Nuclear power is safe

tahanson43206 · 2020-08-28 19:42:43

For SpaceNut re #150

Thanks for leading off what I hope will become a fruitful discussion of the economics of the proposed plant ...

Given 1 billion (USD) as the set up cost, a loan at current interest rates would amount to:

Mortgage calculator
Monthly cost
Maximum loan
Mortgage amount
$
Interest rate (%)
Mortgage period (years)
Total cost of mortgage$1,702,133,034
Monthly payments$4,728,147
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I think the above is from https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mo … lator.aspx
(but I'm not absolutely sure)

In any case, that monthly rate would total $56,737,764 per years.

You'll want to add in the cost of the land.

Then you'll want to add in the cost of taxes.

You'll need salaries of staff, including wages and benefits.

You'll need insurance coverage ... the coverage for a nuclear plant would be above whatever would be charged for a coal plant.

After all that, there might be something left to lay aside some savings for refueling and regular maintenance.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-08-31 08:16:08

Here is another look at the small reactor field ... the author includes the 345 MW reactor, discussed in posts immediately above, and it includes a number of other designs, companies and nations developing for this market.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mini … 12092.html

It seems to me that designs on the lower end of the scale proposed would be just about ideal for a Mars venture of any size.

(th)

Calliban · 2020-09-02 07:15:46

Nuclear systems benefit from scale economies as systems increase in size. All the design, licensing and site management costs are spread over a larger number of megawatts. The systems themselves scale up more effectively than they scale down. A larger reactor has better neutron economy and shielding mass per megawatt is lower, given that shielding mass is a function of core barrel surface area and leakage flux. Larger systems have better thermodynamic efficiency. Capital cost does not generally double as capacity doubles. Corrosion may also be less problematic in larger systems with greater wall thickness.

But there are negative scale effects as well. Turbines experience more vibration problems as they get larger. Transport becomes progressively more difficult as components increase in size. Pressure vessels become more difficult to fabricate as wall thickness increases. This is why later generation British gas cooled reactors used prestressed concrete pressure vessels, rather than welded steel pressure vessels. And of course there is the problem of having a large percentage of grid power in a location provided by a single plant. A 1500MWe nuclear reactor would provide 5-7% of baseload for the UK. The US does not have a national grid, so concentrated assets are a problem there too. Transmission from a multi-GW plant to distant customers is not a trivial expense.

So swings and roundabouts. But generally, on balance, bigger is cheaper on a unit basis, but it becomes less and less so beyond a power output of 1000MWe unless you have a very concentrated load centre that the powerplant can serve, I.e. a mega-city with a lot of industry.

I suspect that small powerplants will not solve the problems of the nuclear industry in the Western world. The problems are really a combination of atrophy in the industry and loss of workforce and skill base; deindustrialisation as a result of globalisation, that makes it more challenging to build supply lines for key components; regulatory inertia and ratcheting which stretches out buildtimes and increases costs; and societal issues - a lot of people just do not see this set of technologies as a positive and valuable thing and oppose it in all sorts of ways. Light water nuclear power plants are far more expensive and take far longer to build than they did in the 1970s. I suspect that smaller reactors based on newer and less tried technologies will experience more problems not less.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-02 07:18:56)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-02 09:18:28

For Calliban re #153

Thank you for your analysis of several factors that impact the nuclear power industry. It is good to have you back on the scene, after an extended absence.

I predict with some confidence that you (nor anyone) will ** ever ** see a large fission reactor constructed in the United States.

The monster plants simply can't compete with changing competitive offerings. They are literally too big to fail, and they are the source of consternation for the populations faced with the costs of keeping them running as boat anchors, or of dealing with the massive expenses associated with their demise.

Criminal behavior is a consequence of a population naively accepting the rosy predictions of 1980's financial forecasters, who thought that large fission plants would be cost effective over an unlimited future. A massive criminal enterprise is now exposed in at least one state in the US, and I have sufficient respect for human nature to expect more will be exposed.

We have the opportunity to watch developments over several years, with the advantage of your perspective and experience, and hopefully that of others who may contribute to this topic from time to time.

(th)

Calliban · 2020-09-02 10:53:44

Tahanson, I honestly don't know what is going to happen to the nuclear sector over the next 50 years. We live in very strange times right now. For reasons that will become clear, I doubt very much that we will see Mars colonies in our lifetime. The underlying economies of the US and other OECD countries are now close to collapse. It is a collapse that we are unlikely to recover from. I do not believe that we will have sufficient wealth or infrastructure to finance space colonisation more than a decade or so from now.

But I can say with some confidence that your impression of legacy nuclear power plants as being expensive cash burners is inaccurate in most cases. They have provided very low cost electricity for decades. Only large hydro and some coal burning power plants were able to beat them on cost per kWh until the first decade of the 21st century. The reasons are quite simple: until the 1980s, they were cheap to build. They are relatively simple systems that don't require a lot of routine maintenance and fuel is cheap because of its enormous energy density. Decommissioning is in most cases uncomplicated. Once the fuel is removed, nuclear power plants are inert concrete structures. Patience is needed, as in most cases it is sensible to leave irradiated structures for a couple of centuries to allow gamma emitting isotopes to decay sufficiently for normal demolition to be safe. Trying to rush the process makes it far more expensive.

But as I say, we live in strange times. Since 2008, we have been living with interest rates that are lower than inflation. The problem is that industrial society runs on fossil fuels. In most cases, the production cost of those fuels is now greater than consumers can afford to pay for them under any normal economic conditions. This is a problem resulting from depletion of high quality reserves. What remains is more expensive to produce, but there are limits to what consumers can pay because there are limits to the amount of real wealth that can be generated by a unit of energy in the economy. In a last ditch attempt to prevent systematic collapse, the political elites have fiddled the money supply so that credit is now available at prices lower than inflation.

The result has been an enormous distortion in energy markets. Tight oil (shale) would never be economically viable under normal economic conditions. The drilling rates required to maintain production are obscene. But under zero interest rate conditions, we have seen a boom in what would otherwise have remained a marginal energy source. Because tight oil production produces more associated gas than anyone knows what to do with, natural gas prices have actually turned negative in some areas in the US. The result is very cheap natural gas electricity. Wind and solar power were unaffordable curiosities for most utilities before 2008. Their cost structure is dominated by capital costs, so under zero interest rates, they have suddenly become cheap and can be backed up by even cheaper natural gas powerplants. All of this seems to have given people the impression that these energy sources are poised to take over the world. Yet they remain viable only as long as interest rates remain effectively zero and massive stimulus spending continues to inflate the coffers of zombie companies. The problem is that debt levels are rising so fast that even under zero interest rate conditions it may be difficult to service them for much longer. Stimulus spending is leading to enormous income inequality and asset price inflation. And ultimately, if it continues, it will destabilise fiat currencies. And then there is the problem that zero interest rates have destroyed return on capital, on which pension funds depend.

At some point, somehow, we are going to have to return to reality. And that reality is going to leave a lot of cherished assumptions (and people) without any clothes. A return to normal monetary conditions would collapse the economy in a way that would make the 1930s look like a golden age of prosperity. Yet it is inevitable. If we are ever to recover from it, we need to develop high EROI nuclear energy. And we must develop the skill base, the infrastructure and legal infrastructure that allows this to happen.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-02 11:07:14)

SpaceNut · 2020-09-16 19:15:12

Hitachi’s 'disappointing' exit from Wylfa nuclear deal is no great loss

Calliban · 2020-09-17 03:15:09

SpaceNut wrote:

Hitachi’s 'disappointing' exit from Wylfa nuclear deal is no great loss

£20billion for 3.4GW plant is about 4-7 times too expensive. This deal was not value for money as it stood and I certainly don't lament the fact that it fell through.

Back in the 1970s, light water reactors were being constructed in the US for $1000/kW. Under those prices, the Wylfa BWRs would have cost about £3billion.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … r_reactors

How the heck did these things end up costing £20billion? After fifty years of experience building nuclear reactors, these things should be cheaper, not more expensive. And the modern units benefit from economy of scale that did not exist for older plants.

Unless and until the nuclear industry can get its arse into gear and start offering products at reasonable prices, I don't see it having a future in Britain or anywhere else in the western world. And if it can't build something as simple as a boiling water reactor for $1000/kw, then it really doesn't deserve a future.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-17 05:26:12)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-17 06:56:15

For readers of this topic in general ...

Following up on the observation of Calliban #157, I asked Google "why did cost rise to build nuclear reactors"

There were the usual millions of results, but the top page had plenty of relevant citations.

If someone in the forum has the time to read, understand and condense that volume of response to a few key concepts, I'd be grateful.

Specifically, I'd be interested in why Calliban's observation that practice should have led to lower costs did not. My guess is that costs of design did go down as knowledge accumulated, but costs of practically everything went up, while costs of competitive services went down.

I suspect there is a fatal flaw in the belief that large is better. It may turn out that the small reactor designers are addressing whatever headwinds exist.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-17 10:03:45

In another "conversation" with Google:

Google request: engineering to design nuclear reactor

About 32,200,000 results (0.83 seconds)
Nuclear Reactor Systems Design - Nuclear Engineering ...ne.oregonstate.edu › nuclear-reactor-systems-design
Thermal hydraulic studies related to nuclear reactor design include hydrodynamics, conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer in nuclear reactor systems, core heat removal design, and single and two-phase flow behavior. ...
Nuclear Reactor Engineering: Reactor Design Basics ...www.amazon.com › Nuclear-Reactor-Engineering-Desi...
Nuclear Reactor Engineering: Reactor Design Basics / Reactor Systems Engineering [Glasstone, Samuel, Sesonske, Alexander] on Amazon.com. *FREE* ...
Nuclear Engineering and Design - Journal - Elsevierwww.journals.elsevier.com › nuclear-engineering-and-...
Nuclear Engineering and Design covers the wide range of disciplines involved in the engineering, design, safety and construction of nuclear fission reactors.
Backgrounder on New Nuclear Plant Designs - NRCwww.nrc.gov › fact-sheets › new-nuc-plant-des-bg
The NRC encourages standardized nuclear power plant designs to help ... 80+ design by Westinghouse (formerly ABB-Combustion Engineering) (May 1997, ...
Pre-Application Review · Design Certification Review · Certified Designs
Design of nuclear power plants | IAEAwww.iaea.org › topics › design
The design of a nuclear power plant needs to consider specific site ... the application of strong safety requirements and proven engineering practices to ensure ...
Nuclear engineering | Britannicawww.britannica.com › ... › Civil Engineering
The design and analysis of nuclear reactors, whether on land or in a submarine, requires an understanding of the complex nuclear phenomena going on within ...
Nuclear Reactor Design Engineer Jobs, Employment | Indeed ...www.indeed.com › ... › Engineers
204 Nuclear Reactor Design Engineer jobs available on Indeed.com. Apply to Nuclear Engineer, Entry Level Engineer, Entry Level Electrical Engineer and ...

Nuclear reactor engineering
Book by Samuel Glasstone
Book preview
43/395 pages available
Dr. Samuel Glasstone, the senior author of the previous editions of this book, was anxious to live until his ninetieth birthday, but passed away in 1986, a few months short of this milestone. ... Google Books
Originally published: 1955
Author: Samuel Glasstone

For Calliban ... by any chance, do you have Glasstone in your library?

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-17 10:04:03)

kbd512 · 2020-09-17 11:01:15

tahanson43206,

The fatal flaw in large reactor designs is the fact that they take so long to obtain approval to build and then to construct from scratch because all of them are one-off custom designs that nobody else has ever worked on before. This is why the French have a fleet of a single type of reactor, although their reactors are all mega projects as well. Reactors need to be built like our M1 tanks in a special purpose government-run factory, staffed by private contractors, who service the fleet of reactors. If you've seen one M1 tank, then you've seen 'em all. The hull / road wheels / tracks / computers / wiring / jet engine / etc are the same across the entire fleet, so long as funding is available to upgrade all of the vehicles to the latest specification. Some have different armor packages or add-on systems like remote turrets for machine guns / grenade launchers / missiles and whatnot, but that's about it. Every time a vehicle goes to the factory for refurbishment, it gets upgraded to the latest standard. The result is a repeatable product built to a known specific specification and serviced by technicians who have a very well-established training program.

The fuel cost of a 1GW reactor is not the most significant cost over its operational life ($600M for enough fuel for 50 years of operations vs $5B to build it), especially if we have another government-run / contractor-staffed factory to reprocess fuel. If reactors were smaller, then despite being slightly less efficient in their use of fuel (there's enough "nuclear waste" / "98% original energy content cracked fuel rods" in storage now to preclude the need to mine fresh Uranium for another century or so, even if 100% of the electrical power was provided by nuclear power), they'd still end up being cheaper than paying for construction of something that takes 5 or 10 years to complete. Every piece except the foundation and containment building needs to be truck-transportable. The other issue is engineers who need to be taken to the side and told to build something practical, rather than what they'd build if they had a wish list of every feature they wanted to include. Anyway, if you can cart off the entire reactor core or electric generator on the back of a flatbed semi truck, then you can take the major components back to the factor for repair or refurbishment. Taking a reactor offline no longer means shutting down the power to an entire city, either.

No amount of red tape or safety protocols will ever satisfy the anti-nuclear activists because their arguments are emotion-based, not engineering-based or human-factor-based. As far as practical engineering goes, a reduction in core volume to surface area ratio means that more time is required for a melt-down to occur if coolant flow is lost, which gives more time for off-site teams to respond effectively. Operators will be less hesitant to take individual cores offline for maintenance in the event that there is some kind of anomaly because more cores will be available to produce power. If you had one or two "hot spares" that ramp up / down more quickly than GW-class reactors are capable of doing, then you can also follow demand. The USS Ford's A1B 700MWt class reactors can ramp up / down in seconds without damaging the core, for example. So we could start building reactors more akin to naval reactors, rather than reactors the size of the VAB at KSC if we want load-following capability, hot spares, and truck-transportable units. I would argue the case for using SCO2 turbo machinery as well.

Anyway, nobody is serious about wanting to address fossil fuel consumption rates or climate change through the use of the one practical technology we have to do that. Instead, they're more interested in tinkering with solar panels / wind turbines / batteries into perpetuity, increasing the cost of electricity to account for the fact that photovoltaics / wind turbines are impractical to implement at a global scale using current technology, etc. I've mostly lost interest because the cringe fringe is fixated on being as cringy as they possibly can be and everyone else who isn't independently wealthy can't afford to blow money on their favorite impractical technology projects. Nuclear power can and will solve the problems they say they want to solve, but it won't spend enough money, require enough authoritarian government intervention, or inconvenience enough people to be to their liking. In short, they're more interested in messing with people who don't need to be messed with.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-17 14:43:34

For kbd512 re #160 and topic in general

The latest sequence in this topic is Calliban's vision of a rudimentary (but exceedingly practical) design for Mars.

Setting aside all the problems with nuclear fission power on Earth, it seems to me (at this point anyway) that the way is clear for designs to be developed for the environment on Mars.

For that reason, I am hoping persons with engineering leanings complementary to those of Calliban will pitch in to help build a set of knowledge that could be applied by planners of Mars missions.

At the moment, as far as I can tell, Calliban's design is very much at the "back of the envelope" level. I'd like to see specifications for specific sections of pipe of particular materials with particular alloy combinations and heat/pressure treatment.

We need fuller development of the idea of a safety water pool under the reactor, as an alternative to the solid block of reinforced concrete put in place during World War II at Hanford. It is possible that the lower gravity of Mars may permit departure from the massive foundation thought necessary on Earth in the 1940's.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-17 14:44:18)

kbd512 · 2020-09-17 17:09:39

tahanson43206,

You mean a document like the following:

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited - A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE NRX REACTOR

Do you want material properties / corrosion test results from NRC or IAEA?:

EVALUATION OF CORROSION OF BASE REACTOR FUEL CLADDING MATERIALS DURING DRY STORAGE

Corrosion of Research Reactor Aluminium Clad Spent Fuel in Water

Or fuel rod materials / configurations?:

FUEL CYCLES IN NUCLEAR REACTORS

FUELS FOR CANADIAN RESEARCH REACTORS

Calliban · 2020-09-17 17:09:49

For my masters project, I designed a direct cycle gas cooled (CO2) fast reactor that produced 2GWe of power apiece. The plant was designed to allow all materials to be delivered by a single railway track. Basically, the factory that produces the plant components is located along a rail route. In Europe, nowhere is very far from a railway track and most are electrified. After the railway is extended to the site, all new components for the site can be delivered using nuclear electricity.

It was tricky designing such a large reactor plant in such a way that it could be broken down into small modular components. It meant for example using 4 x 500MWe S-CO2 generating sets, rather than a single large one. But this actually helped achieve safety objectives. In the event of a fracture in one of coolant loops, the rate of depressurisation was sufficiently low that pressure remained high enough to remove decay heat by natural convection for several hours, even if main isolating valves on the damaged loop failed to close and all active cooling were lost.

There were other safety features inherent to this design that made it extremely safe even though whole system power density was extremely high and core power density was unprecedented for a gas cooled reactor - comparable that achievable by a sodium cooled reactor. For example, it was possible to use each of the power generating loops to remove decay heat independently of any outside power supply, provided that cooling water was provided to the heat exchangers. The reactor pressure vessel was prestressed concrete with a cast iron insert and a carbon steel internal liner. The PCRV was made from concrete sections that could be slid and keyed together, each one small enough to fit on a railway truck. The reactor PCRV included cooling channels that contained thermoelectric generators. These would generate enough power to run blowers for long term decay heat removal using the decay heat itself as a power source.

Even very large systems can be built up from smaller modular components if they are designed in that way. And building like this allows a large amount of redundancy to be built into the design.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-17 17:15:31)

SpaceNut · 2020-09-17 17:39:00

While I can understand this information I am in no way capable to do that level of work....

I would agree that separate smaller reactors was the way to achieve not only a safe operating goal but also making them independent means not all need to be turned off if there are issues that need fixing.

Question is there a way to make this as a residential system of a 10kw sizing for being sub surface as a means to aid with regulation and isolation....-

Calliban · 2020-09-17 17:48:41

I am not really in a position personally to take any nuclear design here beyond basic concept stage. To really narrow down design parameters takes a lot of analytical work. One needs to have a good understanding of materials science and put the time in to thermal hydraulics and neutronics analysis. It isn't a trivial amount of work. It is a large project even to reach a concept design.

I also think much will depend on how easy it will be for a Mars colony to source nuclear related materials and technologies from Earth. If for example, we can source low enriched uranium from Earth at a reasonable cost, it is highly unlikely that we would go down the route of building huge graphite moderated reactors. Probably a small boiling water reactor would be best. At its simplest, this could use pressure tubes running through a moderator tank, that would also serve decay heat removal through conduction and natural convection. I am fond of pressure tube reactors because it is possible to scale them up to arbitrary power levels simply by adding more tubes. Direct cycle reactors also avoid the need for expensive stainless steel steam generators.

If we can get zirconium, heavy water, high quality stainless steels, etc, it opens up still more options. The hanford type graphite moderated, water cooled reactor was something I raised as an example of what we could build on Mars if it proved impossible to source nuclear technology or high grade materials from Earth. The North Koreans built crude Magnox reactors from declassified British designs precisely because these reactors are easy to build with a very limited manufacturing base.

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-17 18:02:35)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-17 18:01:35

For Calliban re two posts ...

Thanks for telling us of your Masters Degree paper, and adding perspective on the difficulty of creating a design.

NASA has decided to source the entire (small) reactor on Earth. That makes a lot of sense. They have the distinct advantage of being able to secure government approval, although I'll bet even NASA has to jump through hoops.

For kbd512 ... thanks for that helpful list of references.

Back to Calliban ... after thinking about your description of the work you did for the reactor design ....

I'm picking up on your design for railroad car size packages ...

That is a ** lot ** like packaging for Starship packages !!!

If a young person were to follow your example (by working on a Masters Degree project or something similar) could they design an Earth source reactor that could be shipped in 100 ton packages and assembled on Mars?

It is remotely possible you might be able to inspire such a person to take on that work.

(th)

Calliban · 2020-09-17 18:48:11

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Calliban re two posts ...
Thanks for telling us of your Masters Degree paper, and adding perspective on the difficulty of creating a design.
NASA has decided to source the entire (small) reactor on Earth. That makes a lot of sense. They have the distinct advantage of being able to secure government approval, although I'll bet even NASA has to jump through hoops.
For kbd512 ... thanks for that helpful list of references.
Back to Calliban ... after thinking about your description of the work you did for the reactor design ....
I'm picking up on your design for railroad car size packages ...
That is a ** lot ** like packaging for Starship packages !!!
If a young person were to follow your example (by working on a Masters Degree project or something similar) could they design an Earth source reactor that could be shipped in 100 ton packages and assembled on Mars?
It is remotely possible you might be able to inspire such a person to take on that work.
(th)

As stated before, we start with design criteria and design limitations. What are we trying to achieve in terms of power output and what sort of resources can we expect from Earth?

A 10kWe reactor is more difficult than it sounds if one wishes to achieve a good power to weight ratio. It would almost certainly require highly enriched uranium. This is politically very difficult for obvious reasons. Low enriched uranium is much easier to obtain, but pushes up the minimum critical size of the reactor. Natural uranium is easier still, but using natural uranium requires either a graphite or heavy water moderator and minimum critical radius is relatively large in both cases - several metres in diameter for natural uranium and graphite. That said, low power density natural uranium reactors are technically easy to build, even if they are non-optimised in many ways. But heavy water is a controlled nuclear substance as well.

For a commercially established Mars base (et la Musk?) how difficult would it be for an organisation like SpaceX to obtain controlled nuclear materials on the proviso that it would only be used on Mars?

Last edited by Calliban (2020-09-17 18:49:23)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-18 04:53:54

For Calliban re entire subtopic ...

It is NOT necessary for you to recreate all the work you put into your Masters paper .... all that is needed is to inspire a young person looking for a worthy topic for a paper on a reactor to be supplied for Mars...

Your previous work to design a reactor using rail transportable components could be (should be) a model that can be replicated for the Mars environment.

At this point, I'd recommend NOT worrying about the mass required, or the zillions of monetary units that would be needed. What is needed is a person inspired by your example, and perhaps by a bit of coaching, to design a reactor for Mars using generally available materials.

Let's see if this forum can inspire useful effort by the generation that WILL be going to Mars.

Edit #1: Russia and China will be perfectly happy to develop and deliver highly concentrated fissionable materials to Mars for their settlements. Unfortunately, Britain does not appear to be in the game. The EU ** might ** be willing to do the same ... they certainly have the capability.

The US ** is ** in the highly concentrated game, via NASA.

Your initiative to design for unconcentrated fissionable material may well be rewarded by discovery of sufficient quantities on Mars. The point is the design for that material would be ready to go. That would be a useful output from this forum.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-09-18 04:58:08)

SpaceNut · 2020-09-18 15:32:20

One must remember that a nuclear reactor gives about 25% of that energy back as useable in the form of electricity with the remaining going towards waste heat....
One will need the waste heat to warm mars to the level that we would be getting at the surface from its 430 w m^2 a lot closer to the 1,000 w that earth feels.
Most mars Direct or semi are looking at solar power to provide 100kw of energy but that seems less probable on a first mission to achieve and I think that is why Nasa is looking at the KRUSTY units as they seem to be manageable in size, mass and power out put levels for the amount of uranium, being used.

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-24 13:08:28

For SpaceNut in particular, but for all who favor development of (safe) nuclear fission for domestic power production:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-go … 00939.html

I'm intrigued that the formula is proprietary.

How would that be handled, if production is carried out in the US as described in the article?

Perhaps contracts would be let to suitably qualified domestic companies?

India is listed as a likely partner for this discovery.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-09-26 09:13:50

Here is an encouraging report ...

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nucl … 46662.html

The gist of it seems to be that nuclear fission will do better in the market place by making hydrogen, than by competing with other energy supplies in the open electricity market.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-10-19 15:27:35

Here is another update on Molten Salt reactors .... Those in the forum who are following developments closely will already know most (if not all) of this, but the forum has readers who might appreciate the report:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/molt … 00896.html

(th)

SpaceNut · 2020-10-19 20:10:55

Here is the big thing in the article

while burning up nuclear waste in the process.

This is one of the expensive parts of a reactor use is the waste removal....

This would allow for using existing waste in the new reactor to aid in its clean up and lowering of cost of operation.

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-10 08:22:51

The name of this company fits the title of this topic:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/ther … 00114.html

Caroline Delbert
Mon, November 9, 2020, 6:06 PM EST
This company's ceramic-coated pellet fuel is low enriched, safer, and more stable.
Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) has designed a new thermal nuclear engine it says could carry astronauts to Mars in just three months—and back to Earth in the same amount of time. By using ceramic microcapsules of high assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, USNC's thermal nuclear engine could cut the trip in half even from optimistic estimates.

“The problem is to produce a nuclear reactor that is light enough and safe enough for use outside the Earth's atmosphere—especially if the spacecraft is carrying a crew,” New Atlas explains.
Thermal nuclear for propulsion is an old idea. While weapons are thermal, other applications have lingered in the experimental stage and then been discarded, but they’ve still been studied off and on for decades. These designs use the astonishing heat generated by a nuclear reaction to push a rocket at speeds approaching the Star Trek realm compared to what we use today. And they contrast with traditional chemical rockets, where chemical propellants like liquid oxygen are used to make something more like a supersized fossil fuel combustion engine.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2020-11-12 10:09:47

One of Quark's friends is heading to the Kindom of Jordan in a few weeks.

The assignment has nothing whatsoever to do with nuclear power, but since there is discussion in the forum right now about a nation other than the United States developing (or even thinking about developing) a space rated nuclear fission reactor to drive a plasma engine, I decided to ask Google what Jordan's policy might be with regard to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Nuclear power plans: large reactors. Jordan's Committee for Nuclear Strategy, set up in 2007, set out a program for nuclear power to provide 30% of electricity by 2030, and to provide for exports. ... Up to 40% of the capacity of any nuclear plant built on the coast would likely be used for desalination.
Nuclear Power in Jordan - World Nuclear Associationwww.world-nuclear.org › country-profiles › countries-g-n
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Nuclear energy in Jordan - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Nuclear_energy_in_Jordan
In December 2016, the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), in cooperation with a consortium headed by the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, inaugurated the 5 MW Jordan Research and Training Reactor. The facility is the first nuclear reactor in the country. ... a reactor would be above the Azraq Aquifer, which supplies most of Amman's ...
Nuclear power plans · Environmental concerns · Anti-nuclear campaigns
Jordan 2017 - Publicationswww-pub.iaea.org › PDF › cnpp2017 › countryprofiles
The national energy policy aims at performing adequate energy provision for sustainable ... and laws and the general safety conditions applicable in the Kingdom. ... The Jordan Nuclear Power Plant Project (JNPP) is currently envisaged as ...
Jordan | Countries | NTI - Nuclear Threat Initiativewww.nti.org › learn › countries › jordan
Jun 9, 2015 — Nuclear. Jordan is a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the ... of Jordan's first nuclear power plant 70 kilometers east of Amman at Amra, ... Civil Nuclear Energy Nations in the Middle East," Policy Brief 11-01, The ...
Time to Reconsider Jordan's Nuclear Program | Middle East ...www.mei.edu › publications › time-reconsider-jordans-...
Jun 20, 2016 — Chairman of Jordan's Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) Khalid Toukan confidently asserted, “We aim to build a state of the art nuclear power plant that will be a ... While the Hashemite kingdom previously relied on Egypt for natural gas, ... Ali Ahmad, director of the Energy Policy Program at the American ...
NuScale SMR to be considered for use in Jordan : New Nuclearwww.world-nuclear-news.org › Articles › NuScale-SM...
Jan 15, 2019 — To find out more check our cookies and privacy policy. OK ... "As Jordan considers its energy future, I'm confident that the unmatched ... us the ideal partner on the Kingdom's nuclear power goals," said NuScale Power ... A power plant could include up to 12 modules to produce as much as 720 MWe (gross).
Jordan pushes forward with plan for first nuclear power station ...www.thenationalnews.com › world › mena › jordan-pu...
AMMAN // Jordan is pressing ahead with plans to build its first nuclear power station, amid public opposition sparked by environmental concerns after Japan's ...
The Middle East's Next Nuclear Power? - POLITICO Magazinewww.politico.com › jordan-nuclear-power-114712
Jan 28, 2015 — The Kingdom of Jordan has for more than a decade watched ... One of Jordan's proposed nuclear plants, at least initially, was slated to be built ...
Why Jordan Is Building Two New Nuclear Power Plantswww.brookings.edu › on-the-record › why-jordan-is-b...
Mar 8, 2013 — As Jordan looks to develop a civilian nuclear energy program, some ... Amman is believed to be choosing between tenders from a French ...
Russia to build Jordan's first nuclear power plant | Jordan | Al ...www.aljazeera.com › news › russia-to-build-jordans-fir...
Mar 24, 2015 — Jordan has signed a $10bn deal with Russia to build the kingdom's first nuclear power plant, with two 1,000-megawatt reactors in the country's ...

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#151 2020-08-28 19:42:43

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#152 2020-08-31 08:16:08

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#153 2020-09-02 07:15:46

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#154 2020-09-02 09:18:28

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#155 2020-09-02 10:53:44

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#156 2020-09-16 19:15:12

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#157 2020-09-17 03:15:09

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#158 2020-09-17 06:56:15

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#159 2020-09-17 10:03:45

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#160 2020-09-17 11:01:15

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#161 2020-09-17 14:43:34

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#162 2020-09-17 17:09:39

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#163 2020-09-17 17:09:49

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#164 2020-09-17 17:39:00

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#165 2020-09-17 17:48:41

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#166 2020-09-17 18:01:35

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#167 2020-09-17 18:48:11

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#168 2020-09-18 04:53:54

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#169 2020-09-18 15:32:20

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#170 2020-09-24 13:08:28

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#171 2020-09-26 09:13:50

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#172 2020-10-19 15:27:35

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#173 2020-10-19 20:10:55

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#174 2020-11-10 08:22:51

Re: Nuclear power is safe

#175 2020-11-12 10:09:47

Re: Nuclear power is safe

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