5 ms·
As a complete novice, this could be a game changer? The ability to centralize the production I imagine radically reduces the cost, or at least has the potentia
by mountainriver 4y ago
As a complete novice, this could be a game changer?
The ability to centralize the production I imagine radically reduces the cost, or at least has the potential to.
With all the energy challenges we face, could the US government subsidize a program like this and make it a silver bullet?
- pydry 4y agoDepends what it costs. Since the article neglected to give a figure, Im pretty skeptical it's going to be competitive.
- LinuxBender 4y agoThis video [1] talks about some of the potential cost savings and reduction in time to deployment. There is one being installed near me so I guess time will tell how realistic the projections are. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXlD4e-wTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxXlD4e-wTE
- ncmncm 4y agoThe most reliable output of the nuke industry has always been dishonesty. There is no reason to expect this will change suddenly, or that it has already.
- wjnc 4y ago$ 3 billion for 720 MW of power (2019 figure) [1]. More recent figure of $ 5.5 cents per KW/h [2]. So about 4x cost overrun leeway to be competitive in Europe. That seems manageable? [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/smaller-safer-cheaper-one-company-aims-reinvent-nuclear-reactor-and-save-warming-planet https://www.science.org/content/article/smaller-safer-cheape... [2] https://www.nucnet.org/news/first-customer-has-set-lcoe-target-for-smr-of-usd55-mwh-says-co-founder-4-4-2021 https://www.nucnet.org/news/first-customer-has-set-lcoe-targ...
- ncmncm 4y agoNo. It is not. The US govt is massively subsidizing this whole venture, and none of that cost to taxpayers is figured in.
- ch4s3 4y agoYou’d need to compare to the subsidies and externalities of other power sources then right?
- pydry 4y agoSolar panel imports are even slapped with tarriffs. It's unlikely if you compared like for like it would come anywhere near the subsidies nuclear demands.
- ch4s3 4y agoInstallation is subsidized and you need to massively overbuild without storage or otherwise build storage.
- ncmncm 4y agoOverbuild of solar and wind has become cheap. But overbuild required is nowhere near that commonly assumed. Storage will of course be built too, at overwhelmingly less cost than nukes, and much, much faster. But, first, the generation capacity to charge it up from.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago> costs 1 Fukushima is too many, no?
- luckylion 4y agoNo. Fukushima is a price I'd gladly pay and I expect every reasonable person to agree. The alternative isn't "no Fukushima", the alternative is hundreds of thousands deaths per year by burning coal. It's just not "one huge bang" so people don't realize it, because understanding abstract dangers is hard.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoJust improve decentralized energy storage and micro-grids.
- Veedrac 4y agoAbsolutely. The Fukushima disaster: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_di... The earthquake: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_... Zero known fatal injuries out of 20,000 were caused by the reactor. If I've done the math right, a nominally operative coal plant over Fukishima's 40 year lifetime would have caused 5ish deaths. Fukishima did cause a few cases of cancer, but so does nominally operative coal. People can gripe about tail risks from environmental pollution when it's not displacing a worse modal risk. Right now it's unreasonable to. Proliferation risk is concerning; most of the rest is just scale insensitivity.
- ncmncm 4y agoNukes' competition is not coal. It is renewables. Comparing to coal is tendentious and disingenuous, not to say dishonest.
- ch4s3 4y agoNot really m. Something has to provide power when the sun and wind aren’t available. Right now that’s natural gas, coal, hydro, or nuclear.
- TheDudeMan 4y agoYes, this is huge, IMO.
- ethbr0 4y agoI learned on HN that we almost did this in the 1970s, albeit with large but modular reactors. The effort extended far into construction of the (very large!) factory facility. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31467070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31467070
- panick21_ 4y agoIt cuts both ways. You lose the scale, but its more modular. Putting a conventional PWR in such a modular system isn't a silver bullet and has you to be proven to actually be cheaper and a game changer. If you simply want 1.5GW it might be simpler to just put a single PWR there rather then like 5 of them. I would say real GenIV modular reactors are the silver bullet, this is a step in the right direction.
- mapmeld 4y agoYes. When I attended an IAEA Safeguards conference in 2018, there were a number of these civilian nuclear battery designs but none had been built. A small nuclear battery can replace building-size diesel generators which remote communities and islands, data centers, etc. currently use as a primary or backup power source.