4 ms·

"1-20 megawatts of thermal energy" Large reactors are usually 4GW thermal power converting to 1 GW electric, so you're going to get, I don't know, 10%-25% elec

"1-20 megawatts of thermal energy" Large reactors are usually 4GW thermal power converting to 1 GW electric, so you're going to get, I don't know, 10%-25% electrical conversion efficiency out of this, so 0.1MW to 5MW of electrical power. On the plus side you can probably dual-use this to run communal home heating systems, maybe even hot water. It'd be great for cold-climate towns (or space-colony applications) provided you can get some funding together.

endymi0n 5y ago
...which plays in the same league as any large and modern wind turbine. Minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it - oh, and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. No, thanks... looks to me like nuclear is dead in the water.
- ArkanExplorer 5y ago
  A wind turbine doesn't spin 24/7. You'd need a Wind Turbine + a very large battery. The waste heat from a mini nuke is also perfect for district heating.
  - ChildOfEru 5y ago
    There are alternatives to batteries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-grid-scale-rail-energy-storage-project-gets-environmental-approval-fr https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-grid-scal...
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Nuclear is perfect for district heating. Thermal power plants have poor efficiency because of the need to convert thermal energy into electricity. You basically get a whole load of waste heat. If you do need the waste heat then you can't beat thermal power plants.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > Minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it - oh, and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. No, thanks... looks to me like nuclear is dead in the water. The proliferation risk seems like a valid concern, but that we have to store radioactive material for millennia isn't a valid criticism of nuclear in general because we already have to store nuclear material and the costs associated with storing more waste are marginal (if you can safely store a little nuclear waste then you can safely store a lot of it).
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Proliferation risk is not a real concern. Norko, and Israel are best evidence.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      My only point was that I'm willing to accept the argument that it's more difficult to secure more, smaller reactors.
- zackees 5y ago
  > minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it Using that logic, we should stop production of ammonia fertilizer. > and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. The fact is that the entire worlds nuclear waste can be contained in about one swimming pool, which can be placed in the middle of a mountain or some other geologically stable area. You can't say that about coal, or wind (junk turbines that can't be recycled), or solar. The death rate per terawatt-hour of generated nuclear is far less than any other fuel source. The idea that Nuclear is a dead end has been made popular by pop culture from the 1970's and bad science driven by an agenda to keep everyone on a globalized fossil fuel monopoly run by the military industrial complex. Deaths per terawatt-hours comparison chart: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
  - orlovs 5y ago
    I consider Nuclear fission as necessary evil as we don't have other so efficient and same time devastating energy source. However, we as a human kind have left this technology not developed as much as we could from efficiency and safety point of view. With my youtube degree in nuclear physics I would say we are somewhere where internal combustion engines were in 1930ties.
    - zackees 5y ago
      Check out thorium, the nuclear fuel that is superior to Uranium and infact will eat nuclear waste as part of its breakdown process. Los Alamos built a reactor that fit on a plane circa 1967 and it worked. However, this fission doesn’t produce plutonium and so it can’t make bombs. So thorium was put away and now there is a movement to revive it.
  - chinchilla2020 5y ago
    Curious if you have a source for the swimming pool metric
ChuckMcM 5y ago
Hey we know what is going to be the hot product to buy for bitcoin miners :-) I was thinking about data centers (20 - 50MW) and a "farm" of them to provide N+1 redundancy would be an interesting thing. 99% carbon neutral as well.

endymi0n 5y ago

...which plays in the same league as any large and modern wind turbine. Minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it - oh, and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. No, thanks... looks to me like nuclear is dead in the water.

ArkanExplorer 5y ago
A wind turbine doesn't spin 24/7. You'd need a Wind Turbine + a very large battery. The waste heat from a mini nuke is also perfect for district heating.
- ChildOfEru 5y ago
  There are alternatives to batteries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-grid-scale-rail-energy-storage-project-gets-environmental-approval-fr https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/first-grid-scal...
- imtringued 5y ago
  Nuclear is perfect for district heating. Thermal power plants have poor efficiency because of the need to convert thermal energy into electricity. You basically get a whole load of waste heat. If you do need the waste heat then you can't beat thermal power plants.
throwaway894345 5y ago
> Minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it - oh, and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. No, thanks... looks to me like nuclear is dead in the water. The proliferation risk seems like a valid concern, but that we have to store radioactive material for millennia isn't a valid criticism of nuclear in general because we already have to store nuclear material and the costs associated with storing more waste are marginal (if you can safely store a little nuclear waste then you can safely store a lot of it).
- baybal2 5y ago
  Proliferation risk is not a real concern. Norko, and Israel are best evidence.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    My only point was that I'm willing to accept the argument that it's more difficult to secure more, smaller reactors.
zackees 5y ago
> minus the proliferation risk of somebody stealing this comparatively small reactor and builds a dirty bomb with it Using that logic, we should stop production of ammonia fertilizer. > and you still have to dismantle it and store safely for millenia after use. The fact is that the entire worlds nuclear waste can be contained in about one swimming pool, which can be placed in the middle of a mountain or some other geologically stable area. You can't say that about coal, or wind (junk turbines that can't be recycled), or solar. The death rate per terawatt-hour of generated nuclear is far less than any other fuel source. The idea that Nuclear is a dead end has been made popular by pop culture from the 1970's and bad science driven by an agenda to keep everyone on a globalized fossil fuel monopoly run by the military industrial complex. Deaths per terawatt-hours comparison chart: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
- orlovs 5y ago
  I consider Nuclear fission as necessary evil as we don't have other so efficient and same time devastating energy source. However, we as a human kind have left this technology not developed as much as we could from efficiency and safety point of view. With my youtube degree in nuclear physics I would say we are somewhere where internal combustion engines were in 1930ties.
  - zackees 5y ago
    Check out thorium, the nuclear fuel that is superior to Uranium and infact will eat nuclear waste as part of its breakdown process. Los Alamos built a reactor that fit on a plane circa 1967 and it worked. However, this fission doesn’t produce plutonium and so it can’t make bombs. So thorium was put away and now there is a movement to revive it.
- chinchilla2020 5y ago
  Curious if you have a source for the swimming pool metric

ChuckMcM 5y ago

Hey we know what is going to be the hot product to buy for bitcoin miners :-) I was thinking about data centers (20 - 50MW) and a "farm" of them to provide N+1 redundancy would be an interesting thing. 99% carbon neutral as well.