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Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

popularmechanics.com

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Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#121

Post by regularfry »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #55
isatty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians There were many such RBMK reactors spread all over the Soviet world that had the same flaws . There are many problems with your summary so can I just recommend that you watch the HBO mini series "Chernobyl" instead? It's a great watch.

That mini series is indeed a great watch but it's also not exactly factual.

Are there inaccuracies around the portrayal of why and how the reactor failed?

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#122

Post by HideousKojima »

normanmatrix wrote: post #120

I was thinking Nuclear would be the stable baseline for renewable. But this is not a sustainable option. We need to enforce hydrogen. Do not submit to the fallacy of nuclear waste disposal. First Elon needs to fix space travel and make transport into the sun feasible. And we will have iter by then.

Why would you need to put it in the sun? That would be a huge waste of energy, just stick it in a stable graveyard orbit, or just get it fast enough to escape Earth's gravity

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#123

Post by regularfry »

core-questions wrote: post #81
isatty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians There were many such RBMK reactors spread all over the Soviet world that had the same flaws . There are many problems with your summary so can I just recommend that you watch the HBO mini series "Chernobyl" instead? It's a great watch.

Flaws? The meltdown was caused by a deliberate action on behalf of people with control of the plant. I haven't watched Chernobyl because I prefer to not get my history from television shows with a narrative axe to grind.

My understanding is that those actions were only capable of causing the problems they did because of specific design choices involved in the coolant and moderation systems. Is that wrong?

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#124

Post by ethbr0 »

trothamel wrote: post #95
marshray wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That option doesn't exist in the US. We have no permanent disposal facilities, not even in the planning stage. https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...

https://www.wipp.energy.gov/ is one, though that's for government rather than commercial waste. It's a matter of political will at this point.

The 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future report [1] literally said that:

"Ensuring access to dedicated funding – Current federal budget rules and laws make it impossible for the nuclear waste program to have assured access to the fees being collected from nuclear utilities and ratepayers to finance the commercial share of the waste program’s expenses.

We have recommended a partial remedy that should be implemented promptly by the Administration, working with the relevant congressional committees and the Congressional Budget Office. A long-term remedy requires legislation to provide access to the Nuclear Waste Fund and fees independent of the annual appropriations process but subject to rigorous independent financial and managerial oversight."

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120807061024/http://brc.gov/si...

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#125

Post by riquito »

normanmatrix wrote: post #120

I was thinking Nuclear would be the stable baseline for renewable. But this is not a sustainable option. We need to enforce hydrogen. Do not submit to the fallacy of nuclear waste disposal. First Elon needs to fix space travel and make transport into the sun feasible. And we will have iter by then.

Hydrogen can be a practical fuel, but you need energy to extract it, which could very well be nuclear

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#126

Post by jessaustin »

m0zg wrote: post #31
core-questions wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians They didn't really care what happened to _anybody_, not just Ukrainians. Ukrainians (as well as about 30% of Russians) just happened to live in that particular location. The plume made it all the way to the Nordics and Germany, and I, as a kid, had to take iodine tablets in Russia, even though officially everything was "under control" for a few days. The…

This was true in USA too. They took pretty good care of the scientists who knew enough to call out unsafe conditions, but laborers etc. at e.g. PGDP were regularly exposed to poisons and radiation. EEOICP was put together late enough that many of the affected workers had already died.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#127

Post by marcosdumay »

rubber_duck wrote: post #23
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics are yet to be borne out. I believe the NuScale cost (feel free to correct me if this information is wrong) is still above the cost of renewables and storage [1] but below that of traditional PWRs (684Mw @ $3 billion [2], ~25 cents/kwh [3]), which is competitive in places like Hawaii (which is still relying heavily on diesel fuel for what solar isn't providing) and geographies with limited land or renewa…

Thing is this kind of design benefits massively from economies of scale, same kind of thing that has drawn the price of PV down and other green energy.

> same kind of thing that has drawn the price of PV down

A nuclear power generator is a complex beast, that requires a ton of material, of very different kinds, worked into some detailed and non-repetitive patterns. (Have you looked at a steam turbine?)

PV is a simple pattern of a few different substances, repeated over and over again.

Even if scale was all going into the PV price, nuclear will never be able to achieve the same amount of it.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#128

Post by omginternets »

marshray wrote: post #67
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is IMO a positive for nuclear, not a negative. You're forced to confront the cleanup as opposed to fossil fuels, where you just blow your waste out into the atmosphere and make it the commons' problem.

If only a method for permanent disposal of nuclear waste actually existed.

If only a method for permanent disposal of carbon dioxide emissions from gas plants actually existed.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#129

Post by SamBam »

manfredo wrote: post #90
marshray wrote: post #42

I think it's disingenuous to argue the economics of nuclear without mentioning: "DOE reported that it faced an estimated $494 billion in future environmental cleanup costs — a liability that roughly tripled during the previous 20 years." https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696956.pdf

Is this the cleanup cost for civilian power generation? Or for military reactors and nuclear weapons, too? Because all the nuclear waste from civilian power generation occupies a volume the size of a football field in footprint and less than 10 yards high. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...

How many pecks is that?

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#130

Post by SamBam »

DuskStar wrote: post #63
tehabe wrote: post #36

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.

There's ~4 billion tons of uranium dissolved in seawater, too. Which is enough for a millenia or three - if we used it for all of our power needs.

How much energy would it take to extract one ton of uranium from the ocean?
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