Executive Summary

The Nuclear Assisted Hydrocarbon Production Method

            The major problems associated with spent nuclear fuel are:

• it generates heat which can over the long-term break down the crystalline structure of rock in which it is placed and can induce hydrothermal convection that can transport hazardous material back to the biosphere;

• removing the heat producing plutonium and other long-lived elements from the waste is expensive and creates a proliferation risk; and

• the process of radiolysis can break down water into hydrogen and oxygen which can detrimentally react with spent fuel bundles and their containers.

            These liabilities are assets in terms of producing and upgrading North America’s unconventional oil deposits.

            Hydrogen released by the process of radiolysis and the heat generated by a repository within an unconventional formation would over turn the equilibrium of the system and contribute both to the in situ cracking and mobilization of synthetic oil. The high-energy flux of spent nuclear fuel in a heavy oil or bitumen will fracture (upgrade) a portion of the long chain kerogen molecules in an unconventional formation to form oil and gas.

            These resources could be exploited in a similar fashion to the proven Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage Method used to mobilize viscous bitumen with repositories substituting for the steam chambers or for Shell’s heaters in their In situ Conversion Process for developing the Green River shale.

            The best long-term permeability data for moderately deep systems are to be derived from older rocks carrying significant deposits of oil and gas. Such rocks are invariably of sedimentary origin, and it is for sediments that the most reliable data on fluid flow are at present to be found. The fact that oil and gas, often under significant pressure, are found in these formations is proof of the containment properties of sedimentary rock.

            Instead of expensively expanding the volume of a repository to dissipate the thermal load of spent fuel as is considered for the U.S. Yucca Mountain site, repositories within an unconventional oil formation would be compacted to maximize the available heat. The constraint would be the potential for a criticality.

            In compliance with the purpose of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to keep plutonium containing spent fuel out of the hands of non weapons states or actors it should be returned to North America as a resource for the development of the heavy oil, oil sands or oil shale resources extant.

            Instead of consuming valuable and CO2 generating resources to produce these reserves the waste heat of spent nuclear fuel can and should be utilized.

            According to a U.S. Department of Energy report, the initial heat produced by U.S. nuclear waste will be on the order of 30 to 50 times the heat flux in the Geysers geothermal reservoir in California. According to The California Energy Commission, Geothermal Energy in California website, in 2007 California produced 13,000 gigawatt-hours of geothermal energy. Assuming the conservative estimate of 30 times this amount of heat flux for U.S. nuclear waste, 390,000 gigawatt-hours of energy is produced annually by U.S. waste. This is close to half of the power output by America’s operational reactors (806.5 billion kilowatt-hours (bkWh in 2007).

            390,000 gigawatt-hours is the equivalent of 219,956,237.507 barrels of fuel oil (US). The energy return on investment for SAGD is 5.2/1 therefore the heat flux of America’s nuclear waste has the potential to produce over a billion barrels of synthetic oil annually.

            The U.S. has approximately a quarter of the global inventory of spent nuclear fuel therefore the potential exists for the development of significantly more unconventional deposits with imported spent fuel. Essentially America’s total oil demand could be met from the output from the global spent fuel inventory.

            The Henry Hub pricing point for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the week ended July 30, 2008 was $9.01 per MMBtu. 390,000 gigawatt-hours is the equivalent 1,330,735,236.9199 MMBtu so the waste heat of America’s spent nuclear fuel has the annual potential of $12 billion worth of Natural Gas. Burning a clean fuel [natural gas] to make a dirty fuel [from oil sands] has been characterized as a form of reverse alchemy. A far better use for natural gas is making electricity, home heating or as Boone Pickens advocates, transportation.

            Section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 prohibits a federal agency from entering into a contract for procurement of an alternative or synthetic fuel, including a fuel produced from unconventional petroleum sources, for any mobility-related use (other than for research or testing), unless the contract specifies that the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and combustion of the fuel supplied under the contract must, on an ongoing basis, be less than or equal to such emissions from the equivalent conventional fuel produced from conventional petroleum sources.

            No current technology for producing unconventional petroleum from heavy oil, oil sand or oil shale can meet this standard. The potential for developing North America’s unconventional oil using existing technology or selling unconventional oil produced with existing technology outside of the United States of America is therefore limited.

            It is evident that a less carbon intensive and more economical approach is needed to produce North America’s unconventional petroleum sources, particularly with oil at  $70/barrel.

The Problem

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