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The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

nytimes.com

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Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#51

Post by mcguire »

scrumper wrote: post #35
wrong_variable wrote: post #6

> "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…

> - "Rosatom, in a statement, insisted its plant was 'invulnerable to tsunamis.'" > Really ?? why are they trying to sell dumb electricity when they have the much more valuable technology of invincible ships. How many tsunamis has one of their ships survived exactly ? A 10' dinghy in deep water is pretty well invulnerable to tsunamis. Invulnerability to hurricanes would be an entirely different proposition.

In deep water. Not moored at the coast providing electricity.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#52

Post by visarga »

wrong_variable wrote: post #21
a-priori wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that happened, the client government could nationalize the reactor and seize control of it. This would provoke a diplomatic incident, of course, but that'd be something for the two governments to sort out. Or, less aggressively, they would retain enough reserve power generation capacity to replace the electricity. For example, have gas plants that can be spun up on demand if the nuclear reactors were shut off. Eit…

> "Or, less aggressively, they would retain enough reserve power generation capacity to replace the electricity. For example, have gas plants that can be spun up on demand if the nuclear reactors were shut off." If your country has the capabilities to build reserve power plants why allow the Russians to get all the profit from the power market ? You could just spin up your gas plants indefinitely. Nuclear power is al…

> Most poor countries these days are located in perfect places for solar energy, which is anyway cheaper than nuclear.

Apples to oranges. Solar can't cover more than a fraction of the total energy because of it's fluctuating nature.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#53

Post by manicdee »

wrong_variable wrote: post #14
coenhyde wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the Australian government(s) aren't sane then. We've been privatizing our power plants for decades, and iirc some owned by Government owned Chinese enterprises. EDIT: For what it's worth. I don't have a problem with foreign ownership of the powerplants. But I do have a problem with privatization in a market without much competition.

ownership is different from actually having ops capabilities, I do not think there is a button somewhere is Beijing that China can use to just turn off Australian power plant on Australian soil. The most China can do to sell the asset and temporary depress its price.

The Australian market is routinely manipulated by pretending to turn off equipment until the price rises sufficiently to pretend to turn the equipment on just in time for the high price market.

So yes, there is "a button somewhere" that a private owner can use to just turn off Australian power plants on Australian soil.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#54

Post by mladenkovacevic »

wrong_variable wrote: post #46
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Assad was going to let a Qatar pipeline go through Syria in the first place? Hmm I wonder which foreign powers destabilized Syria and have been trying to overthrow the current government for close to 7 years now.

" On 1 June 2012, President Assad vowed to crush the anti-government uprising. On 12 June 2012, the UN for the first time officially proclaimed Syria to be in a state of civil war. " - Wikipedia I am sorry but the conspiracy Theory that the US had anything to do with starting the Syrian conflict is simply not true.

I didn't mention US in my post, but since you insist... here is what is declassified and publicly known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#55

Post by wrong_variable »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #54
wrong_variable wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" On 1 June 2012, President Assad vowed to crush the anti-government uprising. On 12 June 2012, the UN for the first time officially proclaimed Syria to be in a state of civil war. " - Wikipedia I am sorry but the conspiracy Theory that the US had anything to do with starting the Syrian conflict is simply not true.

I didn't mention US in my post, but since you insist... here is what is declassified and publicly known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

I do not see anything wrong with providing weapons to people who are being literally slaughtered by their own govt.

There is no evidence that any foreign govt helped cause the Syrian Civil War in the first place.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#56

Post by _ph_ »

fifnir wrote: post #47
_ph_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "secure facilities"? Yes, currently the nuclear waste is in intermediate storage facilities. Which are buildings, with an useful life time of 50 years. Unless a nuclear technology for reusing or processing the waste appears, we are talking about safe storage for thousands of years.

I don't think nuclear waste is as big a problem as you might think it is: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ And on a side note, are solar and aeolic scalable enough to support (let's say) the entire US ? How much of the country would physically need to be covered for that? Cause I've seen claims that it's just impossible

Nuclear waste won't kill anyone, as long as it is contained in the storage containers. We just don't have found a way to keep it guaranteed safe for centuries.

Solar alone could easily power the country. Covering large parts of Arizona would produce enough energy to power the whole world. Powering the US, especially distributing it across the states, makes that an easy job. And of course, there is wind. Probably it would be enough to cover all rooftops to power any state.

On Sunny days, Germany can power 30% of the grid by solar only, and that is in a country which is less suitable for solar than any place in the US except Oregon.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#57

Post by cptskippy »

mcguire wrote: post #51
scrumper wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - "Rosatom, in a statement, insisted its plant was 'invulnerable to tsunamis.'" > Really ?? why are they trying to sell dumb electricity when they have the much more valuable technology of invincible ships. How many tsunamis has one of their ships survived exactly ? A 10' dinghy in deep water is pretty well invulnerable to tsunamis. Invulnerability to hurricanes would be an entirely different proposition.

In deep water. Not moored at the coast providing electricity.

It could be moored off shore similar to Offshore Wind Farms.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#58

Post by _ph_ »

trhway wrote: post #36
_ph_ wrote: post #24

The nuclear power plant of the future can be found in a science museum. All dangers of a catastrophic accident aside, nuclear energy has become economically infeasible. Just recently, half-build powerplants have been abandoned in the US for pure financial reasons, and the other projects under constructions face severe cost problems too. And this is not counting for the still unsolved problem of disposing the nuclear…

>in the case of disaster, it can be dumped into the ocean, which is somewhat better than contaminating occupied land, but still isn't acceptable. dumping the stuff into ocean results in spreading the stuff around the world. It is much more preferable to keep it contained - like in case of Chernobyl's 30km exclusion zone at least we have a chance 100years from now when technology allows to clean up the zone - no such…

Most of the contaminated material in Fukushima, which isn't the molten core, has already escaped into the Pacific ocean. Which is not good for sure. Luckily, the Pacific ocean contains a lot of water. So the dilution is massive. Still, nothing I would consider acceptable.

Re: The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

#59

Post by mladenkovacevic »

wrong_variable wrote: post #55
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mention US in my post, but since you insist... here is what is declassified and publicly known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

I do not see anything wrong with providing weapons to people who are being literally slaughtered by their own govt. There is no evidence that any foreign govt helped cause the Syrian Civil War in the first place.

You first said that the Qatar pipeline is not going anywhere because of destabilization in Syria... I guess you should've been honest from the beginning and said that it's not going anywhere because the project to remove Assad from power has failed.
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