MOX to MIX: Towards a new energy future
Controversy over France's energy future by opposing “nuclear” to “renewable energies” is now sterile and unsuitable. The two can be complementary. But over a period of 20 years, because everything will depend on the flexible transition from MOX to MIX, the fuel for energy-efficient de-plants. MOX is a fuel composed of 93% depleted uranium and 7% plutonium. Mixed with enriched uranium, it powers 20 nuclear reactors in France. MOX will be 100% fuel for the EPR under construction. I call “MIX” the interconnected set of direct renewable energies and indirect energy sources, including energy savings, energy efficiency and storage. They are also sources of energy - "negawatts" - because any energy not consumed corresponds, "in the air", to a source of production, a "negasource". The Earth permanently receives 120.000 terawatts of energy from the sun. Or in one hour - if this energy were fully recoverable (in photovoltaic, thermal, wind or biomass form) - the world energy needs for a whole year. Our current lifestyle uses 18 terawatts, two-thirds of which are wasted. The MIX includes ten main components: 1-Solar photovoltaic; 2-thermal solar (CSP, concentrated solar) 1; 3-biomass (wood pellets, agricultural waste, urban waste); 4-biogas (fermentation of organic waste); 5-geothermal energy; 6-wind power (offshore, onshore, urban); 7-hydraulics (underwater turbines using energy from sea currents); 8-hydroelectric (turbines in a river, dams and waterfalls); 9-energy of tides and waves; 10-thermal energy of seas (ETM) (temperature difference between the surface and the water of the depths). In addition to these direct sources, improvements in energy efficiency (engine efficiency), energy savings (insulating materials, heat pumps, Canadian wells, etc.), smart meters, and storage means for energy: wind pumping of water in high-altitude reservoirs to turn turbines in the absence of wind; underground storage of compressed air supplied by wind turbines (CAES - Compressed Air Energy Storage); lithium-ion battery silos; or compressed hydrogen from solar electrolysis of water (hydrogen can be considered as "canned" solar energy).
The MIX mainly produces electricity, provided that the various sources and "negasources" mentioned are connected to an intelligent grid for distribution and storage, capable of adapting to supply, demand, day, at night, in summer, in winter and in different geographic areas. An "energy Internet", a "smart grid". With this intelligent grid, any form of electricity produced becomes compatible: photovoltaics, wind, electricity supplied by stationary electric cars (V2G, vehicle to grid), mini hydroelectric plants. Sources which today disrupt the operation of the passive electricity transmission network. Note that nuclear power is not absent from the MIX and the smart grid. Rather than mega central 1.600 MW or EPR, it will be possible to connect to the grid of small modular reactors (Small Modular Reactors or SMR) of 300 MW, buried and secure. Future nuclear power plants using a new fuel, thorium, could also be linked to the smart grid.
The choices will be decisive for the next 50 years, as were those of the 50s for the “all nuclear”. Will France invest tens of billions of euros to ensure the security of the old plants, build giant plants running on MOX and dismantle the old ones, while continuing to reprocess fuels and store waste ? Or will it also invest, and now, in the MIX and the smart grid to gradually and flexibly get out of nuclear power? Such a strategy would lead to a new era, to a real societal transformation: the advent of an energy democracy. With the massive creation of jobs in the various components and modules of the MIX, the empowerment of citizens, the sale of electricity in P2P (between individuals or peer to peer), the development of an eco-energy 2.0, similar to Web 2.0, with the participation of users and the association of small energy producers in a “long train” of energy. The marriage of digital and energy opens up to what I call eco-mobility. Thanks to the automobile, automobility revolutionized the XNUMXth century. Thanks to the Smartphone (digital equivalent of the automobile), infomobility contributes to the construction of XNUMXst century society based on new forms of human relationships. However, we are still passive and assisted citizens in the face of energy. As before, facing our television, when with the ORTF we only had one channel. The nuclear and oil lobbies repeat to us: "Pay at the meter or at the pump, we take care of the rest". The “return to the candle”, the loss of industrial competitiveness, the job cuts, the relocation of factories, the exorbitant prices of electricity, are put forward by certain leaders of the political and industrial world. The President of the Republic recently recalled: “Nuclear power (…) is France. " We could supplement this declaration with the following: "MIX is the world!" "
Let’s trust energy democracy. Let us be the “Indignant” of the “prescribed” energy. Let us promote and develop eco-mobility. Let's build a society of exchange, sharing, solidarity, creativity and energy innovation. And not a society subject to the power of a few, political or industrial. The energy revolution is now. It is not technical but citizen. Our children's future is MIX, not MOX.
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1 Mirrors focus energy on the top of a tower comprising a solar collector and a steam turbine, with 24-hour heat conservation thanks to molten salts.
For details, read also the one I wrote in 2008: https://www.econologie.com/energies-du-f ... -3750.html