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Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

westinghousenuclear.com

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Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#101

Post by pfdietz »

_djo_ wrote: post #97
tibbydudeza wrote: post #69

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…

South Africa almost got something similar, the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Well ahead of its time and excellent technology, with Westinghouse involved as a partner at one point and having bought some of the IP. [0] If only that had been continued. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor

Pebble bed reactors have problems. The fuel is more expensive to fabricate, activated dust comes off the pebbles as they abrade each other, the pebbles can crack and jam, and the volume of the spent fuel is high, increasing the cost of dealing with it.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#102

Post by cduzz »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #52
nimrody wrote: post #42

This is small: https://www.radiantnuclear.com/ Yes, I understand it isn't comparable (1.2MW). But portable doesn't require construction. Surely something in-between can be built?

If you like that one, you'll also love an actually-operated version of this: ML-1 from the 1960s. It operated out in Idaho at the National Reactor Testing Station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML-1

That article is _hilarious_

"Extensive shielding was omitted in favor of a personnel exclusion zone of 500 feet (150 m) while in operation"

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#103

Post by friendzis »

Certhas wrote: post #64
Mistletoe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

The biggest downside (compared to solar wind) of nuclear always was payback time on investment.

Solar wind is volatile and non-dispatchable, so you need something to balance it. Of course we can always say heck it and live with constant brownouts and highly variable energy cost, but that is a non-solution in my book. You can overprovision generation, you can build dispatchable storage solution or dispatchable alternative generation source. In the end you need this because of variability and non-dispatchability of solar wind. Nuclear does not have this property, ergo it does not need storage to prevent brownouts. Sure, some models suggest that storage could under certain circumstances maybe help shave off a few percent of the cost, but that is the extent nuclear needs storage.

And this brings us back to original issue of payback time. Solar wind has lower payback time, because the cost of variability is borne by the grid, i.e. classical example of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#104

Post by acidburnNSA »

pfdietz wrote: post #83
acidburnNSA wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were at least some confounding factors beyond how good of an idea this was. The primary expected electricity customer was oil refineries off the New Jersey coast. The Atlantic Generating Station was to be the first of these power plants. But after the 1973 oil shocks, oil refinery energy demand fell more than expected. By the time things were looking up again, Three Mile Island happened in 1979 and the general…

The primary thing that happened in the 1970s to ruin the US market for nuclear was PURPA, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. This act began the opening of US electricity markets to non-utility providers. It turned out there was very large potential for this: cogeneration, and just low overhead fossil generation, especially as natural gas became seen as more abundant and combustion turbines improved. Those oi…

Thanks, that's excellent context.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#105

Post by mindslight »

pfdietz wrote: post #83
acidburnNSA wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were at least some confounding factors beyond how good of an idea this was. The primary expected electricity customer was oil refineries off the New Jersey coast. The Atlantic Generating Station was to be the first of these power plants. But after the 1973 oil shocks, oil refinery energy demand fell more than expected. By the time things were looking up again, Three Mile Island happened in 1979 and the general…

The primary thing that happened in the 1970s to ruin the US market for nuclear was PURPA, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. This act began the opening of US electricity markets to non-utility providers. It turned out there was very large potential for this: cogeneration, and just low overhead fossil generation, especially as natural gas became seen as more abundant and combustion turbines improved. Those oi…

Interesting comment! But wouldn't swapping in a nuclear reactor allow for the same cogeneration setup? So it would be still be about the cost of the fuel they're burning versus the cost of managing a nuclear reactor.

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#106

Post by pfdietz »

mindslight wrote: post #105
pfdietz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary thing that happened in the 1970s to ruin the US market for nuclear was PURPA, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. This act began the opening of US electricity markets to non-utility providers. It turned out there was very large potential for this: cogeneration, and just low overhead fossil generation, especially as natural gas became seen as more abundant and combustion turbines improved. Those oi…

Interesting comment! But wouldn't swapping in a nuclear reactor allow for the same cogeneration setup? So it would be still be about the cost of the fuel they're burning versus the cost of managing a nuclear reactor.

Combustion turbines operate at a much higher temperature (as much as 1300 C) than a nuclear reactor, especially a LWR (about 325 C), so the exhaust temperature can be much higher. Also, a turbine is much cheaper: a simple cycle combustion turbine is maybe $500/kW(e), vs. perhaps 20x that for a NPP.

The reason a combustion turbine can be so hot is that the heat is produced in the working fluid itself, by a chemical reaction. There is no need to conduct that heat from a solid material at higher temperature. All the solid parts that might be heated by the gas can be cooled by actively flowing a cooler fluid through them (air, steam).

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#107

Post by Gwypaas »

friendzis wrote: post #103
Certhas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

The biggest downside (compared to solar wind) of nuclear always was payback time on investment. Solar wind is volatile and non-dispatchable, so you need something to balance it. Of course we can always say heck it and live with constant brownouts and highly variable energy cost, but that is a non-solution in my book. You can overprovision generation, you can build dispatchable storage solution or dispatchable alterna…

Until the outage of half your nuclear plants is similarly borne by the grid.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#108

Post by mindslight »

pfdietz wrote: post #106
mindslight wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comment! But wouldn't swapping in a nuclear reactor allow for the same cogeneration setup? So it would be still be about the cost of the fuel they're burning versus the cost of managing a nuclear reactor.

Combustion turbines operate at a much higher temperature (as much as 1300 C) than a nuclear reactor, especially a LWR (about 325 C), so the exhaust temperature can be much higher. Also, a turbine is much cheaper: a simple cycle combustion turbine is maybe $500/kW(e), vs. perhaps 20x that for a NPP. The reason a combustion turbine can be so hot is that the heat is produced in the working fluid itself, by a chemical re…

But if the main thing they want is low temperature process heat, then the specific method of generating electricity shouldn't actually matter? NPPs also produce electricity plus lower temperature 'waste' heat.

Unless the waste heat put out by the NPP is too low temperature to be used for process heat? Or the real advantage is that the refineries ramped up their electricity generation (turning waste fractions into electricity), with the process heat becoming a secondary concern?

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#109

Post by Gwypaas »

pyrale wrote: post #89
Certhas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> 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. It's exhausting to see this claim see the light so often, despite being debunked so frequently. Nuclear doesn't require storage. Some people claim that economies could be made with storage because then you wouldn't need to build pro…

Assume a capacity factor of 50% then to handle peak loads? Now the nuclear costs $240-440/MWh. That is ridiculous costs, worse than Europe during the last winters Russian war induced gas crisis.

https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...

Re: Westinghouse AP300 Small Module Reactor

#110

Post by Gwypaas »

sofixa wrote: post #94
epistasis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Because those were the first EPRs ever . Now that most caveats and issues are discovered, next ones should be drastically faster and easier. > France can also build large construction projects without the massive cost overruns that the US has had Not always, some easily go overboard, like with the Parisian Philharmonic, or the absolutely massive Grand Paris Express (~200km of new high capacity metro lines around Pari…

Hinkley Point C, started 12 years later, is going swimmingly I hear! Going to cost the consumers ~$150/MWh and it is starting to look likely that EDF even at that incredibly high price takes a loss on it.

> Since construction began in March 2017, the project has been subject to several delays, including some caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,[10] and this has resulted in significant budget overruns. As of May 2022, the project is two years late and the expected cost is £25–26 billion,[11] 50% more than the original budget from 2016. It is currently planned to be commissioned in June 2027 and has a projected lifetime of 60 years. In February 2023, EDF announced that costs would rise to £32.7bn and completion would be delayed by a further 15 months to September 2028.[2][12]

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

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