And I guess you can just shut it off in summer?
Nuclear normally sucks for fluctuating demand, but presumably a 6 month on/off cycle is slow enough to work.
China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#32Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower t…
Problem is that they've already caught up. Now they are competing and passing in some areas.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#33Seems like a much more expensive option than solar hot water heaters. It's $226.7 million for 400MW and "Each 400-MW unit can heat 200,000 homes" so ~1,133$ per home where basic models are selling in Asia for under US$250. They mention it's going to be plugged into existing heating networks, but temperature of 100C is not all that hot.
Solar doesn’t work that well in northern China during the winter because there is hardly any sun. Even discounting the pollution, the area would be mostly foggy and overcast, it would be like trying to use solar in Seattle. An apartment complex I lived in had solar hot water and I absolutely hated it, I could never take a “hot” shower during Beijing’s cold winter, just a luke warm one.
For those that don't live in Seattle, tomorrow, on Winter Solstice, the sun will not rise more then 19° above the horizon.
You're not going to get much solar heating out of that... Unless you want to block your neighbor's solar heating array.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#34Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower t…
Because its not efficient, why reinventing the wheel ?
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#35Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
They have a different perception towards the human life. There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits.
You have to understand the fundamental difference between the two countries on a cultural and government level. Chinese people are more than happy to submit to the government as in the neo-confucian sense, the state is the provider, the father, the protector. This is what most Koreans thought too during the early days of dictatorship era that brought tremendous economic uplift.
So it's obvious that China would be more daring in areas where the US would not but because they view the cost of human lives differently.
For instance, the leave no man behind, is not unique to the US military but seldom executed because of the sheer logistical and cost-benefit analysis. In any case, you hear routinely hear Russian soldiers being left to die in Chechnya, Crimea, and now Syria.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#36Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
China has been run by technocrats for the last couple decades. Most of the current leadership has more of a political background, but president Xi Jinping has a chemical engineering degree. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/211... "from 1997 to 2007, all of the top leaders sitting on the innermost Standing Committee shared an engineering background"
They must have degrees in grafting because that seems to be the only real engineering going on in the upper circles.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#37Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower t…
You know that exactly the same argument was made against the US, Germany, and Japan at different points in time, right?
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#38Seems like a much more expensive option than solar hot water heaters. It's $226.7 million for 400MW and "Each 400-MW unit can heat 200,000 homes" so ~1,133$ per home where basic models are selling in Asia for under US$250. They mention it's going to be plugged into existing heating networks, but temperature of 100C is not all that hot.
Solar doesn’t work that well in northern China during the winter because there is hardly any sun. Even discounting the pollution, the area would be mostly foggy and overcast, it would be like trying to use solar in Seattle. An apartment complex I lived in had solar hot water and I absolutely hated it, I could never take a “hot” shower during Beijing’s cold winter, just a luke warm one.
Implementation can make a huge difference, people do install these systems in Alasca and then supplement for a few weeks in the middle of winter which is still a huge fuel savings and cost reduction.
But, if your going to base this on a central location then sizing the system and maintain the desired temperature output is simplified.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#39Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
>> Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. The west largely underestimates Chinese tech chops b/c they steal so much of our IP... Their ability is evident in the number of Ph.D's they turn out, so why don't they invest in developing their own technology instead of stealing everyone else's? "Catching up" is not an acceptable answer with how much intellectual firepower t…
It's coined "piggyback economy" where the first move innovator ends up absorbing all the risks in developing the product and getting it to the market. The second mover then simply improves on the original product likely with ton of issues as they have to distribute their resources throughout the full journey the product makes it from the drawing board to the consumer. The market is there and the second mover is able to "catch up" when the product is as good if not better in quality which finally leads to the exit of the first innovator signaling new entrants that will put pressures on the second innovators margins.
Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating
#40Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.
They have a different perception towards the human life. There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. You have to understand the fundamental difference between the two countries on a cultural and government level. Chinese people are more than happy to submit to the government as in the neo-confucian sense, the state is the provider, the fa…
> There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits.
The perception of the potential for catastrophic failure outweighs the benefits.
Given it’s an unpressurised rector that doesn’t boil the working fluid the potential for a serious accident is very low compared to a high pressure reactor. It can easily be passively cooled and shutdown heat decay can be handled without much fuss. That’s why most research reactors are of this type.
The problem with nuclear power, and in this case heating, is humans are extraordinarily bad at estimating risk.