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

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

#761

Post by mpweiher »

jerry1979 wrote: post #480
evilos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will likely take a minimum of ten years to get a non light water reactor certified by the NRC. And that is very optimistic. Then you have to build the first of a kind plant which is always more expensive and takes longer. Then you have to get good at operating these new kinds of plants. It's true that MSR and Breeder reactors have lots of potential benefits over traditional LWRs but the truth is, LWRs are more tha…

FYI, an MSR got green lit recently: https://fortune.com/2023/12/13/nuclear-reactor-approval-molt...

And a Chinese molten salt reactor was finished a couple of years ago and just got its operating license this year.

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

#762

Post by mpweiher »

edent wrote: post #307
techscruggs wrote: post #304

This is a win for the environment and for human rights. A lot of people on here are talking about how solar and wind are better alternatives. The problem with that is that they typically need to be stored in batteries made of cobalt. The vast majority of cobalt mines exist in the Congo where modern day slavery exists to extract it. This affects everything from your Tesla to your iPhone.

Good thing uranium doesn't need mining! And it is only found in countries with strong human rights records!

Largest reserves are in Australia.

Canada also has quite a bit.

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

#763

Post by [deleted] »

corethree wrote: post #740
kjkjadksj wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a paper tiger. It is amazing the credit the media gives them, but no surprise given the medias purpose is to create narratives rather than put light on truth. If China were as dominant as the media alleges Taiwan would have been invaded decades ago. The reality is big mighty China has one aircraft carrier that entered service just 5 years ago, and another one that is a renovated old soviet carrier. The vast…

I'm not talking about China alone. I'm talking about Asia. Which is China + Taiwan + Korea + Japan + Singapore, plus every major asian country. Additionally the rivalry between the US and China is off topic I'm not talking about that. My statement is, Asia is superior to the US in terms of Manufacturing/infrastructure. I can add more to that as well. In terms of ICs, Asia also dominates. The US is behind Asia on all…

[deleted]

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

#764

Post by aftbit »

klipklop wrote: post #63

Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks. I didn’t run the math but I’m guessing it’s not feasible to build a battery pack large enough to ride out winter in some areas. The SF Bay Area, sure, but I suspect blackouts will be common in solar+battery only areas. A preferred solution would be a mix of both with nuclear handling disruptions due…

Dunkelflaute (dark and calm) is indeed a real problem for a renewable-only future. If you want to maintain current reliability statistics with solar/wind only, you need to overbuild both storage and generation to such an extreme level that it might not be cost competitive in the end. You'll end up building your entire grid for the 100 year dunkelflaute event even though 90%+ of it will be idle most of the time, or you'll keep a bunch of gas plants idling to pick up the load in that case.

Really we need to crack better storage. Improvements in hydrogen electrolysis or direct air to fuel could do it, but there are non-trivial technology hurdles there as well.

I'm holding out hope for deep sea geothermal ala Peter Watts' Behemoth. Perhaps we can exploit the temperature difference between geothermal vents and the surrounding water to get stable and green base-load power.

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

#765

Post by aftbit »

wolverine876 wrote: post #157
slashdev wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

> an artificial problem caused by regulation Maybe it's a real problem caused by the physical realities of nuclear. Calling regulation an artificial cost is like calling sewage treatment an artificial cost of water. > Bloated regulatory agencies seem to have infiltrated and poisoned every aspect of society with no relief in sight. It's often repeated, including by a certain political grouping, but never established I…

>Unregulated markets, such as cryptocurrency, privacy, etc. seem to cause most of the problems.

Can you expand on this a bit? This feels a bit like a cause and effect confusion to me. Perhaps the unregulated markets are just where the "problematic" behavior moves, as it has been excluded from the regulated markets? Also, what does privacy have to do with this?

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

#767

Post by cinntaile »

midasuni wrote: post #689
hef19898 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the potential damage, nuclear is right up there with aviation, medical and life science when it comes to safety standards. Because each and every incident can be traced back to ignoring whatever safety standards and practices where applicable at the time these accidents happened. Someone would have to pay for those 1000 NPPs, and in the current market conditions no one is willing to, because the ROI isn't…

Potential damage is one thing, but for actual deaths coal is 1000 times more deadly per TWh than nuclear, so surely coal requires far more rigourous safety standards https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

You need to look at the potential consequences of an accident to determine how rigorous the safety standards should be. A metric such as deaths/TWh cannot answer that question and therefore should not be used to guide the answer.

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

#768

Post by [deleted] »

bondarchuk wrote: post #711
altairTF wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Take a look at this https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/out-of-th... https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-are-worse-rad...

Well, I believe the factual content of what you said, I'm just surprised you'd seriously use this as an argument in favour of nuclear power, because the fact that wildlife thrived is so intimately connected with the fact that a nuclear meltdown happened.

[deleted]

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

#769

Post by roenxi »

bondarchuk wrote: post #711
altairTF wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Take a look at this https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/out-of-th... https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-are-worse-rad...

Well, I believe the factual content of what you said, I'm just surprised you'd seriously use this as an argument in favour of nuclear power, because the fact that wildlife thrived is so intimately connected with the fact that a nuclear meltdown happened.

If radiation in the exclusion zone causes less damage than human habitation, what is the argument for maintaining the exclusion zone?

Bearing in mind that coal plants have a lot of negative health effects, so there needs to be an argument that life in the exclusion zone would be detectable worse than life near a coal plant.

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

#770

Post by bumby »

corethree wrote: post #740
kjkjadksj wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a paper tiger. It is amazing the credit the media gives them, but no surprise given the medias purpose is to create narratives rather than put light on truth. If China were as dominant as the media alleges Taiwan would have been invaded decades ago. The reality is big mighty China has one aircraft carrier that entered service just 5 years ago, and another one that is a renovated old soviet carrier. The vast…

I'm not talking about China alone. I'm talking about Asia. Which is China + Taiwan + Korea + Japan + Singapore, plus every major asian country. Additionally the rivalry between the US and China is off topic I'm not talking about that. My statement is, Asia is superior to the US in terms of Manufacturing/infrastructure. I can add more to that as well. In terms of ICs, Asia also dominates. The US is behind Asia on all…

Why do you compare an entire continent to one country and also not count one of that country’s largest manufacturing cost centers as part of its manufacturing? Seems like cherry-picking.
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