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Setback For Small Nuclear Reactors: B&W Cuts mPower Funding
mdsolar (1045926) writes with news that funding for the mPower, a Small Modular [Nuclear] Reactor, has been cut due to the inability to find investors interested in building a prototype. From the article: "The pullback represents a major blow to the development of SMRs, which have been hailed as the next step forward for the nuclear power industry. ... All told, B&W, the DOE, and partners have spent around $400 million on the mPower program. Another $600 million was needed just to get the technology ready for application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for licensing. ... B&W plans to continue low-level R&D on the mPower technology with a view to commercial deployment in the mid-2020s, said CEO James Ferland. But without a major shift in the business environment and in investor perceptions of the risks and rewards associated with nuclear power, that seems fanciful."
Well?
Maybe this one will get funded. I have an idea to give radioactive material with megaton-level nuclear potential energy stored inside, placed in a portable, easy to steal container, to 3rd world countries. Anyone want to invest?
These people are morons! MORONS!!!!! I mean there aren't even words for shit this stupid. Who the hell gets up in the morning and says let's build suitcase nukes for the betterment of mankind of lalalala I'm going to imagine unicorns and fairies and that terrorists don't exist. Were they on vacation on the fucking moon when Fukishima happened? Are they not away of radioactive-free nuclear fusion research? AAGGGGHHH I know, why don't they buy Yahoo and Myspace and merge them together to make little suitcases that generate megawatts of Xrays "FOR BIRD WATCHING."
Still insisting on the same basic concept that gave us reactors that use just 0,5% to 1% of mined uranium and have the concept of a meltdown.
Even the most advanced water cooled reactor today still does that.
B&W mPower reactor is just a smalled version of the same.
When will this people learn ?
We need a breeder / near breeder reactor that is able to use bare minimum 10% of uranium mined, or much more.
liquid fuel instead of solid fuel, with the fuel molten in the coolant means meltdowns are impossible and heavy neutron poisons (noble gas fission products) can be collected from the reactor quickly, resulting in minimal neutron losses, the lower the neutron losses are, the better the fuel burnup can be (increasing that 0,5% to 1% utilization to much higher levels), plus the less neutron poisons are kept in the reactor, the less excess reactivity exists on the reactor, minimizing the risk of prompt neutron criticality scenarios.
That's why I don't support any reactor except for molten salt or molten metal coolant designs.
The AP1000 and similar Gen III+ are plenty safe enough for my taste, but if you honestly discuss even the most remote risks a gen iii+ reactor with non technical people, they will still be against nuclear power. Plus water cooled reactors demand lots of expensive active safety systems like hydrogen+oxygen recombinants, pressurizer, emergency spray, emergency water injection, the list goes on, making the reactor far more expensive than necessary. Perhaps with the mPower being a much lower power reactor, it can do away without some of those systems, but they can't all be eliminated unless the reactor has low pressure operation (only possible with molten salt or molten metal cores).
To whom it may concern,
Feel free to compete in the FREE MARKET...Nuclear or Fossils fuel...! ;-)
the,
Solar Industry
...maybe it's because 400 million dollars later you have nothing to show for it. Who the fuck wants to throw another 600 million at a project that is clearly not going anywhere?
That's because investors don't want to develop a product to compete with something that already exists (and is very well funded) but is having regulatory issues:
Every nuclear power setback is directly tied to paranoid maniacs who immediately start thinking about nuclear weapons and how it might destabilize the carefully-cultivated balance of power that keeps the US at the top.
The"portable" reactors are encased in tons of concrete. And I'm pretty sure would be built so that WHEN a nuke-wanting country stole one as you say, a remote signal could "accidentally" trigger a nuclear detonation in whatever country they took it to...
Given the work China and India are doing on molten-salt Thorium cycle reactors, I can't see why anyone would spend another dime on a pressurized water reactor again.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Direct money toward large nuclear reactors!
Who the hell wants a ton of little reactors all over the place that when they run out of fuel we basically bury it and hope no one stumbles upon it.
Stick with the big plants, just use the new safer designs and BUILD them. This was a complete waste of money. This idea was never going to fly and still won't. As a strong proponent of nuclear power, I don't even like this idea (due to the waste left behind.)
They were in a rush to get them up, a popular story was the critical job of building the dome to one of them, 24 hour round the clock overtime to gold plate that puppy. A friend of mine was studying to operate the reactors when in class they were told to grab their stuff as they no longer had a job and don't let the door swing into you on the way out. The dome was later cut up and sold as salvage, as was the rest of the equipment used.
"Energy Northwest (formerly Washington Public Power Supply System) is a United States public power joint operating agency formed by State law in 1957 to produce at-cost power for Northwest utilities. Headquartered in Richland, Washington, the WPPSS became commonly known as "Whoops" due to over-commitment to nuclear power in the 1970s which brought about financial collapse and the second largest municipal bond default in U.S. history."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
A lot of people got hurt over that one.
"$2.25 billion. Washington State. Bonds issued to finance a nuclear power plant defaulted. Bondholders recovered about 40 percent of their principal and interestnearly 10 years later."
http://money.usnews.com/money/...
steak powered xfce4-xfapplet-plugin missing linux mint but good god a garden man ;o)
tax ppl are old world
Even China and US Can get along if they just act like regular neighbors, that's the truth! But ya know what I don't owe china, and if there's going to be land, then let's allow frickin the ppl to decide what land we do or don't give up. Not this BS electronicic vot fraud/electoral vote fraud
Some small nuclear reactors can be quite stable and run for a long time...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
the builders of the reactor that failed at Three Mile Island can't get funding for a new reactor design.
booo hoo
The cost is probably much less, considering the same division makes very similar products (probably maybe even REEEEAAALLY similar) AND won a big percentage of the posted (in this article) price in a government grant. The reason is that the company wants outside investors is because it wasn't getting a $15mil/year match from uncle sam. Always invest someone else's money. /AC for a reason, former labor pool
"There is also no such thing as a non-radioactive sandwich..."
This is a logical fallacy, one I have dubbed "smaller gun theory" .22 Caliber gun is bad." .45 caliber gun."
"Shooting someone with
"Not it isn't, because someone else can shoot someone with a
This assertion is reverse of the basic smaller gun theory:
"Nuclear power creates/uses highly dangerous radioactive material, and therefore is bad, or in this case, a bad investment, and/or dangerous because it can be diverted to terrorists." /. could be so, so, [fill in the blank].
"No it isn't, because even sandwiches are radioactive."
Of course, sandwiches are radioactive, but fuel for a nuclear power plant is X times as radioactive. I'm surprised someone on
I'd mod you up as the voice of reason if I had any mod points.
I can't see why anyone can afford to spend another minute thinking that thorium is going to be economic.
further clarification: economic in the US and its vassal states tied by such shackles as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
When China and/or India (smirk) start running a major portion of their economy on "pure green clean thorium" I expect the US will implement a raft of hasty patent reform bills, maybe with IV facing RICO charges as inducement to turn over thorium patents for the "benefit of mankind"/national security.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
Seriously, why is it every power generation and transmission technology known to man is called mPower. Yeah, we get it, it's like empower but without the e...that was cool the first 100 million times.
Various 4th generation reactors are under or about to begin construction. Proof of concept reactors are already operating.
Relative to current nuclear power plant technology, the claimed benefits for 4th generation reactors include:
Nuclear waste that remains radioactive for a few centuries instead of millennia
100-300 times more energy yield from the same amount of nuclear fuel
The ability to consume existing nuclear waste in the production of electricity
Improved operating safety
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Of particular importance is that these 4th generation reactors can use as fuel the long lived very dangerous waster ***that we already possess*** and don't have good long term plans for.
"Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. On the basis of global projection data that take into account the effects of the Fukushima accident, we find that nuclear power could additionally prevent an average of 420,000-7.04 million deaths and 80-240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels by midcentury, depending on which fuel it replaces."
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...
If they think there will be any need for this by the mid-2020s, they're in for a rude awakening and a nasty financial loss.
Solar panels have dropped in price by 65% in the last two years. They're expecting another 60% price drop by 2020, and efficiency isn't being sacrificed - it's only getting better, with 25% being achieved in the lab now. Research is also much cheaper - researchers ask for grants such as $5 million or $15 million, not the $1 billion mentioned in the article.
Combine wind farms, hydro power, solar thermal, and the recent improvements with storing energy, both as potential energy and in batteries, and I doubt any one will want to invest in "small" nuclear reactors, either now or 10 years from now. Solar panels aren't the fix for everything, but they will make it uneconomical to put in place big, expensive nuclear reactors, which are only small and cheap by comparison to even bigger ones.
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
The point is radioactive != dangerous. Just as projectile != lethal weapon.
Then, they're part of the problem. The problem being, uncleanable nuclear waste. Virtually permanent biocontamination. And some interesting charge-enhanced mechanical effects.
Why not develop better cleaning and containment. Without fucking everything up as they always do. Then claim it wasn't their fault. They can't do more than far from enough. And dump (often literally) the mess in the environment, and on society.
A pity they don't "innovate" in cleanup and prevention. The vapor-stuff they're trying to hawk will still be criminally poisonous. And they'll do their best to also make it genocidal, and deny it, as usual.
"which have been hailed as the next step forward for the nuclear power industry"
Yes, after the same was claimed for Gen II reactors, fast-breeders, liquid-metal reactors, gas-cooled reactors, heavy water reactors, pebble-bed reactors, travelling-wave reactors, and any number of variations on thorium.
Wake me when someone actually builds one and we can see if the product lives up to the hype.
While the NIMBY people and the nuclear-luddites do their best to keep us well entrenched in the stone age [1], scientists are working on fifth gen reactors, as well as thorium reactors.
Comparing a modern, fourth or fifth gen reactor to the ones in production is similar to wanting to ban all cars because a Model T or a Trabent is unsafe.
We can go a long ways with this technology... right now, we are similar to where we were in the '60s when silicon started being doped and transistors came into common use. Just wait until the equivilent of ICs, VLSI, and other improvements kick in. However, until we get the paranoics out of the picture, we will still be using fossil fuels and ensuring that our subsequent generations have far less of a quality of life than we do.
[1]: Except for deaths per terawatt generated. Nuclear is insanely off the scale compared to everything else. 0.04 deaths are just too much compared to the reasonable 100 deaths/TW that coal has or the 36 of oil. People just don't die enough for nuclear for it to be viable. /sarcasm.
Sure radioactive means dangerous, but dangerous != harmful. There is always risk. Gasoline is dangerous, you handle it carelessly and you can get a big explosion. Refineries are dangerous. Coal mines are dangerous, etc. The question is not "is it dangerous", but how dangerous is it? How can we mitigate risk? Is it worth the risk?
H2O is DANGEROUS it kills countless thousands of people every year. How many people died of Nuclear power production last year? 0 Zero. In binary... 0
I've seen cue balls with more of a point than your last statement.
Another instance showing the high costs and low returns of nuclear power. Nuclear power is not affordable. It gets more expensive over time. The "learning curve" is negative. It relies on massive government subsidies and has serious unsolved problems with waste.
OTOH, solar and wind are getting cheaper and are now less expensive than nuclear.
It just doesn't make sense to invest in nuclear when solar and wind are cheaper, have fewer problems and are already scaling rapidly.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Harvesting the power of the sun is as old as our first ancestors who dried food in the midday sun to preserve it. Harnessing the power of the sun is the key to unlimited renewable Green nuclear energy. Sadly the Green energy pixie still speaks to the masses during their latest bong fest. Nuclear energy is the future. This project is the bridge to hydrogen energy and finally fusion energy. BTW who doesn't think Fusion is nuclear energy?
... the nuclear-luddites ...
No, they are more accurately called the nuclear deniers. They are every bit as politically motivated and misrepresent science and make false scientific claims as the climate deniers, they are merely coming from the other political extreme.
Meanwhile, at the time of the bidding for the funding, Westinghouse was working with an actual investor interested in potentially building their project. Somehow, the company with a business plan didn't get selected for the funding... Well done DOE.
Fair point.
These small reactors already are designed and in production:
The S6W and its line of small reactors are reliable and safe. The rector compartment on a typical submarine is about 30' in diameter and 30' in length.
These generate ~ 50 Thermal Megawatts which translate into about 40,000 horse power or about 29 megawatts of electricity.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
They should be going full steam ahead. A number of companies have to shot down their current nuke reactors. BUT, they have the sites set up for nukes. IOW, it is EASY to add reactors to these sites. As such, mPower should be approaching a number of them pushing their reactors and pushing to get them in CHEAP.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I live not far from Corvallis Oregon. Off the top of my head I think DOE just announced big awards in SMR. But not to the people who are crying in the story.
Around here we name our streets Gaia and hate nukes. And some locals picked up a quarter billion from DOE for SMR The first one will be in Montana.
Story might not be complete.
Reading the article, its just the same here in the UK. It is almost impossible to do anything new in nuclear research or technology and stupidly ridiculously expensive. The problem is insane Nuclear over-Regulation. The only solution is obvious, we need to destroy the current nuclear regulators (both national and UN level) and replace them with a sane sensible workable system.
A few Facts -
- Coal is roughly 1000x more dangerous than nuclear (per unit generated) but is about 100x less regulated.
- Since WWII coal and other fossil fuels have killed something like 50 to 80 million people through air pollution alone.
- Even taking the absolute worst case estimates and including Chernobyl, Fukushima, plus Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear power in total has killed something like 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide.
- Since the mid 1970's the global anti-nuclear 'green' campaign has effectively forced the world back towards fossil fuels and this has indirectly killed something like an extra 5 to 8 million people worldwide. In this the anti-nuclear lobby and the (anti) nuclear regulators are equally culpable.
- So far Anti-nuclear campaigners have actually killed something like 10 times the number of people as nuclear weapons.
- So far Anti-nuclear campaigners have actually killed something like 10,000 times the number of people as nuclear power.
Conclusion : In general Anti-nuclear campaigners (& the nuclear regulators) are far more dangerous than nuclear power.
Yet which is it the simple people fear? nuclear power. (The reasons why are another article but the anti-nuclear campaign has always relied on the use of black propaganda - panic fear lies and hysteria.)
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..