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Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

westinghousenuclear.com

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Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#61

Post by booi »

elihu wrote: post #55
acidburnNSA wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to solve this problem is to build a huge shipyard-based reactor-making gigafactory that makes floating gigawatt scale reactors that are floated to location. You can operate them offshore or on land. This was actually attempted in the 1970s by Offshore Power Systems (joint venture between Westinghouse and Newport News). They bought and installed the world's largest gantry crane on Blount Island in Jackson…

A side benefit of being on or near the ocean is immediate access to a thermal sink. Nuclear power plants (and also fossil fuel thermal plants) divert substantial amounts of water for cooling. If fresh water is increasingly in short supply around the world, that's a problem. The usefulness of the ocean as a thermal sink though depends on water temperature which can vary a lot depending on where you are.

Is it actually cheaper and easier? Seawater isn’t exactly known for its ease of use and non-corrosiveness and fouling is a real problem.

Not to mention all the sea life that isn’t going to respond well to high temp water spewing out..

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#62

Post by weberer »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #33
rgmerk wrote: post #6

Some history might be worth going in to here. The AP1000 design was an evolution of an earlier design called the AP600. The AP600 conceptual design apparently didn't find any customers because the economics of it were unappealing compared to larger reactors. In a nutshell, if you're going to build a huge containment building etc etc etc, it doesn't cost (in theory) that much more to go even bigger and get more power…

The best way to solve this problem is to build a huge shipyard-based reactor-making gigafactory that makes floating gigawatt scale reactors that are floated to location. You can operate them offshore or on land. This was actually attempted in the 1970s by Offshore Power Systems (joint venture between Westinghouse and Newport News). They bought and installed the world's largest gantry crane on Blount Island in Jackson…

That's what Russia is doing now. They already have one mobile power plant in operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power...

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#63

Post by DarkNova6 »

nukeman wrote: post #2

Seriously? I’m insanely pro-nuke, and work in the nuclear sector, but Westinghouse should really focus on their AP1000. They’ve already got deals in place with several countries, and now that they’ve got them running in more than one country, there might be a chance of bringing costs down some. The light water SMR market is getting crowded rather fast. They’re competing with both GE (and their BWRX-300) and NuScale (…

maybe for the immediate future. But their best prospects by far lie in their LFR (Lead Fast Reactor) concept.

Lead is such a superior concept for reactor design and neutron economy, and mostly held back by the pace in material science.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#64

Post by Certhas »

Mistletoe wrote: post #47
aeontech wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incredible! If this project actually went into production, we would be living in a very different world right now...

People always say this, but if it was so great wouldn’t someone have bought some? The money never seems to work out.

Also: Renewables have downsides, but they are vastly cheaper and more proven.

There is no reason to assume that the downsides of various other techs are in any way more manageable. (And ironically some of the solutions proposed for the downsides of nuclear are also what you need for renewables, i.e. storage to maximize use of expensive infrastructure with low opex.)

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#65

Post by febusravenga »

scythe wrote: post #30
derefr wrote: post #28

Question about SMRs generally: does the fact that random private companies can apply to buy one of these, mean that nuclear reactors are now basically "state-secret free" as a technology? Or are there still state secrets, but they're all in the e.g. uranium enrichment part of the pipeline — that buying one of these gets you no closer to seeing — rather than in the reactor design?

Building a nuclear warhead requires assembling a large sphere (ish) of material well above critical mass faster than it can explode. Only then does the chain reaction efficiently consume a lot of fuel before it breaks up (inertial confinement). Usually, you need to use explosives to blast the different pieces of fuel into each other. This requires very accurate control of the explosions that ignite the warhead, and i…

> juuuust barely above critical mass

Interesting. Everyone says that nuclear reactors are safe and material can't be used to build bomb, how are we ensuring that were always only tiny bit above CM... And this bit doesn't grow unexpectedly.

As laic, i see many failure modes, starting with simple accidents in handling of rods or bad storage

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#67

Post by bjornsing »

epistasis wrote: post #49
dirtsoc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sad is that it's mainly the US that has problems with this. China has managed to bring multiple of this reactor design to fruition while the US still screws around with building just two. I live in Georgia and the almost decade of overruns and corruption are being about to be paid for by Georgia Power customers via rate hikes.

France and Finland have had excessive difficulty with their EPR. My hypothesis is that modern economies with high wages will simply not be able to build a nuclear reactor economically. It appears to require a certain amount of 20th century technological advancement, but not so much economic advancement that labor costs are too high. France had a much better track record with nuclear in their first round of building.…

Interesting hypothesis…

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#68

Post by killjoywashere »

booi wrote: post #61
elihu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side benefit of being on or near the ocean is immediate access to a thermal sink. Nuclear power plants (and also fossil fuel thermal plants) divert substantial amounts of water for cooling. If fresh water is increasingly in short supply around the world, that's a problem. The usefulness of the ocean as a thermal sink though depends on water temperature which can vary a lot depending on where you are.

Is it actually cheaper and easier? Seawater isn’t exactly known for its ease of use and non-corrosiveness and fouling is a real problem. Not to mention all the sea life that isn’t going to respond well to high temp water spewing out..

Nuclear subs and carriers operate in salt water all the time. It's "just" chemistry

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#69

Post by tibbydudeza »

We could use it here in South Africa.

The bulk of our power comes from coal fired plants but due to the low quality coal for cost reasons and thus high sulphur and lack of preventative maintenance it results in boiler tube leaks nearly every week.

Some of our plants are at the end of their lives and their replacements are no better off due to corruption and a malady of technically incompetent builders (looking at you Hitachi South Africa).

7000MW out of commission so we get daily power cuts for half the day.

Those like myself who have the ability just install home solar systems for some measure of sanity while most companies are using diesel standby generators for their infrastructure.

Walking into the office park and you can hear the chugg chugg and smell the fumes.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#70

Post by Wildgoose »

febusravenga wrote: post #65
scythe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a nuclear warhead requires assembling a large sphere (ish) of material well above critical mass faster than it can explode. Only then does the chain reaction efficiently consume a lot of fuel before it breaks up (inertial confinement). Usually, you need to use explosives to blast the different pieces of fuel into each other. This requires very accurate control of the explosions that ignite the warhead, and i…

> juuuust barely above critical mass Interesting. Everyone says that nuclear reactors are safe and material can't be used to build bomb, how are we ensuring that were always only tiny bit above CM... And this bit doesn't grow unexpectedly. As laic, i see many failure modes, starting with simple accidents in handling of rods or bad storage

It's actually just below Critical Mass. (For obvious reasons).

You need sufficient fissile material to provide the increased neutron flow generating heat which you can use to power generators, but you have to then extract that heat efficiently to prevent your nuclear core from literally melting.

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