Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology • Hacker News Board

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#151

Post by hvidgaard » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:29 PM UTC

cf498 wrote: post #143

hvidgaard wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put some numbers to the initiation of this. The entire fleet of reactors in France will after 50 year of operation have produced 5300m3 of high-level waste (the kind you need to store long term). That amounts to less than 400 boxes able to contain a Tesla Model S. 50 years of operation generating 300-400 TWh yearly. I'm not saying it's not problematic, but it's minuscule compared to all forms of power. Even win…

Sure sounds great, what are the best and worst case costs of storing that stuff for how long? And yes i know dry cask storage is much less problematic, but i would still want a realistic plan of what is happening to that stuff and what this is going to cost. What irks me so much is that i am not simply told, look here it what it currently costs, how it would scale and what the realistic liabilities are. If you were a…

From this https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/065005003

> A typical dry-storage cask holds 10 tons of spent fuel and costs about $1 million–$2 million each. (The CASTOR is at the upper end of that range.) This translates to a cost of less than one-twentieth of a penny per kilowatt-hour—about 1 percent of the cost of generating nuclear power.

They last for anywhere between 30-100 years and I assume to be be processed and put into new casks after that. So "less than one-twentieth of a penny per kilowatt-hour" every 30-100 year.

Note this is for the worst of the waste. There is still low level waste and long lived waste that need not be stored in dry casks. It still doesn't sound as problematic. I think the main issue is finding a site and protecting the casks/waste.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#152

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:29 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #131

StillBored wrote: post #3

A few years ago Toshiba was going to build a small reactor in Alaska. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant But it got canceled, and for the life of me I can't understand why anyone thinks its better to truck in heavy fuel oil for generators vs having a small reactor buried in the ground for 30 years. I've been saying for a few years now that green energy only advocates are basically on the side of…

People underestimate how much of the opposition to nuclear plants in the past was due to the "dual use" nature of the technology, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the 80s it was hard to care about the effects of climate change in a mere hundred years when global policy was to keep civilization-destroying quantities of weapons on hand that could be delivered in 45 minutes. The war between nuclear weapons a…

Iran has a nuclear plant and enough uranium that the bottleneck to weapons is enrichment.

I’m not sure what choice of power source has to do with weapon proliferation.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#153

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

lrem wrote: post #122

acidburnNSA wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still make that size reactor with low-enriched fuel. It just doesn't last 30 years like it does in subs. Instead, it lasts 3-5 years.

That sounds like defeating the selling point of those small reactors? Can it still be cost effective with such short service cycles?

I don’t think he means the plant needs to be rebuilt, just that the fuel doesn’t last as long.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#154

Post by StreamBright » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:44 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #131

StillBored wrote: post #3

A few years ago Toshiba was going to build a small reactor in Alaska. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant But it got canceled, and for the life of me I can't understand why anyone thinks its better to truck in heavy fuel oil for generators vs having a small reactor buried in the ground for 30 years. I've been saying for a few years now that green energy only advocates are basically on the side of…

People underestimate how much of the opposition to nuclear plants in the past was due to the "dual use" nature of the technology, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the 80s it was hard to care about the effects of climate change in a mere hundred years when global policy was to keep civilization-destroying quantities of weapons on hand that could be delivered in 45 minutes. The war between nuclear weapons a…

False dichotomy. Iran can solve their energy needs with a new type of reactor that cannot be used to produce weapons (like the Thorium based reactors being developed). On the top of that, you cannot solve a country’s energy need purely with solar. Finally why picking on Iran? As far as history goes there is only one nation that deployed nuclear weapons in a war situation. This same nation wanted to deploy nuclear weapons few more times, the only reason why they did not is public outrage. You can check these since the records were declassified.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#155

Post by jabl » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

SECProto wrote: post #41

killjoywashere wrote: post #21

The topic is small modular reactors, which are defined as reactors producing less than 300 MW. The Voyager RTGs generate "a few hundred watts" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge... ). The Virginia class submarines use a GE S9G, which produces 150 MWt. Power output is a mix of electric and shaft torque ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S9G_reactor ) The Los Angeles class submarines use a GE S…

Nuclear submarines use highly enriched uranium as a fuel. That's not a practical thing to use in civilian reactors.

US (and British, but they apparently use US tech so it's the same) submarines run on weapons grade uranium. Other nations use less enriched.

France runs on 7%, Russia apparently 30-40% enriched.

But yes, there are certainly other reasons too why submarine reactors wouldn't be a sensible choice for civilian use.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#156

Post by jabl » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:47 PM UTC

lrem wrote: post #122

acidburnNSA wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still make that size reactor with low-enriched fuel. It just doesn't last 30 years like it does in subs. Instead, it lasts 3-5 years.

That sounds like defeating the selling point of those small reactors? Can it still be cost effective with such short service cycles?

Big civilian reactors refuel every 12-18 months, roughly. No reason why smaller reactors couldn't do the same.

Very long refueling cycles make sense for stuff like remote areas etc., but for "normal" stuff where the thing is connected to a grid with a lot of other generators there's not that much value in it.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#157

Post by jabl » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #61

tempsolution wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, wouldn't it make A LOT of sense for the US government, or any government to heavily invest in this space, since it get two flies with one stone (i.e. better energy for land AND sea AND potentially space)?

I wondered about this myself. As another commenter pointed out naval plants use a more enriched uranium which IIRC allows them to run the reactors for 20+ years without needing to refuel. One other way of thinking about it though is that this is evidence we can have a program to make specialized small modular reactors fairly economically. So we shouldn’t be so skeptical about proposals we do it for civilian use.

> this is evidence we can have a program to make specialized small modular reactors fairly economically.

It is? I would imagine that the advantages of nuclear power for submarines are so great that militaries would gladly pay 100 times more than would be acceptable for civilian power without blinking.

(I do think SMR's are promising for civilian applications, I just don't think that nuclear submarines are a good argument for the potential economic benefits.)

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#158

Post by lizknope » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

reacweb wrote: post #135

pjc50 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People underestimate how much of the opposition to nuclear plants in the past was due to the "dual use" nature of the technology, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the 80s it was hard to care about the effects of climate change in a mere hundred years when global policy was to keep civilization-destroying quantities of weapons on hand that could be delivered in 45 minutes. The war between nuclear weapons a…

I find it very hard to imagine that a 74 years old technology remains complex enough to be available only to governements.

It's not. Nuclear fission reactors are built by large corporations like General Electric and Hitachi. If these companies wanted to they have the expertise to build a nuclear bomb but why would they unless their governments asked them to?

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#159

Post by travisoneill1 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

cf498 wrote: post #143

hvidgaard wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put some numbers to the initiation of this. The entire fleet of reactors in France will after 50 year of operation have produced 5300m3 of high-level waste (the kind you need to store long term). That amounts to less than 400 boxes able to contain a Tesla Model S. 50 years of operation generating 300-400 TWh yearly. I'm not saying it's not problematic, but it's minuscule compared to all forms of power. Even win…

Sure sounds great, what are the best and worst case costs of storing that stuff for how long? And yes i know dry cask storage is much less problematic, but i would still want a realistic plan of what is happening to that stuff and what this is going to cost. What irks me so much is that i am not simply told, look here it what it currently costs, how it would scale and what the realistic liabilities are. If you were a…

> We regularly have major fuckups when it comes to long term storage that are incredibly pricey and just accepted as the cost of doing nuclear

When a nuclear plant releases radiation into the atmosphere we call it a major fuck up. When a coal plant releases dangerous pollutants (including radiation) into the atmosphere we call it normal operation.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#160

Post by Retric » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 12:57 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #83

Retric wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear currently has a huge range of issues that’s outside of reactor design. Even assuming a 50% cost reduction seems viable, it’s still expensive. Permit’s and regulation are real and significant costs. In an ideal world they would be lower, but realistically you need to consider them Next, load following is critical as renewable energy regulatory reduces the spot price of electricity near zero. Breakeven right no…

Gas turbines are indeed simple. And fracked gas is amazingly cheap and plentiful. The problem there is that it's exceedingly high carbon. If you factor in methane leakage at the wells and in the pipes it approaches and even exceeds coal carbon emissions. We must stop locking in fracked gas turbines if we are to avoid climate change issues. Nuclear companies are trying to deal with load following by coupling to energy…

Wind and solar charge batteries/pumped hydro at vastly lower prices. If you take 2c/kWh solar add 50% oversupply to cover seasonal issues you’re at 3c/kWh.

Thus it’s really storage that Nuclear needs to compete with not generation. Further, as nuclear takes years to build it’s competing with future battery prices 5-55 years from now. Using conservative total system costs of say 200$ per kWh of storage every day for 10 years (200/10/365) ~= 5.5c/kWh. So, Nuclear needs to compete with load following at (3+5.5) = 8.5c/kWh for part of the day or mass generation at 3c/kWh. Assuming it’s ~50/50 of each your 24/7 Nuclear is facing 6c/kWh average electricity prices.

Also, EROI can’t actually get low when you’re talking electricity at those prices.

PS: My comparison to turbines was simply a minimal calculation of capital costs. It’s an argument that any design will have higher capital costs and thus you can safely use that as your theoretical perfect design’s capital cost. Then add other costs on top of that to try and find Nuclear’s minimum theoretical cost.