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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

#221

Post by paranoidrobot »

onethought wrote: post #215
paranoidrobot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the population distribution. Only WA+NT are not connected to the national grid. The problem with having a nuclear power plant on the coast where there's sufficient reliable water is that nobody wants one in their back yard. (Yes there's parts of the WA/NT/QLD/SA coastlines where population drops to bugger all, but they're generally less suitable for all sorts of reasons) Putting them inland where they're…

The water is closed loop right? Can’t you pump or even deliver the water by truck? (Sorry if this is really ignorant)

I'm not a Nuclear Power physicist, but you can Google up images of a whole lot of them.

There's at least one common feature that you see in all of them - the giant cooling towers, often pictured emitting large white fluffy steam clouds while they're operating.

They're also all on massive permanent rivers, lakes or the ocean.

Pumping/Delivering water for that purpose is basically not feasible.

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

#222

Post by dale_glass »

arcticbull wrote: post #198
adrianN wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, nuclear is actually not that great for that. You need a power source that is cheap to scale up to cover discrepancies between supply and demand. If you build nuclear capacity for that you might as well just run it all the time and not build renewables. Nuclear has very small marginal costs, but huge up front capital expenses. You really don't want to run it at 10% load most of the year to cover the times where ne…

Indeed I was talking about using nuclear to provide a constant base load that you do not scale up and down. You use renewables for variable load.

But that ceases to make any sense the second you have renewables cheaper than nuclear. Then renewables start cutting into that base load as well, whenever they can.

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

#223

Post by Retric »

kevingadd wrote: post #207
pydry wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a form of carbon free energy costs 3x as much as carbon free alternatives, takes 3x as long to build and occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it? The additional pumped storage needs of solar and wind are more than offset by their vastly lower cost. If nuclear power could compete on a level playing field it'd be great but it sucks up subsidies like nothing else and puts the taxpa…

"occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it?" is an absurd way to describe the small number of incidents we've had in the past - they can all be attributed to egregious chains of human errors and/or bad planning. To quote: But some 18 years before the 2011 disaster, new scientific knowledge had emerged about the likelihood of a large earthquake and resulting major tsunami of some 15.7…

The fact people in government and private industry knew the risk 18 years without addressing it it probably the most damming thing about nuclear power. The public simply can’t trust the industry or regulatory bodies. Which means they must assume avoidable disasters are going to be a regular thing.

I don’t have an issue with nuclear power but IMO the industry should be forced to pay for a ~1T insurance policy to avoid bad incentives rather than the government simply taking on the associated risks.

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

#224

Post by wasmitnetzen »

kevingadd wrote: post #207
pydry wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a form of carbon free energy costs 3x as much as carbon free alternatives, takes 3x as long to build and occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it? The additional pumped storage needs of solar and wind are more than offset by their vastly lower cost. If nuclear power could compete on a level playing field it'd be great but it sucks up subsidies like nothing else and puts the taxpa…

"occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it?" is an absurd way to describe the small number of incidents we've had in the past - they can all be attributed to egregious chains of human errors and/or bad planning. To quote: But some 18 years before the 2011 disaster, new scientific knowledge had emerged about the likelihood of a large earthquake and resulting major tsunami of some 15.7…

What makes you think that Australia wouldn't have egregious chains of human failure or bad planning?

Pretty much every country with civilian nuclear energy had some big scandals or incidents around them[1]. Humans just can't be trusted to build a 100% safe process.

[1] Just to name a few: Three Mile Island (US), Sellafield (UK), Brunsbüttel (DE), Saint-Laurent (FR)

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

#225

Post by confidantlake »

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…

I don't think you will be downvoted. HN is strongly pro nuclear.

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

#226

Post by adventured »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #205
adrian_b wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that the previous poster meant that Australia does not have a 235U-enrichment plant. If that is true, Australia would have to export natural uranium and import back uranium enriched in 235U, unless they would choose to build a reactor with heavy-water, which can use natural uranium as a fuel.

What preventing Australia from building an enrichment plant?

Nothing. The entire context is absurd to say the least.

Australia is one of the most affluent countries in world history and hyper resource rich.

They should have a third of their energy supply coming from nuclear.

Nuclear is expensive (commonly said)? So what. Australia is hyper rich ($67k GDP per capita) and can afford to do it and can afford to subsidize it for consumers. What's a lot more expensive (risk) is having a weak, unreliable grid with a poor diversity of energy sources.

It's insane not to subsidize nuclear, if one believes even the calmer side of environmental warnings re climate change. It's extremely potent energy technology, we know how to build it, and we know we can keep improving on it yet.

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

#227

Post by DennisP »

wryun wrote: post #11
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…

Takes too long to build fission plants to replace coal in the short term; easy to spin up lots of wind/solar. We've also got a ridiculous amount of renewable potential. (I'm a candidate for the Fusion Party; we'd like to remove the ban on nuclear power in Australia because it would enable research)

Conventional reactors take a long time because they're very large, custom-built at the site, and we don't build many of them. That doesn't really say anything about reactors like the one in the article, which is small enough to build in a factory and transport to the site.

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

#228

Post by smiley1437 »

chaostheory wrote: post #171
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?

Which sort of disaster were you thinking?

These new miniplants don't require power or water, loss of either causes shutdown.

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

#229

Post by zip1234 »

chii wrote: post #109
greenknight wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having direct involvement in the wind industry... most plan -> completion developments take 5-10 years. heck even one from 2013 still hasnt had ground broken. The main reason? NIMBYs. Loads of people go out to the countryside to retire. imagine what these retires would do if their picturesque landscape is now comprised of windfarms? and they dont have anything else to do to fill up their day?

> Loads of people go out to the countryside to retire. they imagine themselves wanting to go out to the country side to retire, but would find that living in remote places that doesn't have facilities to be poor quality life. you want to travel to the countryside for leisure - may be even for extended vacation. But you will almost always want a "home base" in a big metropolitan area for when services are needed - suc…

Also when everyone moves to the countryside it isn't really the rural countryside anymore. It is just sprawl.

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

#230

Post by lbayes »

Not weighing in on pros or cons of nuclear, I'm genuinely not informed enough on the subject.

Just came here to point out what appears to be a significant error in the linked text.

"...when an earthquake-triggered tsunami crashed into the nuclear plant and caused three nuclear meltdowns that leaked radioactive materials for several days."

It is my understanding that radioactive materials were leaking and being released into the oceans far longer than, "several days."

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster), "As of October 2012, radioactivity was still leaking into the ocean."

This article from World Nuclear (https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...) describes unintentional leaks and planned discharges continuing for years.

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