Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

I don't know if this bit is true, but specific reference is made in the show to the displacer rods being made of graphite because it was cheaper than an alternative material, which caused a problem because they acted as an accelerant rather than a moderator when the cooling rods were partially inserted. Fine as long as the control rods don't get stuck, or get pushed out by evaporating steam. Again (if true) that's a design choice which made the situation worse than it might otherwise have been. Is that not a flaw?

I can change that to CO2eq/capita/kWhr and it is still true ([1] above shows that).

> Nuclear plants and their waste are dangerous,

I'm not trying to dismiss that. But you also shouldn't dismiss the impacts of other resources. There is no free lunch here. For example, heavy metal contaminants are stable and stay toxic forever. We likely have to deal with these contaminants similarly to nuclear (put them in giant sealed holes in the ground that won't ever have access to the groundwater).

> Some, in France, think that we should go full nuclear, and they fight for it.

I am happy to explicitly call them dumb (as opposed to my previous implicitness). They are clearly uninformed on the matter.

> Other think that we may have to chose a "100% renewables" option.

This relies on two things happening (one of, or a combination). 1) The grid is massively overbuilt, 2) battery storage massively improves. These things are possible. The argument for nuclear is, again, based on what we have right now and saying that we shouldn't bet too much on future technologies. It is too risky of a bet. This isn't a big problem for France because you are starting at a very good emission rate, but in other countries it is important because every day we continue to argue we use more coal and oil. Unlike France, we are a much larger nation that is much less population dense and that massively eats into our efficiency of our grid. As for France, I hope you can get to 100% renewable. Like I said in the previous comment, we will be cheering you on. France is what many of us envy. Where we wish we could have started from. Following that path 50 years ago the situation today would be much different. I hope we can get to 100% renewable. I do. I'm just not willing to put all my eggs in one basket.

> That is to say in order to only 'decarbonate' the energy sector (there are other sectors to decarbonate!) thanks to nuclear power the US should deploy ~11 times more nuclear power capacity than it already has

I'm really frustrated at how many times I've said "nuclear __+__ renewables" and you ignore the "+" and assume a "-". I'm sure there are those out there that believe it. I have implicitly and explicitly called them dumb. But if you believe that I am one of those people I would ask you to read my comments again or stop responding if you will not discuss in good faith. I have been extremely clear on the issue. The issue was the thesis of my previous comment.

> Electricity production accounts for 27% of CO2 emissions,

Even though this isn't where you were going with it, this is a topic I'm __majorly__ concerned about. In the public discourse we only discuss electricity and transportation. As per your source, that accounts for a little under 60% of the total problem. Worse, the US is only 15% of the problem (I remember a presidential candidate this year getting booed for saying that we need to do more because of this). 25% of this is land use and agriculture. Another 25% is electricity and heat. And 21% is industry. We can do a lot in many of these sectors, but we still need new technologies. Gates wrote a good article about the subject matter[0] (actually if you dig there are a few). I actually also heavily advocate for CC and sequestration, again because I don't want to bet too much on things going just perfect. And in fact we need negative emissions, not 0. If you listen to many of the climate scientists, you will hear this from them when they feel like they can speak freely. This is why they often talk gloom and doom, because what they can say without pissing a ton of people off is far from where we need to be.

> in order to reduce emissions we have to consume wayyyyy less energy and stuff.

The genie is out of the bottle. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So maybe CC&S. Costly, but it can work.

[0] https://www.gatesnotes.com/energy/my-plan-for-fighting-clima...

Air conditioning does not protect workers that need to work outdoors, or people that live in areas with limited access to electricity.

And this says nothing of the other effects we still have no way of combating, including forest fires, stronger hurricanes, prolonged droughts, increased pesting of climate tolerant species, mass migration of climate refugees from the worst affected areas, and—eventually—conflicts and even wars arising from this mass migration. There is no technology that can save us from these effects.

Yes the effects of the natural world is indeed devastating. But there is no way the society as we know it can survive these changes. At best I see humanity regressing to another imperial age with constant wars around the planet, massive exploitation of the majority of the human kind, technology only serving to increase this exploitation, frequent famines, no relief after natural disasters (except for the wealthy few). And even this can’t last forever as at some point the mass of humanity will not bear it any longer and we can expect a societal collapse at a scale not seen since the Bronze age collapse of the 12th century BC.

https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurethe-world-s-larg...

Anyway, what if the valves to the backup containment open while it's running at full power? I mean the electronics fail so the valves open. I suppose the steam generator is still running, but even so lots of heat would be dumped into the pool. Maybe there is an interlock so that the reactor scrams in this case.