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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

#291

Post by cuspycode »

logfromblammo wrote: post #250
erulabs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar power is simply indirect nuclear power anyhow. If we can do what’s happening in the sun in a bottle - then no need to produce panels. If there is material in stars to produce solar power, then there is more potential nuclear power. I’m for both, and solar seems distributed in a way that makes me think it’s better for human society, but since stars are made of fissable materials - by definition there is more “po…

Stellar fusion like that which occurs in our sun is effectively aneutronic, but is also relatively slow, because the limiting step is the combination of two protons into a proton-neutron pair. You need to keep a lot of hydrogen at plasma-hot temperatures and very high pressures for a long time. So you can't really do it with masses smaller than Jupiter, because smaller bodies can radiate the energy away faster, and p…

Aneutronic reactors are good of course, but the Sun still puts out lots of other dangerous radiation. In particular, ultraviolet electromagnetic radiation from the Sun causes tens of thousands of cancer deaths every year. I have no problem accepting a few percent of that mortality from man-made radiation sources if that helps solving the CO2 emission crisis.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#292

Post by kerkeslager »

Someone wrote: post #260
kerkeslager wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, what's the solution? The Wikipedia article[1] says, "A 2011 MIT study concluded that although there is little in the way of barriers to a thorium fuel cycle , with current or near term light-water reactor designs there is also little incentive for any significant market penetration to occur. As such they conclude there is little chance of thorium cycles replacing conventional uranium cycles in the current nucle…

”I can only imagine some sort of mag-lev design that keeps the molten salt out of contact with other materials” If you were to build that, how would you transfer the heat out of the molten salt?

I have no idea! Like I said, farfetched.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#293

Post by quindecagon »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #192
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.

As we expand to space. On Earth there is an effective upper limit to the amount of heat we can release into the atmosphere before we'd cause catastrophic warming even without greenhouse effect.

That upper limit is in the trillions of people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAJeYe-abUA&feature=youtu.be...

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#294

Post by htfu »

papreclip wrote: post #234
AtlasLion wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think space colonization is an even bigger fantasy than relying on "future tech" that will magically terraform the earth and reverse climate change. We can have a tiny structure housing 10 or 20 people somewhere in our solar system for the price of millions of pounds of fuel and billions of dollars. Inter-system travel will never happen. Forums like this tend to have a healthy population of the sci-fi minded, so it…

Nevermind the hocus pocus, and I agree as far as "travel", but all that's really needed for (fairly dystopian attempts at) space colonization is surely artificial wombs?

Which aren't far off.

We don't need to break the laws of physics, or have cryonics or singularity shit work out to eventually consume the universe. All the nodes will just be real isolated.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#295

Post by quindecagon »

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…

Interestingly, this post on an application for Nuclear waste was on the front page[1]. This talk on nuclear waste may also be of interest to you[2].

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#296

Post by e12e »

manfredo wrote: post #286
e12e wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Over 99% of Norway's electricity is from hydroelectric plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Norway

Yes, sure. It's hard to compete with already built hydro.

So there's little incentive to move from cheap hydro.

But for those that want, it's possible. And feasible. But with a solid grid built out - it's mostly as a supplement.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#297

Post by Already__Taken »

xorfish wrote: post #256
chrisco255 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The main problem with installing solar in the Sahara and transporting it to Europe is the political instability of the region. Laying cables across a sea or ocean is already routinely done.

You're kind of getting at my point, at 0 resistance you can route around any of these problems. A planet wide mesh is just logistics at that point.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#298

Post by bassman9000 »

uurrnn wrote: post #289
arcticbull wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... with some maintaining it is dangerous and expensive Expensive, probably. Dangerous? Not according to the data. Lowest deaths per terawatt-hour of any energy source including solar. Yes, even if you count Chernobyl, Fukushima (where 6 folks died) and Three Mile Island (nobody died) [1] [1] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...

You have to understand that "Lowest deaths per terawatt-hour" is not the sole stat to look at to determine something's danger. I think the flat amount of direct and indirect death, as well as considering the amount of people who's quality of life has diminished, but not enough to kill them. Other energy industries have these problems too, so I have no idea how they actually compare.

I think the flat amount of direct and indirect death, as well as considering the amount of people who's quality of life has diminished, but not enough to kill them.

How do you measure that? Why do you think is higher for nuclear than for other technologies?

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#299

Post by labawi »

wolfram74 wrote: post #132
dmos62 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Most quality of life improvements do take energy, and yes, quality of life is subjective, it is conceivable to imagine a mind that takes joy in their child dieing of a preventable disease, some vertebrates eat their young, but overwhelmingly, humans like to see their child get old enough to play and talk as well as laugh and cry. Things like reliable and easy access to clean water, refrigeration for medicine and food…

While one would agree with your list of desirable non-equilibrium phenomena, the need for more power or less people is non con-sequitur, as you fail to show how the listed things require more energy than our current world consumption.

AFAIK, more than enough food and clothing for all people is currently produced, shelter and cleaning probably isn't far, refrigeration for medicine and required food wouldn't take much of industrial output and problems with access to clean water is often caused by "progress" and could be solved with more strategy rather than energy.

Either way, I think most of current energy consumption is for things like heating / cooling inefficient homes, manufacturing things people don't really need, inefficient transportation, brain-dead things like making oil from tar sands etc.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#300

Post by Accujack »

lhopki01 wrote: post #251
Accujack wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably also worth noting that photovoltaics have to be exposed to the sun to work... which means that they can't be protected by armor or bunkers, which means that they're terrifically vulnerable to terrorist or other attack.

The terrorist attack that is going to take out 1000s of square kilometres of solar panels? Surely they'd just attack a city if they had that amount of firepower? Or in the more likely case that they don't it's easier to attack power transmission than generation.

Assuming there are that many panels, it is in fact quite easy for any industrialized country to design a weapon that can destroy a square mile of panels or more with a single warhead. They're thin sheets of silicon covered in glass.
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