After seeing russians fire at nuclear power plants, good look advocating them to the public...
Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
51–60 of 672 posts
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> cheap to run 2000 staff represents well over 10 billion dollars in just salary over 50 years. Add in replaced equipment, fuel, insurance, etc and it’s a long way from cheap. The assumption they are cheap to operate simply doesn’t hold up even the most basic investigation.
4 GW * 50 years is about $100 billion worth of electricity.
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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#53Storing nuclear waste for 10,000+ years is also unpopular and no-one wants it stored in their backyard and further does it add up to put aside proper funds to steward waste for 10,000 years.
All nuclear waste ever produced in the US could be stored in an area the size of a football field
You should check up on that Shellenberger meme before you spread it.
That was is just the fuel and fuel is just a small part of all the waste.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#54I am reminded of an amusing incident in the Netherlands: the prime minister talked about new reactors and made the faux pas of mentioning specific locations.
Immediately a shit storm brew up and he was forced to publicly apologize. Keep it vague. We all love nuclear now. But not a single spade in the ground by order of NIMBY!
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#55Nuclear engineer here. If you want a deep dive into US reactor development history, I wrote this up on a vacation. https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html My take on the more modern economics is here https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html And waste here https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
Do you have news on Westinghouse? Is had filled bankruptcy, did they survive? how? Are they in maintenance mode or do they pursue evoltution of their models? China has bought their patent and is in the process of upscaling the original Westinghouse design, is westinghouse still collaborating with china? Have they abandoned their own models? It seems according to their website they are joining the small reactor fad..
Here's some recent news: China's announced that they're building 4 more Westinghouse AP1000 PWRs. They'll use the Chinese supply chain, but it's still a big win for W.
https://info.westinghousenuclear.com/news/four-westinghouse-...
I really wish we could get a few more orders in the USA so that we could leverage the learning and supply chain being so painfully built in Georgia for the AP1000s there.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#56The fact that nuclear power regulators are routinely anti-nuclear power probably isn't helping things. https://www.powermag.com/blog/former-nuclear-leaders-say-no-... >Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director…
A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people said their main problem was that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. Getting to that point took several hundred million dollars. Then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business.
That's a pretty difficult environment for investors. The reactor people said just breaking the process into phases would be a huge help. The NRC person was unsympathetic, said it wasn't the NRC's job to help develop nuclear technology, and was uninterested in climate change.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Modern tech" is still vastly inferior to nuclear power. Think of it as humanity scoring a roll of the dice to discover 22nd century technology in the 20th.
Depends what you mean by "inferior". A horse-drawn carriage has less carbon emissions than an automobile, doesn't it? However, that's not the sole criteria.
It seems the "horse-drawn carriage" argument is being repeated across multitude of comments posted by your account.
What makes this comparison with nuclear energy even remotely viable?
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#58The fact that nuclear power regulators are routinely anti-nuclear power probably isn't helping things. https://www.powermag.com/blog/former-nuclear-leaders-say-no-... >Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director…
A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people said their main problem was that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. Getting to that point took several hundred million dollars. Then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business. That's…
Requiring blueprints would seem critical to actually being able to have a product to review for safety. Not only blueprints, but detailed material specs as well.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#59The fact that nuclear power regulators are routinely anti-nuclear power probably isn't helping things. https://www.powermag.com/blog/former-nuclear-leaders-say-no-... >Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director…
A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people said their main problem was that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. Getting to that point took several hundred million dollars. Then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business. That's…
No post body was provided.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#60The fact that nuclear power regulators are routinely anti-nuclear power probably isn't helping things. https://www.powermag.com/blog/former-nuclear-leaders-say-no-... >Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director…
A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people said their main problem was that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. Getting to that point took several hundred million dollars. Then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business. That's…
It’s a political problem — congress is more interested in clean coal or fermenting grass.
Federal civil servants are trained early that their opinions are irrelevant.