Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029 • Hacker News Board

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#121

Post by hokkos » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #57

pauljurczak wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baseline power based on batteries is not practical yet and it won't be for a while. Way too expensive and resource intensive.

Solar + batteries averaged over the 24 hour demand curve are cheaper than current generation nuclear power plant operating 24/7/365. The issue is turning off nuclear power plants don’t significantly reduce costs so their competing head to head vs x hours @ 2c/kWh + y hours @ ~20c/kWh. At first glance it seems to slightly favor nuclear when it can operate 24/7, but nuclear power plants have a very long lifecycle 40+ y…

In some countries maybe but in a lot of others there are days with almost no sun, batteries are not for seasonal storage.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#122

Post by koheripbal » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #57

pauljurczak wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baseline power based on batteries is not practical yet and it won't be for a while. Way too expensive and resource intensive.

Solar + batteries averaged over the 24 hour demand curve are cheaper than current generation nuclear power plant operating 24/7/365. The issue is turning off nuclear power plants don’t significantly reduce costs so their competing head to head vs x hours @ 2c/kWh + y hours @ ~20c/kWh. At first glance it seems to slightly favor nuclear when it can operate 24/7, but nuclear power plants have a very long lifecycle 40+ y…

The important flaw in your argument is the use of the word average.

A grid cannot make use of average power generation. It needs consistent power generation.

...and storage needed to make that happen is orders of magnitude higher than what's being factored in here.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#123

Post by belorn » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #50

chrisco255 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and nuclear is the only near-infinite source of energy.

Forgive me if this is a worn trope, but I've read somewhere that the upper bound on what we can do with nuclear energy is not how much we can produce, but what we can do with the leftovers ... as more and more people use nuclear power we're going to produce more and more nuclear waste, and there isn't really any answer as to what we can do with that. There are plenty of fantastic "ideas" as to what can be done, but i…

Nuclear waste is significant less harmful than fossil fuel waste which currently is produced in massive amounts.

For my perspective, we should ban the worst waste first and then iterate. If we can build an energy grid without burning fossil fuels we should do so, preferable yesterday. If we can then build one that also is without nuclear waste then lets do that too, but my first priority is going to be to get rid of the fossil fuels.

What I do not want is replacing nuclear waste with fossil fuel waste. While we have an unsolved problem with nuclear waste, it is dwarfed by what can be done once run away climate change happens. A world where 100% of energy comes from nuclear is preferable over one where 100%, 80%, 50%, maybe even as low as 20% comes from fossil fuels.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#124

Post by hokkos » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #60

imtringued wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rivers tend to have different flow rates over the course of the year. If there is a heat wave the plant may not have enough water for cooling. The ocean is more dependable.

France has some nuclear plants that are on rivers where this problem has been seen.

"Seen" as a few percent only a few days every two years.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#125

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #61

LatteLazy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in a word. You expect a technology to be made to work first, then to be made to work profitably, and only then commodified, miniaturised, etc. Nuclear works, but no one has made it work profitably. There is no reason to think shrinking it will make more profitable. Quite the opposite in fact: nuclear has big fixed costs. That's why you usually see multiple reactors build close together on single sites. The more p…

I believe you have not disagreed with me, but you have introduced additional intermediate stages and conditions with which I disagree. I disagree that it is necessary for technology to be made profitable before becoming commoditised. I would argue that some technologies only become profitable when they are commoditised. There is no reason to think shrinking it will make more profitable. I cannot see into the minds of…

[deleted]

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#126

Post by vidarh » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #110

roenxi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're coming across a bit hand-wavy in your arguments. I'd prefer to see concrete solutions It is an order-of-magnitude argument; a bit like arguing whether $1 billion or $1 million is more dollars. The difference between the two figures is almost exactly a billion dollars because there really is no comparison between orders of magnitude. Uranium is something like 6 orders of magnitude more energy dense than fossi…

You're comparing magnitudes there ... but I've a feeling there's a base-rate somewhere, relating to how dangerous just a relatively small amount of nuclear waste can be if it gets into groundwater or something. The real problem with nuclear is that it's a one way only system. The effects of other forms of fuel can in theory be sequestered eventually. Sequestration of nuclear waste is exactly something that yout don't…

We could grind nuclear waste from current nuclear plants into fine powder and intentionally blow it into the atmosphere and still cause fewer deaths than coal, as well as cause the release of less radioactive material, as the coal industry causes huge amounts of uranium dust to be released in the air.

So as it stands, if we look at the real world instead of some hypothetical future, we continue to depend on types of power that causes not just the release of more harmful material, but the release of more radioactive material than nuclear.

If we get to a point where we have fully supplanted fossil fuels, and we need to consider whether to continue building nuclear or replace it with alternatives, then the situation may look different, but at the moment anything that slows the replacement of things like coal causes massive amounts of harm, both environmentally and in killing people.

We could have a Chernobyl a year, and it'd still cause us less harm than the continued dependence on coal.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#127

Post by e12e » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #72

rusk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me if this is a worn trope, but I've read somewhere that the upper bound on what we can do with nuclear energy is not how much we can produce, but what we can do with the leftovers ... as more and more people use nuclear power we're going to produce more and more nuclear waste, and there isn't really any answer as to what we can do with that. There are plenty of fantastic "ideas" as to what can be done, but i…

If literally all the electricity ever produced by the human waste had been produced by current generation nuclear technologies, there would be a small hill of high-level nuclear waste somewhere. It wouldn't be an issue except locally where it was stored. To believe that is a problem is to not have grappled with just how big the world is and how much of it is uninhabitable to humans already. The human population is co…

> If literally all the electricity ever produced by the human waste had been produced by current generation nuclear technologies, there would be a small hill of high-level nuclear waste somewhere.

I'm not sure what kind of "modern nuclear technology" you're referring to. Are you saying that our legacy power plants are bad, and should be replaced? At what cost?

> It wouldn't be an issue except locally where it was stored.

So, a single nuclear power plant for the world?

Transporting nuclear waste is also a problem. Even in the US, where it doesn't need to cross oceans (ignoring Hawaii, Puerto Rico and maybe some other territories).

I'm also uncertain if we'll be likely to encourage modern nuclear reactors in Iran, North Korea and in various failed states. They may be safe wrt weapons grade nuclear weapons initially - but could the be modified? (honest question, I'm not sure how easy it would be to enrich material for a traditional bomb, or indeed a "dirty bomb". But small amount of high grade waste kind of sounds like it's usable for a dirty bomb?).

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#128

Post by e12e » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #37

osobo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that every mistake propagated over 10 reactors has to be fixed 10 times. If you have a single reactor, you just fix it once.

That's a massive benefit. That means there 10 opportunities to optimize the process.

10 opportunities to charge for the fix, 10 opportunities for a broke buyer to decline the fix.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#129

Post by LatteLazy » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #61

LatteLazy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in a word. You expect a technology to be made to work first, then to be made to work profitably, and only then commodified, miniaturised, etc. Nuclear works, but no one has made it work profitably. There is no reason to think shrinking it will make more profitable. Quite the opposite in fact: nuclear has big fixed costs. That's why you usually see multiple reactors build close together on single sites. The more p…

I believe you have not disagreed with me, but you have introduced additional intermediate stages and conditions with which I disagree. I disagree that it is necessary for technology to be made profitable before becoming commoditised. I would argue that some technologies only become profitable when they are commoditised. There is no reason to think shrinking it will make more profitable. I cannot see into the minds of…

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your comment.

The answer is my opinion is still no I'm afraid.

I think we assume things shrink and commoditise because technology we use daily has often done that (say home computer parts). But other technologies, especially industrial ones, have not.

Cars for instance are bigger and offer more diversity and less commoditisation than ever before.

Similarly, we've had coal power plants for a long long time. And they are larger than ever. Do you know anyone with a mini coal plant? Neither do i.

Nuclear specifically shows no likely hood of shrinking or commoditising in my opinion. Large fixed costs make shrinking hard. A wide diversity of requirements from customers and interconnectedness makes commoditisation hard.

Maybe rolls toyce have solved 2 problems when no one else has solved 1, but I'm skeptical...

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#130

Post by e12e » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

hokkos wrote: post #121

Retric wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar + batteries averaged over the 24 hour demand curve are cheaper than current generation nuclear power plant operating 24/7/365. The issue is turning off nuclear power plants don’t significantly reduce costs so their competing head to head vs x hours @ 2c/kWh + y hours @ ~20c/kWh. At first glance it seems to slightly favor nuclear when it can operate 24/7, but nuclear power plants have a very long lifecycle 40+ y…

In some countries maybe but in a lot of others there are days with almost no sun, batteries are not for seasonal storage.

I don't know about a lot. I live in Tromsø, Norway (69N). There aren't many populated areas this far north. And even here, solar is pretty decent for a lot of uses (Esp in combination with insulation to reduce the need for heating).

We also have quite a lot of precipitation - but again, solar isn't hopeless even here.

As for seasonal storage, I suspect some kind of kinetic/potential energy storage might be better than batteries? Like lifting a weight, or pumping a liquid up hill/up a tower?