A First-Ever Commercial Plant Extracting Carbon from Air

Heirloom Carbon Technologies has opened the first commercial carbon capture plant in the U.S. This key moment presages the start of what is widely expected to be an important new industry whose entire purpose is preventing the carbon emissions released by burning fossil fuels from destroying life on our planet.

Brad Plumer, writing in the New York Times, provides the details of this very small demonstration plant built in Tracy, California. It's an open air structure, with 40-foot racks holding hundreds of trays, each sprinkled with calcium oxide powder that turns into limestone when it binds with airborne carbon dioxide. This is a natural process that Heirloom is working to speed up.

Once the carbon dioxide is "captured" through the creation of the limestone, the company expects to heat up the limestone in a kiln at 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit, which then releases the carbon dioxide, where it then gets pumpted in a storage tank, leaving the calcium oxide to be returned and reused on another set of trays.

The carbon dioxide (called CO2) is expected to be transferred again to be permanently stored. For now, Heirloom is looking at the large concrete marketplace and working with CarbonCure, a company that was launched to mix CO2 into concrete to make concrete stronger by having it turn into limestone again where it will be permanently stored and reduce the carbon footprint of concrete (which ordinarily releases a lot of carbon emissions through its normal creation and use throughout the building industry).

Providing CO2 to CarbonCure has a value for sure but for now, that value is far below the costs of capturing the carbon. Let's look at what these economics are now. The Tracy facility will be able to absorb 1,000 tons of CO2 per year. At the estimated $50/tonne "social cost" of carbon, the Heirloom facility would earn $50,000 per year. Although Heirloom hasn't released info on its specific costs, those funding breakthrough carbon capture activity, such as Frontier (which includes Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey Sustainability), are typically paying between $500 and $2,500 per ton to accelerate innovation and market development. These high prices are intended to generate sufficient revenue for these early-stage ventures to actually cover their costs. At $1000/ton, Heirloom could earn $1,000,000 per year. However, Plumer estimates that Heirloom's actually costs may be in the range of $600 per ton or higher.

Fortunately for Heirloom and other ventures working in this space, there are a lot of large corporations willing to spend millions to pay for "carbon removal credits" in what has been a voluntary carbon market to effectively be able to claim that they are reducing their carbon footprints. These corporations see reputational benefits from those outlays, even if they do not result in even meaningful actual carbon reductions at this stage. The Biden Administration is also getting into the act and awarded $1.2 billion to help Heirloom

The Heirloom carbon capture plant in Tracy, California

Many people still don't know much about carbon capture and storage, or what has been called "Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration" (CCUS). There are a multitude of approaches being taken to capture carbon and, as a result, a plethora of acronyms have emerged. The approach used by Heirloom is now called Direct Air Capture (DAC) and specifically involve capturing CO2 out of the air but other approaches are simply called Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and utilize a range of methods to bind that CO2 in a semi-permanent or permanent way, such as through marine-based CDR or natural processes such increasing the CO2 content in soils or accelerating the use of CO2 by plants, such as by growing crops or trees with the intention of having them capture the CO2.

Utilization of CO2 involves finding valuable ways to use that CO2 or just the carbon (C) from captured CO2. Ventures working on the utilization part of this process pose the prospects of having profitable business models. Nucleation Capital, as a climate-focused venture fund, recognizes that CCUS is a growth industry that is anticipated to become a large consumer of energy. We are following the activity in this nascent space and we are investing in some of the most promising approaches, especially where that approach has strong profit and growth prospects or where it intersects with the need for abundant clean energy. While knowing all the acronyms isn't critical, there are a few key things to know about CCUS in general.

Key Facts to Know about CO2 and Carbon Capture, Utilization & Sequestration

While CO2 itself is natural and not toxic (except in high doses), the enormous amount that we have polluted our atmosphere with by burning fossil fuels for energy is causing our climate to warm up at a very fast rate. We need CCUS in order to lessen and possibly reverse the rate of warming, so we can restore a healthy climate.
All technological approaches to capturing carbon back out of the air or water are expensive and early stage. So are the approaches to carbon utilization and sequestration (i.e. methods to utilize and/or store the carbon so it doesn't get released back into the atmosphere).
To stop making our climate crisis worse, we have to stop burning fossil fuels, as our highest priority mitigation effort. While some might think that capturing the carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels right at the point source may warrant continuing to burn fossil fuels, that will not enable us to use carbon capture to restore the damage already done, which is the primary rationale for CCUS.
Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, the amount of damage the long-lived CO2 pollution is causing the world will continue to heat the planet for decades or centuries. The only way to prevent that is by removing this excess CO2 pollution.
Today, there are only a handful of dedicated carbon capture plants in existence globally but, to prevent serious damage to earth ecosystems, we will need to scale up these plants in record time to be able to reverse most of the emissions produced by the fossil fuel industry in its entire history. We will also need to scale utilization and sequestration capabilities.
The cost of cleaning up all of the emissions caused by our past use of fossil fuels will be enormous and we haven't come to any agreement as to who bears that burden. Some of that cost can be mitigated with valuable commercial utilization technologies.
Powering CCUS plants will require massive amounts of low-carbon clean energy because it makes no sense to emit carbon in the process of capturing carbon. The best and least-cost approach will likely involve using the coming generation of small modular reactors to generate 24x7 power in remote areas.
The cost of clean energy used to capture and sequester carbon will be a significant factor in the total cost of that activity but powering CCUS can help SMRs scale up, which will help reduce the manufacturing costs.
There is no scenario in which the cost of burning fossil fuels and capturing all the CO2 from that activity and permanently storing it will cost less than replacing the fossil fuels with renewables or nuclear and avoiding the release of new emissions in the first place.
Fossil fuel companies are already lobbying to earn carbon credits by pairing carbon capture with the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. This is why some environmentalists, like Al Gore, oppose providing funding for CCUS to oil and gas companies, even though the most cost-effective CO2 capture is done at or close to the fossil fuel smokestack source point.

Read more in the New York Times, "In a U.S. First, a Commercial Plant Starts Pulling Carbon From the Air," by Brad Plumer, November 9, 2023.

Learn more about Frontier a consortium that is providing advance market commitments (AMC) that aim to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies, without picking winning technologies at the start of the innovation cycle. The goal is to send a strong demand signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that there is a growing market for these technologies.

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four commercial-scale direct air capture plants. In August, the Biden Adminstration announced $1.2 billion in awards for the first two, one to be built by Battelle in Louisiana and the other to be built by Occidental Petroleum, in Texas, through a 50-50 cost share.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Carbon emissions, Carbon markets, Carbon negative, Climate change, Climate policy, Construction costs, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, Investor activity, LINKS, Private companies, Solving climate, US competitiveness, US technological leadership

August 14, 2023

Montana Judge rules in favor of having a livable future

Montana Judge Kathy Seely invalidated as unconstitutional the so-called “limitation” to the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), which was amended by the legislature this year, in House Bill 971 as well as Senate Bill 557, which prohited the state from considering greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts when deciding whether to approve permits for energy and mining projects.

In doing so, she upheld the claim of 16 youth plaintiffs who sued the state demanding that the state of Montana protect their rights to a clean and healthy environment and the state's natural resources from unreasonable depletion. In Held V. Montana, the plaintiffs demanded that the state Constitution be respected, in asserting that Montanans have a right to a clean and healthful environment and that each Montanan "shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations."

“By prohibiting consideration of climate change, (green house gas) emissions, and how additional GHG emissions will contribute to climate change or be consistent with the Montana Constitution, the MEPA Limitation violates Plaintiffs’ right to a clean and healthful environment and is facially unconstitutional,” Seeley wrote in her order.

According to Blair Miller, who published Judge sides with youth in Montana climate change trial, finds two laws unconstitutional, in the Nevada Current on August 14, 2023, the Held vs. Montana case was the first case challenging state and national climate and energy policies to make it to trial in the U.S., and is now the first in which the plaintiffs, 16 Montana youth now ages 5 to 22, were victorious.

This ruling was welcomed by the climate community and is expected to be a harbinger of things to come. Of course, not every state constitution provides a right to a healthy environment but the eggregiously pro-fossil fuel legislation that was passed by the Republican supermajority-held legislature was brashly unconstitutional in Montana. So, at the moment, there is at least one state that believes that children deserve a healthful future that cannot be simply denied because an industry wants to make more money.

For a blast of good climate news, see the Nevada Current's: Judge sides with youth in Montana climate change trial, finds two laws unconstitutional, by Blair Miller published August 14, 2023.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate mayhem, Climate policy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Solving climate, US competitiveness, US technological leadership

July 28, 2023

ADVANCE Act Clears Senate

The ADVANCE Act, included in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by the Senate, was passed by the Senate in an 86-11 bipartisan vote. The NDAA now must be reconciled with the version narrowly passed by the House on July 14th, which contains several controversial GOP amendments. Previously, the ADVANCE Act was approved by a bipartisan 16-3 vote of the Environment and Public Works Committee in May.

Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.), Tom Carper (D., Del.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) were the bipartisan group of sponsors who introduced the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act back in April of this year. Its purpose is to support the preservation, development, and deployment of nuclear energy technologies in the United States.

The legislation was widely welcomed by experts, including the respected Clean Air Task Force, as an effort to strengthen the U.S. nuclear energy sector by creating a supportive policy environment where nuclear energy can expedite the clean energy transition and promote global energy security.

Included in the bill are much needed measures that enhance processes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, especially the review and approvals of next-gen nuclear reactors, improve the prospects for coal to nuclear projects, and streamline civil nuclear exports, all which will help manage climate change and provide reliable, 24/7, carbon-free energy.

In the words of Shelley Moore Capito, the passage of the ADVANCE Act brings us "one step closer to reestablishing America's preeminence as the global leader in nuclear energy in the 21st century. Not only does our legislation strengthen our national and energy security, it expands a clean, reliable power source that should remain a major part of our future energy mix. The ADVANCE Act achieves these shared goals by making the nuclear licensing process more affordable, predictable, and efficient; creating pathways to repurpose former industrial sites for nuclear reactors in the future; and providing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the resources needed to help fulfill its mission."

“The complexity of achieving economy-wide decarbonization requires a diverse set of solutions, and nuclear energy has an important role to play,” said Evan Chapman, U.S. Federal Policy Director at Clean Air Task Force. “The bipartisan ADVANCE Act would build on action taken through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to preserve and expand the United States’ nuclear energy capacity. Doing so would help meet growing energy demand while moving the U.S. closer to achieving its climate goals. It’s an exciting step forward and we stand ready to work with Congress to make this legislation as strong as possible.”

See Nuclear Newswire's "Senate okays defense bill with measure boosting U.S. nuclear sector, to learn more about the ADVANCE Act. Also see the Clean Air Task Force's news about the introduction of the ADVANCE Act from April 5, 2023.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear maritime propulsion, Nuclear R&D, Politicians supporting nuclear, Regulatory reform, Solving climate, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

July 25, 2023

A New Oppenheimer Moment

We've had a resurgence of interest in and conversation about nuclear energy since the release at the end of April of Oliver Stone's exceptional documentary, Nuclear Now. But Stone's historic film, much like Robert Stone's Pandora's Promise and Dave Schumacher's The New Fire, before it, suffers from the endemic unpopularity of documentaries. People don't flock to theaters to see them. Which made (what was called) "Barbenheimer," the culturally clashing concurrence of opening nights for Greta Gerwig's very pink Barbie movie and Christopher Nolan's explosive Oppenheimer so different. Theaters were packed. People went to see them as double-features. The press had a field day for a week and both films exceeded box-office expectations, providing welcome relief for movie theaters everywhere.

The public is, as a result, reacquainted with J. Robert Oppenheimer (JRO to those who knew him) and his tortured if heroic role in leading the U.S.'s war time emergency program, dubbed "The Manhattan Project," to a successful conclusion: creation of the first atomic bomb. Whether or not this crowning achievement by the secretive project—that recruited the world's top physicists, engineers and scientific minds to Los Alamos, a remote area in New Mexico—and let the atomic genie out of bottle was a net positive or a net negative, may still be debated. But now that it has, we must rely on our ability to self-regulate the use of this technology for good, as JRO understood so well.

We are now in the throes of sorting out how best to limit nuclear bombs but expand the beneficial uses of atomic tech for energy, industry, agriculture and medicine. Which is why we were so pleased to have been connected with Charles Oppenheimer some weeks ago and to have been invited to participate in the Oppenheimer Exchanges, a day long event bringing together leadership from within the DOE's National Labs and a few business groups, orchestrated to coincide with opening night for the Oppenheimer film. Fortunately, this included tickets to the San Francisco premiere at the Metreon iMax Theatre and a brief pre-screening conversation between younger members of the Oppenheimer family, who provided some perspective on the family's legacy and ongoing initiatives.

For many of us, this was an eye-opening discussion. It was just in December of 2022, that the DOE finally restored Oppenheimer’s long lost—but still widely lauded reputation—with an order vacating the Atomic Energy Commission's 1954 decision to revoke JRO's security clearance. While largely symbollic, since JRO died in 1967, the DOE's order, and Secretary Granholm's Statement about it, addressed and began to reverse the damage that had been done to the Oppenheimer name, through what the DOE called a "flawed" process.

In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer’s security clearance through a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed. The Atomic Energy Commission even selected Dr. Oppenheimer in 1963 for its prestigious Enrico Fermi Award citing his “scientific and administrative leadership not only in the development of the atomic bomb, but also in establishing the groundwork for the many peaceful applications of atomic energy.”

Among scientists and those who knew Oppenheimer's legacy, vindication had already begun as far back as 1963, when the Atomic Energy Commission selected Oppenheimer for the prestigious Enrico Fermi Award for his "scientific and administrative leadership not only in the development of the atomic bomb, but also in establishing the groundwork fo rthe many peaceful applications of atomic energy."

Then, in 2017, the DOE recognized JRO with the creation of the Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program, which was designed to support early and mid-career scientists and engineers to "carry on [RJO's] legacy of science serving society."

This DOE program has now graduated multiple cohorts. Many of these alumni gathered in San Francisco to discuss the Oppenheimer legacy and explore relevant topics, in particular the need for science and scientists to rise to the challenge of solving global crises with technology. Oppenheimer's leadership example is a model by which the scientific community can organize itself to tackle problems, such as climate change. Given how badly we are doing responding to the threat posed by climate change, this is a very welcome concept.

The Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program (OSELP) run by the DOE is “the premier leadership development program of the national Laboratory Directors’ Council, which comprises the leadership of all 17 National Labs. The program exposes emerging leaders to the singular breadth, diversity and complexity of the National Labs and their partners in government, industry, and academia. OSELP represents a collective commitment from all 17 DOE labs to cultivate the leaders needed to sustain long-term impacts throughout the complex. Out of the OSELP has grown an alumni group now called the Oppenheimer Leadership Network, who are those who have been through the OSELP program. The OLN is the formal network of ESELP alumni to collaboratively engage on strategic issues and produce deliverables that address major organizational, policy, scientific or other challenges within the National Labs’ mission space. We were pleased to meet many members of the OLN at the event. Now the Oppenheimer family has a new vision. They are aiming to develop several initiatives, under the banner of The Oppenheimer Project, whose mission is to promote and advocate for solutions to mitigate the risks posed by technological development. 1) Promote JRO’s legacy and encourage scientific leaders to discuss and address today’s existential threats.2) Advocate and educate about nuclear energy, for increased cooperation on energy and decreased threats of weapons.3) Invest in the energy transition to carbon-free energy sources including nuclear energy. Already, Charles Oppenheimer, JRO's grandson, has come out strongly for nuclear power in a Time Magazine Ideas article, entitled Nuclear Energy's Moment Has Come, published May 11, 2023. In it, Charles calls for a "Manhattan Project" for carbon-free energy production.

In addition to having the support of the younger members of the Oppenheimer family, The Oppenheimer Project has received the support of Lynn Orr, a former Under Secretary for Science and Energy at the DOE and now at Stanford University, and Dr. Larry Brilliant, a physician, epidemiologist and senior counselor at the Skoll Foundation, as advisers. There are now some dozens of graduates of the OSELP and OLN members who could also participate. Given how poorly we are doing mounting the appropriate response to the threat from continued emissions, extending Oppenheimer's inimitable complex project management legacy to tackling this new global challenge has the potential to be significant development in the fight against climate change.

May 12, 2023

Dow Chemical CEO Gives Wall Street Lesson on New Nuclear

Dow Chemical CEO, Jim Fitterling appeared in a CEO interview segment with Sara Eisen on CNBC on May 12 and proceeded to discuss Dow's plan to build X-energy's advanced nuclear power plant at a Dow site in Texas. In what can only be described as a perfect 4-minute "New Nuclear 101” class geared for Wall Street, he produced possibly the best infomercial one could imagine for choosing advanced nuclear. Even if he didn't answer Sara's questions.

CNBC hosts CEO Interviews live on air and posts them almost immediately to their website. This one can be found here.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Construction costs, Corporate decarbonization, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Public companies, Solving climate, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

April 20, 2023

Nucleation Presents at ARPA-E Fission Summit

Valerie Gardner, founder and managing partner of Nucleation Capital, and Dr. Rachel Slaybaugh, a partner at DCVC, presented remarks on the topic of "Procuring Investments for Commercialization" in the concluding session of ARPA-E's Fission Summit covering Technology to Market, held in Hollywood, California, April 18-20, 2023.

This was the 2023 Annual Fission Program Review Meeting being held as a showcase of all of the groups funded by ARPA-E for cutting edge research and development of new fission technologies and materials.

Day 1 of the program covered the CURIE and OnWARDS Programs provided an opportunity for the grantees to do project "lightening talks," and covered topics including NRC Engagement, Technology-to-Market preparedness, Industry Perspectives on Reprocessing and Legal Considerations. There were also presentations from TerraPower, GE Global Research, the IDNL, Deep Isolation, Brigham Young University and Citrine Informatics.

Day 2 of the program covered Processing Technologies, Advanced Reactor Waste Disposal, Materials, Microreactors and Enabling Technologies. In addition to remarks from Jon Carmack, Danny Cunningham,, Jenifer Shafer adn Bob Ledoux, there were a range of panels that included speakers from Dow Chemical, EPRI, Southern Company and Westinghouse. The CURIE, ONWARDS, GEMINA, MEITNER AND OPEN Program grantees also gave more lightening talks.

On the third and final day of the event, the discussion shifted to commercialization and raising capital. After Danny Cunningham of ARPA-E gave a quick overview of "How to Commercialize an Idea, John Bistline of EPRI covered a view of the Energy Market in Transition. Following this, Valerie and Rachel discussed how ventures procure investments from venture capital. They presented an overview of how venture capital works and the range of financing prospects that young companies could expect. In a final hat tip to innovation, Valerie described how innovation in the finance and venture fields was enabling a range of non-traditional funds to enter the market with missions to fund high-risk innovation technologies such as advanced nuclear. To view Valerie's slides for the presentation, click the image below.

Learn more about ARPA-E's Funding Programs, please see this link.

Published by Valerie Gardner in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Climate policy, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, Investor activity, NEWS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nucleation communications, Politicians supporting nuclear, Pro-nuclear campaign, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

March 26, 2023

Eunice Newton Foote

Eunice Newton Foote, a descendant of Sir Isaac Newton through her father, is believed to be the first scientist to study and conclude that rising carbon dioxide gas levels could raise atmospheric temperatures and impact the earth's climate. Up until 2010, scientists had believed that John Tyndall deserved the credit as the first person to show the involvement of infrared radiation in the greenhouse effect. Although Foote published the results of her experiments as early as 1856, demonstrating the absoprtion of heat by CO2 and water vapor and her hypothesis that changing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere would alter the climate and despite this being possibly the very first physics publication by an American woman in a scientific journalI wasn't until her work was rediscovered in 2010 that she was recognized as the pioneer that she was.

Eunice Foote was born in Connecticut in 1819 and was a scientists, inventor, mother and women's rights campaigner. After marrying Elisha Foote in 1841, Foote settled in Seneca, where she met and befriended Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was the daughter of Judge Daniel Cady, who was the attorney who had trained Elisha Foote in the law. Although she attended the Rensselaer School and gained a broad education in scientific theory and practice, including laboratory testing, she was denied access to further studies.

From Wikipedia:

Eunice Foote – "Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun's Rays" (1856), American Journal of Science and Arts. Foote recognized the implications of carbon dioxide's heat-capturing properties—the greenhouse effect—for the entire planet.

An amateur scientist, Foote conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated the interactions of sunlight on different gases. She used an air pump, two glass cylinders, and four mercury-in-glass thermometers. In each cylinder, she placed two thermometers and then used the pump to evacuate the air from one cylinder and compress it in the other cylinder. When both cylinders reached equal ambient temperatures, they were placed in the sunlight and temperature variances were measured. She also placed the containers in the shade for comparison and tested the temperature results by dehydrating one cylinder and adding water to the other, to measure the effect of dry versus moist air. Foote noted that the amount of moisture in the air impacted the temperature results. She performed this experiment on air, carbon dioxide (CO₂) (which was called carbonic acid gas in her era), and hydrogen, finding that the tube filled with carbon dioxide became hotter than the others when exposed to sunlight.

She wrote: "The receiver containing this gas became itself much heated—very sensibly more so than the other—and on being removed [from the Sun], it was many times as long in cooling".

Foote noted that CO₂ reached a temperature of 125 °F (52 °C) and that the amount of moisture in the air contributed to temperature variances. In connection with the history of the Earth, Foote theorized that "An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature; and if, as some suppose, at one period of its history, the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its own action, as well as from increased weight, must have necessarily resulted." Her theory was a clear statement of climatic warming caused by increased levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Foote described her findings in a paper, "Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun's Rays", that she submitted for the tenth annual AAAS meeting, held on August 23, 1856, in Albany, New York. For reasons that are unclear, Foote did not read her paper to those present—women were in principle allowed to speak publicly at the conference—and her paper was instead presented by Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution. Henry introduced Foote's paper by stating "Science was of no country and of no sex. The sphere of woman embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the true". Yet, he discounted her findings in the New-York Daily Tribune article about the presentation, saying "although the experiments were interesting and valuable, there were [many] [difficulties] encompassing [any] attempt to interpret their significance".

_______________

Sources:

Wikipedia: Eunice Newton Foote
BBVA OpenMind: Eunice Newton Foote, the Forgotten Pioneer of the Greenhouse Effect, Mar. 8, 2022

Published by editor in Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, History Timeline, History-making, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Scientific debate, Women in Nuclear, WOMEN IN NUCLEAR GRID

March 20, 2023

El Salvador Explores Nuclear Entry with Gen IV

El Salvador has just taken a small but meaningful step towards building an advanced climate-resilient economy and accelerating next-generation nuclear. The government has decided to explore becoming a nuclear nation through the deployment of thorium-based molten salt reactors, a Gen IV design, thereby leapfrogging traditional nuclear technology.

As reported by Power Magazine, the El Salvador government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Thorium Energy Alliance to “formally establish the framework for cooperation between Thorium Energy Alliance and the DGEHM to develop a comprehensive and strategic plan to deploy, in an advanced and safe manner, energy generation through thorium-powered reactors and thermal energy storage systems.”

The MOU was negotiated and signed by Daniel Alvarez, El Salvador's director general of Energy, Hydrocarbons, and Mines (DGEHM) and John Kutsch, executive director of the Thorium Energy Alliance. What is most impressive about this agreement is that, in selecting this path, El Salvador shows that it recognizes the abundant benefits of Gen IV nuclear designs and has decided to assume some of the risk of being an early adopter of an innovative technology perhaps in exchange for being one of the earliest beneficiaries as well.

“This is not just a deep dive into technologies and rollout issues, and a white paper proposal, this is something that El Salvador is dedicated to making happen,” Kutsch said in a presentation given at the signing ceremony.

Learn more at Power Magazine, El Salvador Sets Sights on Joining the 'Nuclear Power Club,' by Aaron Larson, Mar 20, 2023.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate policy, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, International support for nuclear, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Pro-nuclear campaign, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

March 1, 2023

Industry decarbonization moves ahead with Dow Chemical / X-energy partnership

Dow Chemical has signed a development agreement with X-energy Reactor Company to build its DOE-funded demonstration 4-pack Xe-100 advanced nuclear plant at a Dow Chemical Gulf Coast site. Dow's very strategic move makes it one of the first industrials to acknowledge that decarbonization will not be possible without advanced nuclear energy.

This is a key watershed moment, marking the imminent arrival of an entirely new category of clean energy power plants that are entering the market with an ability to provide both carbon-free electricity and clean, high-temperature steam for industrial purposes. Dow's interest reflects the likely appetite among large industrials for clean energy alternatives in their very hard-to-decarbonize sector and the appeal of having the DOE as a funding partner in the development of a first-of-a-kind plant.

Nuclear power has been serving the electricity needs of grid-scale utilities for six and a half decades. But until now, it has not been able to compete in the industrial process heat market. Now, X-energy and a number of other advanced nuclear ventures are designing more functional and flexible power plants that generate extra high-temperature stream. This steam can be piped directly to an industrial processing area which needs high-temperature heat for chemical processing or it can be converted into electrons with a turbine and generator to provide electricity.

Accordingly, for a company like Dow Chemical and hundreds of other industrial companies producing steel, ammonia, hydrogen, hydrocarbons or doing desalination, the Xe-100 provides a very compelling energy choice, as it can provide a lot of reliable, flexible power with stable pricing that can also feed electrons into the grid, when grid prices are high.

X-energy was one of two awardees of the DOE's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (the other awardee being TerraPower), entitling it to an initial grant of $80 million towards the demonstration of its Xe-100 power plant, consisting of four 80 MWe/200 Mwth reactors and a fuel fabrication facility within seven years (by 2028). The ARDP received an additional $2.5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the demonstrations of two advanced reactor technologies, which will build on the initial $160 million received from the Office of Nuclear Energy prior to OCED’s creation.

X-energy initially planned to build is X-100 up in Washington state, in a partnership with and at a site hosted by Energy Northwest. Since receiving the award, X-energy has completed the engineering and basic design of its reactor and its fuel fabrication facility and is preparing to submit an application with the NRC, which has not yet happened. Meanwhile, the company has also agreed to go public via a merger with the Ares SPAC later this spring and these have likely helped give Dow Chemical the confidence to make an offer to partner with X-energy. If that isn't enough, the company just announced plans to open its first support center, to service its initial deployments of its Xe-100 plants.

Learn more at Power, X-energy and Dow Will Deploy a 320-MWe Xe-100 Nuclear Facility at Gulf Coast Site, by Sonal Patel, Mar 1, 2023. See Bloomberg for "Ares SPAC is Merging with Nuclear Energy Firm X-Energy, Dec. 6, 2022. Read more about the X-Energy Plant Support Center at X-energy: X-energy to Open First Plant Support Center for Xe-100 Advanced Small Modular Reactor Fleet, March 7, 2023. More about the DOE's ARDP Awards.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Capital reallocation, Carbon emissions, Climate policy, Future of Energy, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Solving climate, Zero emission energy

February 11, 2023

Nuclear wins inclusion as “green” source for hydrogen

French energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher

France appears to wins another round against Germany in the fight to have nuclear included as a clean energy source within EU Commission rules. The EU has agreed that nuclear energy powered hydrogen will be classified as "green," so long as the carbon-intensity of the country's electricity is below 65 grammes of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour.

Early reporting on the EU Commission's decision regarding classification of hydrogen as "green" indicates that, once again, the EU will be recognizing low-carbon nuclear power as "green."

For more than a year, the EU has been assessing and evaluating the best way to ensure that hydrogen producers can't easily claim "green" production by using existing renewable energy, in a form of greenwashing, that simply takes credit fo renewable power that was being used elsewhere. This has forced the EU to look closely at both "additionality" and "carbon intensity."

The new rules, a draft version of which leaked out but which have not been formally published, seek to ensure that that green hydrogen is made only from “additional” renewable power, by forcing the producer to correlate its production in time and space to prevent cannibalisation of existing sources of clean energy. The Commission has finally arrived at a decision and set out two important additionality criteria:

By 2030, hydrogen production must be matched to renewable energy production on an hourly basis. Until then, the correlation is set on a monthly basis.
By 2028, hydrogen producers must prove that their electrolysers are connected to renewable energy installations no older than 36 months.

This decision enables investments in new hydrogen production to move forward with a clear understanding of how that production can benefit from the benefits available to clean energy until 90% of electricity production in a given country is produced from low-carbon sources.

While Germany has sought to exclude nuclear energy as a clean power source, France has been lobbying Brussels on the opposite side, arguing that hydrogen produced by nuclear power is also be considered "green." It appears that France has won its case in the draft rules.

In recognition of nuclear's low-carbon production, the EU has agreed that hydrogen produced in a country like France with the intensity of electricity is lower than 18 gCO2eq/MJs (or approximately 65 grammes of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour), then the hydrogen can qualify as green.

Among all 27 EU countries, only France and Sweden meet this criteria. In 2021, when its nuclear fleet was almost fully operational, French power was 70% of its energy, 85% low-carbon and emissions stood at 56g CO2e per kWh. Sweden, for its part, powered predominantly with hydropower, stands at an average of 28gCO2e/Kwh.

Not only is this EU rule a win for pronuclear countries, it is laying an important precedent in setting out a base level of carbon-intensity that recognizes that what matters is the carbon-intensity of the total grid, not the amount of renewable energy. We believe this will be of increasing importance over time.

Read more at EURACTIV LEAK: France wins recognition for nuclear in EU's green hydrogen rules, by Nikolaus J. Kurmayer, Feb. 11, 2023.

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