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Small, Modular Nuclear Reactors — the Future of Energy?
cylonlover writes "This year is a historic one for nuclear power, with the first reactors winning U.S. government approval for construction since 1978. Some have seen the green lighting of two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors to be built in Georgia as the start of a revival of nuclear power in the West, but this may be a false dawn because of the problems besetting conventional reactors. It may be that when a new boom in nuclear power comes, it won't be led by giant gigawatt installations, but by batteries of small modular reactors (SMRs) with very different principles from those of previous generations. However, while it's a technology of great diversity and potential, many obstacles stand in its path. This article takes an in-depth look at the many forms of SMRs, their advantages, and the challenges they must overcome."
Distributed power is how our grid should be set up. Also, being self-contained, these would allow us to put them closer to the actual users and cut transmission losses and costs. Why the hell aren't we doing it yet?
-SaNo
There are no economically viable nuclear plants without heavy taxpayer subsidies.
The original post implies that nuclear plants have been turned down for decades and now suddenly they aren't. This is bullshit.
Corporations are lining up for the gravy train of taxpayer dollars provided by the Cheney energy policy of 2005. Per-kilowatt subsidies, construction subsidies, reauthorization and extension of the Price-Anderson Act (which makes taxpayers liable for disasters), all negotiated in secret because taxpayers don't want their money spent that way.
Nuclear power is no different than TARP. It's corrupt politicians giving away taxpayer money to their rich cronies. People don't want it, don't need it, and it's not competitive with any other source of power economically.
Out of curiosity, what would be the regulatory hurdles if someone wanted to set up a thorium reactor for power generation? Since thorium can't make bombs, I can see how it would be easier. Since it hasn't been done in the US before I can see how it would be harder. Come to think of it, has anyone actually demonstrated thorium-based electrical power generation?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The future of energy is using less energy :
Few or no planes, smaller cars, local food, small houses, better insulation, less AC, less imported gadgets...
Mod me down all you want, but the future of energy surely isn't "business as usual"+some nukes in the basement.
Both large and small reactors have their uses, but AFAIK the small ones are likely to be less efficient and produce more waste* per kWh. I applaud the renaissance of 'modern' reactor construction to help wean us off the petro-teat, but am sorely disappointed that we're still burning less than 1% of the available energy in our current nuclear fuel and calling the other 99% 'waste'. Integral fast reactors should be a part of (if not the future of) the world's energy production.
*Not necessarily waste from the fuel itself, but more incidental waste like cladding storage containers, contaminated clothing, etc.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The worst possible pollutant imaginable with no way to dispose of it. *That's* very "green".
From the summary: "...It may be that when a new boom in nuclear power comes..."
...that's unfortunate phrasing.
"It may be that when a new boom in nuclear power comes"
Given Joe Public's irrational fear of a nuclear explosion, "boom" may not be the best word to use...
Use less energy and use it more efficiently.
Which unluckily is not what energy producers want.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Until the first hurricane blows through and puts your island paradise under 20 feet of water...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Too many little nukes around to regulate.
One of the selling point of electric cars is that they concentrate their pollution at a few large point sources. Sure, today they belch out coal byproducts. But as technology advances, we can monitor and retrofit a few large plants more quickly than having to hunt down the owner of every old beater car. These modular nukes are the logical equivalent of a fleet of cars. Eventually, they'll descend into beaterhood.
Have gnu, will travel.
one of the things that irks me about the nuke debate is how much it hinges on how much it costs to build a nuclear plant, while for example germany spends 8 billion euros a year in direct moneys to solar producers, and god knows how much it spent on subsidizing the panel build, added infrastructure, elastic supply to get in when solar output falls, etc.
All of this money, and I quote, "Solar energy has gone from being the great white hope, to an impediment, to a reliable energy supply. Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels on their roofs collected more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but the electricity they generated made up only about 3 percent of the total power supply, and that at unpredictable times." To summarize: only in transfers, NOT in total subsidy costs, Germans each years are paying themselves, meaning some taxpayers are paying other taxpayers through electricity bills, the amount of money needed to build one of finland's new reactor from scratch, after cost overruns, and a simple neat multiplication by 2. Ain't life splendid?
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Nope. Two mistakes!
First, no approvals have been made because no proposals have been up for approval. Nuclear power isn't viable without government subsidies and there weren't any between 1980 and 2005, because the government in that time frame actually attempted to reflect the will of the taxpayers (oh, for such innocent times to come again!).
Second, the government doesn't actually do the approvals - the NRC does. The nuclear industry is regulated by the nuclear industry, effectively. The government is a couple steps away hiding behind some smoke and mirrors.
Local battery storage is cost-ineffective for most small solar producers/ homeowners. If you don't aggressively manage your batteries they don't last worth a damn, and even if you do daily hygrometer checks etc. and get every last minute of life out of them, battery banks are unfortunately quite costly. I have an antique lead-acid electric tractor so I speak from experience!
But nickel iron batteries are back on the market - and despite their poor energy density, high mass & volume, and high cost they are still a great alternative for homeowners because they are so extremely robust. Market capitalism to the rescue? It's certainly a different approach than nuclear socialism, which is the model France and Scandinavia are on (and which the USA is attempting to emulate, only with our own special sauce of corporate profiteering liberally slathered over the top).
That's wrong. French nuclear power plants have load factors of only about 75% instead of the usual 90% precisely because they do follow loads. As for renewables: Germany has not increased its share of wind power generation. Installed capacity has increased by about 30% over the last 5 years, but amount of energy generated has not grown at all. That's because the electricity grid cannot transmit wind power from where it is generated (north and east) to where it is needed (south and west).
Biogas and bioethanol production did increase and means that Germany will import grain this year, because it is burning too much of its own production. Germany has been a grain exporter for over half a century. Biofuels and biogas are the main culprits for the vanishing supply of global grain markets and the hugely increased prices. (Some 85% - only about 15% can be attributed to speculation.) 10% of the world grain harvest in currently being burned for "sustainable energy", a receipt for sustained famines.
In a way, America currently has a distributed grid. We have LOADS of small 200 MW coal systems and a number of 400-600 MW nuke system all over the USA. In fact, most cities have at least one small coal type system somewhere close to its core (originally on the edge, but then built up around it).
A number of these will closed over the next 10-20 years and larger centralized coal, natural gas, and occasionally nuke power plants will replace these. The reason is because these old powerplants are from the 40s(coal) or from the 60s (nukes). Now, note that each and every single one of these locations are IDEAL. All of them have massive connections to the LOCAL grid. Likewise, they have cooling in place. Some have decent generators (though most do not). ALL of them have a lot of land around them esp. the nukes. So, what are these ideal for?
The nukes sites have stored 'waste' fuel. Instead of shutting these down, tearing down everything and then moving the waste to WIPP, it would actually be better to build a number of GE PRISM reactors on-site while JUST the old reactors are dismantled and shipped out. GE PRISM are the IFR reactors that use 'waste fuel'. Basically, other than part of their initial load of fuel, there would be no more shipping of fuel to the site for the next 100 years. Instead, you would add to these reactors with the local 'waste' fuel. Once done, that 'waste fuel' would be a fraction of the size and it would be dangerous for less than 200 years.
As to the coal facilities, these would also be useful. Either put in a thorium reactor, similar to Ft. St. Vrain's old generator, OR, consider putting in thermal storage. Now I have seen a number of comments against thermal storage backed up by natural gas boiler. It is correctly pointed out that you lose 50% of the efficiency. HOWEVER, this is a cheap cheap way to take older equipment, keep it running for another 30 years, while using it to provide a buffer for AE AND regular power. In addition, the energy that would be stored would be from AE that would normally be discard. For wind generators, they simply feather the blades rather than run them 100%. For Solar, they lose a large part just in resistance in the lines as it takes a bit of time for electric loads to come and go. IOW, such a thermal system would allow a company to build larger base-load plants while dumping all of the on-demand systems (read expensive to run). How to do the thermal system? Simple approach is just use silos of salts and heat it up via direct heating or even microwave. There are other more efficient systems being developed, but this would be inexpensive to install. In addition, other than waste heat, most of the pollution would be gone (save when you need to run natural gas to add electricity due to high loads for say AC or other site outages). As electric cars or other energy storage systems become available, these can be phased out.
Regardless, it would be criminal to lose this cheap opportunity to re-develop our energy matrix.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The link you provided says the Toshiba design has not yet been built or approved - thus there are none in commercial production, right?
I said there are no commercial nuclear reactors that are not subsidized by taxpayer dollars. In the USA, sbusidies include the Price-Anderson act (which provides subsidized insurance) and the Cheney energy policy of 2005 (which provides per-kilowatt incentives and removes requirements for set-aside of decommissioning costs). Naturally, I got modded troll for speaking independently verifiable truths about a controversial topic.
Maybe it would be great if commercial nuclear fission were economically viable in the future, as your link suggests might be the case with Toshiba's product, but I'm talking about now.
Thanks for the link, though - it was very interesting!
Distribution fee covers the infrastructure costs. Ever seen a footage after a big storm with fallen trees, broken lines? Maintaining and repairing the lines is costly. It costs much more than power losses due to transmission over large distances. You would have to pay fees to cover infrastructure costs no matter if there were one power plant per 100,000 households or one per 100.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
The effort to fight NIMBY types and tree huggers is the same if your reactor generates 100W or 100GW. Thus even if you could get a small reactor for free the cost is still extreme.
Plus the type of customer who will buy one of these are the core customers of the power company. The power company can't afford to lose these customers. Thus they will block their use through regulations where only they can pass muster.
Nah. It'll inevitably be ultracaps. Capacity is coming up steadily, and when they pass batteries, they'll be the tech to use. Why? Extremely long lifetime; extremely high charge and discharge rates; excellent environmental operating ranges; modular nature and ease of swapping components as they improve or require maintainance; relatively low cost (partially because of life expectancy, partially because they simply aren't that hard to make, at least so far.)
Right now, UC's are below battery storage capacities and all the hype is about batteries, but that's to be expected. I guarantee you that at some point, all else - pumped storage, molten salt, batteries, flywheels... will fall by the wayside. Ultracaps are the way storage should be done, period. The only issue is capacity, and that is rising steadily. It's coming. Inevitable.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Something which doesn't often get discussed, but which I learned about a couple years ago - a number of knowledgeable people have said that what really killed nuclear power in the United States was the Shoreham Power Plant.
This was a nuclear power plant built in Long Island, New York, for about $6 Bn. The plant passed certifications and inspections and was all ready to go into commercial operation. However, because of politics, the plant was never able to get the go ahead from the State of New York to operate. The governor, Mario Kuomo, basically vetoed an *already built* power plant.
As long as the laws are such that investors can't get reasonable assurance *before* they spend all the money to build the plant, that they will be definitely allowed to operate as long as the plant meets relevant technical standards, the *politics* of the situation make the plants not viable.
Without such political uncertainty, nuclear plants are, generally, good investements, economically. A nuclear plant (depending on how much power it produces), should produce more than enough power to pay for itself in the course of 60 years, if it's allowed to operate.
You're describing previous generations of reactors. The new ones are more like a giant battery. They are sealed, self contained, and walk-away safe.
Walk Away safe is a pretty big claim for something that has never actually been built yet. (And no, Navy shipboard reactors don't count. Operation of those reactors is top secret, and they are way too small.)
At some level, the concept of "walk away safe" is just another example of The Arrogance of Engineers. There are just too many things assumed.
The real problem with this design is that it might actually be built in reasonably large numbers, installed in places that are less well planned, operated by your average mid-sized power company, guarded by Mall Cops, maintained by low-bidders, and inspected by bribe takers.
In short, this type of reactor has the ability to become far too ubiquitous before any of the inevitable problems are discovered after 10 years of operation.
One could say that they may be too successful, too quickly.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
They hav 75% load because they're down so often.
Why?
Rivers too low and water in the river too hot to cool the reactor. Boom tomorrow.
And, please, whilst you're whining about "where's the proof!!!" where's yours?
PS Nuclear gets around 60%, the 90%+ figures are for "when running". But it's so often out for maintenance (or error, see above) that you don't get to run them more than about 2/3 the time.
Google "DAWES" report.
the stas from the IAEA seem rather different.....sorry to seem so fastidious, but sources?
For the record: I DID google DAWES report....but apart from something having to do with german reparations after the war, i did noty find anything. Link next time, will ya?
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
we do not mode people down because we disagree, we mod them down because the are trolls flamers or people like you who would mod people down for disagreeing instead of writing well a reply and arguing your point logically
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Icebike wrote :- concept of "walk away safe" is just another example of The Arrogance of Engineers
I am a nuclear engineer and would never make such a claim about anything, let alone a nuclear power plant, nor would any of the guys I have ever worked with. If you know such an engineer then he does not deserve to be called one.
In fact it is easy to make the mistake that someone talking about a subject (energy, medicine, economics) is a practising professional in that topic when in fact they are more likely to be just a professional spokesman or joirnalist.
Anyway, why should a "small modular" unit, whatever that is, be safer or more reliable than a large one? Better to concentrate the power generation where there are experts, emergency services and facilities close to hand as part of the site, and at the same time not close to urban areas. For example the nuclear power stations I have worked with have all had a large reservoir of back-up cooling water on site - where would that fit in with a local urban generator?
And just who is going to keep an eye on these numerous "walk away" local generators? The neighbourhood street cleaner? The mayor? The local plod? Neighbourhood watch? You're kidding.