3D-printed nuclear reactor module

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22

It’s not always possible.

I would cite Singapore as an example. Wind and tidal power won’t work there. There is no physical space for enough solar. There is no suitable river for hydroelectric. The subterranean features that are exploited by current geothermal systems don’t exist in the region. They are currently deploying floating solar panels on the ocean, and there isn’t much of that left in that region due to the politics of how oceans are “managed”. (EDIT they are waiting a new generation of smaller, safer reactors that use a different tech, i don’t remember the name, sodium maybe)

In terms of danger, I think fossil fuel pollution has hurt more people and done more damage to the planet than nuclear. I see like a car vs an aeroplane accient. Aircraft are actually much safer, but when they do crash, it’s newsworthy and people go crazy. In reality, those people are more likely to be hurt by a car.

23

Generally referred to as a SMR. (Small modular reactor). You are getting sodium out of it because a lot of them are using a liquid salt technology.

24

This is very well said. The biggest impact I have seen from the nuclear plants around me is temperature impact on the waterways and the constant need to manage that due to the high cost of running the cooling towers or derating the plant. The common impact I have seen from coal fire plants is driving into the employee parking and seeing every single cars paint ruined. Natural gas plants at least are less impactful locally but still release plenty of CO2.

We do need to solve long term storage, but the French feeder reactors is one way to help mitigate some of it.

25

And the experiments with using SMRs to consume waste is promising.

26

There was talk of using naval (maritime) reactors for bit until they figured out that either (a) designs like the French ones are more complex and harder to maintain versions of civilian reactors, or (b) designs like the US and UK ones require weapons grade (enriched) fuel.

27

Amazing technology, you should look into what a company called “Deep Fission” is doing.

They are working on a system to bury a SMR a mile below the surface. 50 megawatt output, 6 month installs, 15 year fuel life, and its virtually harmless because of how deep it is buried. I see no evil.

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28

I am more familiar with the US designs and the Russian (soviet) designs for naval reactors. Both similar designs (I suspect there was some theft). The Russians still have 5 or so nuclear powered ice breakers that have been going since the 70s.

Those damn commies had some amazing engineering.

Anyway, I am getting sidetracked.

Requiring HEU is a big issue. The US doesnt even refine it anymore. They have been working off of a stockpile from the cold war.

Even the French design needed a higher enrichment rate.

Not having HEU is purely a political move, although it makes sense. Its just sad because it is the superior fuel.

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29

That’s kinda a recent and American thing, real countries fund their nuclear power programs safety critical operations from the state, and have functional regulators, you don’t need to worry about them skipping safety because they need to pinch pennies. But in america you do

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30

when I lived near Turkey Point (early 70’s) there was a problem with the cooling water out flow warming up the bay and making it muddy and curtailing some of the sea life there. Not sure if it was ever really addressed. My pompus opinion, nothing is without impact, especially after a certain point (including water and oxygen) and all peoples opinions are valid and welcome. In my opinion there are very few creatures on this planet that have the ability to do major impact on the environment (besides wipeing out their food source) around them. Beavers and humans come to mind. Sometimes it does seem like the humans give more thought toward their 60 inch TV’s then their own survival and the world around them. Any non petroleum/coal energy source negates those particular negative impacts. It doesn’t mean they don’t have their own.

31

I’ll first state that this should never be an OR question, it needs to be an AND question. Nuclear isn’t meant to displace wind and solar, it’s meat to displace coal and gas, and compliment wind and solar.

…and you answered your question about why do it at all. Energy concentration. The amount of energy that can be drawn from a relatively small facility, at any time day or night regardless of wind, tide, etc. is simply without equal, and it’s not even close.

It’s no different than air travel. Why fly, when decompression, engine blade out, pilot error, etc. can all be avoided by walking?

Nuclear power has risks, and when things go wrong they can go quite wrong. The reality of coal and gas, however, is even when they’re operating exactly as intended, they are causing more harm over their entire operation than a “typical” nuclear accident, you just don’t see it because it’s spread out over the life of a plant.

If radiation is your concern, a coal plant operating perfectly normally will release vastly more radioactivity into the atmosphere than the Three Mile Island accident released.

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32

Let’s simmer down the political jabs, because the last time I checked the two worst disasters were in countries not named America. One was state funded on everything and the other the biggest issue was the culture not penny pinching.

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33

Yes, that was likely prior to the heavy regulation around the impact of rising temperatures. The plants I have worked in have sensors all over the place and during certain weather conditions you’ll have requirements of turning down the reactor or operating more cooling. This oddly is not just during a heatwave, a drought can cause it, or even extreme cold. The entire focus is on the delta from before and after the plant in addition to upper limits. You are correct though, there is impact. Just the impact from the alternatives that can generate the volume of baseline power needed is very widespread and more immediate.

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34

The Enrico Fermi liquid metal (sodium) fast breeder reactor came extremely close to a Chernobyl-like outcome. It was an early and new design that was being put into service because the hazards were glossed over. There were build defects and the workers organized to fight just turning it on because they had seen the same rebar used over and over for inspections then moved to new locations for inspections, etc. It was pretty egregious but the contractors were making bank.

Anyway, as they were bringing it up the inadequately instrumented core started melting down and they realized it could explode in a low yield explosion similar in that respect to Chernobyl. Different mechanism but similar possible outcomes. As luck would have it, during the time when it was thought there was danger it might explode there was a temperature inversion and light rain that would have dumped the fallout on Detroit and Windsor and in a plume to the northeast.

Enrico Fermi almost was our own Chernobyl and few know about it because they got very lucky and never hit critical mass in the molten blob at the bottom of the reactor.

But if you look at all the things that contributed to the almost disaster greed played a part, so did ignorance, and so did hubris. We got lucky.

And as long as there are mechanisms that allow the bad actions and bad decisions in the process of building nuclear reactors we are likely in a lot more danger than many realize.

And side note - the insurance industry took note of the astronomical losses they would have faced had Detroit and Windsor both been rendered uninhabitable and got it written into laws that their liability is limited in a nuclear disaster. There’s fine print in both my home and auto insurance that exempts liability in the event of a nuclear disaster. Some nuke plant pops its cork upwind of me and I (and everyone else affected) will be left holding the bag.

People assume it’s all safe just because we haven’t had our own Chernobyl. The way Chernobyl failed is unique to the RBMK design as it was then but with Fukushima those are two huge disasters. The only reason Fukushima wasn’t much worse was the offshore winds took most of the fallout out over the Pacific. Had the weather been different, a lot of Japan could have been made uninhabitable too instead of a small part of it.

It’s just so dangerous my opinion is that there shouldn’t be any compromises in design, location, building, or operation. Unfortunately, people being people means there will always be someone trying to make more profit or skip a step and the consequences can be huge.

And with the ability to install solar and wind generation with a phone call that carries no risk of nuclear contamination, why not just do that?

35

All your points are good ones. I’m not arguing against nuclear power. Realities are realities. What I’m arguing against is a cavalier approach to nuclear power. The risks can be huge with the ability to render large swaths of land uninhabitable, causing birth defects and cancers, etc.

And in both Chernobyl and Fukushima weren’t supposed to fail the ways they failed. That reveals a big disconnect in what the public is told vs reality - whether it’s something just overlooked or specific design choices.

But TMI was another where the full impact isn’t generally known. When TMI was venting radioactive gas out of the containment building, children were all standing outside nearby waiting for school busses. TMI was located right in the middle of town. Subsequent investigations have found gene mutations linked to radiation exposures and increased thyroid cancers in those nearby and especially those who were outside when the venting was done.

The official narratives on these accidents is that few are exposed, few have issues, etc. The realities tend to be different and it can take years for consequences to be fully known.

36

I’m sorry, I didn’t think you cared.

From my knowledge, the claim that Enrico Fermi could have had a “chernobyl-like outcome” is not based in truth.

Two very different types of reactors. What hurt Chernobyl the most was not the radiation, but the explosion that took out the shielding and caused the initial spread. Fermi was a low pressure reactor, while Chernobyl was a high pressure reactor. Nuclear physics would say it is impossible.

Solar and wind are not as clean as you think they are and frankly they are not great sources of power.

I have a small solar array set up at my rural property. It works fantastic about 40 percent of the year. But I still need the Diesel generator to supplement it.

You need energy density to make the power grid reliable. Solar and Wind simply do not give that to us. It is better to look at nuclear as a replacement for Coal and Gas. We always need to have multiple sources of power.

You need to balance everything, Nuclear has its risks and potential damage, but so does solar.

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37

I completely agree. We’re seeing the consequences of all that carbon in the atmosphere now come home to roost.

But something else I keep hearing is people assuming something has to be done regardless of the consequences. “We have to do this.” and “We have to do that.” The reality is we actually don’t. We are bringing down civilization because “we have to do A or B”.

38

I did some digging because it had been a while since I read about Fermi. The consensus now is that the accident didn’t get that close to explosion but that it could have been had things gone slightly different. Wikipedia has a good writeup.

But patting ourselves on the back for that isn’t really an accomplishment. There was a lot still wrong about Fermi including a thing called a Doppler coefficient that made the reactor design unstable and led to the research reactor it was based on melting down in seconds when it went unstable and it’s suspected to have been a factor in Fermi’s meltdown. I hadn’t heard about it before but apparently two nuclear scientists had a bit of a row over the instability and why it was trouble. But it is feeling like “Ok, but besides Chernobyl and besides Fukushima nuclear power is totally safe and there’s been no problems at all!”

39

I still fly consisistenly despite AA191 and TWA800

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40

This made me chuckle a little, not at you but just the whole concept of Chernobyl having “shielding”. They used a corrugated metal shed as containment (The shielding was there though). I embellish of course, but for a “state run/funded” system they still pinched quite a few pennies and it was pure disbelief to the workers that it was possible. I’ve met and talked with workers from Chernobyl when they came in to one of our plants to help give us lessons on the systemic failures they had. Still didn’t want them near the control room of course but even 10 years after the disaster they still had quite a bit of arrogance around the RBMK vs our PWRs

I haven’t looked into the SMR you mentioned but I do plan to do some reading. One thing came to mind though, if we’re going to burry stuff a mile deep wouldn’t it be better to use geothermal? Of course there are risks with that as well but I would think you need seismically stable and the right conditions for either system.

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41

I’m a bit like you - where I live, there is one energy utility company, and it’s run by a government corporation, and in my opinion basic public utilities such as water and energy should only ever be that.

This video is a really good look at what a for profit run nuclear facility looks like. I come from an engineering and process control world, and I’ve got to say their processes look solid. People may say they’re putting on a show for the cameras, I say BS, that degree of familiarity in the safety related things we see only comes from doing it all day, every day.

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