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Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

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Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#141

Post by robocat »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #80
DennisP wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But coal is still 49%. The whole point of nuclear in a carbon-free, mostly-renewable grid is to avoid needing enormous amounts of storage and overproduction. That's a need that doesn't come up when you're still half fossil. If you want to decarbonize as fast as possible, it makes sense to focus on rolling out wind/solar/battery as fast as possible for now, but keep developing nuclear technology to cover the last bit…

The most cost efficient new-build grid is 90-98% solar/wind/battery depending on your locales insolation & wind coverage. (Source Ember Energy) The remaining 2-10% is nat gas, if you have a piped source, or coal if you don't. But 98% renewable doesn't mean you can hit 100% by adding 2% more of something else, it means your something else has to supply ~100% of the power 2% of the time. If China is aiming for that cos…

> supply ~100% of the power 2% of the time

Or you design the majority of loads so they can be turned off for 2% of the time.

Load shedding is a better solution than running peakers for [heated] towel rails.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#142

Post by agarwaen163 »

thinkcontext wrote: post #132

There are no working SMR's ready to be deployed in the West. The company (NuScale) that was furthest along had its flagship project die after cost estimates ballooned. Its other project was a crypto scam. Whether any of these companies work out and make it to serial production is very speculative.

Are you forgetting Valar Atomics exists buddy? Or Aalo, or Antares or Radiant?

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#143

Post by agarwaen163 »

hvb2 wrote: post #2

> but SMRs should be cheaper and easier to construct. The word should is doing some real heavy lifting there. Especially given the subject. I guess we'll know in 2030 when one should come online.

Except Valar already did it earlier this year.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#144

Post by irq-1 »

elcritch wrote: post #79
mayama wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if its cheaper to build small reactor vessels, MANY of the other costs become more expensive in larger numbers. There is no way SMR could beat solar+battery power cost even now. With sodium and other batteries projected to reduce storage cost, it is even more unlikely that SMR could be price competitive in future grids. SMR is the only way that dying western nuclear industry could attempt to deal with ballooni…

If solar+battery were cheaper wouldn't the new AI data centers be opting to pay to build that rather than nuclear or LPG options?

https://www.fastcompany.com/91500104/google-minnesota-data-c...

> Google’s new Minnesota data center comes with the world’s largest battery—and won’t raise electric bills

> The tech giant says it will fund enough new wind, solar, and long-duration storage to cover the project’s power demand and avoid shifting costs to ratepayers.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#145

Post by agarwaen163 »

pfdietz wrote: post #59
briffle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's so much cheaper to build multiple small reactors, just build one big plant with 24 small reactors. That is literally the plan with several designs like NuScale (and I think TerraPower). The plan with NuScale is to ship the reactors on rail or barge, and then truck it in the last few miles. So they cost savings is in not having to custom desgin the actual components for each site, and build them on site. Sta…

NuScale infamously failed to get their reactor funded in Utah (UAMPS and the CFPP), it was just too expensive. Costs kept rising, large utilities declined to sign up, and in the end those utilities remaining were going to hit the contractual off ramp so it was just cancelled. I have some links to minutes of municipal utility meetings in Idaho Falls that showed the wheels coming off (even though there was great local…

Your point is moot, it's the plan with almost all SMRs other than like the Deep Fission type of lazy ideas.

What about Valar Atomics?

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#146

Post by UltraSane »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #96
UltraSane wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very wrong. US base load demand is around 400GW that must be provided 24/7

Baseload is a cost optimization strategy only relevant if your non-dispatchable power generation is cheaper than your dispatchable power generation. https://en.acatech.de/publication/baseload-power-plants/

You need to have dispatchable capacity equal to or greater than your base load in order be able to guarantee you will be able to deliver it with 100% reliability year round.

I am very dubious of any energy policy coming form Germany because they have managed to make their electricity among the most expensive in the world while STILL being high carbon.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#147

Post by agarwaen163 »

pfdietz wrote: post #59
briffle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's so much cheaper to build multiple small reactors, just build one big plant with 24 small reactors. That is literally the plan with several designs like NuScale (and I think TerraPower). The plan with NuScale is to ship the reactors on rail or barge, and then truck it in the last few miles. So they cost savings is in not having to custom desgin the actual components for each site, and build them on site. Sta…

NuScale infamously failed to get their reactor funded in Utah (UAMPS and the CFPP), it was just too expensive. Costs kept rising, large utilities declined to sign up, and in the end those utilities remaining were going to hit the contractual off ramp so it was just cancelled. I have some links to minutes of municipal utility meetings in Idaho Falls that showed the wheels coming off (even though there was great local…

Your last point is entirely backwards and missed the scaling concept entirely. I suggest you watch a documentary on the Model T. The point being that these aren't civil projects once it's modular. The prices and material are what's being optimized. To compare to large RPVs and BWRs efficiency is idiotic as that's the only place they beat SMRs and the known downside to SMRs which is the point of scaling it.

It has always been a regulatoryu issue. As given by the fact Valar has a microreactor currently running just to disrpove your thesis.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#148

Post by agarwaen163 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #101
hwillis wrote: post #14

And a contrasting article from IEEE: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... > Samuel B. Morris, the general manager and chief engineer of Los Angeles’s Department of Water and Power, traveled all the way to Geneva in 1955 to attend the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. There, he made a case for small reactors, arguing that because the “number of small units…

There's a political issue. Just look at how hard it's been to protest all the new gas plants that came up over the last ~20 years. The reason is that we built many small gas plants, instead of a handful of large ones. It divided up the protesters to the point where they couldn't work together. When we built less, but larger, nuclear power plants, they're easier to protest. If we can make SMRs economical, it makes it…

The people protesting nuclear honestly shouldn't be allowed to vote if they claim they're clean energy due to the apparent lack of critical thought. Seriously, if you're an actual engineer or scientist, this statement is self evident.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#149

Post by thinkcontext »

agarwaen163 wrote: post #142
thinkcontext wrote: post #132

There are no working SMR's ready to be deployed in the West. The company (NuScale) that was furthest along had its flagship project die after cost estimates ballooned. Its other project was a crypto scam. Whether any of these companies work out and make it to serial production is very speculative.

Are you forgetting Valar Atomics exists buddy? Or Aalo, or Antares or Radiant?

None of those are ready to deploy, they are in experimental testing. They have several phases of that still to go before they can get a license.

Re: Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise

#150

Post by coryrc »

marshray wrote: post #130
mchusma wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's so much cheaper to build multiple small reactors, just build one big plant with 24 small reactors. The biggest costs to nuclear are associated with each of them being unique snowflakes. They need to be standardized and mass produced to bring down costs. So the dream is many big plants (eg starting 10+ per year), which is what France did and China does, but since we can’t seem to have that here, small reacto…

Most of the reactors we have in the US today are the result of building many of a few models per year during the late 1960's - early 1970's. In 1974, 12 reactors entered commercial operation and 13 more were begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... The technology was given almost a century to prove itself cost-effective. It did not succeed in the market and only ever worked with truly ma…

Each of those existing plants were competitive against coal at the time without having the negative externalities of widespread radiation exposure (uranium in coal just released to the atmosphere); mercury contamination in all our freshwater lakes and the ocean, leading to strict limits on consuming fish for children and pregnant women; and a half-century of CO2 emissions.

Orders of magnitude more people are killed by rooftop solar, but we haven't raised safety standards on all other sources of electricity to be the same level we require for nuclear.

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