Not completely stagnant: "Radiant Nuclear" - https://www.radiantnuclear.com/
Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
151–160 of 672 posts
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#152Nuclear 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
What do you think about NuScales SMR reactor?
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#153It has nothing to do with economics, nuclear energy is stagnant because the industry is a regulatory hell. From eia.gov: Of the 104 operating nuclear power reactors in the United States: The last construction permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1978 for Progress Energy Inc.'s Shearon Harris plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last operating license for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1996 to the T…
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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#154After seeing russians fire at nuclear power plants, good look advocating them to the public...
Edward Teller said the solution to the long term storage problem and the attack problem to build them under ground.
Yeah he liked those. PDF paper from him on the topic here: https://www.nucleonica.com/wiki/Articles/Teller/Teller.pdf
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that nuclear power plants are uninsurable without government subsidies. Why is that?
Imagine if fossil and biofuel combustion plants had to insure themselves against the air pollution deaths they are known to directly cause. 4.2 million dead per year, year after year, according to the WHO [1]. And then there's climate change. It's wild that nuclear has to insure against things that may happen while 80% of our primary energy sources don't have to pay at all for the deaths and climate change they cause…
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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#156Simple, because we have a society who's worldview involves believing that quantum energy from crystals heals them and the alignment of the planets determines their fate.
And they have decided that nuclear is scary. Honestly we get what we deserve.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#157It has nothing to do with economics, nuclear energy is stagnant because the industry is a regulatory hell. From eia.gov: Of the 104 operating nuclear power reactors in the United States: The last construction permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1978 for Progress Energy Inc.'s Shearon Harris plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last operating license for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1996 to the T…
One of the points that the article brings up is that a nuclear power plant takes around ten years to build, and that's ignoring the political red tape that you mentioned which would add on another 5+ years, plus the huge upfront capex costs. With the energy industry changing so rapidly at the moment, that's a huge risk for anyone wanting to invest. In that ten years for construction its likely that battery, solar, an…
> the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct
But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
High energy density can in principle matter, a lot, from a societal point of view. If you only need a tiny amount of fuel to make the world's energy, then the overall impact on land, minerals, ecosystems, wildlife, etc. can potentially be very small, assuming you deliver the rest of the fuel cycle and reactors with reasonably small footprints as well. The fact that current markets don't yet value these things is more a issue with the current markets than a critique of energy density.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#159I live in South Korea. One thing people miss about nuclear power in South Korea is that natural gas is expensive in South Korea, because there is no pipeline connection and it is imported liquified. The article quotes $25/MWh for natural gas in PJM, where comparable number in South Korea is $100/MWh. Truth is, if South Korea had pipeline connection to Siberian natural gas field (not an absurd supposition, there was f…
If pipelines between russia and germany ( who had ties stretching centuries and pipelines for decades ) are such an issue for the US, any pipeline between russia and korea or russia and japan are non-starters. After fukushima, we allowed japan to buy lots of gas from russia. There was even talk about Japan and Russia building pipelines. But that got squashed real quick. Instead we forced japan to build LNG terminals for gas shipments by sea. Far costlier, more inefficient and much slower.
It's an example of politics trumping economics. Russia has the largest gas reserves in the world by far. Japan and Korea are relatively wealthy but energy poor nations. A pipeline between Russia and Japan/Korea makes all the economic sense in the world. You'd expect there be a bunch of pipeline already and more scheduled to be built in the future. But no. Not a single pipeline.
Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?
#160It has nothing to do with economics, nuclear energy is stagnant because the industry is a regulatory hell. From eia.gov: Of the 104 operating nuclear power reactors in the United States: The last construction permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1978 for Progress Energy Inc.'s Shearon Harris plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last operating license for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1996 to the T…
Look no further than how Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) tried to cover up Three Mile Island. Catastrophic failure within 3 months and they hid it from the public for fear of nuclear backlash. Here we are 40 years later