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The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acc

The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Which is why commercial reactors cannot exist. The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation. No, it isn't, since we also have many, many civilian reactors that have operated for decades safely. What's more, even if we take into account all of the harm done by all the nuclear accidents that have ever happened, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the harm done by nuclear energy per unit of energy generated is still orders of magnitude less than the harm done by fossil fuel energy per unit of energy generated. And that is only actual harm that has already occurred--it doesn't take into account potential future harms (such as climate change--I personally don't think that's a very significant component of the harm done by fossil fuels, but I'm not arguing that point here, because what I've said is true even if any such potential harm is ignored--any potential future harm to the climate from fossil fuels just makes them look even worse than they already do). The price premium paid by the military for nuclear power is for operational flexibility, not safe operation. The Navy's capital ships need to be able to steam anywhere in the world without having to worry about fuel. The Navy's submarines need to be able to operate submerged and undetectable for months at a time. Nuclear power is a necessary enabler for those operational capabilities, so the Navy simply can't tolerate any deviation from proper procedures since it would jeopardize those capabilities. The fact that this approach also leads to much increased reactor safety is a benefit, to be sure (and in the early days of Navy nuclear power, when much less was known about reactor safety than is known now, this benefit was indeed a key selling point for allowing the Navy to operate nuclear ships and subs), but it's not the primary purpose. If the greatly increased operational capability had not been there, the Navy wouldn't have bothered with nuclear power in the first place.
catalogia 7y ago
I suspect size requirements have relatively much more influence over the design and construction of naval reactors.
- pdonis 7y ago
  Size and the need to operate reliably at widely varying power levels. A reactor that's powering a ship has to be able to go from, say, 10% power to 100% power rapidly if the captain wants to go from ahead slow to flank speed, and also the reverse (the reverse case, 100% to 10% rapidly, is actually even more challenging). A civilian reactor has much less demanding requirements for changing power levels.

The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Which is why commercial reactors cannot exist. The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation.

pdonis 7y ago
> The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation. No, it isn't, since we also have many, many civilian reactors that have operated for decades safely. What's more, even if we take into account all of the harm done by all the nuclear accidents that have ever happened, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the harm done by nuclear energy per unit of energy generated is still orders of magnitude less than the harm done by fossil fuel energy per unit of energy generated. And that is only actual harm that has already occurred--it doesn't take into account potential future harms (such as climate change--I personally don't think that's a very significant component of the harm done by fossil fuels, but I'm not arguing that point here, because what I've said is true even if any such potential harm is ignored--any potential future harm to the climate from fossil fuels just makes them look even worse than they already do). The price premium paid by the military for nuclear power is for operational flexibility, not safe operation. The Navy's capital ships need to be able to steam anywhere in the world without having to worry about fuel. The Navy's submarines need to be able to operate submerged and undetectable for months at a time. Nuclear power is a necessary enabler for those operational capabilities, so the Navy simply can't tolerate any deviation from proper procedures since it would jeopardize those capabilities. The fact that this approach also leads to much increased reactor safety is a benefit, to be sure (and in the early days of Navy nuclear power, when much less was known about reactor safety than is known now, this benefit was indeed a key selling point for allowing the Navy to operate nuclear ships and subs), but it's not the primary purpose. If the greatly increased operational capability had not been there, the Navy wouldn't have bothered with nuclear power in the first place.

catalogia 7y ago

I suspect size requirements have relatively much more influence over the design and construction of naval reactors.

pdonis 7y ago
Size and the need to operate reliably at widely varying power levels. A reactor that's powering a ship has to be able to go from, say, 10% power to 100% power rapidly if the captain wants to go from ahead slow to flank speed, and also the reverse (the reverse case, 100% to 10% rapidly, is actually even more challenging). A civilian reactor has much less demanding requirements for changing power levels.