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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

#321

Post by BurningFrog »

BeeBoBub wrote: post #6
ttul wrote: post #2

To the extent that nuclear power plants emit waste heat, you can use this waste heat to counteract the frigid temperatures found in the Canadian hinterland, displacing the need for natural gas and oil heating of industrial processes.

This is an interesting idea for waste heat. Is the waste heat a nuclear power plant produces significant? My understanding is you want all your heat working to spin your turbine.

My memory from the old Swedish nuclear debates is that the generated waste heat is about as much energy as the generated electricity.

There was talk of heating cities with the waste water, but "nucleophobia" killed that idea, as usual.

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

#322

Post by Retric »

InitialLastName wrote: post #289
Retric wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Good idea; let's start by applying that incentive to the externalities generated by the fossil fuel industry first though, so that the playing field is fair. Ed: spelling

Sure, I agree with pricing externalities for both.

Unfortunately, fossil fuel externalities cross national boarders which creates perverse incentives. Do only price in the costs to your own country or accept an economic disadvantage? Essentially countries need to start doing pollution tariffs not just taxing externalities.

Economically the correct choices are obvious, but politics is rarely so simple.

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

#323

Post by pjc50 »

jatone wrote: post #299
pjc50 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation. Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years. > Of course the coal companies won't like that. This is a fairly important reason why it's not going to happen in Australia.

> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation. personally I feel this is untrue. its done out of convenience; but from an engineering/infrastructure standpoint there isn't a reason we can't condense the steam that gets pumped out of the towers.

> condense the steam

That's what the water is for!

Turbine systems follow the Rankine cycle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle , which includes a condenser. The water circulating is a closed loop. The steam you see coming off cooling towers is the external water which has been used to condense the circulating steam.

The water is a source of "coolth".

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

#324

Post by pjc50 »

JshWright wrote: post #304
makk wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation. Does it? Article says this new reactor is helium cooled and vents heat. No mention of water cooling.

Conventional nuke plants don't consume a ton of water for cooling. I believe (definitely not an expert) that any water used for cooling is kept in a closed loop system. The vast majority of the water consumed by a nuclear plant (or any thermal power plant) is used by being converted to steam, which is then used to spin a turbine (though some percentage of that water can also be reused by condensing it in cooling towe…

This is correct. See my comment downthread about the Rankine cycle. As well as a source of heat, for efficient electricity generation you also need a source of "coolth".

The reactor is helium cooled. Their own collateral (https://usnc.com/mmr-energy-system/ ; annoying scrolljacking) shows shipping the heat to e.g. industrial process use or electricity generation - but for generation, you'll need a standard steam turbine + condenser setup. Which consumes water for cooling the condenser.

Also from their web page:

> FCM® fuel cannot be re-processed using currently available reprocessing schemes.

They list this as a nonproliferation benefit, but it has downsides.

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

#325

Post by ryathal »

flgb wrote: post #135
clarionbell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they need replacement components for any of this. Which they will need evry couple of years. Then they will need centralized infrastructure in form of manufacturing plants, roads, rail and finally (because it is imported from China most likely) ports. Every step producing greenhouse gasses or other pollution. Self sufficiency of this sort is largely a sub-urban myth. A comfortable, optimistic one, but a myth no…

"evry couple of years" .. umm nope. Try every 10-20 years for the inverter and every 20-30 years for the panels. Roof-top solar in Australia is cheap and almost ubiquitous.

Every couple years is probably more accurate. Hardware fails all the time, especially at scale. Hard drives fail all the time, solar equipment isn't magically different. Once a full neighborhood has solar, someone will have a defective panel, a defective inverter, an improper install that needs to be redone, storm damage, panels that need cleaning, panels that get damaged from cleaning, or a building gets renovated/replaced/destroyed.

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

#326

Post by tablespoon »

pjc50 wrote: post #258
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…

The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation. Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years. > Of course the coal companies won't like that. This is a fairly important reason why it's not going to happen in Australia.

>> 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident

> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation.

Would seawater work? Does Australia have any "vast swathes of uninhabited land" near the sea?

> Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years.

IIRC, a big reason why nuclear plants cost so much to construct nowadays is that most reactors designs aren't produced in quantity, like they used to be.

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

#327

Post by robotnikman »

pjc50 wrote: post #258
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…

The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation. Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years. > Of course the coal companies won't like that. This is a fairly important reason why it's not going to happen in Australia.

>The nuclear plants need to be built near water

Not always. The Palo Verde nuclear plant in my state is in the middle of the desert far from any body of water, and also the largest in the country in terms of net generation.

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

#328

Post by ben_w »

adrianN wrote: post #234
arcticbull wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well either nuclear is cheaper than renewables+backup (for peak load), then you want to use 100% nuclear, or renewables+backup are cheaper, then you want to use 100% that. I don't see a scenario where you run nuclear for baseload and renewables+backup for peaks, but maybe I'm wrong.

I’d choose both if the difference is small. Don’t want to risk geopolitical issues with either one, so mix them. How big a cost gap between them is worth the security benefit is not something I can even guess at, to the extent that I can believe I may even be wrong to suggest it can ever happen.

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

#329

Post by ncmncm »

eternauta3k wrote: post #301
ncmncm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Financing problems" translates to "people finally recognized it could never earn back what they would need to put in to finish it".

No, this is just Argentina being broke as usual. It's a prototype.

Even moreso, then. If no rich country would prototype it, getting Argentina to sign on had to be corruption.

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

#330

Post by igrekel »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #125
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…

Australia is the ideal place for renewables. Canada is somewhere I'd begrudgingly admit that nuclear may have a role to play in the future energy market, but it would be downright silly for Australia.

The other reason is that Canada has access to a lot of nuclear fuel and used to have a fairly well developed nuclear industry. That being said, Australia is also a significant producer.
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