The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project: Congress Q&AFor more info, see:
The IFR started to get wind in its sails with the recent publication of two
books by freelance authors working independently with no ties to any of the
industries involved. Prescription for the Planet by Tom Blees, and
Beyond Fossil Fools by Joe Shuster, each sketch out a blueprint to
virtually eliminate greenhouse gas emission by mid-century. The common
thread in both is massive deployment of IFR technology, though Blees's book
also employs two other little-known technologies that would work
synergistically with it. Both authors simply want to save the planet, and
have no financial or other connection with industry whatsoever.
Who is opposed to it?
Certainly the coal industry will oppose it, for it would completely put them
out of business. Blees's plan would also eliminate the need for oil and gas,
and would eliminate the casus belli for most of the wars we fight, so
the entire fossil fuel industry sector and the arms merchants will hate it.
Many doctrinaire antinuclear groups will likewise oppose it unless they're
willing to wake up to the fact that it solves all the problems with nuclear
power that they've been worried about. But major environmentalist groups
that oppose nuclear have so painted themselves into a corner that they stand
to lose half their membership if they now embrace anything with the word
nuclear in it, and these are big businesses (notwithstanding their nonprofit
status). So don't look for ideologues to come over too quickly. Individual
members of some of these groups are already deserting the antinuclear
stance. See
Mark Lynas: the green heretic persecuted for his nuclear conversion to
see what happened when a prominent British environmentalist and member of
the Green Party, Mark Lynas, embraced IFRs.
Why did this project get killed in the first place?
Read chapter 12 in Blees's Prescription for the Planet. [Editor's note:
while that seems like a somewhat glib answer, he's actually right. Chapter
12 is an amazing account of what transpired complete with commentary. If you
want a shorter version that is online, see
Plentiful
Energy and the IFR Story
and skip to the part that mentions Kerry. See also
O'Leary Problems.pdf]
Why it hasn't been part of the national energy discussion of the last few years?
It was suppressed by the DOE since 1994. They've been quite successful at
it, and the scientists who actually worked on the project and really know it
are very few.
Has private money gotten behind this?
No, the design is sitting on the shelf at GE. It costs about a billion
dollars to have a reactor design certified by the NRC, and they make plenty
of money with conventional reactors. Their view is what one would expect
from a conventional large corporation: Why should we take on a billion
dollar project that might well end up in a political fight?
Why should this be put into the stimulus next month without any
How about: Because it's the only actual realistic solution to stopping
greenhouse gas emissions that anyone's come up with. Ask Dr. James Hansen,
the world's foremost climatologist, or Klaus Lackner, the brilliant
physicist at Columbia, or Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Earth
Institute. A month from now, ask Al Gore (once he's been briefed on it).
Why this project deserves a billion dollar earmark more than the dozens of other alternative energy technologies that have been put forward?
Because this technology alone could eliminate greenhouse gas
emissions from power plants. The point will be moot, though, if we can
simply allocate a billion dollars from the spent nuclear fuel disposal fund,
which currently has about $25 billion in it. It is a far superior solution
to the nuclear waste problem than anything yet envisioned, so that would be
a logical approach.
How many jobs will this create? (the primary purpose of the stimulus), etc.
If anything even approaching Blees's proposed rate of building were to be
embarked upon, it would be the biggest public works project in the history
of the world. Yet even at that it is totally affordable. The details are all
in there.
Other answers to the same question set
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