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Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

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Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#301

Post by Animats »

kelseydh wrote: post #285
PaulHoule wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t seem to have any plans to build more CANDU, in so many ways the world has moved on for instance those centrifuges have made uranium enrichment more economical for most countries except (seemingly) the US and Iran. What is exciting to me is that these just installed the first module of the BWRX 300 at Darlington. I was so afraid that BWRX was going to be another SMR that gets talked about for decades but it…

Exciting development. I really wish somebody would nail a commercially viable Thorium reactor but it seems there are real engineering complications around scaling molten salt reactors.

The trouble with molten salt thorium reactors is that they need an attached chemical plant that processes molten sodium mixed with radioactive elements. This is not something a utility wants to own, maintain, and operate. Here are some studies on such plants.[1] No full scale long-running salt reprocessing plant has ever been built.

The great thing about boiling water reactors is that you just have to handle water. The radioactive portion of the systems is simple. Which is good, because it can't be maintained much during the entire lifespan of the plant.

When you look at the history of nuclear reactors, almost all the problems involve plumbing. The less that can go wrong with the plumbing, over 60 years or so, the better. For molten salt reactors, the physics is promising, the chemistry is a pain (fluorine, for starters), and the plumbing has major corrosion and clogging problems (high temperature radioactive molten salts and pipes just do not get along, even with really exotic alloys.)

It's not impossible. But it's going to be prone to expensive problems, some of which probably will not be anticipated. Remember Ft. St. Vrain, the helium gas cooled reactor. Great idea. Ran for ten years. Even used some thorium. Troubles in the radioactive portion of the gas plumbing system meant it had to be shut down and dismantled.[2] That was sad, because it actually worked well for years.

[1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484689

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power...

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#302

Post by troupo »

cyberax wrote: post #269
awesome_dude wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We also know how to get rid of it entirely, leaving only material that will decay to safe levels within hundreds of years In the interests of fairness, is like a citation showing that

It's called "closed [nuclear] fuel cycle". Just google it. I studied it at a university. TLDR; if you have enough fast neutrons, you can transmute anything into safe materials. Fast neutron reactors produce enough, classic PWR reactors do not. The only commercial fast reactor right now is in Russia. If at some point humanity decides to stop making reactors altogether, it's still possible to burn the waste with partic…

There's very little waste that lasts hundreds of years, and the reason it's "prohibitively expensive to store" is purely political. Because we safely and cheaply store it now while waiting for multi-decade trillion-dollar projects drilling deep mountain storage close to magma or something.

See page 15: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/202... Only 0.2% of all waste is High Level Waste that is both long lived and highly radioactive.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#303

Post by troupo »

awesome_dude wrote: post #229
protocolture wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why dont you suggest what "safe" looks like, and we can discuss your understanding of safety. Its clear to me that the issue is your standards and not actual waste disposal.

My understanding is that this material remains toxic to life for thousands, to tens of thousands of years. Safe means that it's stored such that there's no harm to the environment for that lifetime. In all "bury it" scenarios, the place where the waste is buried will be subject to change resulting in water, air, able to interact with that waste when normal tectonic and erosion processes do their thing.

0.2% of waste is toxic for thousands of years. Page 15: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/202...

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#304

Post by Manuel_D »

awesome_dude wrote: post #179
zdragnar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually did produce a technical solution: stick it deep in yucca mountain and forget about it. It's safe, and there's more than enough room for the little waste that can't be turned back into fuel.

It's not. The time frame we are talking about invalidates the "safety" because the earth's crust moves and warps, which allows water to access that sort of storage

The movement of tectonic plates is something that takes millions, not thousands, of years. Not to mention Yucca Mountain is far from the edge of any tectonic plate.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#305

Post by troupo »

pfdietz wrote: post #150
orthecreedence wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you build the solar and wind you don't need the nuclear. Don't forget the enormous battery arrays for winter, cloudy skies, or wildfire smoke. Hope you have enough batteries. But you won't, so ok, now you need gas reactors to fill in the blanks. Isn't that what we're trying to get away from?

Ah yes, the ridiculous strawman engineering of saying batteries would be used for seasonal storage.

Then what would you use for seasonal storage?

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#306

Post by cyberax »

leonidasrup wrote: post #297
cyberax wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called "closed [nuclear] fuel cycle". Just google it. I studied it at a university. TLDR; if you have enough fast neutrons, you can transmute anything into safe materials. Fast neutron reactors produce enough, classic PWR reactors do not. The only commercial fast reactor right now is in Russia. If at some point humanity decides to stop making reactors altogether, it's still possible to burn the waste with partic…

In the US reprocessing of civilian nuclear waste was stopped not for technical reasons, but for political reasons. The primary reasoning was that: US reprocessing of civilian nuclear waste would encourage other non-nuclear weapon states to build nuclear reprocessing capabilities which would make easier access to plutonium - nuclear weapon material. "On April 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United S…

Yeah. My former coworker was researching ways to make steel less "activatable". Turns out that the most problematic contaminant is niobium, so he was working on possible ways to remove it completely.

The proliferation risk was real at that time, but it's now a moot point. The details of plutonium refining are well known.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#307

Post by kelseydh »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #267
chollida1 wrote: post #7

Makes alot of sense. Canada has: - one of the largest uranium reserves - a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU - experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington) and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that…

>A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Once you have base load from nuclear why do you need solar and wind at all?

Because solar and wind are renewable, cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. They don't require destructive mining for enriched uranium or create the security implications of dealing with fissile material. Solar/wind do not create long term hazardous waste that's complicated to dispose or create the risk of widespread radioactive fallout. They also help to decentralise the energy grid making it less dependent on a single point of failure.

Nuclear power has its advantages, and may be worth it short term because climate change is a threat to humanity, but nuclear is not a renewable resource. Solar/wind with proper recycling could in theory sustain itself into perpetuity. Humanity needs to find sustainable ways for powering itself in the long term.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#308

Post by Manuel_D »

awesome_dude wrote: post #229
protocolture wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why dont you suggest what "safe" looks like, and we can discuss your understanding of safety. Its clear to me that the issue is your standards and not actual waste disposal.

My understanding is that this material remains toxic to life for thousands, to tens of thousands of years. Safe means that it's stored such that there's no harm to the environment for that lifetime. In all "bury it" scenarios, the place where the waste is buried will be subject to change resulting in water, air, able to interact with that waste when normal tectonic and erosion processes do their thing.

Uranium is a heavy metal, like lead. It always was, and will be toxic. Naturally occurring uranium is toxic, even without any enrichment.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#309

Post by arkh »

jmyeet wrote: post #49
chollida1 wrote: post #7

Makes alot of sense. Canada has: - one of the largest uranium reserves - a well respected and safe nuclear design in CANDU - experience with building and refurbishing nuclear reactors(Darlington) and for Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years. Saskatchewan also now has a potential need for nuclear for industrial use now that…

I don't understand the online obsession with nuclear power in spite of all the evidence that it's simply not economical. Canada needs new power now. Not 15-20 years from now, which is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power plant. And it can be done today, incrementally with renewable sources and before anyone screams "baseload", that's what batteries are for if it really comes down to it. Nuclear power is the…

> I don't understand the online obsession with nuclear power in spite of all the evidence that it's simply not economical.

Independence from China and the US. Once you have your reactor engineering set and can churn them like China almost everything can be sourced either locally or you have multiple providers. Solar and wind? China. Batteries? China.

When you get in a spat with China you suddenly have to setup those industries from 0 at home. And that won't be just 15 years to ramp-up.

So the best is to start building nuclear reactors, silicon fabs, rare earth processing etc. now instead of having the exact same argument we had 20 years ago in 2045.

Re: Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040

#310

Post by tonyedgecombe »

fsh wrote: post #207
nomel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Larger reactors are needed. Genuine question: Why? Why not many smaller reactors? Small modular reactors seem pretty neat. Is there an efficiency loss/total cost difference with smaller reactors?

Like most industrial sites, large reactors are much more economical than small ones. This is why nobody has built SMRs since the 1950s.

Is that actual cost or projected cost because right now large reactors look prohibitively expensive meanwhile as you say we haven't really tried building SMR's on a production line.

Meanwhile Sweden is putting its money where its mouth is:

https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/press-releases/2026/15-06-...

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