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Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#141

Post by pentae »

Beltiras wrote: post #137

I'm amazed that the industry is still propagating the mistake made in the early nuclear age of using PWR and solid fuel. The more I read about nuclear the more convinced I become that SMRs for next gen plants are safest and most efficient using the Thorium-U233 fuel cycle and employing molten salt to transfer heat. It's automatically safe since if a runaway reaction takes place the fuel will drain into a tank and rea…

I also went down that rabbithole and I'm also convinced, but I'm not aware of any Thorium reactors currently in operation.

Not being a proven technology would certainly be a business risk to consider though Thorium would be an easier pill to swallow politically and socially once the population is aware of the safety benefits.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#142

Post by cygx »

belorn wrote: post #103
neuronic wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is fusion and not fission [1]. If you can't even get that right, why should anyone take these weird pro-fission arguments seriously in 2020? The solution is to keep using existing nuclear power and develop renewables for replacement. Nuclear fission plants take at the very least 10 years (!!) to go online from the day construction begins. And that leaves out years of planning and dealing with contracts. It's to…

Renewables are not a replacement for existing nuclear power unless you either add fossil fuels or batteries to the mix. Countries which currently are replacing nuclear power do so with a combination of renewables and fossil fuels, with fossil fuels burning when renewables are not producing. Batteries, usually reverse hydro power, is an interesting future technology. Some argue it is significant more developed than fu…

Countries which currently are replacing nuclear power do so with a combination of renewables and fossil fuels

Which countries? Germany for example isn't - yet. We're still in a place where we can reduce usage of both fossil fuels and nuclear, though that won't last unless we figure out effective means of energy storage.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#143

Post by pjc50 »

Beltiras wrote: post #137

I'm amazed that the industry is still propagating the mistake made in the early nuclear age of using PWR and solid fuel. The more I read about nuclear the more convinced I become that SMRs for next gen plants are safest and most efficient using the Thorium-U233 fuel cycle and employing molten salt to transfer heat. It's automatically safe since if a runaway reaction takes place the fuel will drain into a tank and rea…

Plumbing is a problem for hot radioactive molten salt. It's one of the few things that will erode ordinary stainless steel.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#144

Post by auiya »

mrarjen wrote: post #21

Personally I'm all for having mini reactors if it means we can generate reliable energy with minimal pollution. Anything that helps reduce emissions should be considered. But this would need to be a fail save type of reactor and with a clear plan(s) all the way down to how the waste is handled till it's no longer active.

I'd much rather nuclear production operations be handled by larger plants, and storage be handled by the customer. Storage efficiency is the current weak point, not production efficiency.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#145

Post by throw0101a »

vidarh wrote: post #126
rusk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

How does the math work on this? It seems... hyperbolic.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#146

Post by rusk »

throw0101a wrote: post #145
vidarh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. How does the math work on this? It seems... hyperbolic.

Yeah there’s a lot of rhetoric at play here. Very little in the realm of hard details.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#147

Post by throw0101a »

AtlasLion wrote: post #26
grabbalacious wrote: post #15

>Environmentalists are divided over nuclear power, with some maintaining it is dangerous and expensive, while others say that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 all technologies are needed. Yes, a mix of technologies. But there's more to it than that. We're going to need increasing amounts of power in the future to explore the solar system and to solve all kinds of existential problems. Energy usage is not inheren…

baby steps I'd say. Let's first fix all the mess we are making here on earth before thinking of space exploration.

> ... before thinking of space exploration.

Without space exploration we may not have had CMOS image sensors, in addition to a whole bunch of other things:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#148

Post by Beltiras »

pentae wrote: post #141
Beltiras wrote: post #137

I'm amazed that the industry is still propagating the mistake made in the early nuclear age of using PWR and solid fuel. The more I read about nuclear the more convinced I become that SMRs for next gen plants are safest and most efficient using the Thorium-U233 fuel cycle and employing molten salt to transfer heat. It's automatically safe since if a runaway reaction takes place the fuel will drain into a tank and rea…

I also went down that rabbithole and I'm also convinced, but I'm not aware of any Thorium reactors currently in operation. Not being a proven technology would certainly be a business risk to consider though Thorium would be an easier pill to swallow politically and socially once the population is aware of the safety benefits.

It was proven to work back in the 60's. With way worse material tech than we have today. The reinvigoration of Thorium research happened when that design was declassified and shared with some NASA folks.

EDIT: wrong decade

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#149

Post by auiya »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #29

Sure why not, but let us not get carried away and think THIS is the solution to global warming. It is unproven, it will be too late, and not scale up quick enough. By unproven I mean that the economics of it is unproven. We have no proof that SMR will be cheaper than large reactors. The article points this out as well. By late I mean at current fast pace of development a lot of will happen with wind and solar in the…

And the US at least has a long way to go before wind/solar even come close to being the majority sources of our energy production - https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#150

Post by chrisco255 »

hannob wrote: post #102
belorn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have heard, you do loose energy in transmitting power over large distances. There exist low loss transmission cables, but I don't know how effective that is over very great distance. There is also the question of how to redesign a distributed power grid into a centralized version where all the power comes from a single sources in desert areas. On top of that there are political challenges. I have a hard time i…

The Sahara thing is ultimately just to illustrate that there's no real limit to solar energy (because the upper commenter claimed that nuclear is the only energy that is practically limitless). But of course in practice you'd do the easy things first - that is, build solar on every rooftop. No country is anywhere close to that. I guess in the future we'll use imported solar for hard to solve problems, e.g. turn it in…

There's no solar energy in the Sahara at night. And then as people mentioned, there is energy lost in transmission through resistance in power lines. There's also the fact that not too many of the world's 8 billion people live within serviceable range of the Sahara, assuming you can get past the geopolitical instability in that region to construct and maintain such things. The solar cells would need constant cleaning from dust storms to keep them running at high efficiency.

No, running solar on rooftops isn't the most practical use either. Depending on latitude, weather, cost of solar installation and battery installation, orientation and layout of roof to the sun, the problems with snow, rain, and hail, the lack of solar at night, the fact that none of this generates enough power for those times when you need it most like in the middle of winter in northern climates, etc. Solar and wind will never meet the growing needs of modern economy. Period. It's a pipe dream.

They are great supplemental sources of electricity. They cannot power a first world economy.

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