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Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

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Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#101

Post by pfdietz »

sharcerer wrote: post #59
beat wrote: post #11

Although I'm not a big nuclear power fan for various reasons, I'm really happy to see someone approaching it with an eye to realistic safety, modern economics, and compatibility with a renewable-based grid. It'll be interesting to see if this can compete financially with batteries.

May I ask why you aren't a fan?

My concern with this is that small reactors have been tried in the past, and were too expensive to operate. The staff needed to run a reactor does not scale linearly with power output. This is why utility reactors got large. Even so, when natural gas is cheap and renewables are available those large reactors are having some trouble competing just on operating cost. Working reactors in the US are being shut down because of this.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#102

Post by pfdietz »

thrower123 wrote: post #28

Per gigawatt-hour, nuclear power as it stands may very well be the safest power source that we have got already. The biggest hurdle is irrational fear and the regulatory barriers consequent.

No, the biggest hurdle is that it's grossly uneconomic.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#103

Post by UnFleshedOne »

beat wrote: post #78
sharcerer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask why you aren't a fan?

A number of reasons, but for starters, consider inequality. Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? They are expensive, require tremendous infrastructure, and mean deploying fissionable materials to countries that maybe shouldn't have them. So it's solving a First World problem, and exacerbating the divide between rich and poor.

Wouldn't that reason cover basically every infrastructure, economic and legal improvement you could possibly think of in all areas, as long as they are reasonably hard to do for a troubled country?

Even a basic thing like a Rule of Law that we take for granted hugely increases inequality between countries that have it and those that don't.

Solution to that does not involve encouraging warlords to move into Manhattan.

If a country can't afford / can't be trusted with energy generation technology, and you care, help fix the underlaying reasons.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#104

Post by v_lisivka »

fromthestart wrote: post #70
goatgate wrote: post #69

Complexity is the enemy of any reliable system. No energy source is simpler than solar arrays. They don't require any moving parts, thermal management, waste containment, or strong security. The only maintenance required is dusting. Why otherwise intelligent people cannot appreciate the cost of complexity for nuclear energy is beyond me, especially when viewed in contrast to something as simple as solar.

There are costs other than complexity which must be considered before selecting a power source. For example, energy density per unit area. Nuclear has a much smaller footprint. Also the cost, maintnence, lifetime, and environmental impact of batteries required during night time/occluded operation is also not trivial, as is accommodating for unpredictable outputs due to weather.

Nuclear is slow to operate, so it needs batteries to handle peaks during day. Nuclear can provide baseline power only.

Solar panel can be installed at roofs, so it can double as shelter, and power loss due to transmission can be lowered. Backup gravitational battery can provide backup power on site for short (hours) periods of time, to cheaply offset energy from peak of production at noun to peak of consuming at evening. Efficiency of solar panels can be improved up to 80%, so they can reduce need for air cooling.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#105

Post by thrower123 »

pfdietz wrote: post #102
thrower123 wrote: post #28

Per gigawatt-hour, nuclear power as it stands may very well be the safest power source that we have got already. The biggest hurdle is irrational fear and the regulatory barriers consequent.

No, the biggest hurdle is that it's grossly uneconomic.

Because it costs billions of dollars to check everything over in octuplet and build everything special because everyone is so damned afraid of The Bomb that we gave up on building them fifty years ago at scale.

It's the safest thing going.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/11255616735556935...

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#106

Post by Retric »

AstralStorm wrote: post #88
Retric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To much energy is the central problem with nuclear. It’s capital intensive so if they don’t operate 24/7 their cost per watt increases. This puts Nuclear in a bind as wind and solar are both significantly cheaper and Nuclear is terrible as a peaking power plant. In the end it needs to either beat Wind or Natural Gas. Meanwhile grid storage prices keep dropping which may soon start undercutting Natural Gas.

No, it is meant to beat base load plants, that is oil, coal, natural gas, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric. Wind is somewhat bad as base load plant as there are serious lulls when wind is relatively globally low.

Base load power is inherently less useful than peaking power plants as the demand curve while predictable is extremely variable. Power companies build as many of them as they can get away with because they are cheap, not because there is some inherent advantage to steady state power.

Wind competes in exactly the same niche as the price is low though with some additional downsides. As you build more of them there is less utility in base load power as you end up producing wasted electricity production ever more frequently.

PS: Hydroelectric is generally the ideal peaking power plant as it’s cheap, the downside is you can’t build many if them.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#107

Post by kbenson »

Retric wrote: post #106
AstralStorm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is meant to beat base load plants, that is oil, coal, natural gas, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric. Wind is somewhat bad as base load plant as there are serious lulls when wind is relatively globally low.

Base load power is inherently less useful than peaking power plants as the demand curve while predictable is extremely variable. Power companies build as many of them as they can get away with because they are cheap, not because there is some inherent advantage to steady state power. Wind competes in exactly the same niche as the price is low though with some additional downsides. As you build more of them there is l…

> Hydroelectric is generally the ideal peaking power plant as it’s cheap, the downside is you can’t build many if them.

What ever happened to the offshore hydroelectric turbines we were supposed to get? I think is was 15-20 years ago they were being touted as one of the next big power systems.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#108

Post by DuskStar »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #13
acidburnNSA wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaks are designed out because the entire reactor vessels are surrounded by a giant swimming pool. The temperature stays low enough because this swimming pool is passively cooled. Lack of relible decay heat[1] cooling caused both Fukushima and three mile island accidents. Having passive decay heat removal usually decreases the probability of core damage by about 100x. 1 https://whatisnuclear.com/decay-heat.html

What happens if the swimming pool leaks ?

The pool won't normally be radioactive if I'm reading things right, so... nothing will happen. It's the backup for if the pods fail, not a primary line of defence.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#109

Post by v_lisivka »

AstralStorm wrote: post #91
v_lisivka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can drive to Chornobyl by bicycle. I just don't want that. Wildlife is thriving in my area too, because people abandon homes and move to cities instead. However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster.

Come on. You can drive nearly to the reactor itself and not even get a yearly background radiation dose now. There are a few hot spots where contaminated gear from decommissioning is stored, that's it. People got cancers at increased rate, which is limited to less than two generations of damage. The range had expired a bunch of years ago. Going into high mountains is a bigger radiation risk today. As a bonus, you can…

Cancer rate continue to grow here at steady rate. My neighbors died because of cancer, my brother has tumor. Tell your nice story to someone else, please.

Re: Making Nuclear Energy Smaller, Cheaper And Safer

#110

Post by v_lisivka »

smileysteve wrote: post #94
v_lisivka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can drive to Chornobyl by bicycle. I just don't want that. Wildlife is thriving in my area too, because people abandon homes and move to cities instead. However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster.

> However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster. Reminder that coal has more radioactive waste over a decade than a nuclear plant does in its worst failure mode; and that worst failure mode is very unlikely with modern reactor designs (unlike Chernobyl and Fukushima)

1) We are out of coal now.

2) All coal plants in the world combined cannot make land inhabitable for millennia.

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