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Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#111

Post by Manuel_D »

mateo1 wrote: post #59
DennisP wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

The issue is that the NRC requires this process even for subsequent versions of the same design. That's just nonsense, if it's a copy of an approved design this process is unnecessary.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#112

Post by roenxi »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #29

Nuclear 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

All those words. I want to highlight what I think it a theme there that is relevant to the framing of today's article:

Nuclear was undergoing a series of massive technical improvement as humanity discovered an exciting new technology. Then people got scared and strangled all innovation out of the nuclear industry some time in the 70s.

Heavy regulation makes it really, really expensive to experiment with new approaches. If we'd kept pushing on with nuclear, the existing nuclear technologies would probably have been obsoleted by now and we'd be using something different, cheaper and better with much more attractive cost structures. There is no point trying to improve a technology that governments are trying to regulate out of existence.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#113

Post by Manuel_D »

nine_k wrote: post #77
jmyeet wrote: post #41

This is a solid write-up. I particularly like this part: > Most fusion concepts are just a more complicated way to heat water. It's kind of wild that our means of power production do ultimately mostly boil down (pun intended) to turning a turbine with steam and, as the article notes, this is an inherent cost problem whereas solar is a direct form of energy. I hadn't really thought about it in those terms but it's tru…

There is a known way to handle "nuclear waste": burn it in fast-neutron reactors [1]. The waste is mostly still uranium. The rest can still be burned, turning it into much less active isotopes and producing energy. Yes, these machines produce plutonium suitable for nuclear weapons. But plutonium is a perfectly good nuclear fuel, too, and the US already has nuclear weapons, longer than any other country. [1]: https://…

Or, bury it underground in impermeable rock. Short of a meteor strike right on top of the repository, it will not make its way out to the surface.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#114

Post by Manuel_D »

ncmncm wrote: post #42
PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Energy crises are caused by cheap energy. When energy is cheap people use a lot and stop investing in new sources. The resulting crisis causes high energy prices which causes people to be more efficient and to invest in new energy sources. It takes 20 or 30 years for this to play out. (mid 1970s, early 2000s, current 2022) Each cycle leaves behind a tranche of books that reprise the last crisis, with the interesting…

This is why geothermal has not taken off. Anything that needs a steam turbine needs very expensive periodic maintenance. All the other nuke expenses just add to that.

Geothermal is popular in more or less every area that has the right geology for it. It's just that those faults that being usable thermal energy close to the surface are few and far between.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#115

Post by pfdietz »

SemanticStrengh wrote: post #94
Krasnol wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any serious sources on this ridiculous conspiracy theory bread in Shellenbergers bubble reactor?

The reason we don't have reactors that recycle nuclear wastes is because ecologists have attacked the next-gen model with a bazooka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Rocket_attack This is why we can't have nice things, the ecologists have prevented the solutions from the issues that legitimate their political existence. In germany and in the U.S the shutdown of nuclear has been a blatant lobby too.

No, the reason we don't have reactors that recycle nuclear wastes is because they are economically ludicrous. Uranium is cheap, enrichment has become cheap, so there's no incentive to reprocess for plutonium the use of which would increase the cost of fueling a reactor.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#116

Post by pfdietz »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #15
mjfl wrote: post #9

no one ever mentions nuclear proliferation risk associated with the production of plutonium.

it does get mentioned, and you can have nuclear power without producing plutonium.

Only by having a nuclear fuel that is itself a proliferation risk (undenatured 235U or 233U).

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#117

Post by psadri »

My theory - technology advances at the rate of half life of each buying cycle. Phones advance quickly because people replace them every 2-3 years. Cars, every 7-10 years. Nuclear reactors every 59 years. Hence the slow rate of advancement.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

planetsprite wrote: post #81
Krasnol wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://worldnuclearwastereport.org/

however the fuel constitutes 97% of the radiation of all waste

[deleted]

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#119

Post by Ericson2314 »

It's simply not profitable to do the job so well. Abundance (blowing past the demand curve, if you like) just isn't rewarded under ccapitalism.

There's plenty of more specific stories worth telling, but for the big picture around much such infrastructure work, this is the elephant in the room.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#120

Post by pfdietz »

sto_hristo wrote: post #32
matthewdgreen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you would benefit from reading TFA. It looks at the actual operating costs of current designs and the dropping price of renewables and points out that the fundamental economics of the nuclear industry are not great right now. It also points out that most of the high-priced daytime usage is about to be scooped up by renewables. This may or may not be fatal to the nuclear industry, but it points to the need for…

Sorry. Largest power density is still in the atom. Can't work your magic around this. The only reasonable and sane strategy is to R&D around nuclear. Whoever gets it right will rule, the others will be ruled. Not single bubble kept its integrity; renewables will burst as well.

Why are you choosing a meaningless metric to decide on the technology? Utilities or consumers don't care about energy density of fuels, they care about cost.
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