At 5 MW, these MMR (Micro Modular Reactor) look like a specialized alternative to diesel generators servicing remote locations unserviced by the regular power grid. 20 year lifetime without refuelling is an attractive proposition if the capital costs are competitive.
Ultra Safe Nuclear
101–110 of 536 posts
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, point out that Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima amount to extremely small numbers of deaths relative to the power these plants generated. For three mile island and Fukushima this figure is zero among the public. Less than two dozen among the plant workers (all of which died due to the hydrogen explosion not radiation). The areas that were evacuated are now safe to return. Chernobyl was worse, but th Sov…
> the areas that were evacuated are now safe to return. is this true for Fukushima? As far as I understand, 8% of the "Difficult-to-Return zones" have been cleared up for access to people, but that is a far cry from "all cleared up, everybody goes back home". [0] https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200916/p2a/00m/0na/01...
The "difficult to return zones" are exactly that: the subset of zones that are represent the greatest challenge to resettle. Most of the exclusion zones with less severe categories have been lifted [1].
The point is, people assume because of Chernobyl that a nuclear disaster will render land uninhabitable permanently, or at least for decades. That is not the case. Chernobyl remains excluded because there's no real incentive to clean it up and reopen. The city was built to support the power plant, so with the latter gone there's no real reason to put in the effort to decontaminate the former.
1. https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en03-08....
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#103Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.
The US Navy has been successfully operating Nuclear Reactors without incident for decades in the harshest environments on earth [1]
It can be done safely.
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604...
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fuel burned in those reactors comes from the sun and the reactor releases it.
The fuel in fact doesn't come from the Sun, but from other stars that went super nova before the solar system was formed. Normal fusion in stars in not hot enough to produce such heavy elements.
Thanks, I didn't know that I thought it was like the rest.
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#105Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.
In Ukraine, which lived through Chernobyl, public is mostly pro nuclear. Turns out solar and wind isn't actually competitive and nobody likes to pay rich "green energy" investors for no reason, so as long as they have no influence in the government and most mass media, it's pretty hard to convince people of the opposite - that they need to pay a lot more so that a tiny percentage of electricity could come from solar and wind [1].
[1] And even that is misleading and not in any way "greener", since solar and wind can't be used on demand it has to replace some energy, which in this case is nuclear energy, but it can replace only a small part of it, the rest will have to be replaced with something that can be generated on demand, like coal and gas.
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#106Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…
The sun and wind are both very low energy density, and are intermittent sources. The sun is only available for part of the day, and wind is highly variable in a short term time frame.
The real cost of using renewables for a primary source of energy is the cost of storage. Using renewables for 80% of our energy demand would require 12 weeks of storage - to get to 100% it would take 3 weeks of storage [1]. These are staggering amounts of storage. Most countries have energy storage that is measured in the seconds or minutes, not in hours let alone weeks.
Solar and wind would be great if we had a miraculous breakthrough in energy storage. But until that happens, we're going to be burning fossil fuels. There's a reason why Germany, which invested heavily in wind and solar, still emits 10x the carbon emissions from electricity generation as compared to France, which invested in nuclear.
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#107Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…
There will be a moment in the human evolution that even the total power of the sun is not enough. We need to explore alternatives to escape our planet, otherwise we are doomed.
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, point out that Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima amount to extremely small numbers of deaths relative to the power these plants generated. For three mile island and Fukushima this figure is zero among the public. Less than two dozen among the plant workers (all of which died due to the hydrogen explosion not radiation). The areas that were evacuated are now safe to return. Chernobyl was worse, but th Sov…
You are joking about "small numbers of deaths", right?, because this millennia is not over yet.
Coal and gas still kill a LOT more
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/
Less dramatically so do Solar and Wind just by increased rate of people falling off roofs and towers: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant Except human-made nuclear fission energy on Earth, somewhat ironically, given the thread.
The fuel burned in those reactors comes from the sun and the reactor releases it.
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Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Investing in any such generator needs to be for other reasons like land scarcity. Yeah, there's no upper limit on energy usage. In several decades, mark my words, we will have a solar panel related deforestation problem.
That is extremely unlikely. You need to cover single digit percentages of the world with solar panels (depending on latitude) to cover all our energy needs.
What about our energy needs several decades from now? Falling prices make new applications possible which raises demand.