In Nuclear Power, Size Matters

PerlJedi writes "Most nations with nuclear power capabilities have been re-assessing the risk/benefit of nuclear power reactors following the Fukushima plant melt down, a newly released study suggests the U.S. should expand its nuclear power production using 'Small Modular Reactors'. 'The reports assessed the economic feasibility [PDF] of classical, gigawatt-scale reactors and the possible new generation of modular reactors. The latter would have a generating capacity of 600 megawatts or less, would be factory-built as modular components, and then shipped to their desired location for assembly.'"

Comments

Cheap energy saves lives.

[Anonymous Coward]

It took one of the worst Earth Quakes immediately followed by one of the worst Tsunamis in modern history to take down a 40 year old nuclear plant via a flaw found and reported 35 years ago (but never corrected). Like it or not, nuclear energy has come a long way and is pretty damn safe.

Don't like that the flaw wasn't fixed or how the accident unfolded ... but I admire how tough that facility was engineered.

Re:Cheap energy saves lives.

[Jappus]

As far as I understand it, the main problem most people have with Nuclear Reactors -- at least over here in Europe -- is not that they can go kablooie when something deemed "unlikely" hits them. This is just a problem as long as they are actually running, and a few years after for cooling down.

The problem is rather: Where do you put all that irradiated waste, ranging from water over metals, concrete, oils, various sealants and so on? After all, most of this stuff happily glows for a few decades at minimum and hundreds of thousands of years at the upper echelon. I mean, if I look at the Egyptian tombs for example, I find it hard to believe that anybody could guarantee that a sign of "Keep out or else you'll die horribly" would actually stop future people from digging up that stuff.

And that already excludes the observation that nothing humankind has ever built or excavated managed to stay permanently, physically sealed for more than a few hundred in most cases and a few thousand years in all cases. That's at least two orders of decimal magnitudes too few time to guarantee anything.

Of course things like coal, gas, etc. are not better -- especially regarding the climate. But at least they don't cause such extremely permanent issues that we can't even imagine a kind of physical or chemical process to get rid of it. They are still bad, but in a less ... distant way.

And if you finally arrive at hydroelectric, geothermal, solar and wind generation, the scope of the problems you cause by running them can be measured in "less than a decade" for cleaning up a broken dam and "what problems?" for solar and wind. That fundamental difference between nuclear, coal/gas and finally regenerative power is what is important to most environmentalists and general critics of the first and to a lesser extend next two kinds of power generation. The fact that they can go kablooie is just icing on the cake compared to that.

I always wonder if people who fully and blindly support nuclear power have ever heard what the term "neglectful precursors" means. After all, economy is mostly a private affair and expires with the generation who had to live in it, but ecology gets inherited fully and permanently.