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A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

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Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#171

Post by chaostheory »

photochemsyn wrote: post #12

The background on Canada's plans for small modular reactors (of which this is just one of three projects) can be found here: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Canadian-provinc... Supposedly this is promoting clean energy and fighting climate change, but the details don't always match this rhetoric. In particular they're thinking they can use nuclear power to replace piped-in natural gas to mine the Alberta…

Security is a bigger issue now that the world is moving away from globalism which means less trade. The major powers have less barriers to conflict including cyber warfare.

So what would happen if a disaster somehow hit one of these mini plants?

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#172

Post by ClumsyPilot »

worik wrote: post #70
prawn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also thought we should've developed a nuclear waste industry here in South Australia. There was a 'citizen's jury' on the topic a while back but obviously public opinion swayed political action to rule it out. We have a lot of "unused" and stable land well away from population centres. I imagine transport from afar is an issue though.

Storing waste is too expensive to contemplate. Wherever it is put the high level waste (not much in quantity but...) is deadly and a silent killer for over a hundred thousand years. This is geologically significant time period, and we can make bets, but have no guarantee of any place on Earth being stable on those time scales. So it must be monitored. For a hundred thousand years That would be us making future genera…

"is deadly and a silent killer for over a hundred thousand years... We no guarantee of any place on Earth being stable on those time scales."

The geological pixel - smallest possible measurable period - is 50,000 years. Nuclear waste is 2 pixels.

Everest is a 50 million years old. The chalk that makes up white cliffs of dover is 130 million years old. There are layers of bedrock over a billion years old.

So yes, we are making a bet in the sence that when I go putside I make a bet that an asteroid won't fall on my head.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#173

Post by juki »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #121
yodelshady wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country, which is a relative success story for wind? apparently circa. $ 40 billion, for, right now... one GW. On average - and be assured I have checked this - five, which puts it in the same cost / GW as nuclear, and a capacity factor, not of sixty percent as advertised, but twenty-five. And we don't dump a megatonne or so of CO2 into the atmosphere a week running gas plants to cover nuclear variability. As a…

What is this "nuclear variability" you speak of? I thought they were pretty constant in their output, unlike wind / solar for which gas plants are needed to compensate.

I think yodelshady is saying exactly that they don't need gas plants to cover nuclear while they do for wind.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#174

Post by crashingintoyou »

flgb wrote: post #131
jp0d wrote: post #4

This is really exciting. I wish we had nuclear power here in Australia. I know I might get downvoted for this comment. But with advancement in technology and large amount nuclear fuel (Uranium deposit) available, it's a great choice. 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident. With technology like this, the risks are even lower. 2. It's lot cleaner than c…

Reasons why Australia doesn't and won't have nuclear: 1. Nuclear is a more expensive sources of energy than our alternatives (uranium ore is a small proportion of the cost stack, and Australia would still need to import nuclear fuel) 2. Nuclear isn't commercially viable in energy markets with very high levels of variable renewable energy where they have to be economically curtailed on an almost daily basis (our coal…

> Australia would still need to import nuclear fuel

No they wouldn't. To quote https://globalroadtechnology.com/uranium-mining-australia-hi...

> Australia is home to 31% of the world’s recoverable uranium. Australian uranium is exported and consists about one-quarter of its energy exports. Australia uses no nuclear power and depends on coal. The uranium mining industry is a billion dollar industry in Australian dollar ... In 2019, Australia produced 7790 tonnes of uranium and was ranked the world’s third best producer behind Kazakhstan and Canada.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#175

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mjevans wrote: post #151
mnw21cam wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If you're going to be heating all those houses with electricity, instead of gas, coal, or wood, then you'll likely need much more than 1kW per home. Especially when winter hits -30C.

It would be nice if much of the waste heat could be expelled in ways more similar to Iceland's geothermal solutions.

Russia has directed waste heat fron reactors into the district heating network, it's perfectly realistic.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#176

Post by tinus_hn »

jp0d wrote: post #4

This is really exciting. I wish we had nuclear power here in Australia. I know I might get downvoted for this comment. But with advancement in technology and large amount nuclear fuel (Uranium deposit) available, it's a great choice. 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident. With technology like this, the risks are even lower. 2. It's lot cleaner than c…

> Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident.

Such a cynical take. We have a lot of land, its fine if we turn some of it into a nuclear wasteland.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#177

Post by account42 »

BongoMcCat wrote: post #154
thecopy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never understand the economics argument. Either climate change and global warming are serious issues, and then slightly more expensive electricity should not matter - or they are not serious issues and we can keep burning coal and oil.

I think that the economic argument is that it isn't viable for a private company to start a nuclear power-plant, it would require government involvement, and lots of people don't want the government to get involved in something that they think no-government entities can handle.

You don't nee the government to get involved in the nuclear plant if you don't want them to be - you can have the government make sure that the cost of global warming is paid by the coal plant. Either climate change and global warming are serious issues, and then properly accounting for their cost would significantly disadvantage coal power - or they are not serious issues and we can keep burning coal and oil.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#178

Post by b112 »

DrBazza wrote: post #137
jp0d wrote: post #4

This is really exciting. I wish we had nuclear power here in Australia. I know I might get downvoted for this comment. But with advancement in technology and large amount nuclear fuel (Uranium deposit) available, it's a great choice. 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident. With technology like this, the risks are even lower. 2. It's lot cleaner than c…

Nuclear power stations work best by the coast, rather than on rivers due to the water required for cooling, and as France discovered you can't dump hotter water back into a river and kill the wildlife when the country is "hot" - compared to Australia, a French "hot" day is 'only' 38-40C. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/07/weatherwatch-nu... So geographically, that likely means that nuclear power stations wo…

Except the ones in the article, which don't use water for cooling.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#179

Post by pvaldes »

skywal_l wrote: post #153
DrBazza wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power stations work best by the coast, rather than on rivers due to the water required for cooling, and as France discovered you can't dump hotter water back into a river and kill the wildlife when the country is "hot" - compared to Australia, a French "hot" day is 'only' 38-40C. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/07/weatherwatch-nu... So geographically, that likely means that nuclear power stations wo…

Doesn't Australia have underground water? With a cursory search I can see that the Great Artesian Basin[0] could be a good source of cooling water. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Artesian_Basin

Thus people could drink the water warm directly from the nuclear powerplant.

Water is a essential resource, and in a higher level than electricity.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#180

Post by Tepix »

j16sdiz wrote: post #147
urban_winter wrote: post #83

Does anyone understand this? "Some of the main differences that the MMR has from conventional nuclear plants is that the reactor cannot meltdown as the heat is passively released into the environment..." 300MW is a lot of energy to passively release into the environment. Does this design really fail safe? And if so, how? The Fukushima issues were caused (IIRC) by failure of the backup generators to run the cooling sy…

TRISO fuel are encapsulated in very small balls with its own containment. Those balls are hardened and won't melt in operation. If those balls are removed from the reactor, it won't have the critical mass to maintain the reaction.

We had a TRISO fuel nuclear reactor in Germany, it had a lot of problems and was an expensive failure. Among other things the balls broke.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 or if you can read german: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300 with a lot of details.

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