We’ve discussed strategic raw material resource
vulnerabilities, such as rare earths.
Here’s another self-inflicted vulnerability … oil in our strategic
reserve. Our strategic oil reserve was
reduced for political purposes rather than strategic needs, as was its intended
purpose.
Note: The strategic
oil reserve has a capacity of 714M barrels.
The current level is around 340M barrels.
_____________________________
The strategic reserve is at 346,758 barrels, its lowest level in 40 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association.[1]
The Biden administration has reportedly canceled plans to purchase 6 million barrels of oil to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because the prices of oil are expected to keep rising following a cut in output by Saudi Arabia.[1]
The Department of Energy announced its intention to purchase the oil on July 7 to replenish the strategic reserve after the Biden administration released 180 million barrels last year to ease prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[1]In total, Biden has released around 260M barrels of oil from the reserve. Therefore, the proposed purchase of 6M barrels would have replenished only 2% of the oil drained from the reserve.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/strategic-oil-reserve-biden-adminsitration/2023/08/02/id/1129429/
..So we go nuclear to not need the oil as much? After all Russia is building nuclear ships, so why can't we? Like from below:
ReplyDelete"The Russian government is investing RUB70bn ($1bn) in the construction of two nuclear-powered icebreakers and a nuclear maintenance vessel. These will be the fifth and sixth serial icebreakers of project 22220"
And some (I think) interesting details:
"The two icebreakers, with a power capacity of 60 MWe each, are scheduled to be completed in 2028 and 2030. The length of each will be 173.3 metres, and the width 34 metres, with a displacement of 33,500 tons. They will be able to break through ice up to 3 metres thick and will escort vessels with hydrocarbon raw materials from the fields of the Yamal and Gydan Peninsulas and from the Kara Sea shelf to the markets of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
The construction of the maintenance vessel should be completed in 2029. Its main task is to ensure the refuelling of reactor plants that are used in Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers."
"Arktika, the first of three LK-60 icebreakers, entered service in 2020 followed by Sibir in 2021 and Ural in 2022. Under construction are Yakutia and Chukotka. Project 22220 vessels are powered by two RITM-200 pressurised water reactors, mounted side by side, which produce total thermal power of up to 350 MWt which converts to 60 MWe at the propellers"
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussia-to-build-two-more-nuclear-icebreakers-10511341
That and keep the parts of our navy that do need oil in reserve and use more simulators for training, like the ones below:
https://news.usni.org/2020/12/30/video-navy-expanding-use-of-virtual-trainers-for-surface-ship-crews
Maybe buy more simulators from the likes of below:
https://forcetechnology.com/en/services/simulations-and-cfd/ship-bridge-simulators
https://www.vstepsimulation.com/nautis-simulator/nautis-maritime-simulator/
With the exception of Russia, all other civilian nuclear ships were converted to diesel.
Delete"so why can't we?"
DeleteAs we've discussed extensively, there are many reasons to NOT use nuclear power for ships including cost of construction, higher level of training to operate, unsolvable disposal problems, battle damage radiation, burdensome safety and regulatory requirements, and more.
I may be wrong, but I believe the Russian icebreakers are trapped in the Arctic. Their reactor cooling was designed for cold water and does not allow them to transit warm tropical waters to the Antarctic where they would be of use.
Deleteif we could transition the civilian power grid to nuclear and shift our road transport to electric, that would do a lot to free up fuel for our combat vehicles.
Delete"if we could transition the civilian power grid to nuclear and shift our road transport to electric, that would do a lot to free up fuel for our combat vehicles."
DeleteJust out of idle curiosity, how would you address the umpteen millions of used batteries generated by electric cars?
How would you address the hundreds of used, radioactive nuclear reactors as ships are retired?
For:
Delete"how would you address the umpteen millions of used batteries generated by electric cars? "
By using plasma converter for non-nuclear waste as below:
"Unlike incinerators, which use combustion to break down garbage, there is no burning, or oxidation, in this process. The heat from plasma converters causes pyrolysis, a process in which organic matter breaks down and decomposes. Plasma torches can operate in airtight vessels. Combustion requires oxidization; pyrolysis does not.
Plasma waste converters can treat almost any kind of waste, including some traditionally difficult waste materials. It can treat medical waste or chemically-contaminated waste and leave nothing but gases and slag. Because it breaks down these dangerous wastes into their basic elements, they can be disposed of safely. The only waste that a plasma converter can't break down is heavy radioactive material, such as the rods used in a nuclear reactor. If you put such material in a plasma furnace, it would probably catch on fire or even explode."
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/plasma-converter.htm
Which is used by the navy in:
"The US Navy is employing Plasma Arc Waste Destruction System (PAWDS) on its latest generation Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier. The compact system being used will treat all combustible solid waste generated on board the ship. After having completed factory acceptance testing in Montreal, the system is scheduled to be shipped to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard for installation on the carrier."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
For:
"How would you address the hundreds of used, radioactive nuclear reactors as ships are retired?"
We stop dragging our feet with nuclear recycling and finally recycle the used reactors:
"There is a way, however, to use almost all of the uranium in a fuel rod. Recycling used nuclear fuel could produce hundreds of years of energy from just the uranium we’ve already mined, all of it carbon-free. Problems with older technology put a halt to recycling used nuclear fuel in the United States, but new techniques developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory address many of those issues."
https://www.anl.gov/article/nuclear-fuel-recycling-could-offer-plentiful-energy
For the spent nuclear fuel we recycle:
Delete"That’s right!
Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts.
More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor.
The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do.
There are also some advanced reactor designs in development that could consume or run on spent nuclear fuel in the future."
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel
The batteries we use:
"Longo’s ‘plasma converter’ turns rubbish into clean energy, consuming anything thrown into its jaws and capable of rendering almost any toxic material, besides nuclear waste, harmless."
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel
I've realized I have double posted (is that the correct term? if not sorry again) with the first one did not show up, sorry about that, and below is the correct link to
Delete"Meet Joseph Longo’s Revolutionary Plasma Converter"
https://www.pollutionsolutions-online.com/news/green-energy/42/breaking-news/meet-joseph-longorsquos-revolutionary-plasma-converter/34134
I also realize I have very bad grammar typing about sorry again, anyway for, perhaps, better damage control on ships we could switch to using lead cooled fast reactors and turn the disadvantage into an advantage when damaged:
Delete"Solidification of lead-bismuth solution renders the reactor inoperable."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-cooled_fast_reactor#Disadvantages
A solid damaged reactor would be easier for the crews of a damaged nuclear ship which could then be switched out when at home port while relying on back up engines the rest of the way if we choose to, however, we do not use lead cooled fast reactors.
But anyway:
"All U.S. NPWs use pressurized water reactors (PWRs)."
And,
"All NPWs are designed to survive wartime attack and to continue to fight while 2 protecting their crews against hazards. They have well-developed damage control capabilities, redundancy, and backup in essential systems. "
https://navalpost.com/how-safe-the-u-s-nuclear-powered-warships/
" plasma converter"
DeleteYou're talking about creating an entire new industry out of almost nothing in order to support electric vehicles.
Just out of curiosity, what do we do with the slag waste which would be substantial when processing untold millions of batteries?
"recycle the used reactors:"
You missed the mark on this. You're describing extended use of fuel rods NOT recycling of reactor vessels and associated machinery. Those are two separate issues. The old, radioactive reactors and systems need to be disposed of somehow. As far as I know, there is no way to recycle or extend reactor vessels and systems.
"You're talking about creating an entire new industry out of almost nothing in order to support electric vehicles."
DeleteYes, and we are (should) doing so as we move in to electric vehicles from fossil fuel.
"You missed the mark on this. You're describing extended use of fuel rods NOT recycling of reactor vessels and associated machinery. Those are two separate issues. The old, radioactive reactors and systems need to be disposed of somehow. As far as I know, there is no way to recycle or extend reactor vessels and systems."
The plasma converter mentioned? Yes the one in the Ford-class may not recycle the entire reactor(which may or may not be actually working as it may have been waivers (I could be wrong) but if still it works as it is supposed to...) but a shore/ land-based one should be large enough to do so.
For the slag we turn them into new batteries, and even if not the plasma converter, a furnace would do as below:
Delete"First, the battery is crushed into tiny pieces. The small pieces are then sorted, placed in a furnace, and heated to extremely high temperatures. This causes the metal and chemical compounds in the battery to liquefy.
The molten lithium is separated from the other metals, cooled, and cast into new batteries."
https://greenerideal.com/guides/battery-recycling/
Also for the old reactor components the plasma converter should be able to take care of them as shown below:
Delete"Plasma gasification would destroy or render inert any harmful material."
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/plasma-converter6.htm
"The molten lithium is separated from the other metals, cooled, and cast into new batteries."
DeleteSo, another entirely new industry from scratch?
How do you separate and cast new lithium batteries? I'm assuming you do so with conventional furnaces? You see that you're not producing clean energy, you're just changing the point in the process where you deal with 'dirty' energy, right? There's no such thing as free energy in regards to the environment. You simply change the points where you impact the environment.
Have you thought about the electrical demands of hundreds of millions of vehicles, by the way? That energy isn't free in terms of impact.
"old reactor components the plasma converter"
DeleteThere's no plasma converter large enough to take a whole reactor containment vessel so I assume you envision somehow cutting a radioactive vessel into smaller parts? How do you envision that happening without undue safety risks and further contamination? I assume the plasma converter itself would quickly become radioactive, too, as would all the handling equipment.
Have you seen any actual example of a radioactive object being subjected to plasma conversion?
You're glossing over a LOT of challenges!
This is a chicken and the egg issue. Until all the new processes and supporting industries are created, it's simply not possible to make all navy ships nuclear. That's the practical reality. So, by all means, work towards your vision but in the meantime most ships will have to remain conventionally powered.
DeleteBy the way, we're already struggling - and failing - to deal with the old reactors from subs and carriers.
From another 'How Stuff Works' article,
Delete" The only waste that a plasma converter can't break down is heavy radioactive material, such as the rods used in a nuclear reactor. If you put such material in a plasma furnace, it would probably catch on fire or even explode."
It is unknown which radioactive components would or would not be suitable for conversion. I'm guessing that none would due to the associated radiation contamination.
...And we go back to recycling those old rods which the plasma converter doesn't recycle as in the links I gave above, again, what am I missing here? We once put people on the moon and into space, I do not really see what is preventing this except politics.
DeleteThe energy comes from the nuclear reactors that we were supposed to have finished but never done so like the ones below:
Deletehttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032010/undoing-mothballs-long-abandoned-nuclear-reactors-eyed-restart/
Or we build new reactors depending on what is needed.
Heck we get radioactive waste from oil and gas but no one complaints about it do to politics which sadly surrounds nuclear which is why we have trouble recycling even our nuclear ships and reactor materials:
Deletehttps://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-waste-material-oil-and-gas-drilling
" I do not really see what is preventing this except politics."
DeleteEconomics. At the moment, plasma conversion of waste is not economical. It's as simple as that.
Yes, and economics is also why we let our military degrade during peacetime because the money and resources would better be spent elsewhere.
DeleteIt is usually smarter to plan for the future instead of letting economics dictate everything, like the joke of the "con" in economics that you may sometimes find around economic sciences.
I should add the radioactive slag from recycling nuclear reactors components (the not-rods and things that could not be used for nuclear recycling) using plasma converters and/or furnaces should be use for robots and other items to maintain and repair new nuclear reactors and the robots be controlled by radiation hardened computers like below:
Delete"HPE created system software to mitigate negative impacts of radiation on computer reliability. In the past, computers have been physically “hardened” to protect against radiation coming from such sources as solar flares and cosmic radiation subatomic particles. Physical hardening takes time and money, and adds weight; therefore, this innovative software approach could have a huge impact on the computing capabilities of future space exploration missions."
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/b4h-3rd/eds-new-approach-radiation-hardening
And yes, we should be building new infrastructures to fully exploit the technologies mentioned because the old nuclear infrastructures, like for nuclear submarines, are getting shut down as shown below:
"The dry docks, three at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Wash., and the delta pier at the Trident Refit Facility in Bangor, Wash., are still certified to overhaul nuclear submarines, but the Navy has decided to keep the dry docks empty pending further investigation."
https://news.usni.org/2023/01/27/navy-closes-4-puget-sound-submarine-dry-docks-following-earthquake-risk-study
Maybe piggyback the battery recycling infrastructures off the new infrastructures we will need if we are smart.
Also economics is why wind turbines continue work well in Antarctica but not in Texas when bad weather hits as shown below, because it is not economical. It's as simple as that.
Delete(and I should add it is not how I would want my country to be run, some, or even you, maybe, but not me)
" However, wind turbines are operating in frigid places like Antarctica, Norway, the North Sea, and Sweden. How are these turbines able to operate, but those in Texas are not?"
Thus in Texas:
"Add-ons to wind turbines add to the cost of the turbine. Texas is traditionally not a frigid environment, so it may not have seemed worth the investment to equip their turbines for the cold."
https://www.firetrace.com/fire-protection-blog/wind-turbines-in-antarctica-but-not-in-texas
From ComNavOps:
Delete"How do you separate and cast new lithium batteries? I'm assuming you do so with conventional furnaces? You see that you're not producing clean energy, you're just changing the point in the process where you deal with 'dirty' energy, right? There's no such thing as free energy in regards to the environment. You simply change the points where you impact the environment.
Have you thought about the electrical demands of hundreds of millions of vehicles, by the way? That energy isn't free in terms of impact."
Of course the energy is not "free" (where did I mention anything was "free"?) and we also separate plasma converter for nuclear and for recycling things like car batteries with government, or a trusted third, maybe private company make sure they stay separated. As for how the materials are actually separated: the high temperature and the natural reactions under those temperature would take care of most of the work for us, we just need to collect the finished product much like how steel is purified from iron ores and you have pig iron and the actual purified steel or similar to ways of refining gold. Maybe we can even use economy of scale to our advantage to bring the overall cost down as the plasma converter for nuclear and batteries are to remain separated. For energy we finish the unfinished reactors from the "American nuclear renaissance" that appears to be stalled below:
"Then there were setbacks. First came the global financial crisis, which flattened the demand for electricity. Then fracking flooded the market with cheap natural gas. Renewable energy — especially wind power — also got more competitive."
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/06/541582729/how-the-dream-of-americas-nuclear-renaissance-failed-to-materialize
Note that I would prefer nuclear energy to wind power to power out future.
From ComNavOps:
Delete"It is unknown which radioactive components would or would not be suitable for conversion. I'm guessing that none would due to the associated radiation contamination."
Of course the radioactive products from nuclear recycling should be kept closed-loop in for nuclear applications like used for robotics to keep the new reactors running and working correctly hence we should keep the system for recycling nuclear and car batteries separated. For robotic control we use radiation hardened electronics like below using the stuff from old reactors thus taking care of the components from the old now-useless reactors for manufacturing those robotics:
"The most radiation-hardened electronics can survive levels of radiation that are hundreds of thousands of times greater than what a human can survive, more than a million rads."
https://spectrum.ieee.org/radiationhardening-101
Here you can find an interesting article about the SP
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-government-use-strategic-petroleum-reserve
Looking at the data about the SPR it seems that till about 2001 the stockpioe was never more than 80% full. The 2002 drawdown has been unprecedetent. The SPR has a series of problems, according to some the infrastrucutre should need sole srrious investment as it is getting old. They should have started to refill slowly to avoid price spikes around last christmas.
Starting to fill it up now even to about 70% of capacity would mean that the price would incraese as OPEC would surely cut production to increase it's earnings.
On the other hand hurricane season will be starting soon with possible further drawdowns.
As much as it is a caso of political mismanagemtn it's a case of institutional inflexibility as the rules governing the SPR are to rigid and too dependent on Condgress and POTUS.
Don't think the big issue is oil, its more refining capacity as far as I understand the problem. We have plenty of coal, oil, NG,etc its just not always easy to use it, saw somewhere USA has been energy independent since 2005 BUT that doesn't necessarily mean that we have all the energy we need to consume or that its cheaper than buying it from somewhere else. Its 2 different issues.
ReplyDelete"refining capacity"
DeleteThe US refining capacity is somewhere around 18M barrels per day according to a quick glance around the Internet. The US consumes around 20M barrels per day.
It's what we can refine, we don't refine our own oil, we sell that stuff and buy the stuff that's easier to refine for US. Same goes really for transmission lines, we need far more capacity and redundancy than really new power plants. We have plenty of energy sources if we tap them properly and manage to send it properly.
DeleteLooking into this, our proven oil reserves have increased from around 25 billion barrels to around 40 to 45 billion barrels. That would suggest our strategic reserve is not as important as it was previously. I know I'm simplifying this subject dramatically, but there are more parts to this that just the strategic reserve.
ReplyDelete"That would suggest our strategic reserve is not as important as it was previously"
DeleteWe could have a trillion barrels of untapped oil and they'd be pointless for what the strategic oil reserve was intended to do which is act as an emergency source of oil in the event of war or similar catastrophe. How much oil we could produce over the next thousand years is utterly immaterial as regards the reserve.
Given the INCREASED demands for oil by the military in the event of war, the oil reserve is MORE IMPORTANT than ever. We should fill the reserve and increase its size since, even full, it can only supply around 30-45 days of oil, if I recall.
Sure. But if a fraction of that additional 20 billion barrels of oil are as accessible as pumping out of the reserve, then the next constraint really becomes refinery capacity - where I understand it a choke point.
DeleteI'm reading that the purchases for replenishment are ongoing (at a lower purchase price than the price of sales were from the reserve), and congressional mandated sales are being frozen.
It gets even worse as refineries are designed to use only certain types of crude oil. The Gulf Coast refineries for example are “complex” refineries that require heavy oil from Venezuela or Canada. “Simple” refineries can’t handle heavy oil.
DeleteIn situ reserves really matter. I’ve spent a lot of time in Canadian shale, and you can punch a high producing well in next to no time. Think 3-5 days, rig move to rig move.
DeleteUS shale is just the same. Sure, there are supply chain issues with drilling and completing a well, but they pale into insignificance compared to building a new carrier.
So to say you have to have the entire strategic reserve in surface storage is simply wrong. Knowing where it is underground and how to get at it fast is a big asset.
"So to say you have to have the entire strategic reserve in surface storage is simply wrong. "
DeleteActually, I believe most of it is stored underground in Salt Domes, a geologic structure near the Gulf coast.
"Think 3-5 days, rig move to rig move."
DeleteYou're hand-waving away a LOT of challenges and problems. These include, post-processing of the shale in order to obtain refinable oil, the grades that are produced, the regulatory aspects that are often nearly insurmountable, the Federal oversight requirements, the transportation access and issues, the court/legal challenges from the people who inevitably are against any drilling, etc.
One would hope that in the event of war, some of the challenges could be reduced/waived but that's just a hope, not a certainty. In contrast, stored oil, ready for refining, provides an IMMEDIATE source on a short term, emergency basis. Thus, a 30+ day emergency oil supply is a prudent and necessary requirement.
I’m hand waving away nothing. I’ve spent 25 years in this industry spread around the world, and another 20 in front line IT on top of my naval service. If we get serious about in situ extraction, we can ramp up production faster than you can comprehend. There is no “processing of the shale”. A well produces anything from light sweet crude to sour bitumen depending on location.
DeleteTrust me. The oil industry is capable of ramping up production much faster than we can build ships or aircraft to use that production. Lack of fuel is not going to be a problem.
The reserves are there. We know how to extract them fast and efficiently. The only issue is going to be refinery capacity as it’s surrounded by “not in my back yard” when it comes to building new ones. Same problem in Canada btw.
Australia also stores it's reserves in the US reserves. We also require companies to keep 1 month of each type of refined fuel.
ReplyDeleteI was unaware of that practice. It makes the US strategic reserve even smaller, in effect, by whatever amount Australia has on hold.
Delete"Australia also stores it's reserves in the US reserves"
DeleteThis seems strategically questionable to me. The reserves are there largely in case of war. But if they're stored in the US, that means that, during wartime, they would have to be transported across the ocean to get to Australia. In a war with China (the most likely war causing existential risk for Australia) that seems extremely risky.
This is a political fix to remove our almost non existence fuel storage as a political problem. Store it where we can't use but the opposition can't attack you.
DeleteGood news is the US will be able to use it.
The US Government is building quite a few fuel farms in Australia for B-52s and ships.
"This is a political fix"
DeleteH.L. Mencken, an American commentator in the first half of the 20th century (who was kinda a curmudgeon) once said
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
I guess it doesn't only apply to America !!
Like every nation, the US must manage its affairs to become self-sufficient in the 4 strategic necessities to sustain its population:
ReplyDelete1) Food
2) Energy
3) Military Defense
4) Various Strategic Materials
Where self sufficiency is impossible, or highly impracticable, it creates the only real need to enter into formal alliances with another country. In other words, instead of self-sufficiency we must aim for resource 'security'. And our national strategic posture must reflect that fact.
We require a SPR because we are NOT self-sufficient in oil. Thankfully, we do have secure supplies from Mexico and Canada to make up most of the difference. On the other hand, our relationship with Venezuela has deteriorated so much we don't import from them anymore. Their petroleum producing infrastructure has collapsed as a result, thus making us even LESS secure. We can hate on Chavez & Maduro all we want, but our strategic supplies of energy must ALWAYS take precedent over politics. This is the essence of good diplomacy: crafting a beneficial Modus Vivendi even with people you hate.
There are also several Strategic Materials we are managing even worse than oil. Steel, Aluminum, and several others are vulnerable. Natural Rubber supplies could be secured by requiring importers to source from Liberia (a country we created and an industry we set up there during WWII) or various countries in the Caribbean Basin. Instead, almost all our supplies come from vulnerable sources near China.