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China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

cnbc.com

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Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#51

Post by pwaai »

sitharus wrote: post #40
pwaai wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a different perception towards the human life. There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. You have to understand the fundamental difference between the two countries on a cultural and government level. Chinese people are more than happy to submit to the government as in the neo-confucian sense, the state is the provider, the fa…

> There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. The perception of the potential for catastrophic failure outweighs the benefits. Given it’s an unpressurised rector that doesn’t boil the working fluid the potential for a serious accident is very low compared to a high pressure reactor. It can easily be passively cooled and shutdown heat deca…

> That’s why most research reactors are of this type.

but how many nuclear accidents have we had because of this "safe" design?

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#52

Post by sliverstorm »

xbmcuser wrote: post #18

Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.

Yeah, it certainly wags its tongue suggestively towards the old idea of a benevolent & competent dictatorship as the most effective form of government.

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#54

Post by yongjik »

pwaai wrote: post #47
yongjik wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the Chinese government doesn't care about human lives that much, but it's irrelevant when talking about nuclear power. The total radiation-related death by Fukushima disaster is estimated to be ~130[1]. For comparison, "A 2013 study by MIT indicates that 53,000 early deaths occur per year in the United States alone because of vehicle emissions."[2] Most likely, using these reactors and having a nuclear accid…

When a government doesn't care about their citizens because there's "too many of them" you get stuff like this ( http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/in... ). So, of course they are going to be more willing to ignore basic human rights to achieve their goals. I'm not saying the US is innocent either, privatized prisons targeting African and Latin Americans to benefit shareholders of those private…

Oh yes, people surely love to claim Fukushima is being covered up, and I'm sure many Japanese politicians and businesspeople are being dishonest and trying to cover up their asses, but let's be real. Japan is a dense and well-connected country, and it's been six years. If the deaths and destruction predicted by doomsayers have any basis in reality, we should have seen a glimpse of it by now.

(But the very fact that no such thing is happening is of course considered an evidence of cover-up. How you are going to cover up a thousand leukemia deaths in Japan is left as exercise for the reader.)

Sadly, I do believe many Fukushima residents will suffer long-term health effects, which is inevitable when you've been told a hundred times how your body was irradiated by death rays and you will have cancer as a result. It was a major issue following Chernobyl as well[1]:

> A number of adolescents and young adults who have been exposed to modest or small amounts of radiation feel that they are somehow fatally flawed and there is no downside to using illicit drugs or having unprotected sex. To reverse such attitudes and behaviours will likely take years (...)

I hold those anti-nuclear activists at the same level of contempt as peddlers of homeopathy and other natural woo. These activists likely caused greater harm to children of Fukushima prefecture than the accident itself, by making them believe they are irrevocably harmed and their lives will be stunted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Other_healt...

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#55

Post by Retric »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49
Retric wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implementation can make a huge difference, people do install these systems in Alasca and then supplement for a few weeks in the middle of winter which is still a huge fuel savings and cost reduction. But, if your going to base this on a central location then sizing the system and maintain the desired temperature output is simplified.

There isn’t much space for solar panels, so sizing is intrinsically constrained. Also, these are 32 story towers with approximately 130 units...it’s not rocket science why it doesn’t work out. They were definitely not supplementing enough.

Ouch, with 32 stories roof space is not good by to be nearly enough. But, if you're going off site you no longer space constrained.

Which is why I say implementation is so important. 90% reduction in fuel used and lower costs is IMO a better trade off than nuclear which is only useful ~9 months out of the year and has high ongoing costs.

Russia on the other hand is even further north and could probably see more value from such a system.

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#56

Post by Retric »

xbmcuser wrote: post #18

Stuff like this makes me feel western countries really underestimate Chinese tech chops. They are able to force stuff on the people that most countries have to cajole and negotiate with their citizens. I get cognitive dissonance from the fact that China is doing it's best to decrease coal usage where as US is tried to increase coal usage.

If you compare US an Chinese total coal usage, the US is actually down significantly more than China. This is despite the US price being cut in half since 2008 peak.

https://www.quandl.com/data/EIA/COAL-US-Coal-Prices-by-Regio...

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#57

Post by sitharus »

pwaai wrote: post #51
sitharus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way anyone would allow this in America because of the potential for catastrophic failures outweigh the benefits. The perception of the potential for catastrophic failure outweighs the benefits. Given it’s an unpressurised rector that doesn’t boil the working fluid the potential for a serious accident is very low compared to a high pressure reactor. It can easily be passively cooled and shutdown heat deca…

> That’s why most research reactors are of this type. but how many nuclear accidents have we had because of this "safe" design?

Because of the design? None. In fact the Canadian-designed SLOWPOKE reactor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLOWPOKE_reactor) is licensed to run unattended overnight - it is only passively cooled and increased temperature results in a negative feedback loop.

An unpressurised light water reactor is an inherently safe design. The rate of reaction depends on liquid water being present, steam will stop the reaction.

Nuclear power doesn't have to be dangerous, and even now more people die due to coal power (including mining and pollution effects) each year than ever have due to nuclear power.

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#58

Post by ptx »

dis-sys wrote: post #46

it is just shocking that they did the trial run of the nuclear reactor in Beijing where there are over 20 million people. on the other hand, they were actually allowed to carry out such trial run close to where those most powerful live. to figure out what other crazy stuff is happening in Beijing, did a quick search and it turns out that there are dozens of experimental nuclear reactors in Beijing, with the first one…

KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology) was running a nuclear reactor[1] in Stockholm from 1954 to 1970. So if it's crazy, it's at least not unprecedented.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1_(nuclear_reactor)

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#59

Post by foxyv »

Symmetry wrote: post #15
vorotato wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment shouldn't be downvoted because it's a common misunderstanding rooted in how unintuitive it is that water is so good at blocking radiation.

XKCD had a really great illustration of that. https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

I love this!

> But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”

Re: China's Yanlong: a small nuclear reactor strictly for district heating

#60

Post by baybal2 »

Both district heating and drinking water desalination plant did ran on nuclear reactors. Desal plant in Kazakhstan ran over a decade until the Aral sea moved to far away. There are few nuclear district heating plants with single loop design still running in Russia
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