9 ms·

To be fair, if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning and potentially could've provided electricity cheap enough in combination with hydro

To be fair, if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning and potentially could've provided electricity cheap enough in combination with hydro and renewables that would've seen some big industry shift away from burning coal. NZ has a very green power grid but it's not perfect and suffers from reliability issues dependent on snowfall to fill the hydro lakes. Nuclear would have and still could provide a lot more security in that area. I'm hoping NZ sees the light and accepts small nuclear as a decent method of going to 100% green sources (currently it's 85%)

cormacrelf 4y ago
I feel like the biggest benefit of small nuclear is that it can be put anywhere and you don’t have to build extremely costly transmission infrastructure. Just dot these things around. It surely isn’t cost-effective enough for the first 85% or whatever of a state’s needs, but for that last mile problem? Sounds good.
- WatchDog 4y ago
  I don’t think dotting nuclear reactors around everywhere would be politically very acceptable. Each plant will also require some level of staffing, operational and security staff. Seems more likely that small modular reactors would just be deployed in large batches to lower the fixed costs, and accept the transmission losses.
  - petre 4y ago
    The NuScale design requires 3 people on shifts to operate a 12 reactor fleet.
    - anonymousDan 4y ago
      I would be a bit worried about physical security with lots of small plants. What do you think? I suppose in theory there is nothing preventing having similar levels of physical security from today's large plants.
      - petre 4y ago
        Up to 12 x 60 MWe per station reactors means 720 MWe, as much as a CANDU plant. Yet it looks like a bunch of warehouses on the outside because the reactors are stored in underground water pools. I guess you'd need similar security as for any power plant. The NRC also requires that all new reactors designs post-9/11 are able to withstand impact with a commercial airplane. https://www.ans.org/news/article-1913/first-steps-into-a-new-nuclear-energy-world/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-1913/first-steps-into-a-new...
        Balgair 4y ago
        Bit of an aside: Nuclear plant security should not be comparable to fossil fuel plant security, it should be much much tighter.
        anonymousDan 4y ago
        Yes agreed, given the risks of meltdown or the theft of radioactive material I would think security should be much more important.
        petre 4y ago
        Radiation alone provides security. The plant diagram already has two fences with coresponding checkpoints. One needs to stop potential looters, so basically checkpoits with a guard each and a patrol vehicle with a team of two. Make it armed guards if you're in the US where everyone and their grandmother owns not one but several firearms. That plus the usual access cards and CCTV. This isn't a military nuclear weapons lab, it's a civilian power facility.
        Balgair 4y ago
        I'd still feel safer with the number of armed guards being nearer the 'nuclear weapons lab' end of the scale than the 'power facility' end.
- 7952 4y ago
  The electricity grid does not have a last mile problem for supply. And just putting them anywhere will just raise costs. Better to put multiple units next to an existing substation on the backbone. Then those units can supply electricity to potentially millions, not just the city at the end of the last mile.
h0l0cube 4y ago
> if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down, and then you have the domino effect that Fukishima had (e.g., Germany shutting down all their plants). Nuclear can be viable when both proper safety can be ensured economically, and when that surety can be shared by its voting population
- bb88 4y ago
  > If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down Three Mile Island had two close calls. The first was the reactor was only 30-60 minutes from going into complete meltdown. The second was potentially using a faulty crane to remove the lid of the reactor vessel. Either one of those would have made large areas of dense urban area unlivable.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    When was this crane thing? It would have been long after the reactor had reached cold shutdown, so what exactly was the accident it was supposed to have almost caused?
    - keneda7 4y ago
      Not the OP but the crane incident was shortly after the first incident. The higher ups wanted to use the polar crane to lift a bunch of radioactive debris out of the core that almost melted down. At least one of the workers (Rick Parks) ended up whistleblowing over it because the crane was the same one that was there during the incident and most likely had taken damage. He was concerned the crane would fail while lifting the radioactive debris out (around 1000 lbs of it) and fall back onto the core. Check out the Netflix document Meltdown: Three mile Island for more info.
      - bondarchuk 4y ago
        This is also in Moral Mazes somewhere, if you prefer a written summary.

cormacrelf 4y ago

I feel like the biggest benefit of small nuclear is that it can be put anywhere and you don’t have to build extremely costly transmission infrastructure. Just dot these things around. It surely isn’t cost-effective enough for the first 85% or whatever of a state’s needs, but for that last mile problem? Sounds good.

WatchDog 4y ago
I don’t think dotting nuclear reactors around everywhere would be politically very acceptable. Each plant will also require some level of staffing, operational and security staff. Seems more likely that small modular reactors would just be deployed in large batches to lower the fixed costs, and accept the transmission losses.
- petre 4y ago
  The NuScale design requires 3 people on shifts to operate a 12 reactor fleet.
  - anonymousDan 4y ago
    I would be a bit worried about physical security with lots of small plants. What do you think? I suppose in theory there is nothing preventing having similar levels of physical security from today's large plants.
    - petre 4y ago
      Up to 12 x 60 MWe per station reactors means 720 MWe, as much as a CANDU plant. Yet it looks like a bunch of warehouses on the outside because the reactors are stored in underground water pools. I guess you'd need similar security as for any power plant. The NRC also requires that all new reactors designs post-9/11 are able to withstand impact with a commercial airplane. https://www.ans.org/news/article-1913/first-steps-into-a-new-nuclear-energy-world/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-1913/first-steps-into-a-new...
      - Balgair 4y ago
        Bit of an aside: Nuclear plant security should not be comparable to fossil fuel plant security, it should be much much tighter.
        anonymousDan 4y ago
        Yes agreed, given the risks of meltdown or the theft of radioactive material I would think security should be much more important.
        petre 4y ago
        Radiation alone provides security. The plant diagram already has two fences with coresponding checkpoints. One needs to stop potential looters, so basically checkpoits with a guard each and a patrol vehicle with a team of two. Make it armed guards if you're in the US where everyone and their grandmother owns not one but several firearms. That plus the usual access cards and CCTV. This isn't a military nuclear weapons lab, it's a civilian power facility.
        Balgair 4y ago
        I'd still feel safer with the number of armed guards being nearer the 'nuclear weapons lab' end of the scale than the 'power facility' end.
7952 4y ago
The electricity grid does not have a last mile problem for supply. And just putting them anywhere will just raise costs. Better to put multiple units next to an existing substation on the backbone. Then those units can supply electricity to potentially millions, not just the city at the end of the last mile.

h0l0cube 4y ago

> if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down, and then you have the domino effect that Fukishima had (e.g., Germany shutting down all their plants). Nuclear can be viable when both proper safety can be ensured economically, and when that surety can be shared by its voting population

bb88 4y ago
> If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down Three Mile Island had two close calls. The first was the reactor was only 30-60 minutes from going into complete meltdown. The second was potentially using a faulty crane to remove the lid of the reactor vessel. Either one of those would have made large areas of dense urban area unlivable.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  When was this crane thing? It would have been long after the reactor had reached cold shutdown, so what exactly was the accident it was supposed to have almost caused?
  - keneda7 4y ago
    Not the OP but the crane incident was shortly after the first incident. The higher ups wanted to use the polar crane to lift a bunch of radioactive debris out of the core that almost melted down. At least one of the workers (Rick Parks) ended up whistleblowing over it because the crane was the same one that was there during the incident and most likely had taken damage. He was concerned the crane would fail while lifting the radioactive debris out (around 1000 lbs of it) and fall back onto the core. Check out the Netflix document Meltdown: Three mile Island for more info.
    - bondarchuk 4y ago
      This is also in Moral Mazes somewhere, if you prefer a written summary.