Transpiration cooling isn't used because it is fiddly and typically it's easy to clog the holes and rein the performance. However there are film cooling techniques used in rocket engine nozzle walls which do work.
You are ignoring that both W Bush and Obama funded the construction of Generation III nuclear reactors. The first nuclear reactors to be built after many decades. Now, neither of them funded Generation IV nuclear reactors, and Clinton did shut down the last one, I think. But Generation IV reactors aren't as easy as some people would like to make them to be. The safest Generation IV design is probably lead-cooled fast reactors. But even those have some practical issues.
Exactly. Precisely this. But it is likely the Chinese will build AP1000 derivatives i.e. the CAP1400. To which the Chinese own the IP rights. In the future once that design gets a license.
The Huanlong One is indeed based on the French Generation II nuclear reactor designs. Which are themselves enlarged Westinghouse Generation II designs. The French's own Generation III reactor design, the EPR, also has entered operations in China. However it is too expensive, too many parts, so it is unlikely the Chinese will build that many of them.
So I think the Generation III reactors with the best prospects in the market right now are the Chinese CAP1400 (once it gets into production) and the Russian VVER-1200. The CAP1400 has water tanks on the roof of the containment building. Which means it is less susceptible to water pump failure in an emergency. You just need to open up some valves for the water to drop even in a situation where there is no emergency power. The VVER-1200 can include a core catcher. Which means if the reactor core melts down, it drops into an area designed to contain and spread out the molten core so that it can't achieve criticality anymore. So hence the nuclear reactions naturally stop.
Actually that is the major reason why the AP1000 projects were delayed in China. The construction work was stopped for a couple of years while the design was reviewed. There were problems in the supply chain for components as well but those were to a less degree than the problems Westinghouse had in the USA because the Chinese have actually build quite a few reactors over the past decades so their industry is more used to the work and supply chains are in place.
The article is fallacious. Four AP1000 reactors have reached operational status in China over the past couple of months and are already outputting electric power into the grid. Two reactors at Sanmen and another two at Haiyang. The Huanlong One reactor is actually a modified Generation II French reactor with some safety improvements to which the Chinese own 100% of the IP. That is why it is proceeding with manufacture.
Why aren't the Chinese manufacturing more AP1000 reactors? There are many reasons. But first a little backstory.
Westinghouse was hiding huge losses in their US nuclear reactor construction operations. To be more accurate the construction company in charge of the construction hid their losses and eventually got bought out by Westinghouse. Then later Toshiba (Japan) acquired Westinghouse (US). Eventually they dived into the books and found the hole in the accounts. This meant that the Toshiba conglomerate nearly went bankrupt to plug the hole because of their nuclear business. Eventually they took a huge hit on their accounts and then sold off their former Westinghouse assets, now clean of debt, to some US corporate fund I think. US corporate magic at work.
So Westinghouse has proven itself to be unreliable in terms of the construction side of the business. Nothing wrong with the design business AFAIK. Westinghouse weren't even into construction initially.
Now for the real reason. One part of the AP1000 deal with China was that the Chinese would pay Westinghouse, not only to build those reactors and train the personnel to operate them, which has been done, but also would design an AP1400 reactor with increased capacity to which the Chinese would hold 100% of the IP to be build by China in the future. Of course, given the financial difficulties Westinghouse is having with project funding, and the fact that the Chinese hold the license to the AP1400 means that all future projects with the AP1000 are likely to be shitcanned and replaced with the AP1400.
This is nothing new really. The Chinese did the same thing with their high-speed rail industry. First you had technological partnerships with the leading vendors in China, Germany, and Japan, to build trains and tracks. Then once the technology was dominated by the Chinese themselves they made their own trainsets and track signaling systems and manufactured them in large quantities while not signing any future contracts with their prior vendors. To this is the Chinese borg business model in action at its finest.
The AP1400 design is much newer than the Huanlong One so it is likely the Huanlong One was fast tracked earlier because they needed the generation capacity sooner rather than later. But eventually I expect the Chinese to build significant quantities of AP1400 reactors. To which they also own the IP. The Chinese government itself has stated that all future reactor construction in China is to be Generation III. Period.
The main competition to nuclear power in China is basically natural gas. Besides the pipeline the Chinese have to Turkmenistan, late this year the Power of Siberia pipeline is supposed to start operations. That will likely mean that Chinese cities in the north of that country will start switching at least part of their generation from coal to natural gas to clean up the heavy particulate air pollution in cities like Beijing. So that is nuclear power's competitor.
Nah. The plan is to burn Russian natural gas and use that to load-level wind or solar. Which is going to be stupendously inefficient because gas turbines lose efficiency if you constantly spool them up and down like that.
There are better reactor designs than Generation I/II designs i.e. Generation III+ reactors. The Chinese put several units of the APR1000 design into operation recently. http://www.world-nuclear-news....
Think of this as a rich man's version of ITER. The state pays for it, then MAYBE you will get a usable generator in two generations. Except he gets to keep the patents to himself while the state pays for most of the bill.
This is the rich man's version of the stone soup folk story.
Yet if you look at the nuclear rampups in the 1960s and 1970s you do not find that. This is just the same problem as with any engineering project. The first time you make something you are going to make mistakes in budget or time predictions. As you get more experience with similar projects the estimates become more reliable.
It does not help that the amount of paper documentation required today is much larger than it was then either.
Hah. I remember talking with people in my grandparents age. I basically got that like for every 5-8 kid family, 1 or 2 died from measles before they were 5, and like 1 or 2 died from the flu before they were 2. Those do not seem like good numbers for me.
Especially when you consider both the effects of having measles and the fact that even today there is no actual cure for it. Either your body fights the disease or you die if you get infected. The only good option is vaccination.
I wouldn't say so. The part of the Empire he personally oversaw managed to last another 500 years. Which is more than the USA has been in existence so far.
Dude. The flu vaccine is efficient. Why do you think the doctors and nurses take them themselves every single year? The problem is the flu virus mutates rapidly and there are several strains of the virus, unlike other viruses, so the protection it provides is limited in time until the flu virus mutates again. It also needs to be produced months in advance (it takes time to prepare it).
This is just nature weeding out dumb people. Please move along.
I still remember people in my grandparent's age telling me their horror stories of experiences either they or former (read dead) members of their family had with measles.
He's basically supplied most of the higher trim orders of the car to USA customers already. So now he's going to the other large markets. So they can supply most of the higher trim orders there too. Only after the per unit production costs go down more will they start actually delivering the base models.
Slashdot Mirror
Transpiration cooling isn't used because it is fiddly and typically it's easy to clog the holes and rein the performance. However there are film cooling techniques used in rocket engine nozzle walls which do work.
You are ignoring that both W Bush and Obama funded the construction of Generation III nuclear reactors. The first nuclear reactors to be built after many decades. Now, neither of them funded Generation IV nuclear reactors, and Clinton did shut down the last one, I think. But Generation IV reactors aren't as easy as some people would like to make them to be. The safest Generation IV design is probably lead-cooled fast reactors. But even those have some practical issues.
Exactly. Precisely this. But it is likely the Chinese will build AP1000 derivatives i.e. the CAP1400. To which the Chinese own the IP rights. In the future once that design gets a license.
The Huanlong One is indeed based on the French Generation II nuclear reactor designs. Which are themselves enlarged Westinghouse Generation II designs. The French's own Generation III reactor design, the EPR, also has entered operations in China. However it is too expensive, too many parts, so it is unlikely the Chinese will build that many of them.
So I think the Generation III reactors with the best prospects in the market right now are the Chinese CAP1400 (once it gets into production) and the Russian VVER-1200. The CAP1400 has water tanks on the roof of the containment building. Which means it is less susceptible to water pump failure in an emergency. You just need to open up some valves for the water to drop even in a situation where there is no emergency power. The VVER-1200 can include a core catcher. Which means if the reactor core melts down, it drops into an area designed to contain and spread out the molten core so that it can't achieve criticality anymore. So hence the nuclear reactions naturally stop.
Actually that is the major reason why the AP1000 projects were delayed in China. The construction work was stopped for a couple of years while the design was reviewed. There were problems in the supply chain for components as well but those were to a less degree than the problems Westinghouse had in the USA because the Chinese have actually build quite a few reactors over the past decades so their industry is more used to the work and supply chains are in place.
The article is fallacious. Four AP1000 reactors have reached operational status in China over the past couple of months and are already outputting electric power into the grid. Two reactors at Sanmen and another two at Haiyang. The Huanlong One reactor is actually a modified Generation II French reactor with some safety improvements to which the Chinese own 100% of the IP. That is why it is proceeding with manufacture.
Why aren't the Chinese manufacturing more AP1000 reactors? There are many reasons. But first a little backstory.
Westinghouse was hiding huge losses in their US nuclear reactor construction operations. To be more accurate the construction company in charge of the construction hid their losses and eventually got bought out by Westinghouse. Then later Toshiba (Japan) acquired Westinghouse (US). Eventually they dived into the books and found the hole in the accounts. This meant that the Toshiba conglomerate nearly went bankrupt to plug the hole because of their nuclear business. Eventually they took a huge hit on their accounts and then sold off their former Westinghouse assets, now clean of debt, to some US corporate fund I think. US corporate magic at work.
So Westinghouse has proven itself to be unreliable in terms of the construction side of the business. Nothing wrong with the design business AFAIK. Westinghouse weren't even into construction initially.
Now for the real reason. One part of the AP1000 deal with China was that the Chinese would pay Westinghouse, not only to build those reactors and train the personnel to operate them, which has been done, but also would design an AP1400 reactor with increased capacity to which the Chinese would hold 100% of the IP to be build by China in the future. Of course, given the financial difficulties Westinghouse is having with project funding, and the fact that the Chinese hold the license to the AP1400 means that all future projects with the AP1000 are likely to be shitcanned and replaced with the AP1400.
This is nothing new really. The Chinese did the same thing with their high-speed rail industry. First you had technological partnerships with the leading vendors in China, Germany, and Japan, to build trains and tracks. Then once the technology was dominated by the Chinese themselves they made their own trainsets and track signaling systems and manufactured them in large quantities while not signing any future contracts with their prior vendors. To this is the Chinese borg business model in action at its finest.
The AP1400 design is much newer than the Huanlong One so it is likely the Huanlong One was fast tracked earlier because they needed the generation capacity sooner rather than later. But eventually I expect the Chinese to build significant quantities of AP1400 reactors. To which they also own the IP. The Chinese government itself has stated that all future reactor construction in China is to be Generation III. Period.
The main competition to nuclear power in China is basically natural gas. Besides the pipeline the Chinese have to Turkmenistan, late this year the Power of Siberia pipeline is supposed to start operations. That will likely mean that Chinese cities in the north of that country will start switching at least part of their generation from coal to natural gas to clean up the heavy particulate air pollution in cities like Beijing. So that is nuclear power's competitor.
However cities in the
You can have our friendly milkman deliver it right inside your kitchen even. No need to open the door.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Don't buy a Tesla car then.
It's more, like, do our code for us, for free, so we can make money out of it.
Well the BEAST was slayed and their tags shall BLINK until the end of days.
Book of Mozilla
Nah. The plan is to burn Russian natural gas and use that to load-level wind or solar.
Which is going to be stupendously inefficient because gas turbines lose efficiency if you constantly spool them up and down like that.
There are better reactor designs than Generation I/II designs i.e. Generation III+ reactors. The Chinese put several units of the APR1000 design into operation recently.
http://www.world-nuclear-news....
Russia is still in the process of replacing their RBMK nuclear reactors with LWRs.
There are loads of those things still operational.
Think of this as a rich man's version of ITER. The state pays for it, then MAYBE you will get a usable generator in two generations. Except he gets to keep the patents to himself while the state pays for most of the bill.
This is the rich man's version of the stone soup folk story.
A really tiny one.
I guess I'll sell you a supercapacitor to power your Tesla car when you go to work then.
Yet if you look at the nuclear rampups in the 1960s and 1970s you do not find that.
This is just the same problem as with any engineering project. The first time you make something you are going to make mistakes in budget or time predictions. As you get more experience with similar projects the estimates become more reliable.
It does not help that the amount of paper documentation required today is much larger than it was then either.
As usual. These new modular reactor designs need more time than money to perfect.
There is already existing nuclear technology that is relatively cheap per kWh generated. It is just that it typically has large upfront costs.
Also those WHO stats include vaccinated people that's why the rates are so low. But try telling anti-vaxxers that.
It is an easily transmittable virus. That is the problem if you don't control it early on.
Hah. I remember talking with people in my grandparents age. I basically got that like for every 5-8 kid family, 1 or 2 died from measles before they were 5, and like 1 or 2 died from the flu before they were 2. Those do not seem like good numbers for me.
Especially when you consider both the effects of having measles and the fact that even today there is no actual cure for it. Either your body fights the disease or you die if you get infected. The only good option is vaccination.
I wouldn't say so. The part of the Empire he personally oversaw managed to last another 500 years. Which is more than the USA has been in existence so far.
Dude. The flu vaccine is efficient. Why do you think the doctors and nurses take them themselves every single year? The problem is the flu virus mutates rapidly and there are several strains of the virus, unlike other viruses, so the protection it provides is limited in time until the flu virus mutates again. It also needs to be produced months in advance (it takes time to prepare it).
This is just nature weeding out dumb people. Please move along.
I still remember people in my grandparent's age telling me their horror stories of experiences either they or former (read dead) members of their family had with measles.
I think this should fall onto the DMCA exception clause for interoperability purposes though. Seriously.
He's basically supplied most of the higher trim orders of the car to USA customers already. So now he's going to the other large markets. So they can supply most of the higher trim orders there too. Only after the per unit production costs go down more will they start actually delivering the base models.
It is just "Quants" 2.0. Another bubble that will eventually burst. Try reading about the guy behind Khan Academy for example.