Nuclear power is safe

Calliban · 2020-11-12 14:10:12

The Independent is a news source that I would not trust to tell me the colour of an orange. None the less, this article is interesting.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/busi … 21175.html

Rolls Royce have experience building naval nuclear reactors. So its not like its all new to them. We are talking small PWRs with power output of about 200MWe each. About what is needed for a large Mars base.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-11-12 14:15:12)

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-12 14:43:40

For Calliban re #176

Thanks for the link to this report on Rolls Royce and its new direction. The implication of the report (as I interpret it) is that the UK government is willing to trust the company in this excursion away from military projects. That is definitely a favorable indicator for the future of the company, for a reason that you have posted about on several occasions .... releasing nuclear energy in a controlled fashion will (or at least ** should ** ) result in a net increase of available energy per capita in the UK, and in every country where this technology is introduced.

Is this company a candidate to develop the space rated reactor you've described in another topic?

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-11-22 16:16:20

Krusty paper contains lots of images of the unit prototype...

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-30 12:07:23

Here is more good news for the nuclear fission power industry:

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance … 42845.html

Production of hydrogen is a natural fit for nuclear power plants.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-12-05 09:17:05

Here is an update about prospects for Small Modular Reactors ...

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/atom … 15693.html

Jonathan Tirone
Sat, December 5, 2020 1:00 AM ET
(Bloomberg) --
The first operators of miniature nuclear reactors described their job as “tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon” because of the danger involved with unlocking the energy in atoms.
<snip>
“This is the decade of SMR demonstrations, which could potentially determine front runners for the expected economy of series production,” said Henri Paillere, the head planning and economic studies at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. “There is high level of innovation.”
<snip>
Industrial heat requirements have helped turn Canada into a global hub for SMR developers, according to Simon Newton, the director of development at Moltex, a British company working on a 300-megawatt SMR for New Brunswick Power Corp. Temperatures exceeding 300 degrees Celsius are needed to turn oil sands into liquid petroleum for use in refined products ranging from fertilizers to pharmaceuticals. SMR developers are already evaluating how to displace fossil fuel producers in supply chains.
<snip>
Without reviving demand for nuclear energy, the National Academy warned that the U.S. risks losing expertise in building reactors, leaving behind all the hard lessons scientists learned from tickling dragon tails seven decades ago.
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

I hope this part of the nuclear industry thrives on Earth, because units of the size considered in this article would do well on Mars, and probably in other locations away from Earth.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-02-11 20:56:53

https://newatlas.com/nasa-krusty-reactor-nuclear/54465/

To meet this challenge, NASA is developing its Kilopower system, which is a 10-kilowatt reactor that can run for a decade before refuelling. To avoid the plutonium shortage, it uses a solid-cast uranium 235 reactor core 6 inches in diameter surrounded by a beryllium oxide reflector. A mechanism at one end removes and inserts a single rod of boron carbide that starts and stops the reactor, while the reflector catches escaping neutrons and bounces them back into the core, improving the efficiency of the self-regulating fission reaction. Until activated, the core is only mildly radioactive.

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