A Partnership between
Corn-Ethanol and Nuclear Energy

Samuel Rosenbloom

Going to college in the 70's and 80's was interesting. I remember when I decided to become a nuclear engineer, it was a short time after the Three Mile Island nuclear mishap and the oil crisis and memories of gas lines were still fresh. I remember vividly having conversations with my friends about solar energy as if this were an option…. something I could actually study at the University of Maryland. There seemed to be a ready debate about future energy options yet the course catalog was pretty bare.

Ironically, the University of Maryland was historically known as an agricultural school. I would walk to classes through what looked like a small farm with cows with little glass windows sewn into their stomach. I only know one person who studied agricultural science, I don't recall his name…I heard he moved to Israel. It is ironic that all these years later, the U.S. seems to have made a commitment to ethanol made from corn as a way of displacing as much imported oil as possible. I don't mean to imply that this is the only commitment, but it seems to be a major emphasis. It is ironic because corn was on that farm at the University of Maryland. It is ironic because growing corn is a form of solar energy.

My children have sometimes asked me why we can't run a car on a nuclear energy. Conventional thought brings electric cars to mind. I know electric cars aren't what they mean, they want a little nuclear device under the hood so you can add a drop of nuclear fuel and drive it a hundred thousand miles or so. It's difficult answering a child's questions about the nuclear car engine. Recently though, I've thought a lot about ethanol. Why hasn't the ethanol industry been nuclearized? For a while, I worked in the Department of Energy's hydrogen program and I'd like to think I was helpful in promoting the idea of nuclear energy's potential role in hydrogen production. Unlike nuclear hydrogen that sometimes resembles science fiction, ethanol production from corn seems fairly straightforward. I'm thinking, it must be like a magician's illusion; the mind must be playing tricks. I know what I see but I don't see what I know.

I know that nuclear power plants produce a lot of steam to turn turbines that turn electrical generators. I also know that ethanol production facilities use steam to process and distill ethanol. It also appears that the major topic of national debate on ethanol revolves around the question of how much energy it takes to make a gallon of it. This debate will go on for a while as it does not seem likely it will be resolved soon. Making ethanol from corn also makes an animal feed co-product and much of the controversy deals with the amount of credit for the co-product. Interestingly, I haven't seen a proposed credit for the imported oil that is displaced by ethanol. I don't know why? My guess is that it is hard to assign a BTU value for the societal benefit received for each barrel of imported oil avoided. How many BTUs is being less dependent on foreign oil worth? How many BTUs equals the U.S. military investment in resources used to keep Middle East oil flowing? I don't know the answer to these societal questions and as they say….its above my pay grade.

Commercial nuclear reactors produce energy in the form of steam in the range of about 250 billion BTUs per day or about 90 trillion BTUs per year. Depending on whose figures you use, process energy per gallon of ethanol is either 49.7 or 56.5 thousand BTUs. For calculation's sake we will use 50 k just to keep the math simple. Therefore, a single nuclear reactor that produces no greenhouse gases could provide the process energy for 5 million gallons of ethanol per day or about 1.8 billion gallons per year. Some nuclear stations have two reactors per site. So for a site calculation, just multiply these numbers by two. An initial approach might be to use only a small fraction of a reactor's output to power an ethanol facility. Those unfamiliar with nuclear engineering might ask themselves, what type of nuclear reactor would this be? The answer is simple, the same type of reactors that are currently licensed and operating. Existing technology is perfectly fine. I might add that these are the same reactors that are currently located in the U.S. Corn Belt, sometimes literally in the middle of corn fields.

Process energy for ethanol production from corn is currently provided by fossil fuels. There are no technical, regulatory, economic or geographic barriers as to why an ethanol production facility couldn't be powered by a nuclear utility. It goes without saying; the nuclear utility can supply any electricity requirements as well. Ethanol production from corn requires steam and nuclear utilities know how to make it. Well, what are we waiting for? The U.S. DOE is located right next door to the U.S.DA. It shouldn't be that hard to have a meeting between the two Departments leading this effort. Other government regulatory agencies should be engaged in the process as early as possible. The barriers are largely institutional. Government policy makers work in their comfort zones and for whatever reason it is difficult even working within their own agency on a multi-disciplinary problem. Does the ten year plan for biomass or genetically engineered cellulosic fermentation include synergizing with nuclear energy? It's difficult to answer that question here because it painful to see it in black and white. But these barriers can be overcome; the first step is to recognize them. The second step is already done, get smart people. The DOE workforce already has some of the smartest people in the country. The government can set this program in motion. Policy makers should be asking; what financial incentives does the government already have in place e.g. loans, grants, tax incentives that can be leveraged to help jump start this important plan? A lead office should be established to coordinate these activities government wide.

It would be interesting to do a cost comparison between fossil fuel and nuclear energy from both the utility and production perspective. That might be the topic for a follow up article (if I am invited to write one). I hope that one day in the not so distant future; I can give my children a tour of a nuclear powered ethanol production facility and show them how nuclear energy provides motor fuel for their car.

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