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Although I'm not a big nuclear power fan for various reasons, I'm really happy to see someone approaching it with an eye to realistic safety, modern economics,

by beat 7y ago

Although I'm not a big nuclear power fan for various reasons, I'm really happy to see someone approaching it with an eye to realistic safety, modern economics, and compatibility with a renewable-based grid. It'll be interesting to see if this can compete financially with batteries.

sandworm101 7y ago
>> ... if this can compete financially with batteries. I don't think there will be competition. With storage costs dropping I don't see why nuclear plants would be any different than solar or wind. If solar+wind can cover current demands, why turn down the reactors? Why not keep them running and charge up some battery capacity for the day that solar+wind isn't enough? The ideal grid would have all energy sources running constantly at their most efficient, usually 100% rated production, and use batteries to smooth out the load. The reactors wouldn't need to throttle. All that entropy would be pushed to the batteries.
- beat 7y ago
  It depends in part on the cost/duration required to scale reactor power up and down. It's apparently being marketed (at least per reading of this article) as a supplement for when the solar/wind grid is inadequate. That puts it in competition with cached storage (batteries etc), and gas-fired peaker plants as well. And there's a lot of uncertainty here in the market, for multibillion dollar capital investments on low-margin regulated utilities. So it'll be interesting to see what the niche is. That said, it's still a damn sight better than the usual rounds of how super-expensive old-style light water plants are just fine, or how magic thorium breeders will save us even though no one has built one for 50 years, or other flavors of condescension at the naive treehuggers who are going to ruin everything with their technophobia.
sharcerer 7y ago
May I ask why you aren't a fan?
- beat 7y ago
  A number of reasons, but for starters, consider inequality. Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? They are expensive, require tremendous infrastructure, and mean deploying fissionable materials to countries that maybe shouldn't have them. So it's solving a First World problem, and exacerbating the divide between rich and poor.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    > Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? This is an excellent case for these lighter reactors, but perhaps more so for molten salt / Thorium reactors. Where this reactor has smaller amounts of radioactive material and Thorium has little use in weapons.
    - beat 7y ago
      I have a market argument against thorium reactors - basically, if they were as awesome as their proponents argue, then someone would have built one by now, for commercial purposes. But there hasn't ever been a commercial thorium reactor, and there hasn't been a serious build since the 1960s. Fifty years, and a lot of countries that aren't full of namby-pamby treehuggers to blame for it. Even India, which is sitting on like a third of the world's thorium reserves, doesn't build them. This makes me rather suspect that thorium isn't nearly as awesome as its proponents think it is.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    Wouldn't that reason cover basically every infrastructure, economic and legal improvement you could possibly think of in all areas, as long as they are reasonably hard to do for a troubled country? Even a basic thing like a Rule of Law that we take for granted hugely increases inequality between countries that have it and those that don't. Solution to that does not involve encouraging warlords to move into Manhattan. If a country can't afford / can't be trusted with energy generation technology, and you care, help fix the underlaying reasons.
- 7y ago

by beat 7y ago

sandworm101 7y ago

>> ... if this can compete financially with batteries. I don't think there will be competition. With storage costs dropping I don't see why nuclear plants would be any different than solar or wind. If solar+wind can cover current demands, why turn down the reactors? Why not keep them running and charge up some battery capacity for the day that solar+wind isn't enough? The ideal grid would have all energy sources running constantly at their most efficient, usually 100% rated production, and use batteries to smooth out the load. The reactors wouldn't need to throttle. All that entropy would be pushed to the batteries.

beat 7y ago
It depends in part on the cost/duration required to scale reactor power up and down. It's apparently being marketed (at least per reading of this article) as a supplement for when the solar/wind grid is inadequate. That puts it in competition with cached storage (batteries etc), and gas-fired peaker plants as well. And there's a lot of uncertainty here in the market, for multibillion dollar capital investments on low-margin regulated utilities. So it'll be interesting to see what the niche is. That said, it's still a damn sight better than the usual rounds of how super-expensive old-style light water plants are just fine, or how magic thorium breeders will save us even though no one has built one for 50 years, or other flavors of condescension at the naive treehuggers who are going to ruin everything with their technophobia.

sharcerer 7y ago

May I ask why you aren't a fan?

beat 7y ago
A number of reasons, but for starters, consider inequality. Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? They are expensive, require tremendous infrastructure, and mean deploying fissionable materials to countries that maybe shouldn't have them. So it's solving a First World problem, and exacerbating the divide between rich and poor.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  > Are we going to give Yemen a nuclear power plant? Somalia? Can Bolivia afford one? This is an excellent case for these lighter reactors, but perhaps more so for molten salt / Thorium reactors. Where this reactor has smaller amounts of radioactive material and Thorium has little use in weapons.
  - beat 7y ago
    I have a market argument against thorium reactors - basically, if they were as awesome as their proponents argue, then someone would have built one by now, for commercial purposes. But there hasn't ever been a commercial thorium reactor, and there hasn't been a serious build since the 1960s. Fifty years, and a lot of countries that aren't full of namby-pamby treehuggers to blame for it. Even India, which is sitting on like a third of the world's thorium reserves, doesn't build them. This makes me rather suspect that thorium isn't nearly as awesome as its proponents think it is.
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago
  Wouldn't that reason cover basically every infrastructure, economic and legal improvement you could possibly think of in all areas, as long as they are reasonably hard to do for a troubled country? Even a basic thing like a Rule of Law that we take for granted hugely increases inequality between countries that have it and those that don't. Solution to that does not involve encouraging warlords to move into Manhattan. If a country can't afford / can't be trusted with energy generation technology, and you care, help fix the underlaying reasons.
7y ago