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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

#151

Post by Beltiras »

pjc50 wrote: post #143
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.

I haven't researched those issues but apparently it could be done with stone age tech (1960's) compared to the material sciences we have today.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#152

Post by bra4you »

hannob wrote: post #48
chrisco255 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm always baffled by such statements. Can you explain in which way solar is not a "near-infinite source of energy"? I mean... there are without doubt technical challenges and all that (but arguably less technical challenges than to do the same with nuclear), but there really is no relevant limit to the deployment of solar cells if you include things like large-scale installations in the desert.

Me too. But lets not forget, we are dealing with 16 years old kiddies here.

But for you: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#153

Post by neuronic »

Reason077 wrote: post #89
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…

> "Nuclear fission plants take at the very least 10 years (!!) to go online from the day construction begins." Yes, but that's what the small modular reactors being proposed by Rolls-Royce, and others, intend to solve. If successful, they would greatly reduce the construction time, risk, and cost of nuclear projects.

It's a great project for the technology alone but isn't the projected time frame too late? Where will we be 10 years from now with renewables?

Also, if Rolls-Royce projects 2029 it doesn't mean it's done by 2029 and most certainly not wide scale deployed/operable. So what kind of renewable infrastructure and tech will be deployed 15-20 years from now?

That's what you have to compare it with.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#154

Post by chrisco255 »

posix_me_less wrote: post #84
threeseed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if there are advancements in power distribution e.g. high temperature superconductors. This would be a game changer for the major continents like Europe, US, Africa where you could have power coming from hydro, thermal, solar, wind etc and being shipped to where it is needed.

Loss of power during distribution is not a problem that needs solving, power losses due to transmission in conventional grid are mere 5%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Lo... Considering how costly and inflexible all superconductors are, I don't see why they would help.

Those losses are on a per 100 mile basis. 2-5% per 100 miles of line (not as the crow flies mind you). Superconductors would make a huge difference if they could build a room temperature superconductor.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#155

Post by xtian »

dmos62 wrote: post #100
the8472 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as humans are concerned overall progress has been linked to climbing up fractions of the kardashev scale since fire was invented. And even before fire, organisms could only become more complex as the energy available to them increased. You can't run a hummingbird or mammalian brains on photosynthesis directly, it's just not energy-dense enough.

> overall progress This thread is becoming recursive. Is organism complexity progress? Everyone might agree with you, or not. That's because progress is whatever we say it is. It's subjective, in that everyone can have a different view of it, and it's non-constant, in that you can change your mind whenever. Progress is such a loaded word today. I'm hardpressed to find more than a few words with so much cultural bagga…

Certainly individual conceptions of "progress" will vary, but only the most deranged practitioners of self-loathing would make the argument that gaining the freedom to exit a destiny of brute survival does not constitute advancement.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#157

Post by sir_brickalot »

pferdone wrote: post #28
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.

TerraPower [1] seem to have a good alternative with its Traveling Wave Reactor. It can be run on nuclear waste we already have and provide energy to 10bln people with US per capita power consumption for basically eternity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

From your Wikipedia link:

TLDR: Its all just theoretical.

"TerraPower planned to build a 600 MWe demonstration Plant, the TWR-P, by 2018–2022 followed by larger commercial plants of 1150 MWe in the late 2020s.[15] However, in January 2019 it was announced that the project had been abandoned due to technology transfer limitations placed by the Trump administration."

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#158

Post by DrNuke »

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…

> Is it just "this is how we always do these things" or is there something else going on here?

That tech is known, well designed, approved and extensively proven through many thousand years manwork experience worldwide. It’s also the most affordable in liberalized markets. Going smaller & modular is the real novelty in the industry, for grid-agnostic coupling and decoupling. FYI: I have been consulting and designing innovative or exotic NPPs for years and I am now pretty confident I will not live long enough to see any one of them built and working, maybe not even at the demonstrator stage... but this side of the story might come good for another post ehehe.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#159

Post by RankingMember »

dmos62 wrote: post #54
luspr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree completely. It's a fallacy to believe we will require less energy in the long run. We need much more, if we want to advance as a species.

> we want to advance as a species I'm somewhat weary of people talking of civilization progress as if its definition is obvious and universal.

Couldn't agree more. "Advancement as a species" seems to imply a sort of consensus that doesn't really exist.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#160

Post by wayoutthere »

luspr wrote: post #35
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…

Agree completely. It's a fallacy to believe we will require less energy in the long run. We need much more, if we want to advance as a species.

It's also a fallacy to think that humans will be able to escape the gravity well in large numbers. And once we do, the ones in space will quickly become a new species as they adapt to a different environment -- assuming they survive at all.

Science fiction is fun and all, but even an ecologically ruined Earth is going to be a much more welcoming environment to live in than anything else the solar system has to offer. Meaningful exploration of the solar system will be restricted to unmanned probes and complex missions that require 100 Earthbound support staff for each human we send into space.

Continuing to live on Earth will require a big reduction in the amount of energy we use per capita. We're already above what the Earth can realistically handle, and the global population is still growing.

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