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

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#221

Post by stjohnswarts » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

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need to be a fail save type of reactor and with a clear plan(s) all the way down to how the waste is handled till it's no longer active.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'm for them if they make economic sense and also can't go critical, as in you can more or less hit a switch and they go dead and criticality isn't a possibility. There have supposedly been designs that guarantee that, but I saw nothing in the article about it.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#222

Post by Accujack » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #153

Reason077 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Most likely in that time frame we'll be trying to get by on a mix of renewables and non carbon neutral generation from coal or similar, and we'll also have implemented limits on carbon generation that will effectively be crippling various industries and increasing the cost of various necessities worldwide.

We won't have a choice... it'll be down to either everyone accepting reduced quality of life or nuclear... at which point nuclear starts to look very good.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#223

Post by chrisco255 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

xorfish wrote: post #191

Already__Taken wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, when people mention losses saved by superconductors they don't mean to improve the current grid. It's to route power from the always sunny side of the planet.

HVDC is already below 3% per 1'000km. So connecting Europe to the Sahara is around 5% with current technology

No. Sorry the Mediterranean Sea separates Europe from Sahara (as well as several countries) and you can't do this practically by any means. Europe doesn't own the Sahara.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#224

Post by stjohnswarts » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

ptah wrote: post #24

an aside: why d nuclear reactors have to be built on the coast? does that not make them more vulnerable to natural disasters

Most people live along the coasts in those countries that have them and power transmission is both lossy and has expensive infrastructure.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#225

Post by Accujack » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #90

chrisco255 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really. The supply of economically extractable fissile material is limited in just the same way as any other mineral. If energy prices rise then it will become worthwhile to extract, if they fall then it will be less so. Of course if the number of consumers rises this will also improve the viability of mining. According to this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Australia , it is curr…

Technically, yes.

In practical terms, however, switching nuclear reactors to use the Thorium fuel cycle would allow us to use a supply of fuel that would probably outlast human civilization.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#226

Post by eloff » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #150

hannob wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Every thread in HN is filled with pessimistic people pointing out how things can't work. It's tiring to read.

Solar and wind absolutely can produce all the energy the world currently needs, using only a tiny fraction of available land area. You could power the whole of the US by 100 square miles of solar panels in the southwest, backed with one square mile of batteries [1]. Clearly it's a hard problem and there are many obstacles to overcome, but just as clearly it's not fundamentally unsolvable.

Long-distance electrical transmission is actually pretty efficient nowadays, so that's not a showstopper either.

Bottom line, optimists are responsible for progress and while many people on HN are content to write comments about how it can't be done, somewhere there's an entrepreneur working hard to make it happen - and the smart money is on them, collectively, over the long-term - and thank goodness for that!

[1] http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/we...

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#227

Post by scotradamus » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

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.

Energy production really isn't the issue. Energy storage is.

We produce way more energy than we use. We currently do not have an easy way to store it. So why generate more than we need? Well, we need to have power available to prevent brown outs, especially right after work when everyone gets home and flips their light switch (so to speak). Second; it is actually more efficient to keep the generators fully spun up.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#228

Post by throw0101a » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #6

thomasedwards wrote: post #5

I really wanted this to be about Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited rather than Rolls-Royce Holdings plc. A nuclear-powered Rolls-Royce Phantom would be incredibly boss.

Would a nuclear powered EV ever need refuelling?

Well Doc Brown had to put in banana peels and some flat beer, so I'd say yes:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlhgFaB89Y

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#229

Post by edm0nd » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #40

brnt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember Toshiba having a decay-based laptop battery in development (at least 10 years ago, maybe 20). You wouldn't have to charge, ever. Now that would be something!

When I was five or so, I had a watch with a radium dial. I read in a kid's science book that if you went to bed and waited until your eyes were adjusted to the dark, and then held the watch dial against your closed eyelid, you would be able to see the sparks as individual radium atoms decayed. I did this, and it worked! I could see each spark!

I remember reading some witness accounts who saw nuclear explosions and they described being able to see through their eyelids (when closed) and in some cases even through their hands. Pretty wild when you think about how bright and forceful a nuclear explosion is.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#230

Post by tomatotomato37 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

inertiatic wrote: post #140

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick google search says if we only used nuclear we'd get 40g of waste per person per year assuming western energy consumption standards[1]. Multiply by 8*10^9 people (a little more than the current world population) and you get 320,000 metric tons which is about 3/5th the capacity of the largest oil tankers. Finding a place for that much waste per year is a political problem, not a technical problem. There's plent…

Isn't the fact that failure of the transport system would have catastrophic consequences an issue you're concerned with?

Considering the already realized catastrophic disasters due to failures of our fossil fuel transport system (Exxon Valdez comes to mind) it would still be a net improvement.