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Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

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Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#71

Post by acidburnNSA »

marshray wrote: post #67
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is IMO a positive for nuclear, not a negative. You're forced to confront the cleanup as opposed to fossil fuels, where you just blow your waste out into the atmosphere and make it the commons' problem.

If only a method for permanent disposal of nuclear waste actually existed.

There are good permanent disposal methods available. The deep geologic repository under construction in Finland is probably the best example. More info here: https://whataboutthewaste.com

People use "what about the waste" as a reason to not use nuclear. Yet, fossil and renewable biofuel waste is (as mentioned) just dumped into the biosphere where it ends and estimated 8 million lives early per year, according to the WHO.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#72

Post by nickik »

rubber_duck wrote: post #23
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics are yet to be borne out. I believe the NuScale cost (feel free to correct me if this information is wrong) is still above the cost of renewables and storage [1] but below that of traditional PWRs (684Mw @ $3 billion [2], ~25 cents/kwh [3]), which is competitive in places like Hawaii (which is still relying heavily on diesel fuel for what solar isn't providing) and geographies with limited land or renewa…

Thing is this kind of design benefits massively from economies of scale, same kind of thing that has drawn the price of PV down and other green energy.

This kind of design actually starts out with losing massive economics of scale of traditional PWR and hopes to get it back by economics of scale in manufacturing.

I don't think NuScale will have much trouble competing with traditional PWR, but if they can compete in the overall market is a huge question.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#73

Post by jabl »

jdeibele wrote: post #69

One thing not addressed is physical security. As pointed out by @adrianmonk it would take many of these tiny reactors to generate the same amount as a typical older reactor. Older reactors are designed like fortresses, supposedly able to take a direct hit by a commercial jet and survive. They have armed guards, etc. It would be interesting to see how they would try to protect these. Typical electrical substations are…

The idea is to put multiple reactors at the same site, not to spread out mini reactors all over the landscape.

So the end result would be a powerplant that produces about as much power as a "normal" nuclear power plant, just that it contains many small reactors instead of a few big ones.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#74

Post by [deleted] »

marshray wrote: post #42

I think it's disingenuous to argue the economics of nuclear without mentioning: "DOE reported that it faced an estimated $494 billion in future environmental cleanup costs — a liability that roughly tripled during the previous 20 years." https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696956.pdf

[deleted]

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#75

Post by e12e »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #71
marshray wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only a method for permanent disposal of nuclear waste actually existed.

There are good permanent disposal methods available. The deep geologic repository under construction in Finland is probably the best example. More info here: https://whataboutthewaste.com People use "what about the waste" as a reason to not use nuclear. Yet, fossil and renewable biofuel waste is (as mentioned) just dumped into the biosphere where it ends and estimated 8 million lives early per year, according to the…

Unfortunately that doesn't quite solve the problem of getting waste from reactor to storage site.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#76

Post by marshray »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #71
marshray wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only a method for permanent disposal of nuclear waste actually existed.

There are good permanent disposal methods available. The deep geologic repository under construction in Finland is probably the best example. More info here: https://whataboutthewaste.com People use "what about the waste" as a reason to not use nuclear. Yet, fossil and renewable biofuel waste is (as mentioned) just dumped into the biosphere where it ends and estimated 8 million lives early per year, according to the…

That option doesn't exist in the US.

We have no permanent disposal facilities, not even in the planning stage.

https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#77

Post by erentz »

nickik wrote: post #70
marshray wrote: post #42

I think it's disingenuous to argue the economics of nuclear without mentioning: "DOE reported that it faced an estimated $494 billion in future environmental cleanup costs — a liability that roughly tripled during the previous 20 years." https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696956.pdf

It disingenous of you to argue that all DoE cost from the last 60 years have any implication on a modern nuclear site build. When nuclear started they had no idea how to do things and had to do a lot of things very fast. The waste majority of those cost are not because of civilian nuclear reactor, but rather creation of nuclear weapons. Site cleanup cost are a factor, but not a huge one considering a site can be acti…

Yes. It appears to very explicitly is about DOE sites, national labs with waste dating back to the Manhattan project and Cold War. This figure would seem to be better described as the clean up cost for our nuclear weapons programs with maybe a small side dish of reactor research in places like INL.

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#78

Post by acidburnNSA »

rubber_duck wrote: post #34
nickik wrote: post #27

As a huge fan of nuclear power, I never felt like NuScale style 'SMR' were all that great of an idea. Yes, it gains you some of the economics of factory construction and that you can start small and scale a location, but on the other side you lose that again because you lose the economics of scale that traditional PWR gets. I really believe we should be a nuclear society by now, and that regulations both around react…

>Yes, it gains you some of the economics of factory construction and that you can start small and scale a location, but on the other side you lose that again because you lose the economics of scale that traditional PWR gets. You mean they lose operational efficiency ? Economies of scale come from the ability to mass produce. You forgot to mention the largest differentiator - eliminates the possibility of a global cat…

Not in nuclear they haven't historically. Economies of scale drove light water reactor designs from tens of megawatts to hundreds to over a thousand universally from all vendors around the world historically. The big institutional nuclear economics reports all agree that going big improves nuclear economics. The hypothesis that SMRs will somehow overpower this is popular but is very much unproven. This agrees with OECD reports like last month's [1] and all the older ones listed in [2].

[1] http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2020/7530-reducing-cost-nuc...

[2] https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html#improving-modern-nu...

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#79

Post by fsflover »

marshray wrote: post #67
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is IMO a positive for nuclear, not a negative. You're forced to confront the cleanup as opposed to fossil fuels, where you just blow your waste out into the atmosphere and make it the commons' problem.

If only a method for permanent disposal of nuclear waste actually existed.

https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html

Re: Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

#80

Post by jabl »

DuskStar wrote: post #63
tehabe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you forgot to mention that those 23 m high containment vessels are places in in a pool which of course have to be much bigger than that: "The reactor and containment vessel operate inside a water-filled pool that is built below grade." We'll see of this is in any way or form sustainable, especially since uranium is also a finite ressource.

There's ~4 billion tons of uranium dissolved in seawater, too. Which is enough for a millenia or three - if we used it for all of our power needs.

Add in breeder reactors and reprocessing providing a factor of 200 improvement in fuel usage, and we have enough uranium for millions of years.
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