3 ms·

One common complaint is that every plant is a special snowflake that is validated, qualified and certified from scratch. Building more at once as a single proje

by glogla 6y ago

One common complaint is that every plant is a special snowflake that is validated, qualified and certified from scratch. Building more at once as a single project using a single plan could bring a lot of efficiency in the process. I think that was the promise of Small Modular Reactors - you certify reactor by itself, making the plant certification much easier and faster. I'm not sure that materialised, though.

airhead969 6y ago
SMRs like SSR heatpipes are interesting. The issues of decentralization of controlled nuclear sites are many. It's better to have many SMRs in one location for safety, security, and backbench of resources and talent for engineering and operations. Simply, it scales better. Giving every Tom, Jane, and Sally corporation or town an SMR is an absolutely terrible idea.
- glogla 6y ago
  Oh sure, I understood the effort to make it easier to "plop down" bunch large plants at once, not hundreds of small ones - though those are kind of interesting in isolated locations. The other thing is old Soviet idea of using small nuclear reactors for heating - put small reactor to every town and run central heating to the housing estates, meaning you get to use close to 100 % of the heat output of the reactor, instead of the ~ 30 % the turbines give you in electricity. Of course, if things go wrong, you have very efficient radioactivity delivery mechanism to every home. And outside of very cold climates it might be actually less efficient than a modern heat pump, even accounting for the heat conversion.
  - airhead969 6y ago
    For local heating, ground source heat pumps are often a good idea. Also, solar thermal energy storage is an idea, as well as the potential of solar PV hot working fluid cogen. Stanford's SESI is interesting, but it would be awesome if solar, wind, or fusion could take the places of fission and methane in cogen applications.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
I really don't understand that special snowflake thing. From time to time I ride my bicycle along the levees of the Elbe river from Hamburg to Brunsbüttel. There are two NPP's on the way(now shut down, or in the process of being so. One on the other side of the river, Stade already is.). Anyways, one called 'Brokdorf' irritated me. Why? Because it looks exactly like that thing in Iran called 'Busher' which I've seen in the media! Why is that? Because Siemens built it there in license from whomever. Only the painting of the heavy lift shaft on the side of the reactor is different. While there may be many differences in the details of the implementation inside I feel this special snowflake thing is an unnecessary complication. Because viewed from afar there are maybe two to three dozen common types cookie cutted all over the world. Should be possible for the insides also. Just saying.

by glogla 6y ago

airhead969 6y ago

SMRs like SSR heatpipes are interesting. The issues of decentralization of controlled nuclear sites are many. It's better to have many SMRs in one location for safety, security, and backbench of resources and talent for engineering and operations. Simply, it scales better. Giving every Tom, Jane, and Sally corporation or town an SMR is an absolutely terrible idea.

glogla 6y ago
Oh sure, I understood the effort to make it easier to "plop down" bunch large plants at once, not hundreds of small ones - though those are kind of interesting in isolated locations. The other thing is old Soviet idea of using small nuclear reactors for heating - put small reactor to every town and run central heating to the housing estates, meaning you get to use close to 100 % of the heat output of the reactor, instead of the ~ 30 % the turbines give you in electricity. Of course, if things go wrong, you have very efficient radioactivity delivery mechanism to every home. And outside of very cold climates it might be actually less efficient than a modern heat pump, even accounting for the heat conversion.
- airhead969 6y ago
  For local heating, ground source heat pumps are often a good idea. Also, solar thermal energy storage is an idea, as well as the potential of solar PV hot working fluid cogen. Stanford's SESI is interesting, but it would be awesome if solar, wind, or fusion could take the places of fission and methane in cogen applications.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

I really don't understand that special snowflake thing. From time to time I ride my bicycle along the levees of the Elbe river from Hamburg to Brunsbüttel. There are two NPP's on the way(now shut down, or in the process of being so. One on the other side of the river, Stade already is.). Anyways, one called 'Brokdorf' irritated me. Why? Because it looks exactly like that thing in Iran called 'Busher' which I've seen in the media! Why is that? Because Siemens built it there in license from whomever. Only the painting of the heavy lift shaft on the side of the reactor is different. While there may be many differences in the details of the implementation inside I feel this special snowflake thing is an unnecessary complication. Because viewed from afar there are maybe two to three dozen common types cookie cutted all over the world. Should be possible for the insides also. Just saying.