🧵 Untitled Thread
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:42:36 UTC No. 16497536
What are your opinions on small modular reactors/micro reactors?
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:53:37 UTC No. 16497546
Nice idea if the naughty bits can be contained.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 21:02:28 UTC No. 16497559
>>16497536
Why do you need an opinion on an industrial process?
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 21:53:10 UTC No. 16497596
>>16497536
It's a bad idea. "Bigger = better" is nuclear power 101. Nuclear reactors benefit enormously from scale advantages.
The reason for the SMR craze is that almost no one in the west is willing to put the amount of money on the table that is needed to build large reactors, especially not after the AP1000 and EPR disasters.
Small reactors are only a good idea in the narrow niches of microgrids and heating. Those are the main aims of Russian and the Chinese SMRs; they build large reactors for everything else.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:02:09 UTC No. 16497601
Another Investor scam perpetuated by a dying industry. Modular reactor design have been a mirage for decades, hell in the 60s people thought you would have nuclear powered home units or even nuclear powered cars and trains.
It's bullshit. Invest in renewables. PV has already outpaced even the most optimist scenarios and perowskite is a huge and cheap game changer with actual prove of concept.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:08:06 UTC No. 16497608
>>16497601
>PV has already outpaced even the most optimist scenarios
PV's are plateauing and will never be able to replace other options for providing a reliable base load. Even the best panels on the market today cap at about 100 kW capacity per acre of coverage. Which means you need 10,000 acres of panels to equal the capacity of a single modern 1 GW fission reactor.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:21:28 UTC No. 16497624
>>16497601
>Another Investor scam perpetuated by a dying industry.
Depends on what part of the world you're referring to. If you're referring to the western world, then you're right. Reactor construction is a pretty much a dead industry and the companies that exist are mostly just scams milking investor money. The possible exception is GEH's BWRX-300, which is now likely to be built in Canada, even though the economics of a tiny 300MWe design don't make much sense.
>Modular reactor design have been a mirage for decades
Modularity in reactor construction exists today and is a highly successful concept. One example is the Westinghouse AP1000. The Chinese like it so much that they've made it into one of their two main reactor types along with the indigenous HPR1000, and are developing follow-on designs on the basis of the AP1000.
An example of an "SMR" that exists today is the Russian KLT-40S. The Russians apparently think that concept is successful for its intended purpose, since they're following it up with the RITM-200N/M. The RITM-200 base design already exists and powers Russian icebreakers. These reactors are "fully" modular in the sense that the entire primary coolant circuit is a single module. Also, many naval reactors can be considered SMRs.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:23:38 UTC No. 16497625
>>16497608
You're right that there's a limit to how much PV you can add to a grid without adding additional firming. However, the PV expansion will be able to continue when battery grid storage becomes cheap enough, which will probably happen very soon
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:24:55 UTC No. 16497626
>>16497625
Also, both PVs and wind benefit from the fracking boom that has led to widespread replacement of coal power by gas power. Gas turbines are a lot more dispatchable than coal plants, so they are more compatible with PVs and wind
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:29:51 UTC No. 16497628
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:32:53 UTC No. 16497632
>>16497624
Another SMR that exists today is the Chinese HTR-PM. There are two such reactors in commercial operation. It is also "fully" modular in the sense that it consists of just two modules: one reactor pressure vessel and one steam generator.
The Chinese apparently think that concept is successful, since they just approved construction of another six reactors, which will supply steam to the Lianyungang petrochemical plant.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:35:06 UTC No. 16497637
>yet another chinese nuclear shill thread
lmao
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:45:22 UTC No. 16497648
>>16497637
If you're going to discuss nuclear, you're basically discussing Russian and/or Chinese nuclear, because they're the only ones doing it at scale today, and are the only ones doing meaningful innovation in the sector (in terms of actual reactors and not just paper reactors). Something like 90% of reactors under construction today are Russian or Chinese designs.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:27:08 UTC No. 16497681
>>16497596
>>16497601
>>16497624
Its to get around borrowing costs, since utilities aren't allowed to start paying the loan down until the plant is done.
Assume an installation of cost of $8800 for a large reactor that takes 9 years to build, vs $9300 for a small reactor that takes 3 years to build. Both are being built using a big ass loan at 5% interest.
8800 * 1.05^9 = $13651 CAPEX for large reactor
9300 * 1.05^3 =$ 10765 CAPEX for small reactor
https://www.calculator.net/loan-cal
If you put the numbers for the SMR in here, assume the company pays the loan off in 20 years and divide it by 90% capacity factor over the first 40 years, and add 3 cents a kwh for maintenance, you get a LCOE around 8.6 cents/kwh which isn't great for an inflexible baseload but may be useful in some cases since its so reliable and weather independent.
Lower interest gov loans or figuring out how to get the reactor to operate flexibly like with thermal storage would boost the hell out of its economic case.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:38:32 UTC No. 16497690
>>16497648
by that argument, if you're going to discuss opiate pharmacology you're basically discussing cartel jungle labs, because they're the only ones doing it at scale today. nobody pollutes more than china, and russia playing with nukes is what got us chernobyl.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:49:24 UTC No. 16497697
>>16497608
>PV's are plateauing
I mean it does look like a plateau somewhat if you turn the graph by 90 degrees.
>and will never be able to replace other options for providing a reliable base load.
PV coupled with large battery storage is doing fine covering base loads in places such as Southern Australia.
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:50:35 UTC No. 16497699
Anonymous at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:55:21 UTC No. 16497701
>>16497697
Batteries as far as I know are used as peakers to shift solar from noon to peak demand around 5 or 6 PM. Sure you can buy 16 hours of battery storage to cover the night, but what about cloudy days, or 2 cloudy days, or 3 in a row? Solar is great and will grow rapidly until it fills up its market but its not going to do everything.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:11:44 UTC No. 16497713
>>16497536
Good way to subvert regulations on nuclear power.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:12:47 UTC No. 16497715
>>16497596
If regulations weren't strangling nuclear (and every other industry) I'd agree. Until you get rid of government interference, nuclear won't be cheap.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 04:26:31 UTC No. 16497879
>>16497697
>>16497699
Installation is not efficiency. If you look up any of the actual PV types, efficiency is scaling logarithmically for most of them over time. One or two newer types are scaling linearly, but that's likely because they just haven't passed the knee yet.
It's all a moot point - even at 100% efficiency (which will never happen) you'll never get a better acre-to-capacity tradeoff with solar than with nuclear.
Not suggesting solar isn't a critical part of any future energy plan, but the suggestion that it can be the only thing we rely on, or that nuclear isn't going to need to be a critical part of any future energy plan too is frankly ludicrous.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 04:45:17 UTC No. 16497896
>>16497699
Remove China from the data and IEA prediction is mostly correct
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 05:21:52 UTC No. 16497937
>>16497625
>storage
pffftttt
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 06:35:19 UTC No. 16497996
>>16497879
>If you look up any of the actual PV types, efficiency is scaling logarithmically for most of them over time
That's moot point because solar panels as they are are already efficient enough to beat nuclear in price by almost a magnitude. Cost of electricity is what matters, not some arbitrary efficiency value.
>you'll never get a better acre-to-capacity tradeoff with solar than with nuclear.
Another extremely moot point. Price of land is already baked into the price of power and solar crushes nuclear. Unless your customer is submarine or something that doesn't really have land to spare then solar wins this one by a lot again.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 07:57:35 UTC No. 16498055
>>16497996
>solar panels as they are are already efficient enough to beat nuclear in price by almost a magnitude
Because governments are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year subsidizing solar while throwing endless roadblocks and red tape in front of nuclear.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 08:07:16 UTC No. 16498059
>>16498055
That's just not true.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 08:19:29 UTC No. 16498063
>>16497996
>Cost of electricity is what matters
Unfortunately not, PV has some structural problems that even modern batteries can't solve (and they are not cheap so you should add that cost instead of ignoring it).
The main one is winter production is a lot lower than summer one, but our needs don't follow that.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 08:46:11 UTC No. 16498074
>>16498063
I fail to see your point but honestly if your power is going out then consider moving out of which ever shithole you live in or overthrowing the communists in power. In first world capitalistic country my power has never gone out except due to things like storms and even that is rare and the only thing that matters to me is the price.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 09:27:21 UTC No. 16498085
>>16498063
This is outdated crap. PV already is among the cheapest energy sources as of today and Perowskite cells that have already double the power efficiency.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 09:30:07 UTC No. 16498086
>>16498055
It's literally the opposite though. Nuclear is being kept alive by government tenders. There is virtually no private energy company on the planet that is willing to take on the economical and security risk of building a nuclear plant. It's almost 100% public utility companies. Meanwhile the solar revolution is not spurred by large megaprojects but by the enthusiam and demand of private households buying solar modules and battery storage.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 09:59:42 UTC No. 16498099
>>16497715
>Until you get rid of government interference, nuclear won't be cheap.
better to be reliable than cheap
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:07:37 UTC No. 16498133
>>16497559
Because anons here understand the realities of electrical grid management and nuclear grid design better than the "experts". Obviously
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:25:13 UTC No. 16498212
>>16498085
I'm afraid Earth orbit isn't outdated, it's still pretty much the same.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:46:41 UTC No. 16498225
>>16498085
>Perowskite cells that have already double the power efficiency
Not really. There is a fundamental limit to how efficienct a single-band gap solar cell can be (~33%), and silicon is close enough (27% is the lab record, in real world usage it's a bit less). There simply isn't a factor of 2 to be gained, unless using something like multi-junction solar cells, but those have their drawbacks.
Si has a band gap that's very near to ideal, is abundant and there's a lot of industry around it already. The interesting thing about perovskite solar cells is not really about beating silicon in efficiency. But they are direct band-gap (meaning you can have thinner and flexible cells), very defect-tolerant (meaning much easier processing) and tuneable with composition modifications. However they are also much less stable, and the good materials have a significant fraction of lead.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:34:16 UTC No. 16498416
>>16497996
as stated before, solar requires additional firming so the full system of solar can vary from being good to being shit like any other energy source, stop being an idiot making blanket statements about economics in a market you barely understand
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:56:40 UTC No. 16498443
>>16497681
That doesn't help much if the cost of the reactor per W is far higher.
btw, China builds large reactors in 5 years. Japan built the ABWR in 4 years. There's no fundamental reason why a large reactor should take long. The problem is lack of expertise, not size.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:59:45 UTC No. 16498446
>>16497690
Are there any scale benefits in opiate pharmacology? Are the cartel jungle labs leaders in applied innovation? If so, then yes.
Nuclear power benefits enormously from scale. Both the scale of reactor as well as the scale of deployment. It's why the Chinese can build large reactors in 5 years for 2.5$/W while western nuclear power plant construction are financial disasters.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:01:43 UTC No. 16498450
>>16498099
No, there's a balance. That balance can only be found by a free market.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:03:58 UTC No. 16498453
>>16497715
>Until you get rid of government interference, nuclear won't be cheap
And yet the Chinese, Russians and Koreans somehow manage to do it. Those countries aren't exactly Ayn Rand ideals, especially not their power markets.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:06:05 UTC No. 16498454
>>16497996
>That's moot point because solar panels as they are are already efficient enough to beat nuclear in price by almost a magnitude.
Not really. See this post in the other thread
>>16496161
Also this one
>>16497156
>Cost of electricity is what matters
when and where the electricity is generated matters even more
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:07:27 UTC No. 16498457
>>16498133
The "experts" are usually highly biased because they're trying to milk investors for money
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:19:17 UTC No. 16498470
>>16497996
I look forward to a cost-effective, solar-based power grid here in Scandinavia.
>Wait, what do you mean there's hail, snow, long overcast periods, and winter months that see very little sunlight?
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 20:25:54 UTC No. 16498516
What is the theoretically smallest nuclear reactors? Can you build 100-200 KW reactors for use in electric cars or airplanes?
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 20:38:22 UTC No. 16498530
>>16498516
>airplane
Yes. It was done in the 60s unless it is fake history like the moon landing
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 20:58:26 UTC No. 16498546
>>16498086
What do you mean by public utility? Government run? Or public traded on the stock exchange? Either way, publicly traded Southern Company, the parent of Southern Nuclear, just added two new units in Georgia.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:07:15 UTC No. 16498556
>>16498546
30 billion dollars lmfao. Talk about a green scam.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:07:40 UTC No. 16498557
>>16498516
The Ford Nucleon was a scale model concept car that was to be powered by a tiny nuclear reactor but never was built because Ford was waiting for someone else to develop a reactor that small which never happened. Of course now we'd never allow fissionable material into a private automobile so even if such a reactor were possible, it would have be put to other uses.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:10:24 UTC No. 16498562
>>16498556
Funniest part is that they got permission to start charging customers a nuclear surcharge before construction even stated so much of the financing came from customers instead of investors. In theory if you remain in Georgia, eventually your investment will pay off with less expensive energy but if you move out of the state, you never get to benefit from the money you had to put in.
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:34:22 UTC No. 16498578
>>16498516
Radioisotope thermoelectric generators are technically "nuclear reactors", though they rely on natural decay and not fission chain reactions. You can build them about as small as you like
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:35:31 UTC No. 16498580
>>16498516
The US tried to build nuclear aircraft. Look up the Aircraft Reactor Experiment
Anonymous at Sat, 30 Nov 2024 22:33:09 UTC No. 16498635
>>16498085
>perovskites
The problem with solar today isn't that they aren't cheap or efficient. The problem is the associated storage and transmission infrastructure.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 05:09:17 UTC No. 16498893
>>16497536
bigger is better. small nuclear reactors are for feminized cowards
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 06:41:48 UTC No. 16498957
>>16498443
Read it again, its supposed to show how CONSTRUCTION cost per watt can be higher however shorter construction time can lead to lower interest payments and overall cost. Its mostly a benefit in the west where we have more red tape/workers rights to slow down big reactors and companies needing to take loans, china is somewhat communist and does things fast so for them large reactors are cheaper. In the west though SMR's may be more suitable.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 06:46:51 UTC No. 16498961
>>16498516
Yeah those exist, look up kilopower project, NASA built & tested out a reactor for it somewhat recently.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 15:34:01 UTC No. 16499277
>>16497681
Why would SMRs be significantly faster to build? A small reactor has the same complexity as a large reactor. The main problem is getting the details right, not the amount of concrete involved.
China's ACP100 SMR (125MWe) will take 5 years to build if all goes well. China's recently grid-connected CAP1400 (1500MWe) took 5 years to build. Both of these were FOAK builds.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 16:08:08 UTC No. 16499303
>>16499277
The Chinese also estimate that the recently approved HTR-PM600S at Xuwei NPP will take about 5 years to build. That's despite it being essentially three HTR-PM200s (which has already been built) built next to each other.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 23:17:28 UTC No. 16499685
>>16499277
Quality control is easier since the parts can be built in a factory where the environment is controlled and the construction on-site is smaller and easier to manage. The first one took the same time to build as the big reactor, but subsequent ones now benefit from an existing nuclear reactor factory stocked with employees who know what they are doing. Big reactors don't get that benefit as much since a larger fraction of the total work done is at a new site with possibly a new crew.
Anonymous at Sun, 1 Dec 2024 23:25:20 UTC No. 16499694
>>16499685
forgot to mention, I think the difference in productivity will be more pronounced in the west where factory work tends to be a lot less fucked than conventional construction work. In china they seem good at both so they might not need it.
Anonymous at Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:56:56 UTC No. 16499761
>>16497536
Imagine retarded boomers and niggers accessing micro-chernobyls
what could possibly go wrong?
Anonymous at Tue, 3 Dec 2024 13:36:40 UTC No. 16501151
>>16499685
>Quality control is easier since the parts can be built in a factory where the environment is controlled and the construction on-site is smaller and easier to manage.
That's only true for the assembly of the primary circuit. Assembling the primary circuit is only a small part of the reactor construction cost. Most of the cost is the heavy forgings, the balance of plant, the civil works, etc.
A significant problem at Vogtle was that workers failed to build concrete and rebar to the highly demanding spec, requiring retroactive modifications or licence amendments.
Also, the small power reactors that are actually getting built in the west are not "true" SMRs in the sense that the steam generator and reactor integrated into one module like in the ACP100 or the RITM-200. TerraPower's Natrium is not a not "true" SMRs in that sense. The BWRX-300 is not much different from the ESBWR in terms of circuit integration as far as I can tell.
>The first one took the same time to build as the big reactor, but subsequent ones now benefit from an existing nuclear reactor factory stocked with employees who know what they are doing.
That's true for both the small (ACP100) and the big (CAP1400) reactor. Both are first-time builds of that particular model. Both are modular designs, although it's only in the ACP100 that the primary circuit is a single module.
Also
>>16499303
>Big reactors don't get that benefit as much since a larger fraction of the total work done is at a new site with possibly a new crew.
The opposite is true, from what I've heard. When viewed on a per watt basis, the civil works became a larger fraction of cost of construction when you build small reactors.
Anonymous at Tue, 3 Dec 2024 13:44:59 UTC No. 16501156
>>16501151
ACP100 and HPR1000 construction. The ACP100 seems to involve a lot more than 1/10 of the construction work of an HPR1000, even though it only has 1/10 of the power output.
Anonymous at Tue, 3 Dec 2024 14:55:06 UTC No. 16501195
>Instead of large, highly controlled reactors that can be rigorously monitored and regulated, lets just scatter nuclear material uniformly everywhere, where they will be impossible to track, monitor, and regulate
Only people who want small reactors are terrorists and accelerationists.
Anonymous at Tue, 3 Dec 2024 20:57:20 UTC No. 16501470
>>16501195
SMRs are usually intended to be built several in one place, especially by the "SMRs will replace large reactors" crowd. Most of America's current NPPs only have one reactor anyway.
Anonymous at Wed, 4 Dec 2024 19:11:30 UTC No. 16502489
>>16498893
Why hasn't there yet been a reactor larger than the EPR's 1.7 GW?
Anonymous at Wed, 4 Dec 2024 21:42:39 UTC No. 16502727
>>16502489
Good times made weak men. We live in an age of cowards.
Anonymous at Thu, 5 Dec 2024 06:46:20 UTC No. 16503313
>>16497536
fine for space travel/stations
kinda useless otherwise
Anonymous at Thu, 5 Dec 2024 07:10:34 UTC No. 16503326
>>16503313
How are you going to remove heat from the coolant for a nuclear reactor on a space station? There's only so much heat that can be radiated.
Anonymous at Fri, 6 Dec 2024 14:54:06 UTC No. 16504827
>>16502489
The RBMKP-2400 was cancelled for obvious reasons
Anonymous at Fri, 6 Dec 2024 15:15:31 UTC No. 16504847
>>16497536
Previous research is pretty disappointing. I also kinda don't see the point. Aren't big, centralized structures always more efficient?
Anonymous at Fri, 6 Dec 2024 15:26:42 UTC No. 16504859
>>16497536
Those won't be useful
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 06:50:48 UTC No. 16506461
>>16501151
fair enough, i do think the bigger advantage is in financing rather than construction
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 06:51:58 UTC No. 16506464
>>16503326
big radiators
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 07:10:19 UTC No. 16506473
>>16506416
practically no, but if the aircraft were really really big maybe the weight of the reactors shielding and containment could be low enough compared to power output due to the sheer volume of it all
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 14:53:07 UTC No. 16506685
>>16497601
>people thought you would have nuclear powered home units or even nuclear powered cars and trains.
Small closed loop reactors ardy exist but they didn't want you to have some.
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 15:08:02 UTC No. 16506697
>>16497681
You people seem to miss the obvious. SMR are for SHTF. If the grid gets its shit gets busted in fr fr no cap so bad at least you have local SMR to provide power. Whats it like to walk around in such oblivion?
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 16:38:42 UTC No. 16506813
>>16504847
>Aren't big, centralized structures always more efficient?
If that were true, the Soviet Union would be a paragon of efficiency.
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 16:44:00 UTC No. 16506817
Chinese reactors are cheap and quick to build because their nuclear energy agency is forbidden from issuing stop-work orders if/when issues are reported (hint: they're not reported very often).
In the West, construction delays due to stop-work orders, for various faults, are the #1 cause of cost overruns.
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 16:52:24 UTC No. 16506834
>>16497536
Nuclear powered space probes now
>inv4 rtgs
Not the same and you know it
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 17:15:16 UTC No. 16506861
>>16498557
The Pinto attempted reactor levels of heat.
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Dec 2024 17:27:40 UTC No. 16506877
>>16506813
This is about science and technology. If you want to discuss politics, might I recommend >>>/pol/
Anonymous at Mon, 9 Dec 2024 22:16:57 UTC No. 16508158
>>16498557
>Of course now we'd never allow
>we
the kikes
Anonymous at Tue, 10 Dec 2024 02:24:23 UTC No. 16508345
>>16508158
i doubt that biological shielding for the reactor could even fit in a car like that.