My perspective about future energy resources

My perspective about future energy resources

B0601196

              Global warming is a serious problem nowadays. According to Al Gore’s movie The Inconvenient Truth, most of the scientists in the world agree with this idea. At the same time, we are facing the energy crisis. Therefore it is important for us to think about how to sustain our planet with clean renewable energy. Through the field trip to the Rokkasho Next Generation Energy Park, I could learn a lot of complicated but interesting and useful information to solve this one of the serious global environmental issue even though some of them are still problematic and very controversial. In this paper, I would like to organize what I learned in the Rokkasho Village, and to look at the merit and demerit of the each energy recourse: 1) Fossil Fuel, 2) Wind Power, 3) Nuclear Power, and 4) Fusion Energy respectively and then consider about the direction that we should take toward the future from my point of view. 

Fossil Fuel

First of all, it is obvious that our life and our economy are depending on fossil fuel which is a precious natural resource very much now.  About 50~60% of Japanese electricity comes from thermal power system which uses fossil fuel but Japan imports almost all of the fossil fuel from other countries. Through the oil crisis, triggered by the Middle East War in 1973, Japan Noticed that depending energy resources on importing is quite unstable and risky for national security and decided to stockpile petroleum in the Mutsu-Ogawara National Petroleum Stockpiling Base and other 9 National Petroleum Stockpiling Bases to take all measures necessary for release of oil in emergency. According to Miss. Ogase in the base, we can get 12 days necessary oil for entire Japan from this base. On the 2,400,000-square-meter site, there are the 51 storage tanks. Those tanks were very large and each one of them had almost as tall as a 4-story building.

Each country is struggling to find more stable resources in the world. Many countries are now trying to get more oil by drilling offshore. However, the problem is that fossil fuel is running out. We are under the extreme pressure of shortage of energy recourse. Even bigger problem of using fossil fuel is of course CO2 emission. This green house gas brings the global warming forward rapidly and causes other global issues such as loss of the land area as sea levels rise, change of ecosystem, deforestation, and desertification and so on. Thus I believe that we should stop using fossil fuel as soon as possible and look for renewable energy for our future. 

Wind Power

Wind power is one of the widely watched renewable energy resources. When I visited the Mutsu-Ogawara wind farm, I saw many wind turbines there. Those white, tall, and huge wind turbines were left with overwhelming impression on me. I thought the view which those white towers standing on the grassland, was so beautiful. I have seen those wind turbines before in my home prefecture; Yamagata. However this was my first time to look at the whole of them and study about it precisely. They are all much taller than I expected and much heavier for its looks. Their blades are imported from Denmark, and they are made by fiberglass therefore it must be lighter. It was very amazing that they will stop the rotor if the wind speed became slower than 3km/s and also they can adjust their directions depending on the wind.

There were 21 wind turbines in the farm and each one of them generates 1,500kW which would cover about 750 to 800 household. In this wind farm, they generate approximately 5,800,000 kWH electricity which might cut about 43,000T/yr CO2 off. I have been thinking if we could get energy from nature without exhaling any green house gasses, it would be fantastic and we don't have to worry about energy shortage anymore. Then what is the problem of this technology? The answer is that this technology wouldn't be out of proportion to the benefit. When it comes to value for money, they cannot generate enough energy. That is why even though wind power is a remarkable renewable energy resource, they cannot replace the thermal power system.

Nuclear Power

Nuclear Power Plant and other related facilities are the one which have gotten a lot of attention recently because this is also one of the renewable energy resource and controversial technology. Nuclear power plant occupies 30% of the Japan’s electricity generation now. My image about the Nuclear Power Plant was that it does not generate CO2 but once some accidents happened, it will kill a lot of people, and damage huge area.

The whole process of generating electricity using nuclear power was not easy. There are many steps to produce electricity and recycle it again. First, they convert uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), then in uranium concentration plant they enrich uranium from 0.7% to 3~5%. After this, they make nuclear fuel assembly called pellet which is a black, 1cm high column-shaped thing. In the nuclear power plant they generate electric energy from this pellet. One pellet can generate about 8 months’ electricity per one family which consist of 4 members. After 3~5 years of use, they will be sent to the reprocessing plant. 97% of them would be recycled. The reprocessing plant has an ability to deal with about 800t of the used pellets.

Nuclear fuel reprocessing is under the research in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facilities in Rokkasho village. They take out plutonium or uranium from the nuclear fuel which was already used in the Nuclear power generating station and make it into MOX fuel (Mixed Oxide Fuel), then use it again as a fuel. There are two types of natural uranium, which does nuclear fission; Uranium 235 and which doesn’t fission; Uranium 238, and only 0.7% of them is the Uranium 235. However, Uranium 238 can be changed into plutonium 239 reacting neutron in the atomic pile. After that, they put it into fast breeder:FBR and burn it. At this point, if they put Uranium 238 around the Plutonium together, they would be able to change the Uranium 238 into new plutonium at the same time, and produce more plutonium.

Since this reprocessing would be able to reduce the radioactivity of the waste Japanese government is making efforts to promote the research. Furthermore, the political situation of the countries which have a lot of uranium are relatively stable, therefore the security risks are low. Now, the Rokkasho village is taking care of the low level radio-active waste. Japanese government and Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO)  now is looking for local governments which can allow having dumping grounds for radioactive wastes. They are aiming to decide some places by 2040. Since this is a big issue for all of us, each of us has to take this issue seriously and take some part of responsibilities. The advantage and risk of nuclear power are opposite side of the same coin. In the Rokkasho Visitors Center, they are making a lot of effort to let people know more about what the nuclear power is in detail. I think that the nuclear power plants are going to become the major source of electricity in next 50 years until the nuclear fusion power plant would be established. Until then, we have to learn about nuclear fission and radiation more, and support our energy supply.

Fusion Energy

To tell the truth, I didn’t know about the nuclear fusion at all until this field trip. I can say that this would be a dream energy resource for human beings in the future if they could generate electricity from this technology successfully. The process and the technology are very complicated and difficult to understand for me. My brief interpretation of this technology is that making small sun on the earth and getting energy from it. Nuclear fusion doesn’t emit radial ray or CO2 either. We can get the resources from the ocean. I think that the success of this project would be the key of solving the energy problem especially in Japan. Japan is surrounded by ocean and we don’t have many natural resources in country, therefore if we could use this technology in the future, we don’t have to suffer from the energy shortage anymore.  

Many countries such as EU, the US, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, and India are now working on this biggest scientific project in the world together. This means that more than 80% of the world population is supporting this project. I like this concept that many countries work hard on the global issue hand in hand. Europe is taking care of 20% of the major components of ITER, and 10% for other each country. I’m proud of that Japan is playing an important role in this project using well developed engineering and physics. Thanks to the detailed handout and well-organized presentation by two professors, I could roughly understand what is going on in the research center now and how to get energy from nuclear fusion. The only problems are that it costs a lot and takes decades to establish the DEMO reactor. I don’t know how much money they need exactly but I guess it would be hundreds of millions. I think this is the valuable principal investment but we always have to think about the balance of present life and the future life.

Conclusion

              In this paper, I briefly organized what I have learned in the Rokkasho Village, and discussed about the merit and demerit of the each energy recourse: 1) Fossil Fuel, 2) Wind Power, 3) Nuclear Power, and 4) Fusion Energy respectively.  As my conclusion, I would like to consider about the direction that we should take toward the future from my point of view.  As I already mentioned above, when we talk about this energy issue, we always should think about the balance of now and future. Fossil fuel is running out. Global warming is going on and the earth is jeopardized. These are the unchangeable facts.  I think that especially in next 50 years, we have to work on shifting energy resources into renewable energy resource and use the nuclear power plants and other technology with well balance. However, when it comes to the nuclear power, I still cannot fully agree with using this technology. Even though we can recycle the uranium, we still have to manage the wastes which would be really harmful if they leaked out.

              I mostly talked about how to get safer and more efficient energy until here, but I think we have to think about resolving underlying discrepancy. I mean only focusing on how to generate more energy and how about how reduce the carbon dioxide emission by CCS cannot solve the problem at the root. Therefore, we have to think about how to use energy less and how to cut CO2 emission off. Using more “eco-products”, trying to divide garbage then recycle things more, turning off electricity when it is not necessary and so on would be the effective way to face to the issue, for example. Even though each effort is small and seems useless, but I am sure that these kind of “acting locally” will help to solve the global issue eventually.