First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation • Hacker News Board

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#611

Post by evilos » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:15 AM UTC

api wrote: post #551

jerry1979 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like people recently got permission in the United States to build an MSR: https://fortune.com/2023/12/13/nuclear-reactor-approval-molt... I have not seen any evidence that solar+wind will provide a proper base load of electricity, and it looks like MSR and its variants will give people the electricity they need.

Solar and wind require storage. Nuclear needs batteries too because nuclear reactors are very slow to throttle and not good at load following. Every non fossil source except hydro requires a large build out of grid scale storage.

While nuclear plants do pair well with storage (many pumped hydro storage stations were built to pair with nuclear plants), the idea that they cannot load follow is a myth. It is simply more economical for them to run at full load since fuel cost is a very small portion of nuclear operating expenses.

https://imgur.com/a/tB3x48U

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#612

Post by lawn » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:19 AM UTC

TomK32 wrote: post #598

lawn wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. We need a mix of low-carbon energy sources, where nuclear is an important piece (otherwise we'll have to resort to oil/gas/coal).

> > All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. > All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. Now that we have established that both sides are into magical thinking, how about just reducing energy consumption?

Hah. That's a third type of magical thinking (unfortunately).

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#613

Post by bpfrh » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:19 AM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #259

Joeri wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT found that reusing a design made plants more expensive to build, not less, because of costly on-site last minute design changes. Taking your point more charitably, it is indeed the lack of a sustainable nuclear energy industry that routinely builds plants that causes costs to skyrocket. There is a chicken and egg situation: nuclear projects don’t get funded because they’re too expensive, so there is no chance to…

> costly on-site last minute design changes I clicked through to the actual study ( https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30458-X?_r... ) and I couldn't find a single sentence mentioning on-site last-minute design changes. I searched for "change" and tabbed through all of the results. The closest thing was mention of Westinghouse changing construction standards halfway through an ongoing project, which re…

"Our results point to a gap between expected and realized costs stemming from low resilience to time- and site-dependent construction conditions."

Couldn't that be paraphrased to "last minute changes"?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#614

Post by rcxdude » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:32 AM UTC

rainsford wrote: post #376

thelastgallon wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 million acres are used to grow corn for ethanol. This is 162,000 square kilometers. This can produce 3.24 exajoules of energy. Also, solar panels don't need any land. There are so many places we can install solar without 'consuming' land. They can be roofs, floating on tops of lakes and reservoirs with the added benefit of preventing evaporation, agrivoltaics combined with farmland, vertical panels, superfund site…

For all the concern about land use for renewables, it really feels like subsidized ethanol has got to be the most wasteful use of energy investment dollars in terms of farmland used and every other possible metric. It's very interesting to think about using that money and land for other energy generation uses.

yes, biofuel is a colossally bad idea and it should have been obvious to everyone involved right from the start.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#615

Post by hef19898 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:32 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #500

hef19898 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we moved from using Twitter as a source to TikTok? We live in dark times...

You can also get the same information from here, which has an extensive reference section at the bottom. Disclosure: I wrote it. https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html

Nice work. Do you know of any studies looking at the cost of powering the world that way? And the time need to transition?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#616

Post by magicalhippo » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:34 AM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #259

Joeri wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT found that reusing a design made plants more expensive to build, not less, because of costly on-site last minute design changes. Taking your point more charitably, it is indeed the lack of a sustainable nuclear energy industry that routinely builds plants that causes costs to skyrocket. There is a chicken and egg situation: nuclear projects don’t get funded because they’re too expensive, so there is no chance to…

> costly on-site last minute design changes I clicked through to the actual study ( https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30458-X?_r... ) and I couldn't find a single sentence mentioning on-site last-minute design changes. I searched for "change" and tabbed through all of the results. The closest thing was mention of Westinghouse changing construction standards halfway through an ongoing project, which re…

From the article's own summary: Our results point to a gap between expected and realized costs stemming from low resilience to time- and site-dependent construction conditions.

Guess that's where they took it from.

Skimming the paper it seems a large part of the issue is that it's difficult to mass produce something which needs to be integrated into a variable environment, and attempting to do so is detrimental compared to custom solutions.

This seems to mirror what I've found in the software world, where a custom integration is often much cheaper and easier to maintain than trying to manhandle some generic library/software to do what's needed.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#617

Post by xw3089 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:37 AM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #558

Fatnino wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the safety systems worked so everything was (mostly) contained and no one got hurt. Like a car crash where the seat belts and airbags lead to no injuries. And then all driving was banned.

No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only sensible reaction to such an incident to check your designs for faults and review all reactors under construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to continue with the construction and which changes would be required.

Maybe not no one

https://berkeley.municipal.codes/BMC/12.90.050

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#618

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:44 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #528

somenameforme wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official numbers around radiation exposure from Three Mile Island claim minimal radiation exposure, yet studies have found numerous contradictory effects including 64% increased rates of cancer, > 50% increase in young infant mortality, and various other ill effects. [1] Studies have not been able to prove a causal link, but that's largely because they take, as an assumption, the correctness of the official numbe…

There's a slew of studies mentioned in your link, not all aligned with some "official" policy of suppression - and they amount in total to tentative evidence of maybe something. Statistically it's inconclusive whether slight increases in some zones from a bit below average to a bit above average cancer rates is linked to TMI or to stress and|or increased screening. What is certain, beyond a doubt, is that within the…

Are you suggesting that a death due to an explosion at a plant owned by "PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel" counts against batteries, because some of them use nickel, but not nuclear plants, which pretty much require nickel-containing stainless steel for its anti-corrosion properties?

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#619

Post by aspenmayer » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:54 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #273

zbrozek wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure does! That's why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection. On the other hand, the state is losing population on an absolute basis (and relatively even more so against a backdrop of national growth). So some folks are voting with their feet. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I'm free enough to do the same.

> why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives", to make really clear the connection I’m arguing the opposite. The voters have the tools to oppose the state government’s size. That they don’t use them signals support in broad terms.

I’d agree with you with the caveat that such public support is mediated by regulatory capture on all sides and from all quarters: outside the government by industry and lobbyists, within the government by elected officials, and adjacent to/despite the government by a public apathetic to such issues and/or voting against its own shared/collective interests in favor of individual interests. Participation in local and state politics even in California is not common beyond voting, which is a low bar to clear. Much of media messaging in the area of referendums is focused on niche issues and special interests, and serves to highlight and promote those issues to convert NIMBYs to YIMBYs or vice-versa on those specific narrow issues. Agreement in broad terms like you mention is hard to achieve due to the difficulty in drafting referendum legislation texts such that they will withstand a challenge by the state attorney general as well as state Supreme Court, as well as having the resulting referendum achieve enough signatures to make it on the ballot and have enough recognition and support by voters to actually pass and become law.

One key difference that I do like about the CA referendum process is that laws passed by referendum in California are equal to the state constitution and require 2/3 supermajority in state congress to modify or change, just like the state constitution itself. This avoids many attempts by legislature to foil or spoil the will of the voters’ referendums, in contrast to other state referendum processes which are only considered a law passed by other means and are usually able to be modified by simple majority.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#620

Post by zo1 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 11:03 AM UTC

gustavus wrote: post #541

avar wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's normal in many very cold places to entirely switch off your heating overnight. You heat your home up during the day and evening, and as you retire for the night it's switched off. With sufficient insulation and warm bedding you don't need active heating overnight. So it's absolutely compatible with an electric supply that's heavily biased towards the daytime.

Ya that's a level of unmitigated bull** where I live there is usually several days out of the year where the temperature is -40 (doesn't matter the units at that temperature it's the same) and massive wind chill. There's not really a reasonable way to heat a houseduring the day and have it remain warm with tempratures like that without major changes to the way houses are built. This seems like the quintessential exam…

What percentage of the world's population lives at a place that goes to -40C ever in the year? That's like 0.000001% of the world's population (didn't confirm, thumb sucking).

I think you need to admit, "bro", that you're far from a standard case and that maybe you should suck it up and move to a more hospitable spot instead of forcing the rest of us to subsidize your extreme lifestyle choice at the expense of our environment which we "all" apparently care so much about.

At least I'm suggesting insulation, and alternative methods of heating as opposed to just saying we should chug gigawatts so your butt could be warm at -40C outside.