Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

Terraformer · 2022-04-17 02:00:39

If you're producing fuels intermittently, you can size your production for far higher than normal grid demand, ensuring you (almost; there will be the occasional day requiring generators) always have power available without wasting the energy produced in excess -- that energy simply goes into creating more fuel, which can be stored easily (if liquid rather than gas) and used when needed.

Desalination is another process that's suited to intermittent sources. Water is trivial to store, so buffering the system isn't that big of a problem. Though the cisterns would be.LA residents use 300 litres per day on average. With 4M people, that's 1.2M cubic metres a day. Storing a weeks supply would require ~10 million cubic metres -- a square kilometre dug 10m deep. Pretty sure LA has the land available nearby for that.

Solar power is by far the cheapest power in most places, it's the storage requirement that kills it. If you have a process that can operate on intermittent power though, you can use that cheap electricity.

SpaceNut · 2022-04-17 06:11:44

That is the gravity storage topic we have of the water up hill so that we release it when we need it to generate power and use it as intended.

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 10:34:15

Terraformer,

Solar power is not "by far the cheapest" when you need a solar farm, a wind farm, and a gas turbine that never quits spinning. We have 100% "renewable power" here in Houston, but the gas turbines never quit spinning and consuming fuel. You're ignoring all the other energy infrastructure that was required to support any level of wind and solar grid integration. All the photovoltaics and wind turbines will also have to be replaced every 25 years or less. At a human civilization level scale, that's cost-prohibitive to sustain. It's planned obsolescence for the grid in addition to all the motor vehicles. That's a major part of what put us in this predicament to begin with. Most of the solar power in the US is photovoltaics that were produced in China using coal. The wind turbines are 100% fossil fuel energy transformed into composite aircraft wings larger than airliner wings and steel. The steel was not produced using solar or wind power, either. After 25 years, they don't take down and recycle all the steel and concrete used in wind turbine construction. It rusts in place and they build new towers with more steel.

Transporting a liquid that is 84X more energy dense than Lithium-ion batteries, per unit weight, is a lot easier to do and to sustain. The major difference between this scheme and all the other energy storage schemes is what we're doing with the power from the Sun. We're directly converting solar thermal energy into a liquid fuel that virtually all vehicles use to power themselves, including the electric vehicles.

I agree with your point that water is trivial to store, but potable water is not. Aboard ship, the water desalination units were a source of constant maintenance, all related to contamination / maintaining pH levels / equipment corrosion. Agriculture could certainly make use of water that does not have to be finished or stored to potable standards, which is a substantial portion of our water consumption. Globally, agriculture represents about 70% of humanity's total water consumption. If that water could be inexpensively desalinated using solar thermal, then that would take a huge amount of pressure off the lakes / rivers / aquifers, hopefully allowing them to fill back up. The issue, of course, is that desalination has never been cheap or easy to maintain and requires enormous amounts of power.

We need to remove our dependence on incredibly expensive short-term battery energy storage so that we can bring enough solar power online for it to make a dent in the amount of fossil fuels consumed to keep the lights on. Globally, what we refer to as "renewable energy", only provides about 2% of the total energy supply. It took 40 years to get to this point, with the help of fossil fuels. It could take another couple thousand years to fully convert our energy supply to "renewable energy" at the present rate. Alternatively, we're going to increase the rate of conversion by more than two full orders of magnitude, without the use of fossil fuels, to complete it within our lifetimes. Since that's clearly not going to happen, we need a compromise solution.

SpaceNut · 2022-04-17 11:59:19

Portable nuclear device missing from stolen vehicle in Pennsylvania containing radioactive material that belongs to a local construction inspection company.

The state's Department of Environmental Protection said the device, a portable nuclear gauge, is often used at construction sites to "evaluate the properties of building and road-bed materials." But if mishandled or damaged, people could be exposed to radiation contamination.

Terraformer · 2022-04-17 12:57:26

kbd, in the future please do me the courtest of *actually reading my posts* before replying.

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 13:11:11

Anyway, environmentalists are going to demand shutting down 20% of the baseload power that was provided by nuclear, and we all know what happened in Germany after they shut down their nuclear reactors. They started burning coal, and lots of it, so now their emissions are right back to where they were when they started their "renewable energy" crusade. Either the Germans are really bad at math, or their ideologues can't admit that they're going to need a practical form of energy storage that doesn't involve drilling for more oil and gas. Right now, energy storage comes from coal and natural gas, not batteries. It's unreasonable to think that batteries will change the math. If solid state batteries become available, then it's a slightly less wildly impractical proposition, but still entirely within the realm of fantasy.

Given a polished Aluminum reflector that requires zero new technology to implement, solar thermal converts approximately 90% of the radiation from the Sun into heat by focusing it onto a tube of liquid CO2. Commercial solar cells convert about 25% of the Sun's energy into electricity. If "game changing" advanced photovoltaics become commercially available, then they can capture 40% to 50%, which is still about half as much as an Aluminum reflector that does not require any new and affordable photovoltaic technology that doesn't presently exist in commercial form.

We have fully functional Aluminum aircraft from WWII that are still flying more than 75 years later. There is no such thing as a photovoltaic cell made 50 years ago that's still functional. 50 years from now, there won't be any photovoltaic panels made today that are still in use. The same can be said of all batteries, regardless of cell chemistry. There are combustion engines that have almost continuously operated for longer than any current technology photovoltaics have existed. Ford Model T engines still produce motive power to this very day.

Technology that's viable has to be durable and affordable. There are no micro-electronics with the durability of a heat engine and the way the universe works almost assures that there never will be. The universe is unkind to electronics. The GCR radiation fuses micro-circuitry together when it strikes it. Thermal cycles expand and contract the materials that comprise the logic gates until it cracks. The smaller and more integrated we make them, the less kind the universe becomes.

We need to produce engines that can literally last a human lifetime with proper maintenance and a handful of tear-down events to replace wear items. We need to build out long term sustainable infrastructure to support those engines. We will do that by converting sunlight into heat. We will consume atmospheric CO2 that is there for the taking no matter where on the planet you happen to be, and seawater, which contains both CO2 and Hydrogen and Oxygen for oxy-fuel combustion. We will produce synthetic fuels that store the energy we require.

If the issue is related to over-consumption and the pollution that it produced, which is what climate change asserts at a fundamental level, then the solution will not come from consuming orders of magnitude more materials of a different variety, in order to create all the batteries and electronics required. That is the "big lie". Highly consumptive technologies created the problem, but even more consumptive technologies will come along to fix it. If you give up on the big lie, then you also give up on the premise of the argument against heat engines, which is that we will somehow consume less by consuming a whole lot more of something else. There is zero evidence for that assertion.

Whenever something becomes more efficient, we simply use more and more of it. LED lights drastically reduced energy consumption for lighting. Now people leave the lights on all the time. Forcing them to stop using so much lighting really means we're reverting back to a time when electricity and lighting was more costly and less widely available. That defeats the purpose of having more efficient lighting. In other words, more efficient technology was created so we could affordably use more of it, not less.

We can see how ridiculous that argument is if we also apply it to photovoltaic panels and batteries. We created less costly batteries, therefore we'll use less batteries. Wrong. Dead wrong. Sure, batteries are more efficient than combustion engines, but the more we produce, the more energy is required. We need orders of magnitude more batteries to actually replace all the energy stored in hydrocarbons, so orders of magnitude more materials and energy consumption to simply maintain our standard of living. If we can barely keep things together with less consumption and cheaper energy, then why do we think we can consume even more? It's a plain-as-day logical fallacy. It's a great idea when you refuse to think through all the ramifications, but it's still not viable.

With heat engines, humanity created a system that actually works and can continue to work until there is no more heat from the Sun. There will be at least another billion years of heat from the Sun, so we can concern ourselves with our next energy source after we create an energy source that takes care of our immediate needs. We have to recycle the CO2 that combustion-type heat engines create. That was the "missing link". All electronics (computers / photovoltaics / batteries / electric motors / LED lights) were value-added derivative products that only existed after plentiful input power from combustion-type heat engines became available. The same applies to modern medicine and industrialized agriculture that permitted the division of labor required to create our modern world.

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 13:31:19

Terraformer,

I do read your posts, every word, as well as reading what you link to.

The fact that I don't respond the way you want me to doesn't mean I don't understand what you wrote.

All the happy talk about how cheap something is, doesn't change how expensive the electricity becomes when 3 completely separate power plants and all associated power distribution infrastructure is required to attempt and fail to replace a heat engine that does not depend upon the time of day or season of the year or specific location on the Earth's surface. That's why the electricity rates keep going up with all this "incredibly cheap" wind and solar power. It's clearly not cheaper for the people who actually use the power, or at some point the electricity rates would have to stop increasing as more and more "cheap" wind and solar power are brought online.

Terraformer · 2022-04-17 13:32:38

kbd, you obviously *don't* understand what I wrote, since when I said solar is cheapest if you have a process that *doesn't need storage*, you started waffling on about needing to keep gas turbines on standby.

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 13:56:49

Terraformer,

I'm pretty sure that I *do* understand, because all water purification processes that we use *do* require continuous power, which includes water desalination. When you shut off the desalination plant, you *do* stop producing fresh water, but humans *don't* stop using drinking water at all times of the day and night, especially in Los Angeles.

Water purification at city or nation levels is not a batch process. Water purification aboard all large ships is not a batch process. Water moves through the system at all times and never stops, or bad things happen. That's why some of us *do* think that any talk of something that doesn't work without energy storage is also ignoring reality.

Waffling, on the other hand, is a batch process. A very tasty batch process.

Terraformer · 2022-04-17 15:37:26

Sigh. Yet another conversation where I'm just going to start ignoring kbd because he absolutely refuses to understand what I've said before replying. Long screeds that mean nothing because they're replies to a post that never existed. I wish forums had a mute button so they wouldn't detract from my experience reading other people's posts.

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 16:26:50

Terraformer,

You want something that doesn't exist and probably never will exist within our lifetimes.

1. We do not have a viable way to store power from photovoltaics or wind turbines. That's why we're not doing it.

2. We do not produce potable water in batch processes for entire cities. That's why we're not doing it.

3. Wind and photovoltaic power are so expensive because they require entirely new infrastructure without an affordable way to "store" electrons. That's why we're not making it more expensive than it already is.

Apologies if complete explanations about what doesn't constitute a viable solution can't be expressed in single sentences.

By all means, ignore people who tell you things you don't want to hear.

Don't read any posts that you don't want to read. Scrolling is not that hard, so stop making a mountain out of a mole hill.

tahanson43206 · 2022-04-17 17:30:23

For everyone who may wish to contribute to this topic in future ....

This topic is offered for discussion of the safe use of nuclear power.

It is abundantly clear that nuclear power is dangerous. So is use of carbon based fuels, and just about any other means of obtaining large quantities of power.

The premise of this topic is that the human race ** MUST ** master atomic power, if it has any hope what so ever of expanding out into the Universe.

I suppose it is imaginable that the human race could hunker down and survive on Planet Earth for millions of years, without ever leaving the planet.

That future is ** not ** one this topic is intended to support.

There are LOTS of other topics for discussion of derivatives of solar power.

Louis has created an abundant supply of topics devoted to solar power in particular.

We have many topics devoted to collecting power from wind and from flowing water.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-04-17 17:57:53

tahanson43206,

Using more nuclear power would certainly be a good way to minimize our ever-increasing consumption of resources to generate power, but there's no commitment to using it. If we're talking about constrained use of land and other natural resources, then nuclear power consumes the least by a good wide margin. Trying to convince people not to dig themselves deeper into their ideological hole has proven to be fruitless endeavor.

When all other options are exhausted, we'll either circle back to using nuclear power or we'll be stuck in perpetual energy poverty. I have no idea why poverty is preferable to abundance, but a growing number of people seem ideologically devoted to misery. To what end, I don't know. They've hit on something that appears to work, but doesn't if cost or simple resource consumption are considered, and so the answer is always to "blow harder" and wait for a miracle to happen.

SpaceNut · 2022-04-17 18:11:42

Solar in all forms of capture do not have a flat line power delivery as it follows the arc the sun traces when using a stationary collection point. So sizing the energy use of power must also follow that same curve. Its that use of convertors and batteries that flat line the power level to a predictable level across application time usage.

The other forms of energy do not follow this path as they generate constant power at a fixed rpm of rotation. They do suffer the same effects if you are varying the rpm as solar does.

Using solar to move a content to a higher energy potential allows for the flow to be metered to get the energy back out and its that control of flow to create rotation that allows for a constant power level once more from stored energy.

Calliban · 2022-04-17 18:52:34

Swedish group develops design for small lead cooled fast reactor.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/02/174732.html

A key development is a stainless steel alloy capable of resisting corrosion in molten lead. The alloy showed stability for up to a year at a temperature of 550°C and 10 weeks at 850°C. Even better performance can be expected by introducing silicon into the alloy. The upper of the two temperatures would allow the reactor to function as the heat source for thermochemical water splitting, which would allow the economical production of synthetic fuels and hot hydrogen for iron ore and ammonia production.

Lead is particularly interesting as a fast reactor coolant because Pb-208 has very small neutron absorption cross section and the heavy lead atoms have low moderating power. In a fast reactor, a harder neutron spectrum is better. With a hard neutron spectrum more 238U atoms will fast fission. This requires neutron energy greater than 1MeV. Neutrons are born with average energy of 2MeV. The harder the neutron spectrum (the higher energy) the more neutrons are released by fission. Both effects have a positive impact on breeding ratio.

This reactor type would work very well with modules containing titanium deuteride. The fast neutrons would collide with deuterium nuclei resulting in lattice fusion reactions. Whilst the fusion reactions will have little direct effect on the energy yield of the reactor, they will function as neutron multiplier modules. The additional neutron flux would breed additional fuel within the reactor. This would allow it to function as a breeder-burner. In traditional designs of fast breeder reactor, a large DU outer blanket region was needed to absorb neutrons streaming out of the core, breeding plutonium. This would have been chemically reprocessed at relatively low irradiation levels and the plutonium extracted and enriched in concentration for a new batch of fuel. This process was expensive and inefficient, because of the volume of blanket materials that had to be reprocessed and the need to separate plutonium, which raised criticality risks and proliferation concerns.

A Fusion boosted lead cooled fast neutron reactor, would not need to be loaded with any enriched fissile fuel after its initial starter core. Nor would it need reprocessing of blanket regions in a chemical fuel processing plant. Depleted uranium would be loaded at the core edges, would gradually enrich with plutonium as it absorbed neutrons and was shuffled towards the centre of the core. It would remain within the core until 10-20% of the total atoms had fissioned. The discharged fuel would contain substantial plutonium which would be useful for starting new reactors.

A reactor that can be fuelled with pure depleted uranium, without any need for dedicated blanket regions, has great economic and sustainability benefits. Enriched fuels are expensive to make. DU based fuels are cheap and abundant and low in toxicity before irradiation. This technology also avoids any imminent need to reprocess spent fuel. A substantial reactor programme can be established before any reprocessing is needed. When it is carried out, the high concentration of plutonium in spent fuel would allow simple electrorefining can be used to remove fission products and recast the metal into new fuel pellets for a new reactor. The high inherent breeding ratio of the reactor makes it possible to build up nuclear capacity quickly. This is exactly what will be needed on Mars, to both realise Musk's 1 million population city early in the 2nd half of 21st century and to build up the planet's manufacturing capability rapidly.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-17 19:23:26)

Void · 2022-04-17 20:12:46

Wonderful!

Done.

Calliban · 2022-04-18 03:29:30

More on the breeder-burner reactor, also known as the travelling wave or CANDLE reactor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor
https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/22027242

Liquid lead coolant and neutron multiplier modules can reduce the burn up needed to establish travelling wave conditions. The very high burn up referenced in the OSTI article would be difficult to achieve in a real reactor, because of swelling of the fuel and embrittlement of the cladding.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-18 03:34:25)

tahanson43206 · 2022-04-19 10:54:15

For Terraformer ....

Terraformer wrote:

Sigh. Yet another conversation where I'm just going to start ignoring kbd because he absolutely refuses to understand what I've said before replying. Long screeds that mean nothing because they're replies to a post that never existed. I wish forums had a mute button so they wouldn't detract from my experience reading other people's posts.

Since this is a topic I created, which i look after, and for the health of which I have some concern, I would like to report that I have noted your less-than-satisfactory exchange with another member.

There may be a way to "mute" another member. I'll ask SpaceNut..

For SpaceNut ... is there a way in FluxBB to "mute"/"ignore" posts by another member?

In some forum software there ** is ** such a feature.

***
Back to Terraformer ....

Was the post in question related in some way to the theme of this topic?

It may well have been. I find myself struggling to keep up with all the posts by all contributing members, now that the forum is back in robust operation.

We have multiple days in a row when posts stretch over one page, and can even reach three pages.

That amount of traffic is difficult (for me for sure) to keep up with, considering that many posts contain links to articles and web sites that themselves require precious time.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-04-19 12:52:50

tahanson43206,

Complete explanations require more words. I don't take offense to disagreement, but that's all this is. Thus far I've been variously told to "STFU", that I don't read or understand posts, and that my posts are "screed" because they're longer than some would like them to be. What I've learned is that people don't really want to explain their arguments or specific points that they think other have missed.

1. Petroleum products produced in chemical reactors or through fractional distillation can be synthesized or distilled in a practical manner using batch processing. You can dump thousands of gallons of crude into a distillation unit, heat it for a certain period of time, and then extract the various cuts of product. Continuous processing is highly desirable, but this is at least technically feasible to do, has been done, and is being done. Assume you are providing power to an oil refinery. You shut off the burner under the distillation unit. Everything left inside the tank is still in whatever state that it's already in. Whatever remains in the tank will either re-condense inside the tank or it will remain whatever it is, chemically speaking. Heat the tank back up again and the process continues where you left off. It's not quite that simple, but that's about as simple as I can make the explanation.

2. Water desalination and waste water treatment plants, or at least all the ones I've personally seen or read about, don't operate that way. You shut off the power and the water stops flowing because pressure is lost. You either have air in the system, build-up of scale products like lime, or you have untreated water start to remix with treated water. Most importantly, you lost pressure due to lack of electricity to provide pumping power. Recall that Calliban was surprised to discover how much cost was associated with everything other than providing energy input into the process. These plants really don't like thermal or power cycling.

Think about what happens in a city when you have a loss of pressure at a waste water treatment plant. This happens with some frequency here in Texas, for whatever reason. Immediately after that happens, you have a boil water order put into place. Why is that? Well, if the plant provides any residual water at all, then some of it is either not treated or not properly treated. Basically, you don't really know what you're getting. It could contain any number of things you don't want included, because the machinery was specifically designed to have water flowing in one direction at all times. Can that be changed? Maybe, but it's probably not practical, kinda like using lasers to quarry rock.

The suggested solution to the solar power intermittency issue was simply storing enough water for batch processing. Okay? So... Store it in an enclosed tank covering an entire square kilometer, or as part of an open air pit where animals can crawl in and die or crap in the water, etc. The movement of water also provides a lot of dilution of anything nasty you don't want in it. Take away that constant movement, and what do you have left? Probably all the nasty stuff you don't want.

The average American uses over 100 gallons of water per day.

The average American uses a little over 1 gallon of gasoline per day.

When I spoke about using solar thermal power to synthesize fuel, I am talking about a monumentally huge energy project that combines the most efficient form of solar power with the most practical form of energy storage. Be prepared for some sticker shock when you see how much it will cost.

Now, imagine trying to store the drinking water used by a substantial number of billions of people in an attempt to avoid the solar intermittency issue. We're talking about areas the size of cities that would either have to be completely enclosed or you get to boil water at the end of every day. Probably...not...practical. If we're going to repeat the old tired mantra, "Well, if we solve the storage problem then there's no issue with using solar." Yeah, no kidding. Everyone says that, but nobody's actually done it. Why? It's not at all practical to do.

What would be more practical? Maybe nuclear heat that's provided all or nearly all of the time? Can't do that, because that's just a matter of spending a fixed amount of money to achieve a specified desirable end result. No endless tinkering to satisfy curiosity while producing no desired end result (for everyone except the tinkerers).

Why was producing fuels using solar power even brought up in a thread about nuclear power?

I'm guessing that was because I proposed making fuels using intermittent solar thermal power at a scale sufficient to end all or most drilling.

After the infrastructure is in place, it requires far less additional metals and cement consumption. It's a once-per-lifetime investment, and it will not be popular with anyone.

What's the catch?:

A. All the electrical and thermal power produced stays within the confines of the plant. You're not trying to deliver power a thousand miles away.
B. You do need some onsite thermal energy storage and it has to be really cheap.
C. It requires a massive investment in fuel synthesis, rather than fuel extraction. The benefit is that it at least doesn't add to the CO2 issue because it's a humanity-scale CO2 recycling system that converts it into something that at least some of us actually want, namely an energy-dense liquid fuel that can be used in a practical manner to power civilization level machinery from now until the time the Sun goes nova.

The alternatives are more absurd. That's the reason behind this compromise. It's not a silver bullet solution for all other major technical problems with civilization as we know it. Note that I also wanted to cut our gasoline consumption to about 1/3rd of the present level. Plenty of compromises will need to be made in the name of addressing environmental and human consumption issues. The problem is that nobody wants to compromise. The futurist electronic-everything people don't want to admit that their futurism fantasy is as impractical as continuing to do what we have been doing, which is what the stick-in-the-mud people want to do.

If that ruffles some feathers, so be it. Feathers need to be ruffled from time to time. It's not a personal attack, either. If people can't have open and honest conversations about what's practical then we keep doing nothing and problems continue persisting, which is what problems usually do. Another "screed" from Terraformer's standpoint, no doubt. Words take longer to express complete thoughts than oral conversations or pictures, because only the words provide the explanation and the context. There's no interaction beyond shared comprehension of the definitions of the words.

Terraformer · 2022-04-19 13:31:38

th,

Eh, scrolling is easy enough, this is true. Of course, when people write unnecessarily long posts it gets slightly tiresome. But only slightly.

Calliban · 2022-04-19 16:28:24

Liquid fluoride reactor presentation.
https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/wp-co … graves.pdf

SpaceNut · 2022-04-19 17:29:30

With stationary solar the power out and its usage can only perform in 2 modes

and they are to follow the power creation curve or to use only the dc equivalent of values above the 70% point on that curve only.

tahanson43206 · 2022-04-22 15:17:15

This is good news ... progress driven by defense needs ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-military- … 51059.html

Associated Press
US military OKs prototype mobile nuclear reactor in Idaho
KEITH RIDLER
Thu, April 21, 2022, 3:24 PM
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. Department of Defense plans to build an advanced mobile nuclear microreactor prototype at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho.
The department late last week signed off on the Project Pele plan to build the reactor and reactor fuel outside of Idaho and then assemble and operate the reactor at the lab.
The decision follows a two-volume, 600-page environmental impact statement that includes public comments evaluating alternatives for building and operating a gas-cooled microreactor that could produce 1 to 5 megawatts of power.
“Advanced nuclear power has the potential to be a strategic game-changer for the United States, both for the (Department of Defense) and for the commercial sector," said Jeff Waksman, program manager for Project Pele. "For it to be adopted, it must first be successfully demonstrated under real-world operating conditions.”
Officials had previously said preparing testing sites at the Idaho National Lab and then building and testing the microreactor would take about three years. The department said the project is subject to the availability of appropriations.
The department said two reactor designs are being considered, and one chosen will be announced later. The department said both designs are high-temperature gas-cooled reactors using enriched uranium for fuel.
If the project goes forward, officials said it would be the first Generation IV nuclear reactor to operate in the United States. The Defense Department said the first electricity-generating Generation IV reactor was a Chinese reactor that started up last September.
The department said it uses 30 terawatt-hours of electricity per year and more than 10 million gallons (37.9 million liters) of fuel per day, and it expects energy demands to increase with a transition to an electrical, non-tactical vehicle fleet. Thirty terawatt-hours is more energy than many small countries use in a year.
Critics of the military using small, mobile nuclear reactors have said they could pose more logistical problems and risks to troops than they solve. Another concern is that nuclear reactors in potential combat zones or foreign operating bases could become targets themselves.
The Idaho National Laboratory is on the U.S. Department of Energy’s 890-square-mile (2,305-square-kilometer) site in high desert sagebrush steppe, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Idaho Falls. All prototype reactor testing would take place on the Energy Department site. The lab has multiple facilities to aid in building and testing the microreactor.
That demonstration of the reactor would include startup testing, moving the reactor to a new site, and testing at the second location. The second location would mimic a real-world situation by testing the reactor’s ability to respond to energy demands.
Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-04-24 17:10:56

Historical construction costs for nuclear power reactors vary a great deal across the world.

https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/hi … r-reactors

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 1516300106

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … r_reactors

In the US, projects that got started before Three Mile Island were generally completed in less than five years and for <$2000/kWe, with many coming in around $1000/kWe. These plants produced some of the world's cheapest electricity and remain cost effective to this day. After TMI, construction costs rapidly went to the moon. In fact, between 1998 and 2008, new build costs roughly doubled in the US and are now 10-20 times higher than they were in the 1970s.

Other parts of the world had very different experiences. In South Korea and India, construction costs remain in the region of $2000/kWe to this day. More recent projects in China, not shown in this study, have completed in 4-5 years and come in at around $2000/kWe as well.

This study demolishes the myth that there is anything inherently expensive about nuclear power. OECD countries have managed to make this technology unworkable. But there are still plenty of countries that continue to construct economical power plants. In principle, there is no technical reason why nuclear fission cannot generate power very cheaply in Western countries. Clearly something has gone very wrong with the way we manage nuclear build programmes. But it isn't a problem with the technology.

In my mind, this raises important questions over the assumption that small modular reactors are a realistic pathway to cost reduction. Projects started in the 1970s were generally able to complete cheaply compared to today. This suggests to me that the driver for high costs has nothing to do with weaknesses in technology. And small modular reactors will tend to reduce scale economies in a way that is likely to drive costs higher rather lower. Modular construction is valuable if it can reduce build times, as this does have a strong bearing on final capital cost.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-04-24 17:29:14)

kbd512 · 2022-04-24 17:49:24

Calliban,

The nuclear power industry was regulated to death, plain and simple. The people in charge chose to make it uneconomical because their favored solutions were not cost-competitive as prices for fossil fuels increased. Those same sorts of fetishists have a stranglehold on nearly all industry today, with the end result that technology fetishes have become the dominant force in global markets. Nobody stops to ask themselves what they're actually doing, and if they truly want to destroy modern civilization over a personal fetish, or worse, they have asked that question and they don't care about the answer.

That's why we'll keep burning everything we can until it runs out, alternative forms of energy that are not 24/7/365 power generating solutions will continue to over-consume all available natural resources until they unmistakably produce the sorts of problems that all of us who can count have repeatedly warned about, and then we'll have another population collapse driven by a lack of energy. I think that's baked-in at this point. These people are ideologically-driven. I think they'd rather die than admit that their ideology doesn't equate to reliable power. It's no different than any other religion. They simply worship a different "god".

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#51 2022-04-17 02:00:39

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#52 2022-04-17 06:11:44

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#53 2022-04-17 10:34:15

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#54 2022-04-17 11:59:19

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#55 2022-04-17 12:57:26

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#56 2022-04-17 13:11:11

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#57 2022-04-17 13:31:19

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#58 2022-04-17 13:32:38

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#59 2022-04-17 13:56:49

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#60 2022-04-17 15:37:26

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#61 2022-04-17 16:26:50

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#62 2022-04-17 17:30:23

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#63 2022-04-17 17:57:53

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#64 2022-04-17 18:11:42

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#65 2022-04-17 18:52:34

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#66 2022-04-17 20:12:46

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#67 2022-04-18 03:29:30

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#68 2022-04-19 10:54:15

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#69 2022-04-19 12:52:50

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#70 2022-04-19 13:31:38

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#71 2022-04-19 16:28:24

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#72 2022-04-19 17:29:30

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#73 2022-04-22 15:17:15

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#74 2022-04-24 17:10:56

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

#75 2022-04-24 17:49:24

Re: Nuclear Power is Dangerous - Use with Care

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