Apparently nuclear power is easy to do. 2030 it goes online, just announced today... talk about fast.

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

Chernobyl was FUBARed from day one due to void coefficient flaws and lack of understanding and training due to Soviet military secrets/dogma bullshit

Ah, RBMK. The dangers of a graphite fire and a steam explosion in the same machine. Brilliant

 

[the54thvoid]

Just a little post to ask @damric and @Endymio to take the Nuclear sub discussion argument to PM, or to steer it in a way to benefit the OP discussion of small scale land-based plants. Neither of you seem any closer to agreeing, and the back-and-forth isn't helping the general thread.

 

[Chomiq]

From what I heard they still need official permissions so it's not a done deal yet. Also, yes nuclear power has been a thing for the past what? 70 years? Yup, 1954. Is it easy? Hell no.

And that's just the US in the past 24 years.

 

[Endymio]

ok so my coworker who died from leukemia, no relation to the cobalt-60, nor a care from the academic wing. got it thanks

A coworker and nuclear plant operator -- is by definition not a member of the general public. Nor is it likely that his leukemia was related to his occupation, given the extremely stringent dose limits set by the NRC. A janitor at Grand Central Station receives a higher annual radiation dose than do most plant operators, from the radiation found naturally in granite ... and the rad alarms at most nuclear plants are so sensitive that even bringing in a Brazil nut to the wrong place can set them off (Brazil nuts are one of the more radioactive foods we eat.)

thank god the academics aren't the ones on the regulatory commission deciding my maximum monthly REM

But that's exactly who does set those dosage levels -- the academics. One of my old classmates, in fact, served on an NRC advisory board for many years.

(accident list deleted)

And that's just the US in the past 24 years.

And yet not one of those incidents resulted in even one single death. Do you know how many people have died from accidents involving solar farms or windmills? Per MW-hr generated, they are orders of magnitude more deadly than nuclear power.

Just a little post to ask @damric and @Endymio to take the Nuclear sub discussion argument to PM, or to steer it in a way to benefit the OP discussion of small scale land-based plants

Apologies; just noticed this. More apopros to the thread is this. Not long after TMI, my thesis advisor began keeping a small cube of natural uranium on his desk. He stated it gave him -- each day -- a dose equivalent to the worst dose any member of the public was exposed to as a result of the accident. The last I heard, he kept it there until the day he retired.

The benefits of land-based nuclear power are inextricably intertwined with the levels of fear and ignorance surrounding the risks. We live daily in a constant bath of radiation, and simply moving from a low-altitude city like Miami to a high-altitude city like Denver will give you an annual dose increase as much as ten times higher than NRC "safe limits" for the public.

 

[Steevo]

A coworker and nuclear plant operator -- is by definition not a member of the general public. Nor is it likely that his leukemia was related to his occupation, given the extremely stringent dose limits set by the NRC. A janitor at Grand Central Station receives a higher annual radiation dose than do most plant operators, from the radiation found naturally in granite ... and the rad alarms at most nuclear plants are so sensitive that even bringing in a Brazil nut to the wrong place can set them off (Brazil nuts are one of the more radioactive foods we eat.)


But that's exactly who does set those dosage levels -- the academics. One of my old classmates, in fact, served on an NRC advisory board for many years.


And yet not one of those incidents resulted in even one single death. Do you know how many people have died from accidents involving solar farms or windmills? Per MW-hr generated, they are orders of magnitude more deadly than nuclear power.


Apologies; just noticed this. More apopros to the thread is this. Not long after TMI, my thesis advisor began keeping a small cube of natural uranium on his desk. He stated it gave him -- each day -- a dose equivalent to the worst dose any member of the public was exposed to as a result of the accident. The last I heard, he kept it there until the day he retired.

The benefits of land-based nuclear power are inextricably intertwined with the levels of fear and ignorance surrounding the risks. We live daily in a constant bath of radiation, and simply moving from a low-altitude city like Miami to a high-altitude city like Denver will give you an annual dose increase as much as ten times higher than NRC "safe limits" for the public.

Flying especially over the poles will get you a good dose of radiation, even at night.

The fear of nuclear was dramatically overstated by the coal, oil, and gas industry to remain profitable and in power. If we threw as many subsidies at Nuclear as we have the reast we would be energy independent, have cheap reliable power, and electric vehicles would be more feasible and better for the environment. It's the ONLY solution to our energy needs.

 

[mechtech]

Flying especially over the poles will get you a good dose of radiation, even at night.

The fear of nuclear was dramatically overstated by the coal, oil, and gas industry to remain profitable and in power. If we threw as many subsidies at Nuclear as we have the reast we would be energy independent, have cheap reliable power, and electric vehicles would be more feasible and better for the environment. It's the ONLY solution to our energy needs.

Well, large nuclear is one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive option for electricity. That's what the info in the OP is hoping to accomplish (well, one of the things) - less expensive electricity from SMR nuclear.

Electric vehicles, well there is a lot of mess from the mining and byproduct and refining to make the batteries, among other factors.

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

The main issue with city pollution is just a lack of mass transit or lack of use of mass transit...........at least most places in North America.

While nuclear may be the main, or possibly the only option in a lot of countries, some places like Iceland are lucky with geothermal, and the province of Quebec with hydro.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

Will the AI fad die before the reactor is built?

 

[Assimilator]

Ugh, I see the SMR scam has finally reared its ugly head here. Fission power generation requires economies of scale i.e. really fucking big power plants to be economically viable, and SMRs completely ignore that fundamental fact. SMR companies also love to handwave the incredibly thorny issue of waste generation and handling - it's incredibly telling that despite all the hype around this tech, which has been going on for decades in the West at this point, the only nations that have deployed SMRs are Russia and the PRC. You know, those bastions of capitalism and environmental protection.

SMRs are, just like blockchain and AI, yet another grift from private companies that want to get rich without having to take responsibility for the consequences. They are not ready for prime-time and probably never will be. They are not the answer to climate change or reliable baseload energy, but merely another greedy distraction from the actual technologies (big fission, solar, wind) that we've had for decades, that we know work, and that we should be building instead of wasting resources on cash grabs like SMRs.

If governments stopped letting private companies control their energy grids, and took on the responsibility of building, running and owning fission power plants instead of delegating that responsibility to the private sector because of the insanity doctrine of neliberalism, none of this would be a problem and we'd be living in a world where fission powers everything. Alas.

 

[Endymio]

Fission power generation requires economies of scale i.e. really fucking big power plants to be economically viable

Nonsense. The vast majority of fission power cost isn't in operational costs, but design and construction. SMRs benefit from economies of scale where the money is actually spent: by building small, standardized designs. If we built cars in the fully-customized, one-off model by which we build reactors, a $30K Honda would cost $3 million ... and every single car built would require its own specially-trained team of technicians to service and maintain it.

- it's incredibly telling that despite all the hype around this tech, which has been going on for decades in the West at this point, the only nations that have deployed SMRs are Russia and the PRC.

Cherry picking of a meaningless sample size. There's only 2 SMRs currently deployed at present: both since 2017. And China and Russia are building the majority of all nuclear reactors of *any* type today.

And while only 2 SMRs are presently operational, more than 80 different designs are currently under development, in more than a dozen different nations.

If governments stopped letting private companies control their energy grids, and took on the responsibility of building, running and owning fission power plants instead of delegatign that responsibility to the private sector...

In other words, 'we have to destroy capitalism to save it'? A few nations in the past have tried your suggestion of total government control. It didn't work out well for them in the end.

 

[Assimilator]

The vast majority of fission power cost isn't in operational costs, but design and construction. SMRs benefit from economies of scale where the money is actually spent: by building small, standardized designs.

If we'd built more fission plants we'd have those designs down to the same level of standardisation that SMRs claim.

Cherry picking of a meaningless sample size. There's only 2 SMRs currently deployed at present: both since 2017. And China and Russia are building the majority of all nuclear reactors of *any* type today.

Using a small sample size because that's all there is doesn't make it cherry-picking.

And while only 2 SMRs are presently operational, more than 80 different designs are currently under development, in more than a dozen different nations.

Actually connected to the grid and providing power is all that matters. Call me back when that happens (it won't because SMRs are economically nonviable, especially in the face of solar and wind).

Also, remind me how 80 different designs are "standardisation".

In other words, 'we have to destroy capitalism to save it'? A few nations in the past have tried your suggestion of total government control. It didn't work out well for them in the end.

Actually it did; living standards, quality of service, and economic equality have decreased in the West as privatisation has increased. Turns out, when you put the massive and fundamental infrastructure projects that have been paid for by taxpayers into the hands of private companies that care only about profits, those companies run those projects into the ground to extract profits. They're then also able to hold the public to ransom for subsidies (which again get diverted into profits) by threatening that they "won't be able to guarantee service" if they don't get the funds they demand.

In contrast, look at the PRC where the state controls the power grid and generation. That nation has gone the fastest from having the oldest, most polluting generating plants to having the newest and greenest ones. And this is entirely because their government mandates it and pays for it and builds it, instead of hoping and praying that the private sector will maybe one day step up and and make those changes out of the goodness of its heart as in the West. This is, ultimately, why the PRC will consume us all: because it refuses to sacrifice progress on the altar of profit-taking.

 

[Endymio]

If we'd built more fission plants we'd have those designs down to the same level of standardisation that SMRs claim.

Nope. First of all, the world doesn't need a huge number of multi-gigawatt power plants ... especially when irrational fear and ignorance prevents their use in so many places. Furthermore, SMRs aren't simply smaller, but modular. Most of their construction can be done in a factory -- then moved onsite for final assembly.

Using a small sample size because that's all there is doesn't make it cherry-picking.

It is when you assume the number "2" is a valid statistical universe. I could have easily said that "of the reactors that have come online since 2017, a full one-third have been SMRs". Context matters.

Call me back when that happens (it won't because SMRs are economically nonviable, especially in the face of solar and wind).

Eh? Nuclear power is demand-based power. Solar and wind are not. Until or unless we make a few quantum leaps forward in energy-storage technology, wind and solar will *never* fill a majority of the world's power needs. The hardest problem a utility faces isn't generating the energy ... it's matching supply to demand in real time, second-by-second.

Also, remind me how 80 different designs are "standardisation".

Glad to. When you're talking about something as unwieldy as our current build process for reactors, economies of scale kick on at any number above "1". If any of those projects builds even 2 or 3 of a standardized design, the cost savings will be dramatic. You don't need a 24x7 assembly line churning out millions of reactors for the process to work.

look at the PRC where the state controls the power grid and generation. That nation has gone the fastest from having the oldest, most polluting generating plants to having the newest and greenest ones.

You mean the same PRC that's currently building more than 150 coal-fired power plants? Yep, that's green all right.

Actually it did; living standards, quality of service, and economic equality have decreased in the West as privatisation has increased.

OK, this silliness just invalidated everything else that came before. Standards of living in the West are the highest in all history. And when one defines "economic equality" as "everyone's equally poor", they lose all claim to rational debate.

 

[Chrispy_]

For those who don't want to dig into the tech side, it's a pebble-bed reactor using TRISO fuel and molten salt coolant.

TRISO fuel is, IMHO, the way to go for nuclear acceptance broadly. Inherently impossible for a massive accident to occur. Small accidents are of course possible, but not a Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Molten salt coolant is, on the other hand, a bit of an odd choice, compared to gas cooling. For one thing, it takes away some of the simplicity of the pebble-bed design, and adds circulation of radioactive material outside of the core. Also, the main benefits of the molten salts are not utilized with TRISO fuel - the solubility of fission products and the ease of mixing in fissile fuel.

Whatever. I imagine they know their job better than I do. However, I think their timeline might be a little ambitious considering they haven't started the pilot plant yet.

I've been following TRISO and molten salt reactors for a long time, and I'm also confused about why they'd mix the two but I'm getting my info from half a dozen science/tech Youtubers that cover only interesting news in leyman terms for the most part.

I wish britain would invest in nuclear, the whole UK could be powered by them with no reliance on anyone else.

As true as that is, the Atlantic coast is one of the best locations on the planet for wind farms. It's a travesty that we're not building more than we are both onshore and offshore. If we have to tolerate the UK's west coast being a grey, drizzly, wind-blasted misery - then we should at least use that for some good!

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

SMR companies also love to handwave the incredibly thorny issue of waste generation and handling

Depends on the type of reactor. The typical light-water moderated reactor, I would agree. However, several designs are Gen IV reactors, with a focus on reducting waste. High-temp gas-cooled reactors are one example, including the HTR-PM.

Now, these do produce a higher volume of spent fuel waste (due to the low density), but less contaminated material such as irradiated coolant piping. Also, the spent fuel waste is self-moderating and self-contained, as the fuel is encapsulated throughout its lifetime. They actually tried to reprocess spent TRISO pebbles but found it was easier to deal with them as-is due to the strength and effectiveness of the coatings, and the high burnup ratio.

 

[R-T-B]

And yet not one of those incidents resulted in even one single death.

Not from radioactivity or anything and I know the point you are trying to make but a death is plain as day listed there.

From a construction mishap more than anything, which is what many of these amount to. Nuclear power is not cheap to engineer, but it becomes cost effective when you consider the long term power output potential for sure. I don't rule it out but nor do I see it as a sole solution.

quantum leaps forward in energy-storage technology

We honestly don't need it. Its not hard or expensive if you don't care about weight or densirt (power plants do not). Lead acid is old, ancient, proven, recyclable, cheap, battery tech.

 

[Endymio]

Not from radioactivity or anything and I know the point you are trying to make but a death is plain as day listed there.

The point is that the death wasn't just "not from radioactivity", but it wasn't from a nuclear power plant either -- it was a death near a reactor, from the collapse of a temporary construction crane. In other words, irrelevant to the point at hand.

Nuclear power is not cheap to engineer...

The engineering is already done. It becomes expensive only when you demand each new power plant be entirely re-engineered from scratch, as we do today. Imagine if each solar farm we built required an entirely new and different design for the solar panels within.

We honestly don't need [new energy storage technology]. Its not hard or expensive if you don't care about weight or densirt (power plants do not). Lead acid is old, ancient, proven, recyclable, cheap, battery tech.

A lead-acid pile large enough to power a major city for several hours would cost billions, be an environmental and safety hazard beyond belief, and require replacement every 10 years. And of course "several hours" of runtime isn't nearly long enough to ensure a wind-solar solution wouldn't result in blackouts during an extended period of bad weather.

 

[R-T-B]

A lead-acid pile large enough to power a major city for several hours would cost billions

[Citation Needed]

I believe there even is one such pile up in Alaska already backup-powering a smaller town, but anyways, point is you do it per plant and only plan on covering the evenings. Or per home if doing per home panels. That is far from impossible. But like all things its an engineering challenge, and I doubt it should be the sole power source.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

Nuclear power is not financially efficient in the USA due to intentionally created barriers/hurdles to stop it due to power companies paying off our politicians. It is both sides of the aisle here allowing it to be obstructed. Nuclear is carbon neutral and our military has shown how efficient it could be with a proper mandate in place. Intense propaganda over multiple generations attacked nuclear power. France in many ways has made some of the best power infrastructure decisions in the Western world. We need to swallow our pride and listen to others that have made better decisions than we have on power.

I say this from the perspective of a small farmer on the side using solar for those operations. "Green energy" has a place on a homestead level. But large scale power needs small scale nuclear from what I understand. It breaks my heart to see Germany shutdown reactors and watch their industrial sector suffer. Germans need good careers in industrial production.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Nuclear is one of if not the best option currently to deal with "baseline" demands on electricity. Relying purely on a Solar/Wind setup is going to lead to issues on the days/week mother nature decides to not play ball. It has happened before and it will happen again! Nuclear requires a matter of hours to be able to scale their output up or down in relation to supply from other areas.

Britain Has Gone Nine Days Without Wind Power

Britain’s gone nine days with almost no wind generation, and forecasts show the calm conditions persisting for another two weeks.

www.bloomberg.com

What you ideally want to be able to do is to absorb the excess energy from wind and solar effectively into either direct energy storages (think pumped resevoirs or batteries) or into a high energy demand industries like Arc furnace steel making or things like electrolysis/hydrogen production. Problem is that relies on decent planning from politicians and incentives/subsidies for those days where those green energy sources are lower to make it financially viable to turn off those systems temporarily while demand in other areas outstrips supply. Otherwise we are going to see situations like below become more and more common.

Britons paying hundreds of millions to turn off wind turbines as network can't handle the power they make on the windiest days

The cables that transfer the power from the north to the south can't safely deal with the amount of power the turbines generate on some days. The National Grid paid £215m to get them shut off last year - a cost that eventually ends up on people's bills.

news.sky.com

 

[DaedalusHelios]

Actually it did; living standards, quality of service, and economic equality have decreased in the West as privatisation has increased. Turns out, when you put the massive and fundamental infrastructure projects that have been paid for by taxpayers into the hands of private companies that care only about profits, those companies run those projects into the ground to extract profits. They're then also able to hold the public to ransom for subsidies (which again get diverted into profits) by threatening that they "won't be able to guarantee service" if they don't get the funds they demand.

In contrast, look at the PRC where the state controls the power grid and generation. That nation has gone the fastest from having the oldest, most polluting generating plants to having the newest and greenest ones. And this is entirely because their government mandates it and pays for it and builds it, instead of hoping and praying that the private sector will maybe one day step up and and make those changes out of the goodness of its heart as in the West. This is, ultimately, why the PRC will consume us all: because it refuses to sacrifice progress on the altar of profit-taking.

Western income inequality is driven by debasing currency through increasing the money supply(inflationary spending=decreased buying power per dollar). See M2 money supply for reference. A way that governments like the USA do it lately is by increasing government jobs numbers to prop up a failing economy's job numbers. We have been net negative per month for quite some time when government jobs are taken out of the equation. Government jobs create no physical good but they are necessary for basic essential services until you reach a threshold where only harm is done to your economy with the weight of the employee's salary and benefits. 100 million US workers are either direct government employees or provide it services to keep it running. That is lots of bloat and NPR did a piece on how government managers cannot fire employees if they refuse to do their jobs due to public sector unions.
20 billion USD later the USA only received a few charging stations as a result of our infrastructure bill. That was a public effort that resulted in failure by allowing the government to pick winners and losers. It was not free market, much like South Africa destroying its power grid through the same embezzlement behavior. Private companies competing created the original infrastructures that governments allow to degrade over time. It is always state backed monopolies that fail to serve their purpose to the masses, but that is government action(in exchange for indirect bribery) and it's influence on the market. The government doesn't create, it can only redistribute the fruits of other people's labor at the point of a gun. Heavy government involvement during COVID-19 allowed the largest transfer of wealth to the top percent of wealth holders in the USA. Small businesses were told to close while large corporations could continue to operate. This destroyed small businesses and created more wealth for the top. Crony Capitalism is just economic Fascism. Regular Capitalism is free markets with the least amount of government interference of competition to serve the masses. The USA is not a Capitalism, it is a mixed market.

 

[Endymio]

[Citation Needed]

Certainly.

"...Battery grid storage solutions...have projected 2020 costs for fully installed 100 MW
lithium-ion LFP ($356/kWh), lead-acid ($356/kWh), lithium-ion NMC ($366/kWh), and
vanadium RFB ($399/kWh). ..."

https://www.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/media/file/Final%20-%20ESGC%20Cost%20Performance%20Report%2012-11-2020.pdf

Chicago the city uses approximately 30.4B kW-hr annually. Assuming a pile capable of powering the city for just 8 hours (not nearly long enough during the cold, low-sunlight winter months) would require 27.6M kW-kr, for a pile cost of $9.8 billion. Plus maintenance. And an anticipated lifespan of 10 years, means the cost repeats every decade. If you wish to entirely eliminate baseline power sources, you'd need a battery pile at least five times larger, at a total cost of $50 billion.

And this is just one city of course.

What you ideally want to be able to do is to absorb the excess energy from wind and solar effectively into either direct energy storages [o]r into a high energy demand industries like Arc furnace steel making or things like electrolysis/hydrogen production.

Yes, this is really the ideal use for non-demand sources like wind and solar. Refining aluminum requires so much power that the metal has been called "electricity in solid form". Imagine a fully-automated aluminum smelting plant ...when the sun stops shining or the wind stops blowing, the plant simply shuts down.

 

[R-T-B]

Chicago the city uses approximately 30.4B kW-hr annually. Assuming a pile capable of powering the city for just 8 hours (not nearly long enough during the cold, low-sunlight winter months) would require 27.6M kW-kr, for a pile cost of $9.8 billion.

That cost tracks for large scale solar. But why on earth are you assuming a single pile for anything? A sensible approach would be per plant, calibrated to output. A single pile is silly. No proposed plants propose this.

And this is just one city of course.

Chicago is a rather big example, you have to acknowledge.

If you wish to entirely eliminate baseline power sources

No one here is arguing for that.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

A sensible approach would be per plant, calibrated to output. A single pile is silly. No proposed plants propose this.

Cost per KWh doesn't get smaller for a smaller pile.

Make the pile small enough and cost per KWh begins to balloon - this is what per-house energy storage does.

 

[lexluthermiester]

For those who don't want to dig into the tech side, it's a pebble-bed reactor using TRISO fuel and molten salt coolant.

TRISO fuel is, IMHO, the way to go for nuclear acceptance broadly. Inherently impossible for a massive accident to occur. Small accidents are of course possible, but not a Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Molten salt coolant is, on the other hand, a bit of an odd choice, compared to gas cooling. For one thing, it takes away some of the simplicity of the pebble-bed design, and adds circulation of radioactive material outside of the core. Also, the main benefits of the molten salts are not utilized with TRISO fuel - the solubility of fission products and the ease of mixing in fissile fuel.

Whatever. I imagine they know their job better than I do. However, I think their timeline might be a little ambitious considering they haven't started the pilot plant yet.

The choice of molten salt was for a practical reason. The salts used are of a type that readily absorbs radiation to the point of neutralizing radioactively in a short amount of time. It's a measure of fail-safety built into the system. I'm over simplifying it here, but that is the general idea.

Can a sub really use 21.5 MW

Yup. Easily. All nuclear subs in the US navy use a secondary battery and capacitor banking system for extra emergency power if the power needs go above the output of the core. During low usage, the core charges and keeps the battery/cap system at full. It's a really clever system.

 

[Endymio]

But why on earth are you assuming a single pile for anything? A sensible approach would be per plant, calibrated to output. A single pile is silly. No proposed plants propose this.

As @Count von Schwalbe has already pointed out, one large pile is cheaper than several small ones. If you hypothesis one pile per plant, you're up over $50B in costs per major city.

The choice of molten salt was for a practical reason. The salts used are of a type that readily absorbs radiation to the point of neutralizing radioactively in a short amount of time. It's a measure of fail-safety built into the system. I'm over simplifying it here, but that is the general idea.

That's not the reason for MSRs. The benefits of molten salt as a coolant and working fluid are simple: it operates at higher temperatures (which equals higher efficiency) and lower pressure (which equals higher safety).

But the benefits get even more interesting when you consider designs that use molten salts as fuel. The liquid fuel form has practical advantages in the fuel cycle, and can make refueling a reactor nearly as simple as refueling a car. But more importantly, the salt expands when heated, and thus has a natural negative void coefficient, which essentially eliminates unwanted power excursions. This prevents meltdowns, and also allows the reactor to act in a load-following manner, meaning it can respond quickly to changing grid demands: ideal for use as backup to non-demand sources like wind and solar. Oh, and they also generate less radioactive waste as well -- not only because they're more efficient, but because the fuel cycle can potentially use waste products from other reactors.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

The choice of molten salt was for a practical reason. The salts used are of a type that readily absorbs radiation to the point of neutralizing radioactively in a short amount of time. It's a measure of fail-safety built into the system. I'm over simplifying it here, but that is the general idea.

It's better than water, I will certainly give you that. But it does give off secondary radiation, so it requires a double loop to isolate the steam system from the primary salt coolant loop. I just don't see the advantages over a gas-cooled design where the coolant is completely inert both chemically and atomically.

Possibly reduced operating pressures; however I feel that the potential for problems is greater from permitting radioactive elements outside of the core vs having a pressure vessel for a core.