MIT's Charles Forsberg has a new ambitious idea: He proposes marrying a nuclear powerplant with another energy system, which he argues could add up to much more than the sum of its parts.
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Energy Policy - Hybrid systems to address seasonal mismatches between electricity production and demand in nuclear renewable electrical grids
The last of these ideas would locate a nuclear plant near a deposit of oil shale — a type of deposit, technically known as kerogen, that has not been used to date as a source of petroleum. Heated steam from a nuclear plant, in enclosed pipes, heats the shale; the resulting oil can be pumped out by conventional means.
At first glance, that might sound like a "dirty" solution, enabling the use of more carbon-emitting fuel. But Forsberg suggests that it's quite the opposite: "When you heat it up, it decomposes into a very nice light crude oil, and natural gas, and char," he explains. The char — the tarlike residue that needs to be refined out from heavy crude oils — stays underground, he says.
Today, the heating of the rock is usually accomplished by burning fossil fuels, making the process less efficient. That's where the excess heat from a nuclear plant comes in: By coupling the plant's steam output with a shale-oil well, the oil can be recovered without generating extra emissions. The process also does not need regular heat input: The nuclear plant can operate at a steady rate, providing electricity to the grid when needed, and heating oil shale at times of low electricity demand. This enables the nuclear plant to replace the burning of fossil fuels in producing electricity, further reducing the release of greenhouse gas.
The world's largest oil-shale deposits are concentrated in the western United States. "We lucked out," Forsberg says. "This has the lowest carbon footprint of any source of liquid fossil fuel."
The resource that could be unlocked is enormous, he says: "Some of these deposits would yield a million barrels per acre. There's no place else on Earth like it."
Steven Aumeier, director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at the Idaho National Laboratory, says, "Many times the most formative game-changing approaches are not single new technologies, but rather novel ways of combining technologies. Hybrid energy systems could be a game-changing approach in enabling the cost-effective, secure, and high penetration of low-carbon energy into the economy." Aumeier adds that such systems would "afford a practical and regionally scalable means of using an 'all of the above' approach to energy security."
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Energy Policy - Hybrid systems to address seasonal mismatches between electricity production and demand in nuclear renewable electrical grids
The last of these ideas would locate a nuclear plant near a deposit of oil shale — a type of deposit, technically known as kerogen, that has not been used to date as a source of petroleum. Heated steam from a nuclear plant, in enclosed pipes, heats the shale; the resulting oil can be pumped out by conventional means.
At first glance, that might sound like a "dirty" solution, enabling the use of more carbon-emitting fuel. But Forsberg suggests that it's quite the opposite: "When you heat it up, it decomposes into a very nice light crude oil, and natural gas, and char," he explains. The char — the tarlike residue that needs to be refined out from heavy crude oils — stays underground, he says.
Today, the heating of the rock is usually accomplished by burning fossil fuels, making the process less efficient. That's where the excess heat from a nuclear plant comes in: By coupling the plant's steam output with a shale-oil well, the oil can be recovered without generating extra emissions. The process also does not need regular heat input: The nuclear plant can operate at a steady rate, providing electricity to the grid when needed, and heating oil shale at times of low electricity demand. This enables the nuclear plant to replace the burning of fossil fuels in producing electricity, further reducing the release of greenhouse gas.
The world's largest oil-shale deposits are concentrated in the western United States. "We lucked out," Forsberg says. "This has the lowest carbon footprint of any source of liquid fossil fuel."
The resource that could be unlocked is enormous, he says: "Some of these deposits would yield a million barrels per acre. There's no place else on Earth like it."
Steven Aumeier, director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at the Idaho National Laboratory, says, "Many times the most formative game-changing approaches are not single new technologies, but rather novel ways of combining technologies. Hybrid energy systems could be a game-changing approach in enabling the cost-effective, secure, and high penetration of low-carbon energy into the economy." Aumeier adds that such systems would "afford a practical and regionally scalable means of using an 'all of the above' approach to energy security."
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