Fracking and the future of fuels

Abstract

The July 2016 issue of Physics Today carries an article by Michael Marder, Tadeusz Patzek, and Scott Tinker entitled “Physics, fracking, fuel, and the future” (page 46). The article claims “to contend with the challenges of fueling modern society” and invites physicists to help. Unfortunately, although they describe fracking and its impact carefully, the authors don’t mention the controversy now raging about wind, solar, and other alternative fuel technologies, including modern nuclear technology. If Marder and coauthors want to stimulate constructive progress for humanity, they should help readers to think about fuels that have real promise of outlasting oil and gas.The article cannot be the end of the discussion. The world drastically needs to overhaul its energy production scheme to use truly sustainable, modern, and safe nuclear reactors, while utilizing the vast existing infrastructure of turbines and generators for electricity production. Despite media portrayals to the contrary, nuclear energy is the safest power system known to man.11. M. Fischetti, Sci. Am., “The human cost of energy,” 1 September 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-cost-of-energy/. In the late 1960s, the Sierra Club’s motto was “Atoms, not dams,” and Ansel Adams, who was on the club’s board of directors for 37 years, said, “Nuclear energy is the only practical alternative that we have to destroying the environment with oil and coal.”Consider the following facts about molten-salt reactors (MSRs), which were demonstrated in 1965–70 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.• MSRs require no expensive containment since they operate close to atmospheric pressure.22. World Nuclear Association, “Molten salt reactors” (September 2016), http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx.• MSRs can eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain storage by consuming existing nuclear wastes.• MSRs consume close to 100% of their fuel, compared with 3% for older reactors with solid uranium fuel.• Thorium fluoride molten fuel for MSRs is of no weapons value.• Thorium fuel is more abundant and cheaper than uranium.The time is now to replace the current infatuation with solar and wind, which are illusions at best. When the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, the power generation stops, so they are not equal to the demand of modern society for energy availability 100% of the time. Germany is demonstrating that removal of nuclear energy in favor of wind and solar results in more carbon emissions, not less.33. B. Waterfield, Telegraph, “Germany is a cautionary tale of how energy policies can harm the economy,” 16 January 2014. Nor is energy storage even close to meeting the need when those alternatives fail. For this nation and the world to succeed without drowning itself in a flood of carbon dioxide in the next few decades, we need to follow the advice of Glenn Seaborg in 1962: The overall objective of the [Atomic Energy] Commission’s nuclear power program should be to foster and support the growing use of nuclear energy and … make possible the exploitation of the vast energy resources latent in the fertile materials, uranium-238 and thorium.44. G. T. Seaborg et al., Civilian Nuclear Power: A Report to the President—1962, US Atomic Energy Commission (1962), p. 14. I thank Alex Cannara for assistance in preparing this letter. ReferencesSection:ChooseTop of pageReferences <<CITING ARTICLES1. M. Fischetti, Sci. Am., “The human cost of energy,” 1 September 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-cost-of-energy/. Google Scholar2. World Nuclear Association, “Molten salt reactors” (September 2016), http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx. Google Scholar3. B. Waterfield, Telegraph, “Germany is a cautionary tale of how energy policies can harm the economy,” 16 January 2014. Google Scholar4. G. T. Seaborg et al., Civilian Nuclear Power: A Report to the President—1962, US Atomic Energy Commission (1962), p. 14. Google ScholarCrossref© 2017 American Institute of Physics.