopted quickly by businesses, for a solution to reaching zero carbon by 2050, we need a new approach that duplicates the success of the PC in transforming the way information is processed and shared from centralized mainframe computers and time sharing systems to dispersed computing and multiple storage options.?It was a successful adaptation for many reasons not the least was the multiple choices offered and the low costs of entry allowing business and private uses to merge together through easy to use software.?Later with the Internet providing the linkages to information and also entertainment the same explosive growth was duplicated with the rapid acceptance of the Internet and the smart phone.

While these ease of use and low price mattered, the real reason this all worked as that there was no single dominant supplier of the PC to the world market.?Intel inside or one other competitor was the key to making the PC work, but?as they sold their product to multiple companies, it was the variety and the competition that allowed the PC to move from being special to be a commodity.??Smart phone technology used the chips from a few of the same suppliers to insure interoperability across platforms.?

A final reason for why the PC and the Smart Phone succeeded was due to its costs were spread widely with ?financing ?the costs ?spread across millions of individuals, business cost centers, and government offices each with their own budgets instead of being concentrated in a few large, centralized installations.?If we are to succeed in rapidly replacing fossil fuels then a similar dispersed, small scale, low cost strategy must be used.?The YTEA Microreactor is sized for small scale users but when the power is multiplied by the likely market it will reach the total in terms of potential Gigawatts added to the clean energy supply replacing fossil fuel generated heat and electric power.?If all of the current uses of fossil fuels by private industry are replaced then we will cut greenhouse gases by 30% of total US energy requirements.??Rather than trying to concentrate capital in a few large scale projects, the capital needs are spread across millions of users and buyers making it easy to see this new technology replacing the megaprojects.??

We are facing, as one environmentalist points out, an existential threat from the rising heat and it will not be able to isolate in a single place, but will cause havoc worldwide.?The Yorktown Thorium Energy Amplifier Microreactor can provide one solution to reducing significantly the carbon emitted by industry while also opening the door for distributed electric power reducing the requirement for a new power grid or the shutting down of power to isolated communities for fear of sparking wild fires over hundreds of miles of isolated long distance, high voltage power lines.?It could make clean drinking water possible in communities lacking clean water today and also provide low cost electric power in Third World countries, but it can’t do any of these good things if the rate of adoption of this new system is too slow or hampered by efforts to restrict access for purely commercial reasons.??So if we are to make a difference, then the companies joining in this effort will be like Intel make their money through the sale of the specialized components and materials for the reactors, by sale of the designs and modifications to adapt to unique requirements, and the sale of services to maintain and provide operators for operating systems.?

Using the PC-Intel example then we expect that companies jointly supporting the development costs must not fight hard against the obvious duplication of the systems by companies or even governments, thus the strategy for making profits assumes that some of this will happen just as Intel chips were reverse engineered by AMD.?Intel benefited from the growth in the overall size of the market for computers and accessories.?In the case of Consortium members the benefits of first to market and the concentration of companies as suppliers of design, engineering, specialize materials, components, control systems, management of off the grid sites, and services will be where the profits are made, not from the licenses sold.???The best approach then is to offer full licensees the benefits of using components and designs that will fast become the “Gold Standard” just as Intel-Inside computers benefited from that trade market on what they offered.???

The strategy then will be to use the competition and natural pirating that goes on in the technology rich industries to the advantage of the first in the market companies.?By focusing on companies in the Consortium who will benefit from the development of the market for Microreactors of a similar design, then profits will come not from the sale of licenses (owned by the Consortium jointly) but by the sale of parts, materials, construction, and services to this growing market. ?The faster the market size grows for these reactors, the richer the market for products that today are not even imagined.

A Global Market in the Millions of Units is Possible

To fully replace the thermal units currently used by US industrial companies with these zero carbon systems would open a market of 200,000 units and if these were dual use they could produce 1100 Gigawatts of electric power replacing the 762 gigawatts used by American industry.?This would be a substantial savings creating an entire green energy system able to supply power to the grid when not being used for industrial purposes for heat.?The worldwide market may be in the millions of units thus the potential is great and because we are adding power incrementally and at a low cost the financing of these systems will be widely spread rather than dependent upon governments.?Too often when dreaming up solutions to our dilemma of needing clean energy we ignore the problem of finance, but the small footprint and size of these units makes seeing this as a solution that does not depend upon one or two major companies to meet the demand (as in the case of conventional and nuclear power reactors) but spreads the manufacturing and delivery across hundreds if not thousands of companies.

The chart below shows the various industrial uses and the amount of heat needed for each activity. The majority of industrial uses fall within the first column. ?Higher temperatures are needed for more exotic applications.?One goal of Phase I research is to determine the maximum temperature range for this type of system.?If higher temperatures could be achieved then Brayton cycle turbine power systems could be used in hybrid systems.??By setting up the center in Yorktown, Virginia is its proximity to Jefferson National Labs and the Newport News area with its retired naval personal having nuclear reactor experience.?It is also near to Virginia Technology and University of Virginia and also the major colleges in in North Carolina including Duke University with its well established nuclear physics programs and University of North Carolina.?The Yorktown Center would be organized to develop new designs for this type of small reactor and to test various configurations of thorium-sodium fuels as well as confirm safety and heat ranges for the subcritical fission reaction.

?

?

Cost and Environmental Questions Remain Important

Technical and economic goals are critical to making new technologies succeed in today’s world where every new idea typically fails.?We believe that if we can deliver a product that has:

·????????Low cost – less than $ 15 million for a 10 MWth/5 MWe system;

·????????Simplicity of use and adaptable to many different requirements – from high temperature heat close to the requirement in industrial plants to community requirements for electric power or water desalinization.

·????????Multiple suppliers with production dispersed globally creating an organic multi-headed sales without government interference and direction or mandate.

Then it will be a successful product that meets the needs for rapid replacement of fossil fuels with safe, clean, and low cost heat and power.?Based on these targets for price, the replacement cost for fossil fuels is consistent with current prices for natural gas and well below the cost of electric power delivered via transmission lines. ?

Gigawatt Scale Plants Are Not the Solution to a Decarbonized Future

?Large scale, gigawatt sized, power plants are not a solution to meeting climate goals in time to avoid ever higher temperatures and more dangerous storms.?If work had started well in advance on building zero carbon nuclear plants rather than continuing to use carbon polluting conventional systems in part due to fears that past nuclear accidents will be repeated, then perhaps reaching net zero carbon by 2050 might work, but for most of the last half century the environmental activists have been mainly active against nuclear power even as they accepted pollution from fossil fuel sources while new, exotic solutions were suggested as “better” than zero carbon nuclear.?Regional concentrations of jobs in coal and oil have also stopped the development of these low carbon or zero carbon solutions.?Even if we were to stop using fossil fuels, the time and risk capital is not there to build low carbon replacements for existing baseload power systems.??The environmental movement, if it were honest, would have recognized that zero carbon nuclear systems as the “second” best alternative to high carbon coal fired plants. Instead they argued for renewables without recognizing that these systems only worked if there were back-ups from baseload power systems, while holding out the possibility of fusion power or other exotic technologies.

The YTEA micro-reactor concept with its low entry costs, small amount of nuclear material, and subcritical physics should be an acceptable and welcome alternative in a perfect world for consumers needing high temperature clean heat without burning fossil fuels and also for proponents of “Green” alternatives to meet increasingly difficult to achieve carbon reduction goals. ?Without a system like what we are proposing in this paper, there is no alternative for large scale industrial plants or even small, difficult to reach, community needs for electric power as well as water desalinization without systems similar to these thorium fueled but subcritical systems.

?

Green Energy and Heat on the Cheap – Economics of the YTEA Microreactor??

?Our proposed small, 10 MWth/5 MWe thorium fueled power reactor is a low risk option for achieving zero carbon by 2050 because it is:

·????????Inexpensive;

·????????Safe due to simplicity of control of subcritical nuclear reaction and limited amount of nuclear fuel in a difficult to transport salt medium making it less prone to being targeted by terrorists;

·????????Easily built with available commercially available materials and equipment witth major sections of the reactor core as well as the Cyclotron or LINAC built in factory settings and shipped complete to sites for installation;

·????????Based on an abundant, long term, source of fissile material whose properties are known;

·????????Relatively low temperature and easily converted into power and heat for industrial applications using commercial systems and existing equipment.

A Joint Effort of Private Companies with Government Regulatory Support

YTEA is organizing a Consortium of Companies who would benefit directly from the supply of components and or services to this new industry and through the license of the design and technology worldwide with the goal initially of:

·????????Starting a research program at a site in Yorktown, Virginia to demonstrate ?Amplification of nuclear energy using electronic beam (Carlo Rubbia patented energy amplification approach to using subcritical molten salt nuclear fuels to product heat) ?to sponsor the research and development of test reactors small enough to be deployed close to the requirement for high temperature heat or electric power, simple enough using off the shelf components and materials, ?and able to be built in large number by licensed companies, then sold at prices within the capital budgets of companies (our estimate based on a simple design and known costs of off the shelf cyclotron capable of powering the reactor of between $ 10 million for heat?and $ 14 million dollars for a hybrid system capable of switching from heat to electric power) allowing a rapid replacement of fossil fuel heat and power by spreading the risks and costs broadly.

?

Based on current preliminary designs, a commercially financed system could produce electric power at a price of 3 cents per kilowatt hour or 13 cents per MW hours thermal in line with the cost heat from natural gas and significantly less than delivered cost of electric power for the same amount of thermal heat.

?

?

Appendix B: ?Business and Financial Details on the YTEA Microreactor Solution to Meeting the Paris Climate Goals

?

?The Real Problem for the World to Meet the Goals is Time, Not Technology

In economic theory there is a theoretical warranted rate of capital investment necessary to maintain past growth rates and to sustain future growth.?Economies will run down and ultimately collapse if this rate of reinvestment is not maintained.?But there is a corollary to this that there may be also a warranted rate of technological progress to maintain and grow economies allowing new technologies to replace older, less economic approaches to the same problems.?Replacing audio with digital technology happened over many years as older equipment was retired.?With energy Biden’s hope to replace baseload power with wind and sun would require a doubling and doubling again of the rate of substitution without a solution for the problem of storage of surplus power for use in hours of cold and darkness. ?

The small, sub-critical, micro-reactor is like the PC relative to the massively overbuilt nuclear power plants that exist today. Massive nuclear plants, aside from the sheer costs and the time to site in environmentally safe locations, finance, build, and then add to the power grid cannot solve the problem of needing high temperature heat for industrial applications on site.?The PC replaced the mainframe because it allowed more people to use computers for new purposes from answering mundane questions, searching for a recipe for orange chicken for dinner, or to write business reports, papers, and manage spread sheets at home, on the beach, at night and on the weekends. ?As the price per computing unit declined, then the PC began to become a commodity affordable to people for playing games or researching term papers for school.?

Micro-reactors, once shown to be safe, will allow a similar explosion in uses without adding to the problem of carbon pollution and greenhouse gases. ?Energy will be provided close to where it is needed rather than being piped in from long distance.?A loss of a single reactor due to breakdowns will not cripple a company or community.??We can, given the expected size and efficiency of the system we are proposing could be installed safely for use for, example, water desalinization on farms suffering now from their over exploitation of underground water becoming brackish.?Smaller units could be meet the vital need of poor communities throughout Africa and Asia lacking in power and without the ability to transport liquid fuels to distant villages and towns given inadequate transportation.?Small, portable, units could also be used by militaries deploying to remote locations and in need of power for defense (lasers and energy weapons) and for base operations. ??

?

We Don’t Need Supercomputers for Our Phones, Nor Fusion Reactors for Our Heat and Power

Governments and private individuals have spent billions of dollars over the past half century on ?very exotic technologies from fusion to advanced nuclear technologies that utilize safer forms of nuclear fuels including molten salt or turning uranium into small pebbles reducing the problem of gas build-up in fuel rods.?At least some of these may ultimately be used to replace existing light water reactors, but fusion is well into the future and translating the heat of the sun into useful energy for applications on earth is not likely that simple.?Let’s assume that researchers have found a way to hold a fusion reaction for longer than a microsecond and the heat of the sun is now sustainable on Earth, how can you use this extreme heat to make power without massive systems to transform this heat into something to be harnessed for the good. ??Let’s also assume you can find a way to do this and a power plant can be constructed that will, in theory, yield energy per thermal unit in line with current fossil fuel systems, the world would be left with the same problem as the overpriced nuclear reactors, finding sufficient amounts of financial capital to fund the replacement of existing systems with these new, zero carbon, miracles. ?

Just like the low cost and simplicity of transport and assembly that made the PC successful and easily financed using internal and short-term borrowing by individuals spreading risks across many borrowers thus leveraging capital expenditures rather than trying to concentrate capital in large, computing centers. ??At costs of around $ 10 to 15 million dollars for replacement power even smaller firms can afford to substitute nuclear, zero carbon heat and electric power, for heat or energy generated by fossil fuels.

Each unit is small, even if one unit is taken off line or fails, then another can be substituted.?If a major project, like a new nuclear power plant, is never completed or faces long delays and massive cost overruns, the future loss of energy expected from this project to replace energy from fossil fuels, is significantly more.?At the same time if an existing major power plant is taken off line—such as the shutdown of the nuclear power plant in the New Orleans area – the cost of that shut down in lost business for users of this source of power is significant and not easily replaced. ????

Private versus Government Support

Our goal then in working with private companies to develop the correct solution that can meet the challenges and be deployed rapidly and at prices that will allow small, medium, and large companies and communities to buy into this technology. ?Much of the past few years has been a fight within the nuclear community and the bureaucrats at DOE as to what is the best approach to meeting the energy challenge.??Outside groups have been formed to lobby for many different approaches and different fuels.?Too often supporters of one approach or another have tried to get the government to back their projects while opposing the alternative.?An entire fuel source, thorium, has developed a lobbying community to support its use fearing that the DOE is against this alternative fuel for reasons not fully understood or explained.?In the middle of this fight then is the Congress with its own special interests in one energy source or another – nuclear, wind, solar, tides, or fossil fuels.?

Why Private Sector Support is critical rather than government funding – only private sector firms will have the skills to turn this into products that will transform the debate about the ability of the world to meet the targets set by politicians and bureaucrats.?YTEA is looking then for companies that will:

·????????Benefit financially from wide scale adoption of this technology either through:

o??Sale of materials or equipment;

o??Construction;

o??Support and service activities;

o??Licenses for technologies;

o??Engineering and retrofitting of industrial facilities to use new, nuclear generated heat.

·????????Have the financial strength, marketing skills, and political contacts to insure that this form of small, safer, nuclear power is given a fair shot at being considered by government licensing boards and agencies in advanced, emerging, and developing economies worldwide.

Micro reactor technology to be a useful and successful product then must be:???

·????????closer to a “commodity” rather than a unique installation;

·????????inexpensive and sized in fixed units of heat energy and electric power even if this means buying multiple units to meet total requirements but simplifies the construction and places the units closer to where they are needed in multi-acre industrial sites;

·????????low technical and safety risks, and if it fails the loss of power can be easily replaced using alternative heat sources or electric power until the unit is repaired so that no single shutdown is catastrophic.

·????????safe because of its simplicity and ease of explanation to the public and the limited amount of radioactive materials in each reactor core.

Advanced Molten Salt Accelerator or Cyclotron Driven Micro reactor based on Thorium-U233 Fuel Cycle

To radically meet the needs of society for clean, reasonably safe, zero carbon energy and high temperature heat close to where the power is required the YTEA Advanced Molten Salt-Thorium Fueled Micro reactor offers an affordable small scale solution.?To make this a reality from a theoretical possibility we need partners who can finance the development costs.?We expect that a full test program can be established for a price of less than $ 50 million dollars.?The purpose of this research lab is to demonstrate that this sized subcritical reactor using thorium fuel and inline chemistry with neutrons furnished from outside?the reactor core using either a IBA Commercially available cyclotron or as an alternative a small, compact, LINAC based on forged niobium metal is feasible as a substitute for high temperature heat currently being supplied by fossil fuels for industrial plants as well as to produce electric power or for desalinization of water in coastal communities or once aquifers are becoming brackish.

At this small, focused, research facility under license to DOE,?YTEA will be research the correct configuration of the reactor, the proper safety features to make working reactors of this small size both efficient and easy to manage, the correct mix of fuels, the best target materials to use, in short to prove that the Rubbia Energy amplification works as suggested by the patent.?Spallation of a beryllium target for the transmutation of nuclear waste products using a large scale LINAC such as the one at Los Alamos was proven in the 1990 experiments for the transmutation of nuclear wastes, but aside from Dr. Bowman’s efforts to develop a power generation system using accelerator generated nuclear materials, including spent nuclear fuels with ADNA and Gem-Star, there appears to be no functioning large scale reactors although some designs for base level power reactors using thorium fuel and LINACs appear from time to time in the popular press and the scientific journals.?

The system we are proposing is far cheaper and smaller. Underlying physics is based on the Carlo Rubbia patented energy amplification using electron beam and spallation of a target in the midst of circulating molten salt – thorium fuel as described by US Patent #........?This patent was licensed to Aker Solutions.?We expect that this company will have to be one of the major companies in the Consortium or be willing to lease the technology for purposes of proving its usefulness to solving this problem of industrial heat without carbon pollution. ??

?The physics of this and the practical application of using external supply of electrons to through spallation on a beryllium target in the middle of a drilled graphite core has been tested in the past in a test reactor built and run successfully at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960’s in their molten salt fast breeder reactor experiment that proved the feasibility of circulating molten salt to cool the reactor core and also to allow the safe transfer of heat for secondary purposes and the transmutation of nuclear fuel using accelerators was tested at Los Alamos in the 1990’s by Dr. Charles Bowman using the LANSCE accelerator at the lab. ??

?From this work, Dr. Bowman established his own company ADNA to develop a commercial version of a molten salt reactor using linear accelerator for supply of external electrons and neutrons with his design of the significantly larger Gem-Star reactor required significant capital investments in linear accelerators and while costs were, despite this, estimated to be below the cost of conventional light water reactors, the risks associated with developing and quickly?deploying Gem-Star were less from the technical design, rather from ?the costs of the linear accelerators needed to power a 500 MWth/250 MWelectric system. ?Accelerator Driven nuclear systems, however, would be a second step in the evolution of this once the Microreactor is proven to be a useful way to reduce greenhouse gases and replace heat and power form fossil fuels.?Moreover with new advances in less costly niobium forged blocks for use in superconducting accelerators now in development Dr. Bowman’s larger system could offer a solution for?reusing the millions of tons of spent nuclear fuels allowing these wasted resources to be used multiple times and then disposed off safely in ocean seawater. ?The problem with this system was not just the cost of each reactor with its multiple accelerators, but like any large scale system the lack of available sites and capital for each reactor would make this system difficult to imagine as a solution in tme to slow the pace of carbon pollution.???

?Out of this idea, however, two people who had worked closely with Dr. Bowman, Dr. Ganapati Myneni, a scientist with the Jefferson Nuclear Labs in Newport News, Virginia and a specialist in new materials and superconducting accelerators and Dr. David Blond, an economist who has worked out cost estimates for these reactors showing their economic potential for companies and communities due to their zero carbon footprint and competitive profile ?relative to ?existing fossil fuel heat sources, ?have continued the work shifting the focus from large 500 MWth/250 MWe molten salt reactors using natural uranium or even spent nuclear fuel but expensive to build requiring multiple high cost linear accelerators to a far simpler, smaller, microreactor of just 10 MWth/5 MWe size based on thorium fuel and a patented amplification approach pioneered by Nobel Prize winner Carlo Rubbia where electron beam energy through spallation releases free neutrons into a matrix of graphite with thorium based salt fuel that begins a chain reaction but stops once the power is removed from the system by shutting down the electron beam.?This far smaller system is less costly but also more useful for industrial power applications than large, baseload, nuclear plants.?It is safer due to the use of unenriched thorium fuel and it provides high quality heat closer to where it is needed.?A hybrid system, adding in a small turbine generator set, would allow companies to shift heat between industrial applications and producing electric power for sale to the grid or for use in the facility. [4] ?The smaller footprint and cost of individual systems makes this the only solution that can distribute the manufacturing and installation broadly[5] allowing significant reductions in both greenhouse gases and at costs, based on initial estimates of material and labor costs for these smaller systems that make the energy competitive with natural gas, oil, coal and electric power. ??

?To meet these goals then the solution must be broad based, multi-faceted, and cheaper than large, centralized solutions, like the two nuclear power plants financed by US government loan programs and supported by the old guard at the US Department of Energy because it was considered to be a safe option even if they were doubtful about its real viability or mindful of the massive and continuing cost overruns.?It must not be dependent upon government support, but rather make sense because it solves the problem while also saving money.??It might be subsidized initially in a way similar to federal tax benefits offered for the purchase of solar cells or hybrid and electric automobiles, but if this is a good solution and if it offers advantages on its own then companies and communities will buy it find that, like the home computer, it offers greater advantages than continuing with systems that that will suffer from shortages of primary inputs – fossil fuels and natural gas – in the future.?

Why Small is Superior to Large for Industrial Heat, Water Desalinization and Community Power Systems

The Advanced Molten Salt Microreactor (AMSMR) we are proposing produces 10 MWth/5 MWe power rather than hundreds of million thermal or electric power units.?It will use a ?mixture of thorium, beryllium, and possibly small amounts of U233 fuel with additional thorium fuel added over time with the overflow captured in underground storage.[6] .?The nuclear process is most fully described by Carlo Rubbia’s patent (currently owned by Aker Solutions, but of little useful value today without a system designed to utilize this approach to make heat and power) thorium mixed with lithium salts are used to draw off heat from the reactor core and the electron beam is used to amplify the energy from the fission of the nuclear fuel.?As in the case of the Oak Ridge fast breeder, the inline chemistry helps maintain a balanced reaction where the U233 produced from the fission of thorium metal is burned up within the reactor.?By keeping the reaction below critical, the system is safe and simple to control.????The technical risks of pursuing this solution are limited due to its small size and known costs of materials (see following tables for estimates of a finished reactor and electron source).??For companies that sell materials and components or services and construction and engineering design this would be a large and growing new market.?For industrial companies and communities facing water shortages or the high cost of delivered power, ?the low cost and the simplicity of the system would allow them to disengage from the use of fossil fuels for high temperature heat while at the same time offering them the ability to save money making “going green” beneficial to the bottom line.?Unlike the use of fossil fuels for heat, the nuclear generated heat’s price per BTU is fixed rather being variable. ?

In sending out this Prospectus, YTEA is looking for strong partners who will be the lead investors in this new technology and will benefit from the license of the designs and the sale of materials, components, fuels, and services – construction, design, and maintenance of installed systems.

?

To Rapidly Reduce Greenhouse Gases Worldwide Only Small, Cheap, Nuclear Systems Solve the 30% Problem of Industrial Heat Requirements

We believe for a new technology to be successful it must be:

·????????Inexpensive to build;

·????????Uses simple technology in a subcritical system with a limited amount fissionable material in the reactor core at any one time to control the nuclear reaction rather than complicated, multiple layers of defense –from control rods to secondary and tertiary safety systems to cool the reactor core if there is an uncontrolled chain reaction.?Shutting off the electric power to the accelerator shuts down the chain reaction instantaneously.??

·????????Fuel in the reactor will cool?--automatic systems to keep critical nuclear reactions below the supercritical stage, i.e. only subcritical, externally provided neutrons, based on the Rubbia patent ?design using a drilled block of graphite core to moderate the neutrons that allows energy amplification?using spallation of ?a beryllium target using electrons from a commercially available low energy and cost IBA Cyclotron or a newly designed LINAC using less costly forged niobium superconducting wave guides.

·????????For nuclear generated high temperature heat only a subcritical system that shuts down when power to the accelerator is removed can be deployed widely and maintained by workers without specialized training.????

Preliminary Cost Estimates for YTEA Microreactor

Assuming reactor costs can be kept within the range given the limited amount of materials needed based on size relative to performance, then a fully financed system can yield a cost per btu or cost per kilowatt hour of electric power equal to or significantly less than current costs for companies from public sources and fossil fuels.?By keeping the size small, the substitution for conventional heat in industrial sites (already zoned for dangerous commercial operations)?and with companies that are used to working with dangerous levels of heat as part of the typical risks of these plants, the rate of substitution can be higher than if governments were to try to build large scale, centralized power plants using nuclear heat. [7]

The following table shows how costs for the reactor were developed.?The size is of critical importance with the outer shell of the reactor and the primary and second heat exchange system made of a specialized nickle alloy developed at Oak Ridge for use in the molten salt reactor experiment, hastelloy.?Today this metal is available from commercial sources and we have used two different approaches to calculate what it might cost – the higher cost based on required materials and labor – the second on the current shelf from sources around the world.?The assumption on the thorium needed for a full reactor load is likely higher than actual required. One the goals will be to measure the rate of depletion of the thorium fuel in order to better gauge he cost of use of the system.?What is clear is that even if the reactor were to double in price it would remain the only viable option to eliminate the carbon emissions from industrial plants.?

After the cost of the reactor and the heat exchangers, the reinforced concrete buildings housing the reactor and the cyclotron (assumed to cost between $ 5 million and 6 million dollars each), are the only other major expense.?We assume that the buildings will be buried requiring excavation and the assumptions are based on the volume of materials and the volume of earth moved.?If instead of a Cyclotron – whose dimensions are similar to those of the reactor – a LINAC would need a similar amount of concrete shielding, but would take up a space that is longer, but significantly narrow, more like a long trench cut into the earth.?The difference in cost between a system using a cyclotron versus a LINAC, was not materially different.

?

Factory Built Primary Systems Lower Costs, Standardize Designs, and Accelerate Adoption

Given the small size of the core reactor and the small amount of solid fuel – a mixture we expect of thorium and sodium – it may be possible to build the key components of the reactor in factories for shipment and assembly.?The reactor core could be sealed and filled with the initial load of thorium-sodium pellets and graphite core in the hastelloy and stainless steel shell with pumps installed and then shipped by flatbed truck to sites prepared.?The heat exchange units could be modular as well and shipped pre-manufactured for installation.?When reactors reach their useful life, they could be removed and then returned to the factory for replacement of worn parts, spent fuel, and then returned to companies extending their useful lives.?Accelerators are of the right size, either the IBA Cyclotron or sections of the new, higher efficiency, superconducting LINAC under study today at Jefferson Labs, would also be factory built for easy installation.?It is likely that as the market increases for these systems, improvements will be made and prices may drop or efficiency improved without additional costs (in a way similar to the relatively fixed price of new computers even as their speed and memory has increased).?

Appendix C: Goals of the YTEA Consortium

?Research the effectiveness of using a molten salt-thorium-beryllium fuel for use in a subcritical reactor similar in design to the molten salt reactor successfully built and tested at ORNL in the 1980’s, but significantly different due to the use of electron beam to excite internal target to supplying neutrons allowing a safe, subcritical reactor to supply high temperature heat without the risks associated current designs for light-water reactors that depend upon a carefully managed critical fission reaction from going supercritical using control rods and costly secondary and other controls.?Without the supply of electric power to the accelerators providing the free electrons, the nuclear fission reaction stops.

·????????Develop at the Yorktown Research site a program to research fuels and reactor designs with the goal of building a full sized ?prototype based on a likely design to test various aspects of the power reactor including the reactor core, the mix of thorium-salt fuel, and the primary and secondary heat exchange systems with the goal of demonstrating that this type of small reactor can operate efficiently and safely.

o????Given that this system has not been built and tested except for other purposes – the fast breeder reactor experiment in the 1980’s using molten salt based fuel and the use of the Los Alamos LINAC to transmute nuclear waste the development of this small reactor is not without technical and possibly regulatory risks.

o??Final design for an effective system that is safe and secure may require changes to be made in the initial design thus changing the likely cost of any mass produced system.?

o??Insure the correct mixture to maintain a balance between thorium fuel and U233 so that most U233 is burned in the reactor with the goal of safe storage of remaining waste products in subterranean storage given the shorter half life of the remaining nuclear byproducts.

o??Test the in-line processing of molten salt to remove dangerous nuclear by-products that may deaden the nuclear reactions for safety and cost of maintenance. .

o??Work with potential industrial users to design test equipment for retro-fit in existing heat exchange systems as well as companies developing small, compact, water desalinization systems.

·????????Set targets for a simple system to insure that we can remain within the cost parameters and the efficiency goals set.?Current estimates of a fully realized system capable of 10 MWth/5 MWe producing zero carbon is between $ 11 to $ 15 million dollars and producing fully cost and financed recovery for a price of around 3-4cents a kilowatt hour of electric power or 13 cents per hour for high temperature heat in line with current prices for alternative energy from natural gas.

·????????YTEA believes that identifying this technology, proving its effectiveness and safety and then licensing widely to private companies and governments for deployment will stimulate the following recovery of loans for the initial research and testing.?Only a simple to replicate, low cost solution to supplying energy close to requirements will satisfy within the decade the demands to significantly reduce the output of greenhouse gases without resort to reductions in economic growth.

Appendix D: Summary of Steps in Developing and Testing the Advanced Subcritical Reactor?

Phase I: Organize a Group of Companies who can benefit from the success of small, Microreactors, for the purpose of developing a Test and Design Center at Yorktown, Virginia?with each member of the Consortium contributing a small subscription to support this research and development in return for ?ownership shares of the new company formed for the express purpose of developing, licensing, and supporting the development of small Microreactors designed to replace high temperature heat and electric power in industrial plants and isolated communities.

Goals of the Initial Research program are to:

·????????Apply for DOE authorization for a research site in Yorktown for the development of Microreactors based on the Rubbia patented energy amplification approach using thorium-U233 fuels.

·????????Organize a group of researchers with experience in nuclear reactors (available in the Yorktown-Norfolk area) as well as from major universities to research fuel choice, target efficiency, and best design for ease of construction and safe and efficient use as a high temperature, clean, zero carbon heat source. ????????????

·????????Acquire a small amount of thorium (a controlled substance) from private or public sources including, but not entirely necessary, a small amount of U233 from Oak Ridge to use in the multiple fuel compositions to be tested in the reactor prototype test bed.

·????????Build ?a full sized reactor capable of 10 MWth/5 MWe heat test reactor including the IBA 1 MVe Cyclotron to supply beam to the internal beryllium target in order to induce a photo-nuclear reaction in the circulating molten salt fuel made up of thorium, U233.?Based on well understood science this will lead to efficient neutron economy and a balanced burning of U233 as well as heat.

o??YTEA test subcritical reactor initially run at 1 MWth during the testing phase for reactor core, fuel composition, and neutron efficiency using an IBA Cyclotron (commercially available at 1 MEV) to stimulate a photonuclear reaction in the molten circulating salt fuel mixture and using this system to draw off heat through a secondary molten salt loop in the form of high temperature (500 degree Celsius) loop useful for supplying heat energy for purposes of industrial requirements and/or generation of on-site electric power.

o??Examine alternative configurations of fuel and beam position as well identify problems with materials and equipment with the goal of creating a viable, small scale, high temperature heat source that can be used for industrial and community purposes.

o??Yorktown region offers a large pool of retired and semi-retired expertise in both engineering, science, and of greater importance, experience in management of large scale defense programs requiring systems integration and meeting milestones within budgets.

·????????Develop a plan, marketing and sales structure, ?to license this technology to companies around the world at reasonable rates to allow for the broadest and widest dissemination of the technology based on an “open source” model where original designs are continuously improved and competition exists between products that has allowed the rapid and wide scale growth in adoption of computers for home and industry.

Appendix E: ?Full Scale Deployment of Micro-reactor Technology for Multiple Uses

·????????Consortium companies reorganize from pure research focus to developing plans for wide scale distribution and sale of license to companies throughout the world with the goal of rapid introduction offering the following services.?Possible plans might include:

o??Generalized license and design plans for new reactors offered to companies at a reasonable price.

o??Multi-component kits for new reactors combining materials and products for a standardized reactor design and Cyclotron or LINAC.

o??Specialized construction, design, and integration services using agents in countries worldwide in order to speed introduction.

o??Help with site selection and regulatory issues to clients.

·????????Training and management services as needed.????

?

Appendix F: Prospective Partners

If we are serious about making this a reality then we need a strategy to generate interest in companies that would profit from this new technology.?There are a number of companies that are critical to the initial success and should be approached first to be the lead firms helping to organize the YTEA Consortium.?Two companies come to mind and need to be approached early in the effort:

Aker Solutions, the Norwegian patent holder of the Rubbia patent and IBA with the patents on the small cyclotron that has sufficient power to make the Rubbia idea a reality.?Aker Solutions patents are worth nothing unless this is built and the IBA Cyclotron has a limited market without the YTEA Microreactor becoming the power source of choice. ??

Other companies may also benefit and gain ownership shares through in-kind donations of staff time, design, materials, and services including the construction required to develop a safe reactor test facility.?

Much of the cost of the Yorktown Development site could be reduced through the use of these specialized factors of production donated or even modified to improve their performance.?Self-interest alone would insure that even companies that are competitors in other business lines might find cooperative development a useful and low cost option with respect to this system.

Component Manufacturers and Industrial Suppliers

These companies gain in two ways – owning a share of a profitable investment and increasing demand for their core specialties.?This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it represents various product?areas – accelerators, design, electric, refrigeration equipment, special materials, and engineering-construction.?

Some companies like GE also have venture capital groups who are looking for new ideas. Lockheed has a nuclear division working on fusion, but may be open to other “opportunities”.???In researching these companies and others we need to look for these “new idea” ventures within these larger industrial and systems integrators. I’ve included the large defense systems integrators like Lockheed, Boeing, General Dynamics, United Technologies, and Northrup in this group.?

ABB Ltd.

Ametek Inc.

Eaton Corporation

Emerson electric

Schneider Electric

Hubbell Inc.

AZ Inc.

Powell Industries

General Electric

Hitachi

Siemens

Samsung

Materials Companies

Arcelor Mittal

NSMC Group

POSCO

JFE Steel

Tata Steel

Nucor Corporation

US Steel

A-1 Alloys

Bartech Alloys

Haynes International

High Performance Alloys

All Metal Sales, Inc.

All Metal and Forget Group LLC

Johnson brothers Metal Forming

Faralloy, Inc.

Hamilton Precision Metals

Gibbs Wire and Steel Company

Engineering and Design ?Companies

Not an exhaustive list, but engineering and builders are good to manage large construction projects and?given that each power plant will require some adjustment in the plans, we will need companies like this as general or subcontractors anyway, better to have as partners.

?Bengo

Aker Solutions

Alfa Laval

Alstrom

Amec Foster Wheeler

Ansaldo Breda

Balfour Beatty

BCL Engineer & Scientific

Bechtel

Foster Wheeler

Fluor Corp

CA Parsons & Company

Defense Contractors and Systems Integrators

Companies that have been used to high value and long lived defense contracts may see this type of system an easy fit.?Most defense companies are used to working to requirements for cost and effectiveness and bringing together subcontractors systematically starting with basic research to meet the technical requirements as laid out by Pentagon to the few large, multi-division, defense contractors.?While defense contractors are not good at keeping costs down, they will have to develop civilian product lines to survive in an age of likely smaller defense procurement budgets.?They have the required skills in management and keeping subcontractors focused on the final goals to be effective partners in the Consortium. Lockheed Martin, to this end, has tried to develop its own fusion reactor.

Lockheed Martin(also Lockheed has a nuclear energy subsidiary)

General Dynamics

Boeing

Raytheon

BAE

Mitsubishi

?

Finance and Equipment Leasing Companies

We may want to approach banks not so much for loans, but for their ability to craft financing plans for companies buying these new systems to replace existing fossil fuel sources of power.?With government loan guarantees a good possibility, then financial service firms may craft polices and financing to lease systems to companies in cooperation with consortium members much in the same way that aircraft are leased by airlines with the financial arrangements for the original aircraft purchase arranged through the aircraft equipment companies.

There are more than a 100 of these firms in the world and they have financial arrangements with major equipment manufacturers and provide a vital service making the purchases of large capital equipment feasible for small and medium sized firms.?Consortium members would get a preferential arrangement with the engineering and design contractors making the rapid deployment here of these systems possible.?The low cost of each new Microreactor fits within the typical lease to own contracts that are common in the agricultural equipment and capital equipment market space.

Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas ?

The major oil and gas producers are not an obvious fit for this idea, but if they are facing the loss of demand for natural gas from industry and also the replacement of coal for reasons well known, then they may find supporting research into microsystems something that is a natural replacement for revenues. Part ownership in the replacement technology is both good business and also good public relations.?It is likely that once fossil fuels are replaced as a high heat source in industry and in transportation then they will remain important source of hydro-carbon feedstocks for the chemical industry.?So having a portfolio of alternative low carbon or zero carbon technologies and products may be critical to the long term survival of these firms.

?

Utilities, including water and electric companies

?

Community power and water systems will make dispersed baseload power possible.?Utilities may find it useful to own and operate these small units in difficult to reach locations both in the advanced countries, but increasingly in emerging and developing countries.?The microreactor is a natural fit to add more “zero carbon” energy to the existing grid by sharing the cost of capital with industry so that the excess power when the heat is no needed can be adde dto the grid.?Once the idea of using accelerators to supply free neutrons, then utilities may invest in the research to use larger LINAC systems with uranium based fuels – natural uranium, spent nuclear wastes, as well as thorium—to substitute subcritical molten salt heat for coal, oil, natural gas, and even nuclear power (in shuttered nuclear plants) thus allowing the continued use of existing boilers, generators, and power distribution systems.

AMREN Corporation

American Electric Power

CMS Energy

DTE Energy

Dominion Resources

Duke Energy

Edison International (Southern California Edison)

Entergy

PG&E

PPL Corporation

Pinnacle West Capital

Pacific Service Enterprise Group

Xcel Energy

Other Sources of Financing

Whenever a new approach that has social benefits is offered to reducing carbon most people thinking immediately of Angel investors and venture capitalists.?So far we have tried to avoid this funding source not because the groups and companies that are in this are not suitable sources of financing, but because they will need to be repaid for their capital contributions often at a premium.?We are looking more for “partners” rather than financial support, but if some of the groups who see the need to find a good solution to the problem of dramatic reductions of carbon before the environmental crisis reaches a breaking point want to be part of the Consortium they will not be blocked from membership, but will not have the option of being repaid at rates faster than necessary for the fullest development of the technology and the pace of commercialization.?

Non-profit Philanthropic Foundations ?

Venture Capital and Social Entrepreneurs. ?

[1] Thorium-Sodium fuel is initially in a solid form and filled through the drilled graphite block that is the heart of the reactor with the target in the middle.?When the electron beam hits the target, the neutrons begin the transmutation process for the thorium fuel with heat as the byproduct.?The salt melts along with the thorium creating a liquid that can be pumped keeping it flowing through the reactor core and into the primary heat exchanger drawing off the excess heat and into the secondary sodium based heat exchange that is used for industrial purposes or for boiling water for generating electricity .?When the beam is withdrawn the fission reaction ceases, the heated reactor cools, and the circulating salt returns to sold form within the graphite block making the reactor safe against alternative uses.

[2] Royalty payments from the sale of technical licenses and use licenses for use of design may be a revenue source, but if history is a judge then there will be copycat systems developed and it is likely these other units will be sometimes better than YTEA designs, similar or worse.?By making the primary focus of the cooperative group to find a quick path towards zero carbon using thorium based Microreactors rather than the legalistic approach of fighting every patent infringement in court, then companies in the Consortium will benefit from the rapid growth of the market and the demand for the products and services they have unique expertise than by earning from the sale of these one-time licenses for the use of intellectual property.

[3] One example is the millions so far spent by the private sector in research into fusion.?Let us assume that one of these companies finally achieves break-even energy for more than a millisecond based on the heat?achieved and then has a way to make enough energy into electric power to sustain the reaction and produce more power going in than out, they would still be left with the problem of building enough of these new systems to stop global temperature rise.?Only a cheap, small, system can solve our problem, and only private sector players working together and competitively can make it a reality. So if we have two or three companies in the same area, co-owners, they will compete for the business, but will also cooperate to improve the designs offering the best of both worlds – cooperation for development thus sharing the costs and avoiding the exclusivity that narrows the speed of adoption, and competitively to sell more finished systems than their competitors who are also their partners as well.

[4] Carlo Rubbia?patented approach to spallation neutrons creating a balanced, subcritical fission that will while breeding more dangerous U233 from the thorium U232, will burn this more dangerous radioactive element in the subcritical fission within the reactor core.?The reaction will be maintained only by supplying the high energy particle beam so that the reaction will stop once that is removed by switching off the accelerator providing the outside energy to the system US Patent: US5774514

[5] We are looking for partners across a range of disciplines and products who will benefit from the wide scale adoption of these new systems.?A license and royalty based approach can allow both rapid adoption and also spread manufacturing and design more broadly speeding the rate of substitution for fossil fuels and conventional?electric power.?

[6] U233 is a by-product of the thorium based nuclear reaction.?Adding neutrons to the thorium fuel will after about a month produce small amounts of thorium and other subcomponents that are removed before molten salt is returned to the reactor core.?U233 is burned in the reactor reducing the residual radioactivity.?The total volume of fissile materials in the reactor is small reducing risks of accidental release and the mixture of thorium fuel with lithium 7 salt makes the fuel difficult to be stolen and used to make bombs.

[7] Large scale plants using existing types of nuclear fuels – natural uranium and even waste currently being stored from nuclear power plants – can be built using larger and more costly linear accelerators.?New materials, however, including forged niobium metal for superconducting accelerators, could be added to the mix and placed on existing nuclear sites as these older plants are shut down.?Reusing existing generator sets and heat exchangers will save money and by reusing massive waste uranium being stored on these sites, then the existing nuclear reactors can continue to supply electric power – more than 20% of total US power – after their shut down.?