I took a broader look at Russia's nuclear power program here - https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/08/02/the-world-relies...
It seems unfortunate that there are no author names on the Economist articles. One's work deserves recognition.
The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
111–120 of 124 posts
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still looks dingy even if dingy is usual. So from my perspective it seems like a description rather than a criticism. Not a necessary paragraph, but more likely included to justify the reporter's visit to the ship than some attack.
OK, fair enough. It's just that we've seen a lot of stuff here lately about China and Russia which is arguably propaganda.
The media has been full of anti-Russian propaganda lately, so I understand being suspicious. And this topic isn't essential news, so there likely is some interest that wants it written. I'd guess nuclear lobby given the "dingy but safe" take on the plant.
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#113That's a lot of ship, plant, and staff for just 70MW. The Ford class of aircraft carriers generates about 700MW.
It's 2 x 70 MWe or about 300 MWt. A4W reactors on Nimitz class aircraft carriers produce about 2 x 550 MWt which translates to about 100 MWe and 2 x 104 MW shaft power for propulsion.
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#114There isn’t a country on earth that would actually allow Russia to park an actual nuclear bomb off their coast. Even the ones aligned with Russia. Oh, how do you build a sarcophagus on a sunk nuclear reactor?
Uhm, you don't, because water is absolutely fantastic at blocking radiation - just several meters of it would block literally all radiation from a reactor gone critical. Not to mention that nuclear reactors are not bombs, not any more than coal fired power plant boilers are bombs.
It doesn't prevent radioactive elements leaking into the water though.
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
John McCarthy has an interesting website over nuclear energy [0]. I can't vouch for how actually true it is, but it seems reasonably well argued. This was his comment over nuclear waste: > Q. What about nuclear waste? > A. The waste consists of the fission products. They are highly radioactive at first, but the most radioactive isotopes decay the fastest. (That's what being most radioactive amounts to). About one cub…
I’m very pro-nuclear, we almost certainly need it while we improve renewables. However, 25,000 years or 500 years... it’s pretty much the same problem for us as a species. 500 years is significantly longer than the US has been a country, and represents a period of time measured in many many generations. 500 years of storage is a hard problem, and from the perspective of us, our kids, their kids, and their kids and a…
Incorporate the fission products into a glass by boiling with nitric acid and melting with iron oxide and phosphoric acid. Cast the glass into large blocks, dump those into the deep sea. The radiation is shielded, heat is convected away, nothing dissolves, nobody gets hurt, evil terrorists couldn't retrieve the stuff if they tried with both hands. How is this difficult?
If we did this with plain spent fuel, the glass would contain plutonium, and the usual professional liars (Nader, Caldicott, ...) would claim that the plutonium and uranium would dissolve over millions of years and give everyone cancer. But with fission products and a time horizon of just 500 years, even that kind of nonsense doesn't have any impact anymore. (And we shouldn't trash plutonium. It's valuable!)
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#116There isn’t a country on earth that would actually allow Russia to park an actual nuclear bomb off their coast. Even the ones aligned with Russia. Oh, how do you build a sarcophagus on a sunk nuclear reactor?
There is no need to build a sarcophagus around a sunken nuclear reactor. Water is a great radiation stopper, to the extend that you can actually build and operate an "open" reactor where you can look directly down to the core and see the blue glow from the Cherenkov radiation. It would probably be wise to fence it off somehow.
Perhaps like this one at Reed College in Portland?
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#117> "Rosatom plans to serially produce such floating nuclear plants, and is exploring various business plans, including retaining ownership of the reactors while selling the electricity they generate." No sane govt will allow a foreign power to literally be able to shutdown one of their cities on a whim. I think what the Russian Govt realized is that instead of building nuclear power plants, its going to be more profit…
Off shore drilling rigs aren’t anchored to he floor, but the pipe could literally snap if the rig floats away. They are kept in place solely by GPS and thrust vectoring. The Ruskies are going to use the same technology here, known for decades, and probably safer than oil rigs since there nothing to snap and a small volume to protect if the whole thing sinks.
> nothing to snap
There's still an electrical cable, but I would assume it's more durable than an underwater oil pipeline.
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Future reactors? Rosatom has 800 MW breeders now!
It has one 800 MW breeder that has been operating at full power for two years. Plans to build more of them in China appear to have been shelved. The successor BN-1200 implementation has also been suspended. The 6 reactors that Russia currently has under construction are all PWRs. I think that referring to breeders as future reactors (in the context of commercial power plants) is appropriate.
But it’s not like it’s a brand new design just out of prototyping. It’s a continuation of a 350 MW unit that ran for decades and provided drinking water.
Point is the Russians have breeder technology fairly well figured out.
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off shore drilling rigs aren’t anchored to he floor, but the pipe could literally snap if the rig floats away. They are kept in place solely by GPS and thrust vectoring. The Ruskies are going to use the same technology here, known for decades, and probably safer than oil rigs since there nothing to snap and a small volume to protect if the whole thing sinks.
- Your account was created 8 minutes ago - defending some press release coming out of Russia. How is the weather today in Moscow ?
Wouldn’t know. Typing from a desk in a USA govt. lab. waiting for an experiment to finish :S
I lurk and create accounts to comment on single articles I like. Mea Culpa.
Don’t like the floating reactor? Fine, give me good reasons. Like:
how do they deal with a core meltdown that melts through ship?
Where’s the waste going to go?
Why have nuclear at all?
Why not a floating fossil fuel plant?
How does it deal with freak waves?
[edit] The Russians a have a terrible safety record at sea (not that bad on land)
The unforeseen happens. What then?
Instead some mumbling about tsunamis from someone who clearly knows little about tsunamis.
That being said, your logic is scary:
“New account. Defends Russia [btw, I don’t think I defended Russia]. Quick, call the guards!”
You remind me of the anti-gay protestors at grad school whose logic was impenetrable (indeed flawless; it was an axiomatic issue)
We’re f-ed
Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off shore drilling rigs aren’t anchored to he floor, but the pipe could literally snap if the rig floats away. They are kept in place solely by GPS and thrust vectoring. The Ruskies are going to use the same technology here, known for decades, and probably safer than oil rigs since there nothing to snap and a small volume to protect if the whole thing sinks.
> nothing to snap There's still an electrical cable, but I would assume it's more durable than an underwater oil pipeline.
True, but consider:
When an electrical cable snaps little happens, a breaker trips and maybe a fish got fried (but not many).
When a pipeline snaps you get deep water horizon.