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Article gave absolutely no indication of its dimensions. How "tiny" is it exactly?
Compare that to a nuclear plant near me which has two reactors that each generate 1280 megawatts.
So it would take about 25 of these to equal the power output of a traditional nuclear reactor.
"DOE reported that it faced an estimated $494 billion in future environmental cleanup costs — a liability that roughly tripled during the previous 20 years."
"Officially safe" is a hilarious term which tries to predict the possibility of an MCA or "Maximum Credible Accident." Of course, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima were also "officially safe" when they were built.
The passive safety is a big leap forward. Removing humans from that process makes it safer. "In the event of any runaway reactor event, NuScale says, the reactor quenches itself in its pool, making it “passively safe.”"
Have they announced an estimate of how much a reactor/cost of energy production will be? That’s kind of the most important factor, isn’t it?
$0.24 per kwh is a rough estimate I've seen for NuScale. Typically initial costs for microreactors right now are around $0.25 to $0.30/kwh which is about the cost of energy created by diesel generators. Natural gas is much lower. However they hope that as we make a lot of them the cost will drop.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
you forgot to mention that those 23 m high containment vessels are places in in a pool which of course have to be much bigger than that: "The reactor and containment vessel operate inside a water-filled pool that is built below grade." We'll see of this is in any way or form sustainable, especially since uranium is also a finite ressource.
>We'll see of this is in any way or form sustainable, especially since uranium is also a finite ressource. I believe at current consumption rates there is still several hundred years worth of uranium. Presumably Fusion will have been figured out by then or we've killed ourselves with a climate disaster or something worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#:~:text=According....
"Officially safe" is a hilarious term which tries to predict the possibility of an MCA or "Maximum Credible Accident." Of course, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima were also "officially safe" when they were built.
What a bad faith post. > Three Mile Island Was handled reasonably well, resulted in safety improvements to procedures and designs for future reactors. From https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3... > The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this int…
Yeah, when humans can be trusted, nuclear will be 100% safe. Any day now!
It's not that this is smaller. It's comparable to Shippingport or Vallecitos. The argument is that it's safe enough against meltdowns not to need a full containment vessel, which makes it cheaper. The idea is to have a group of these sharing the same reactor pool. What they do if there's a leak into the cooling pool. Does that take down all the reactors?
Anyway, the plan is to build the first one at the Idaho Reactor Test Station, 830 square miles with reactors spread miles apart. If something bad happens there, it's not a major problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We'll see of this is in any way or form sustainable, especially since uranium is also a finite ressource. I believe at current consumption rates there is still several hundred years worth of uranium. Presumably Fusion will have been figured out by then or we've killed ourselves with a climate disaster or something worse.
Nope, at the current rate of consumption it will last 70-80 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#:~:text=According... .
Doesn't seem clearcut
fyi, OSU college has a 1-megawatt research reactor. https://www.oregon.gov/energy/facilities-safety/facilities/P... https://www.corvallisadvocate.com/2012/got-nuke-state-of-the...
https://nuclear.engr.utexas.edu/netl/triga-reactor
BUT... it also has two 74-megawatt gas turbines that supply the campus with electricity and steam:
https://utilities.utexas.edu/chp/about-carl-j-eckhardt-combi...
Previous Discussion 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24345288
Since that story didn't get much attention (relative to the interest in it), we won't call the current thread a dupe.