Molten salt reactors with circulating fuel salts are hopelessly complex and totally impractical. There is no way China will ever actually build this. To understand why take a look at the amount of robotic equipment required to maintain the primary loop of this reactor mockup at ORNL:
Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
21–30 of 40 posts
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does that include the cost of energy storage? Solar only works because fossil fuels can pick up the slack at night
With the current trajectory of batteries, it is not looking like the cost of overnight storage is going to break the economics of solar. Seasonal storage is another issue all together. Also, very northern latitudes may be better served by nuclear power.
Grid battery storage would have to fall in cost far more than expected to be practical. Goldman Sachs analysts don’t see costs falling by more than a factor of 2 for the foreseeable future.
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/electric-veh...
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#23It says they will use a molten salt reactor--has anyone made one of those work reliably? I don't actually know--I just have a vague sense that every molten salt reactor I've read about suffered from corrosion problems and had to be shut down.
I'm in nuclear and I'm super annoyed at the mass hysteria around announcing projects like this using totally unproven reactors. Just start with a time-honed PWR to decarbonize now and deal with the uncertainty and challenge of MSR development as a potential upgrade for later. MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904
> MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018
I think what you meant to say is the west needs tons of development to catch up.
China already has TMSR-LF1 cleared for startup and expects to be able to start building MSRs for other countries by 2030. Half of all currently under construction reactors are in China, and they have plans for 154 in the next 15 years.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, waste is a concern which needs to be managed responsibly. More than that: if I understand correctly, there are some newer designs which can take the waste of older plants, 'burn' it while extracting more energy, leaving a smaller amount of less-problematic waste at the end. For that reason alone we should be building some of those newer plants. If (beyond burning through older plants' waste) they are safer, mo…
Fusion power is perpetually 50 years away. I'll believe it when I see it before I die.
I will say the same for replacing natural gas in the power grid with green hydrogen.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in nuclear and I'm super annoyed at the mass hysteria around announcing projects like this using totally unproven reactors. Just start with a time-honed PWR to decarbonize now and deal with the uncertainty and challenge of MSR development as a potential upgrade for later. MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904
> MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 I think what you meant to say is the west needs tons of development to catch up. China already has TMSR-LF1 cleared for startup and expects to be able to start building MSRs for other countries by 2030. Half of all currently under construction reactors are in China, and they have plans for 154 in the next 15 years.
No, I meant what I said. TMSR-LF1 is a remake of ORNL's MSRE. After MSRE, the experts from that program wrote ORNL-5018 explaining what was needed to come next to commercialize the technology. China's done a great job of rebuilding knowledge needed to run a small reactor experiment. Now the hard work can begin.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the current trajectory of batteries, it is not looking like the cost of overnight storage is going to break the economics of solar. Seasonal storage is another issue all together. Also, very northern latitudes may be better served by nuclear power.
Grid battery storage would have to fall in cost far more than expected to be practical. Goldman Sachs analysts don’t see costs falling by more than a factor of 2 for the foreseeable future. https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/electric-veh...
I just don't think the grid storage market is going to be leftover vehicle batteries. The demand will be big enough that battery technology will be tailored toward grid storage; cheaper batteries that are less dense, super-high lifecycle numbers that cars don't need, less need for high charge and discharge rates.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#27[dead]
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 I think what you meant to say is the west needs tons of development to catch up. China already has TMSR-LF1 cleared for startup and expects to be able to start building MSRs for other countries by 2030. Half of all currently under construction reactors are in China, and they have plans for 154 in the next 15 years.
No, I meant what I said. TMSR-LF1 is a remake of ORNL's MSRE. After MSRE, the experts from that program wrote ORNL-5018 explaining what was needed to come next to commercialize the technology. China's done a great job of rebuilding knowledge needed to run a small reactor experiment. Now the hard work can begin.
To my point, the United States basically threw in the towel in 1970 despite the director of ORNL calling it the facilities greatest technical achievement. The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. Unlike the US, China has very little in the way of domestic uranium supplies - but incidentally has massive thorium stockpiles from its monazite mining.
I think it is naive to assume that an operation with effectively limitless funding led by the former director of CERN has only managed to clone a 50 year old research project without any advancements. Maybe a better perspective is that that given the strategic value they just aren't sharing the details with the rest of the world.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I meant what I said. TMSR-LF1 is a remake of ORNL's MSRE. After MSRE, the experts from that program wrote ORNL-5018 explaining what was needed to come next to commercialize the technology. China's done a great job of rebuilding knowledge needed to run a small reactor experiment. Now the hard work can begin.
To my point, the United States basically threw in the towel in 1970 despite the director of ORNL calling it the facilities greatest technical achievement. The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. Unlike the US, China has very little in the way of domestic uranium supplies - but incidentally has massive thorium stockpiles from its monazite min…
> The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war.
This is such a common myth that it inspired me to write a whole thorium myths page to explain how and why it's not true, back in 2014: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1
Happy to discuss more but I've said a lot on that page.
Re: Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China
#30https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom.
> Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom
To be clear, the NS Savannah was a showpiece. It was part passenger, part freight in a way that made no economic sense but looked fantastic and showed the concept could work. It ultimately failed because it had to bear the brunt of port negotiations. But that's a policy hurdle.