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

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#181

Post by billfruit » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:11 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…

In 90s, if I remember correctly the Clinton administration even offered to built nuclear reactors in North Korea, if they would only bother to stop their weapons program.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#182

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

StreamBright wrote: post #154

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…

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 wea…

The idea that Thorium reactors cannot make weapons is a persistent myth propagated by an overenthusastic group of non-expert internet thorium proponents. It is part of a wider (and in my opinion misguided) scheme led by Kirk Sorensen to rebrand advanced nuclear as "Thorium". Thorium reactors necessarily breed Uranium 233, which is a phenomenal weapons material. In fact, in 1994, the USA declassified a memo from the country's top weapons designers that you can now read for yourself here [1].

[1] https://www.osti.gov/biblio/79078-fGfEfw/webviewable/

Key quote from the weapons folks is: "If the existing weapons were based on uranium-233 instead of plutonium-239, Livermore would not be interested in switching to plutonium."

See also Kang and von Hippel's famous report (pdf) on Thorium weapons potential: https://www.osti.gov/biblio/79078-fGfEfw/webviewable/

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#183

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 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…

Are we all aware that nuclear power plants pay for waste disposal as part of their electricity sales cost in a trust fund called the Nuclear Waste Fund that has a balance around $50B in the US at the moment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle...

As far as I know, nuclear is the only energy source that pre-pays for waste disposal.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#184

Post by squiggleblaz » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:23 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.

> 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.

In Australia we occasionally have a discussion about our submarines. I think we have the largest and longest range conventionally powered subs. Should we get nukes? The argument against is we have no industry. (Although, I think, ex prime ministers are significantly more likely to argue for nuclear subs than current prime ministers. That means something.)

I guess they both play off each other. Life works best with nuclear subs and nuclear plants, or without either.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#185

Post by api » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

thawaway1837 wrote: post #15

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…

Only if the “green energy” people actually had that much power... In reality there are 2 forces that have stopped nuclear. NIMBYism. And terrible economics. But the green energy people are an easy punching bag for the nuclear advocates who are simply unwilling to face up to the reality of why nuclear keeps failing to take off.

I'm sure its three since fossil fuel lobbies are certainly involved.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#186

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #160

acidburnNSA wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 1…

As wind/solar scales, it's likely to get more regulation. There will be fires in battery facilities. People in San Bernardino county will put a moratorium on large solar installations in the desert due to dust storms, etc. This kind of thing always happens, and with wind/solar it will be because they take up so much land and raw materials. Nuclear was once a wonder energy source (in 1958), but as it scaled it ran into troubles. There is some probability that this will happen to wind/solar too. This will slow them down (due to permitting) and increase costs. Intermittency is their boogeyman. When you have enough solar to power everything at noon in the summer, each additional panel becomes a little more expensive than the last.

EROI is just energy system output/manufacturing energy in. How is that a function of price?

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#187

Post by naasking » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

thawaway1837 wrote: post #15

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…

Only if the “green energy” people actually had that much power... In reality there are 2 forces that have stopped nuclear. NIMBYism. And terrible economics. But the green energy people are an easy punching bag for the nuclear advocates who are simply unwilling to face up to the reality of why nuclear keeps failing to take off.

> And terrible economics.

I think you mean "terribly inflexible regulations".

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#188

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

anoplus wrote: post #104

acidburnNSA wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radiation hazards are very real, as we saw graphically with Chernobyl. With Fukushima, we see that they're still real, but we realize we're doing a lot better. Fukushima accident is now estimated to cause up to 1 long-term death from radiation. Chernobyl killed ~70 first responders acutely and up to 4000 long-term. For comparison with other energy sources, Banqiao dam failure killed 100,000 [1] and fossil fuels (84%…

The number of deaths is clearly in nuclear energy' favor. But Chernobyl's area is now inhabitable for thousands of years, isn't it? If that is true, having large areas of earth uninhabitable for 1000s (or much more) years sounds to me like the ultimate disaster. I just wish I am wrong.

Your wish can come true. As our understanding of low-dose radiation improves, we can see that the prudent thing to do in most reactor accidents is to evacuate the area for a while (mostly to let the iodine decay) but then let people come back based on their risk tolerance. For instance, if a model tells you you may lose 10 days of life from living in a low-dose radiation field but you drive a motorcycle or eat red meat, you may be willing to move home.

Take a look at what it's like in the Chernobyl exclusion zone today: https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#189

Post by shkkmo » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #67

thawaway1837 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the “green energy” people actually had that much power... In reality there are 2 forces that have stopped nuclear. NIMBYism. And terrible economics. But the green energy people are an easy punching bag for the nuclear advocates who are simply unwilling to face up to the reality of why nuclear keeps failing to take off.

> Only if the “green energy” people actually had that much power... > In reality there are 2 forces that have stopped nuclear. NIMBYism. And terrible economics. This is a huge misunderstanding. It was the "green energy" people who first fought nuclear power. Go look throughout the country where nuke plants have been taken down. It's because they were leaking and polluting and were ticking time bombs. The greens have…

> . It has only one element of green, that is low carbon, everything else about it is the absolute worst of all power sources.

Pretty blatantly false. Nuclear kills fewer people most, if not all other sources of power, per unit of energy generated.

There are significant pollution issues from mining and burning coal and from manufacturing solar panels. Hydro produces ecological disruption on par with non other. Wind power has significant and downplayed effects of wildlife.

The comparison of these factors is complicated and 'best' depends on what you specific environmental agenda is, but your rhetoric is flat out false.

Re: Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

#190

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:37 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?

Well, small reactors have never been cost effective. In the 1950s we built lots of small reactors and they were terribly cost ineffective. We scaled up specifically to make them cost effective.

Today pro-small nuclear people are thinking economies of mass production can beat out economies of scale. Having read a lot of the history on this topic I don't think we quite know how to make this happen yet.

What we know works is economies of scale + economies of mass production, like when France decarbonized their entire electric grid by standardizing on large PWRs and building 58 of them in 15 years.