6 ms·

Canada begins Small Modular Reactor strategy roadmap

54 points by Caveman_Coder 9y ago

tonteldoos 9y ago
This seems interesting, but what technology are they planning on using, and how does it compare with other projects around the world? This comes up every now and again it seems, and then dies away again (eg PBMR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor).
bonesss 9y ago
This is highly interesting, and long overdue. Canada has a lot of "oil sands" that would benefit greatly from atomic process heat, reducing carbon footprint, turning feedstock losses into salable product, and increasing production rates. Canadas mineral resources, engineering capabilities, and regulatory mindset are highly favorable to becoming a technological leader in an important sector.
- bayesian_horse 9y ago
  Not to mention a lot of empty land where there is nobody to complain about radiation, accidents or nuclear waste.
bayesian_horse 9y ago
At least with the current technology there are too many downsides to nuclear power. The nuclear waste issue still hasn't been solved, and nuclear accidents do happen, apparently despite all the security measures. Small reactors, maybe even mobile, can only make this worse.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  So you do prefer a big reactor blowing up, instead of a small one? No I know, you fear, that this increases the number of reactors dramatically and therefore the likely hood and number of accidents.. but don't you think nuclear is a better alternative to coal etc. while we are switching to regenerative energy's? Because we still need at least backup power plants for a while, due to the non constant nature of wind and sun.
  - bayesian_horse 9y ago
    Yes, I actually prefer to keep the nuclear stuff in a limited number of places. That makes supervision a lot easier, and stealing nuclear material a lot harder. Much more, I prefer not adding to the nuclear waste we already don't know how to deal with. Fossil energy is preferable to nuclear, and the volatility of wind or solar energy is much less of a problem than people think. Especially with newer technologies to even out the supply.
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      "we already don't know how to deal with" Yes we do. We store it, until we can use it. And even if we can never use it, which is very unlikely, in the core of the earth is already much, much more radioactive material, so adding a tiny bit to that, is not a big problem "as people think". And as far as I know, there is a great deal of work to be done to upgrade the power grid, for 100% wind/solar. And much more needed storage capacity, than we currently have. And storing electricity is expensive, no matter how we do it. And unless there is really abundance of solar energy from the deserts for example, this is a real problem, since we still live in a money based economy, last time I checked. And even if we have abundance of solar desert power ... that makes you also very dependent on it, and vulnerable to a attack on those lines for example, which is why I see small nuclear reactors even in that scenario helpful, for emergency backup.
      - bayesian_horse 9y ago
        And yet, solar and wind energy is on the rise, nuclear isn't. The radioactive earth core isn't in my backyard, luckily. With nuclear waste, however, it is often stored close to the reactors, with obvious problems, of which limited space isn't the only one. Somehow a large number of scientists do believe that nuclear waste storage is a really tough problem, and I haven't yet heard from a reliable source that it isn't. Storage facilities have been leaking and collapsing all the time.
- detritus 9y ago
  I'll readily admit I'm no nuclear physicist, but even I'm not so ignorant as to smear negative broadbrush appraisals reactionarily simply because I read 'teh nukular' in an article. In fact, small format nuclear offers a decent chance at bridging the (frankly archaic in my opinion) second and third generation reactors with fourth generation and beyond. Small format allows for quicker iteration and greater distribution of development due to lower costs (witness start-ups across North America, Europe and China making progress that might make ITER or the EDF blush in a few years). Small format encourages systems that actually use waste of previous generations reactors, thereby alleviating the single-biggest worry about 'nukular' beyond proliferation.. which in itself is physically and technically stymied by advanced techs.
  - bayesian_horse 9y ago
    As I said, new technologies might change that assessment, but these technologies are not even on the horizon yet. The problem with nuclear waste, however, very much exists already. And there is no mention that these SMR create less nuclear waste or that they can't be turned into weapons grade material. Certainly even the fissile material in an SMR would be enough for a dirty bomb out of hell. Let alone the material you can steal from a dozen reactors in a sparsely populated area, none of which will have significant security.
    - rubber_duck 9y ago
      The ammount of effort required to steal fissile material from multiple reactors, without anyone figuring it out long enough to detonate and being caught, just to make a dirty bomb ? With what estimated impact ?
      - bayesian_horse 9y ago
        Good luck trying to track down the thieves if they raid a couple of reactor sites and just disappear. Doubly so if it's somewhere in the wilderness. I don't even think they need to raid more than one SMR to create a pretty nasty dirty bomb... Estimated impact varies on how much material is in an SMR and how easy it is to take out. And a raid isn't even technically necessary if an SMR gets into the wrong hands in the first place.
- cperciva 9y ago
  Nuclear accidents happen, yes... at power plants with designs which were outlawed on safety grounds 40 years ago. If you want to prevent nuclear accidents, you should be supporting attempts to build new reactors, because that's the fastest route to getting the old ones decommissioned.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    Exactly. It's an almost catch-22 situation: old reactors are unsafe, so people protest building new ones, which would make the old ones obsolete and make the whole technology safer.
    - Zigurd 9y ago
      Not really a catch-22: The chicken was supposedly declared safe before it laid those radioactive eggs. And if the designs and siting were subsequently found to be unsafe, why are those reactors re-certified as safe? The nuclear power industry has only itself to blame for costs and safety.
      - gambiting 9y ago
        Because the identified issues have been rectified - but the fixes add to the complexity and you are always relying on a fix to make it safe - while newer designs(pebble bed reactors) are inherently safe.
        Zigurd 9y ago
        Re "Because the identified issues have been rectified" you mean like the containment buildings at Fuk that did not contain? And what, exactly, can one rectify about unsafe siting?
    - bayesian_horse 9y ago
      Protests don't really prohibit designing and prototyping safer reactors. And many of these designs seem to have a similar problem about nuclear waste. Again: Solve nuclear waste problem first, before creating ever more nuclear waste.
- def_true_false 9y ago
  AFAIK nuclear has a better track record than fossil fuels or even hydro, as far as accidents go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
  - bayesian_horse 9y ago
    The potential damage done by nuclear accidents that haven't happened yet, is, however, bigger than anything remotely thinkable with fossil fuels. Even before enemy action is considered.
jfaucett 9y ago
What many people is this thread don't realize is that nuclear is by far the cleanest form of energy for the environment. It has no intermittancy problems like Wind and Solar. The process of building nuclear is extremely clean compared to building wind turbines and solar panels which devastate the environment due to the rare metals needed and production process. Its also vastly friendlier for humans and animals. The number of deaths due to meltdowns, and accidents in nuclear palls in comparison to all those occuring due to wind turbines and solar. If you're an environmentalist it behooves you to honestly look at the research and data that has accumulated over the past 40 years on this topic.
- lucidguppy 9y ago
  I find it hard to look at nuclear when much of what is limiting solar and wind is political. So far every nuclear accident we've seen are going to be around for forever timescales. The US could have been at the forefront of solar and wind power but it continually tries to push coal.
  - jfaucett 9y ago
    Please note though that the "forever" timescale becomes harmless for all intents and purposes relatively quickly. So IMHO and I don't really know the cause, this conception we have of nuclear is a really uninformed one. See: https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-nuclear-fallout-last https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-nuclear-fallout-last
    - amelius 9y ago
      See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16500964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16500964 "Today, the liveliness of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki serves as a reminder not only of the human ability to regenerate, but also of the extent to which fear and misinformation can lead to incorrect expectations. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many thought that any city targeted by an atomic weapon would become a nuclear wasteland. While the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombings was horrendous and nightmarish, with innumerable casualties, the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not allow their cities to become the sort of wasteland that some thought was inevitable. This experience of can serve as lesson in the present when much of the public and even some governments have reacted radically to the accident in Fukushima--in the midst of tragedy, there remains hope for the future."
johan_larson 9y ago
They "launched a process" to "prepare a roadmap" to "explore the potential" of something something. Such vigor. Much audacity. Wow.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
smoyer 9y ago
"Canada has launched a process to prepare a roadmap to explore the potential of on- and off-grid applications for small modular reactor (SMR) technology." I'm a fan of building more nuclear reactors but this tag-line doesn't give me much hope - in essence it's a "process to plan to explore the potential". There's not even a hint of experimental science much less development in that sentence (I hope these are the writers words and that Canada's plans are (or involve) a bit more concrete.
jrobn 9y ago
Too little to late. I hate to get political, but this is more of a political issue than a technical one. The earth is already on track for another massive extinction due to climate change caused by warming global temperatures and human consumption. Instead of worrying about a few radioactive waste sites we have instead created a global and spectacularly hard to fix problem. We put a man on the moon in less than a decade without any prior experience or technical know-how but we can’t figure out how to make safer nuclear reactors and install them? Bowl of shit.
woodandsteel 9y ago
I have a question. Let me start by saying I was opposed to nuclear for a long time, but more recently have become persuaded that we should be pursuing these new nuclear technologies. My question concerns China. I know it is busy building many conventional nuclear plants. But is it also working on new nuclear technologies?

54 points by Caveman_Coder 9y ago

This seems interesting, but what technology are they planning on using, and how does it compare with other projects around the world? This comes up every now and again it seems, and then dies away again (eg PBMR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_modular_reactor).

bonesss 9y ago

This is highly interesting, and long overdue. Canada has a lot of "oil sands" that would benefit greatly from atomic process heat, reducing carbon footprint, turning feedstock losses into salable product, and increasing production rates. Canadas mineral resources, engineering capabilities, and regulatory mindset are highly favorable to becoming a technological leader in an important sector.

bayesian_horse 9y ago
Not to mention a lot of empty land where there is nobody to complain about radiation, accidents or nuclear waste.

bayesian_horse 9y ago

At least with the current technology there are too many downsides to nuclear power. The nuclear waste issue still hasn't been solved, and nuclear accidents do happen, apparently despite all the security measures. Small reactors, maybe even mobile, can only make this worse.

hutzlibu 9y ago
So you do prefer a big reactor blowing up, instead of a small one? No I know, you fear, that this increases the number of reactors dramatically and therefore the likely hood and number of accidents.. but don't you think nuclear is a better alternative to coal etc. while we are switching to regenerative energy's? Because we still need at least backup power plants for a while, due to the non constant nature of wind and sun.
- bayesian_horse 9y ago
  Yes, I actually prefer to keep the nuclear stuff in a limited number of places. That makes supervision a lot easier, and stealing nuclear material a lot harder. Much more, I prefer not adding to the nuclear waste we already don't know how to deal with. Fossil energy is preferable to nuclear, and the volatility of wind or solar energy is much less of a problem than people think. Especially with newer technologies to even out the supply.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    "we already don't know how to deal with" Yes we do. We store it, until we can use it. And even if we can never use it, which is very unlikely, in the core of the earth is already much, much more radioactive material, so adding a tiny bit to that, is not a big problem "as people think". And as far as I know, there is a great deal of work to be done to upgrade the power grid, for 100% wind/solar. And much more needed storage capacity, than we currently have. And storing electricity is expensive, no matter how we do it. And unless there is really abundance of solar energy from the deserts for example, this is a real problem, since we still live in a money based economy, last time I checked. And even if we have abundance of solar desert power ... that makes you also very dependent on it, and vulnerable to a attack on those lines for example, which is why I see small nuclear reactors even in that scenario helpful, for emergency backup.
    - bayesian_horse 9y ago
      And yet, solar and wind energy is on the rise, nuclear isn't. The radioactive earth core isn't in my backyard, luckily. With nuclear waste, however, it is often stored close to the reactors, with obvious problems, of which limited space isn't the only one. Somehow a large number of scientists do believe that nuclear waste storage is a really tough problem, and I haven't yet heard from a reliable source that it isn't. Storage facilities have been leaking and collapsing all the time.
detritus 9y ago
I'll readily admit I'm no nuclear physicist, but even I'm not so ignorant as to smear negative broadbrush appraisals reactionarily simply because I read 'teh nukular' in an article. In fact, small format nuclear offers a decent chance at bridging the (frankly archaic in my opinion) second and third generation reactors with fourth generation and beyond. Small format allows for quicker iteration and greater distribution of development due to lower costs (witness start-ups across North America, Europe and China making progress that might make ITER or the EDF blush in a few years). Small format encourages systems that actually use waste of previous generations reactors, thereby alleviating the single-biggest worry about 'nukular' beyond proliferation.. which in itself is physically and technically stymied by advanced techs.
- bayesian_horse 9y ago
  As I said, new technologies might change that assessment, but these technologies are not even on the horizon yet. The problem with nuclear waste, however, very much exists already. And there is no mention that these SMR create less nuclear waste or that they can't be turned into weapons grade material. Certainly even the fissile material in an SMR would be enough for a dirty bomb out of hell. Let alone the material you can steal from a dozen reactors in a sparsely populated area, none of which will have significant security.
  - rubber_duck 9y ago
    The ammount of effort required to steal fissile material from multiple reactors, without anyone figuring it out long enough to detonate and being caught, just to make a dirty bomb ? With what estimated impact ?
    - bayesian_horse 9y ago
      Good luck trying to track down the thieves if they raid a couple of reactor sites and just disappear. Doubly so if it's somewhere in the wilderness. I don't even think they need to raid more than one SMR to create a pretty nasty dirty bomb... Estimated impact varies on how much material is in an SMR and how easy it is to take out. And a raid isn't even technically necessary if an SMR gets into the wrong hands in the first place.
cperciva 9y ago
Nuclear accidents happen, yes... at power plants with designs which were outlawed on safety grounds 40 years ago. If you want to prevent nuclear accidents, you should be supporting attempts to build new reactors, because that's the fastest route to getting the old ones decommissioned.
- gambiting 9y ago
  Exactly. It's an almost catch-22 situation: old reactors are unsafe, so people protest building new ones, which would make the old ones obsolete and make the whole technology safer.
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    Not really a catch-22: The chicken was supposedly declared safe before it laid those radioactive eggs. And if the designs and siting were subsequently found to be unsafe, why are those reactors re-certified as safe? The nuclear power industry has only itself to blame for costs and safety.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      Because the identified issues have been rectified - but the fixes add to the complexity and you are always relying on a fix to make it safe - while newer designs(pebble bed reactors) are inherently safe.
      - Zigurd 9y ago
        Re "Because the identified issues have been rectified" you mean like the containment buildings at Fuk that did not contain? And what, exactly, can one rectify about unsafe siting?
  - bayesian_horse 9y ago
    Protests don't really prohibit designing and prototyping safer reactors. And many of these designs seem to have a similar problem about nuclear waste. Again: Solve nuclear waste problem first, before creating ever more nuclear waste.
def_true_false 9y ago
AFAIK nuclear has a better track record than fossil fuels or even hydro, as far as accidents go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
- bayesian_horse 9y ago
  The potential damage done by nuclear accidents that haven't happened yet, is, however, bigger than anything remotely thinkable with fossil fuels. Even before enemy action is considered.

jfaucett 9y ago

What many people is this thread don't realize is that nuclear is by far the cleanest form of energy for the environment. It has no intermittancy problems like Wind and Solar. The process of building nuclear is extremely clean compared to building wind turbines and solar panels which devastate the environment due to the rare metals needed and production process. Its also vastly friendlier for humans and animals. The number of deaths due to meltdowns, and accidents in nuclear palls in comparison to all those occuring due to wind turbines and solar. If you're an environmentalist it behooves you to honestly look at the research and data that has accumulated over the past 40 years on this topic.

lucidguppy 9y ago
I find it hard to look at nuclear when much of what is limiting solar and wind is political. So far every nuclear accident we've seen are going to be around for forever timescales. The US could have been at the forefront of solar and wind power but it continually tries to push coal.
- jfaucett 9y ago
  Please note though that the "forever" timescale becomes harmless for all intents and purposes relatively quickly. So IMHO and I don't really know the cause, this conception we have of nuclear is a really uninformed one. See: https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-nuclear-fallout-last https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-nuclear-fallout-last
  - amelius 9y ago
    See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16500964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16500964 "Today, the liveliness of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki serves as a reminder not only of the human ability to regenerate, but also of the extent to which fear and misinformation can lead to incorrect expectations. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many thought that any city targeted by an atomic weapon would become a nuclear wasteland. While the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombings was horrendous and nightmarish, with innumerable casualties, the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not allow their cities to become the sort of wasteland that some thought was inevitable. This experience of can serve as lesson in the present when much of the public and even some governments have reacted radically to the accident in Fukushima--in the midst of tragedy, there remains hope for the future."

johan_larson 9y ago

They "launched a process" to "prepare a roadmap" to "explore the potential" of something something. Such vigor. Much audacity. Wow.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

smoyer 9y ago

"Canada has launched a process to prepare a roadmap to explore the potential of on- and off-grid applications for small modular reactor (SMR) technology." I'm a fan of building more nuclear reactors but this tag-line doesn't give me much hope - in essence it's a "process to plan to explore the potential". There's not even a hint of experimental science much less development in that sentence (I hope these are the writers words and that Canada's plans are (or involve) a bit more concrete.

jrobn 9y ago

Too little to late. I hate to get political, but this is more of a political issue than a technical one. The earth is already on track for another massive extinction due to climate change caused by warming global temperatures and human consumption. Instead of worrying about a few radioactive waste sites we have instead created a global and spectacularly hard to fix problem. We put a man on the moon in less than a decade without any prior experience or technical know-how but we can’t figure out how to make safer nuclear reactors and install them? Bowl of shit.

woodandsteel 9y ago

I have a question. Let me start by saying I was opposed to nuclear for a long time, but more recently have become persuaded that we should be pursuing these new nuclear technologies. My question concerns China. I know it is busy building many conventional nuclear plants. But is it also working on new nuclear technologies?