10 ms·

While this is an overall good development, and I wish the company luck. Its really not the solution. While scale is what killed nuclear, the people who initial

While this is an overall good development, and I wish the company luck. Its really not the solution. While scale is what killed nuclear, the people who initially decided on scale, did so for good reason. You lose a huge amount if you scale down, specially with PWRs. These small PWRs try to get some of that efficiency back with factory production, but at best it just evens out. The advantage is the added flexibility. So I don't think that putting traditional PWR in a tube is really any kind of series solution to transform our energy system. However there are good things coming out of this. For example, NuScale went threw a process managing multiple reactors from the same control room. That is the same thing that essentially all GenIV reactors want to do as well. Having managed to get that concept threw the regulator will make it massively easier for anybody that follows. Its a damn shame that we don't have GenIV reactors since the 80s. We had the technology and every reason to use it. We could be living in a nuclear age right now, and I consider it the largest failure of humanity that we failed to do so. People in 100 years will look back and think we were insane that we did not use the technology we discovered.

reaperducer 4y ago
Is disposal of nuclear reactor waste products a solved problem yet? Last I heard, the big "solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada and New Mexico and let future generations worry about it. If that's all we can do, people in 100, 200, 300 years may not be thinking what you're thinking they will think.
- RealityVoid 4y ago
  Why would they not be thinking that? It's inaccessible and geologically stable. Besides, if we don't tackle the global warming problem, there might not _be_ generations 300 years down the line to judge our actions.
  - troyvit 4y ago
    Yeah there will. We're like rats: easy to kill as individuals but pretty hard to stamp out en masse.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Many, many fewer rats, if it comes to that.
- gcanyon 4y ago
  One thing to remember is that while the half-life of a very small portion of the waste from nuclear reactors is measured in thousands of years, so it's important not to release it into the environment, the half-life of the mercury that is absolutely released by coal mining is...infinite.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > “ solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada Is your objection due to the sanctity of the mountain or another reason?
- antupis 4y ago
  Here Finland Onkalo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re... is going opetational 23 and it will basically solve it for us.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    To be honest, I think this is mostly a bad idea. Like to be 1 billion $, for that price you could have developed a brand new advanced reactor and the required reprocessing facilities to create a circular fuel stream that could have changed the world. Yet instead of advanced technology to the next stage, we spent that money to dig a bit hole. And even worse, every country spends billions digging holes. Even a fraction of that money could have been used advanced humanity into the next nuclear age, rather then dumping the output of the last one into a hole.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > Last I heard, the big "solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada and New Mexico and let future generations worry about it. Sorry, but given that the climate catastrophe is the most pressing concern for humanity, I think that gives more weight that religious superstition over the "sanctity" of a mountain in the middle of the desert miles from any humans. Securing nuclear waste to decay at the bottom of a mountain is a pretty good solution, the only thing against it really is political nimbyism.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    the only thing against it really is political nimbyism Actually, from what I've read in the local newspapers in the areas affected, the politicians are all for it, so you're making assumptions there. The people who are against it are the people who actually have to live with the stuff for the next thousand years. If it's so safe, so stable, so easily rendered harmless, why not bury it in the bedrock beneath Manhattan, or Boston, or Virginia? All places that are far more geologically stable than, for example, Yucca Mountain.
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      Abundance of caution, defense in depth. If nobody lives there, nobody has to live with it.
    - c1ccccc1 4y ago
      I haven't checked the geological suitability, but assuming you're right about that, putting the waste in those places seems perfectly fine to me.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      Because in major cities, it's more likely that you'll need to dig that area up again for something else.
  - troyvit 4y ago
    Political nimbyism is what put the waste where it is. It ended up in the back yard of the least powerful political force in America. Curating nuclear waste for longer than any human can actually comprehend isn't something to just brush off. You'd be trading one climate catastrophe for another. And that doesn't even account for securely transporting the waste across the country. Imagine scaling nuclear to the size of coal. What does waste transport look like then? Maybe this waste belongs precisely in the back yards of those of us who create it. Then we'd be truly careful.
- omginternets 4y ago
  Is the disposal of coal, gas and oil emissions a solved problem yet? At least nuclear waste is contained.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Coal, gas, and oil are being phased out in favor of renewables, just as fast as capital is allowed to be applied. They just cost too much to operate. (This is why the feds massively subsidize them.) Nukes are not in competition with them. Nukes are in competition with renewables, where they lose badly.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      No nuclear power competes with base load power like coal, natural gas, and eventually battery storage.
    - omginternets 4y ago
      Renewables literally require us to redesign the grid, and require supplementary sources of power for when they are unable to produce. I truly wonder what your assertion is based on.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        I doubt you do. Renewables + storage + more transmission lines will require construction projects of magnitude much smaller than would be required for enough nukes.
- p1mrx 4y ago
  https://www.deepisolation.com/ https://www.deepisolation.com/ looks like a reasonable solution, assuming we don't use the waste as fuel. Why would future generations have to worry about something buried deep underground? Just don't drill there.
- AareyBaba 4y ago
  Dispelling the Myths of Nuclear Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ
- otikik 4y ago
  All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would cover a whole football field to a height of approximately 10 yards Solar and Wind require a backup for when there's no wind or it's cloudy. Their current default backup is burning fossil fuels. Of those, coal plans are particularly salient because they do generate radioactive waste. Continuously. And pour it over the atmosphere. They contribute far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations. > let future generations worry about it. I think they will appreciate having to worry about that in exchange of not having to deal with not existing because of climate change.
- lttlrck 4y ago
  Whereas the emissions from fossil fuels are spread uncontained for everyone to enjoy?
- ch4s3 4y ago
  It’s pretty solved. There is very little of the dangerous stuff, and it is far less dangerous after a few decades. It can safely sit in casks for more than a thousand years. At which point there’s a negligible amount of anything really nasty left. At any point we can basically just stick it all in a salt mine and call it a day. Future people will be fine. Shit we discovered uranium because some guys wandered into a cave and it burned their skin. Locals avoided it afterwards and eventually it was studied by people who knew what radiation was. Any actual storage though would be deep underground, in casks, and behind concrete with lots of warning signs.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Nuclear reprocessing and breeder reactors would entirely solve the nuclear waste problem. The only reason we're not using them yet is that people think we'd use the output to make nuclear weapons with (even though we can already do that without them).
MrDresden 4y ago
Knowing nothing about the intricacies of building nuclear power plants, but agreeing whole heartedly with you that humanity dropped the ball when it came to advancing the tech and construction of large scale plants, I am hoping this will have a positive effect. Large scale plant construction is hard, takes a long time and the knowhow is disappearing (see recent issues in France with their latest project). With a miniaturized plant the time to market is quicker, which hopefully will start having a positive effect on peoples opinions sooner when it comes to nuclear power. It may not be optimal, but it has the potential of changing things for the better.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  The bigger the plant, the more customization it needs, to the point of every individual plant needing independent design certification. Smaller plants can be produced faster with lower overhead, because the consistent design reduces risks.
- pas 4y ago
  Large scale is not inherently hard, the problem is lack of industrialization (lack of economies of scale). The "West" after the Cold War went all in on short-term-ism (both fueled by market liberalization, financialization of everything, globalization, plus as a consequence of all this the political gridlock that ensued).
- panick21_ 4y ago
  I in general am in favor of scale to make the grid CO2 free. However, doing it with PWRs is just very sub-optimal. A 1.5GW plant is basically a gigantic civil engineering project and those are always late. However, if you move to a molten salt reactor (cooled or fueled) you can significantly reduce the scale while still doing a 0.5-1.5GW plant. And you can use CCGT as well. This totally transforms the economics and while it would still a large plant it would be much more comparable to a gas plant in terms of capx. And in terms of opex the fuel should be significantly cheaper, while the labor required should be less in a modern plant. The PWR real cost are the gigantic heat pumps and the huge required containment system. A molten salt reactor can be air cooled even in the desert of Arizona. Hopefully in the future we can replace the CCGT with even smaller turbines like Super-critical CO2 turbines. So I prefer large plants 500MW+ but they need to be molten salt cooled at least. My favorite design (for what is achievable in a reasonable time) is by Moltex Energy, the Static Molten Salt Reactor. Its basically the idea of filling the fuel assemblies with molten salt fuel rather then pellets and to cool you use another molten salt. And with some small amount of repossessing you can use current 'waste' as fuel. I think that design is of a scale and complexity that if some real capital got behind and government were willing to invest in their 'waste' rather then to drop it into a cave it could solve both the 'waste' problem and the grid problem.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
belorn 4y ago
I can see two large use cases for small PWR at this point in time even if the price per watt is similar/higher than large reactors. One is the exact same argument for why small PWR was installed in submarines, that is replacing diesel generators that operate 24/7. Those still exist in some locations and situations, and diesel generators that operate 24/7 are very dirty and require a lot of fuel to be transported. They could in theory also displace backup generators if multiple locations require uninterruptible power and each has an expensive diesel generators that require testing every week/month or so. Not sure if there exist studies done on emissions from backup generators at hospitals, but I am pretty sure I read about the problem somewhere. The second big use case would be Europe right now. If small PWR can be produced fast, like say within a year, those could be economical viable. The energy price for next winter is predicted (depending on which gloom and doom you read) to reach around 2x to 20x compared to the record prices of last year. Such prices can make a lot of technology economical viable, and a big factor will then be product availability.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Could Europe even use electricity to heat? I assumed the gas was mostly being used directly in gas furnaces. Heat pumps are only just getting to where they can work in extreme cold right?
  - mmaurizi 4y ago
    Being able to shut down existing gas power plants should free up a lot of gas for home heating.
    - 29083011397778 4y ago
      Heat pumps are between 2 (worst case scenario) and 5 times more efficient for heating than burning the natural gas directly - and that includes transmission and generation losses. Unless natural gas, due to the reduced demand, falls to between 20 and 50% of the price of electricity, heat pumps are still cheaper long-term - and provide AC in the summer!
  - 4y ago
sitkack 4y ago
How is it "not the solution". Having 50MW of base load being able to be deployed anywhere could allow for everything else covered by renewables. If I were a poor remote county and I wanted to make sure that 1) my residents emergency needs were covered hospital, sanitation, water, emergency heating, etc 2) also had access to cheap power Having one of these provide the base load for critical infra allows one to shop around for cheap renewable power wherever it may come from.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Nuclear reactor output scales with volume but cost scales with surface area. So a larger plant is more efficient. If the smaller reactors can take advantage of easier fabrication and logistics they might be cheaper, but that is an unknown.
  - sitkack 4y ago
    Efficiency is only one dimension, these reactors can be distributed to the point of use. Efficiency should be measured in its local universe.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Electricity is pretty easy to transport over 50-100 miles. One big plant servicing a whole metro is as efficient as smaller reactors distributed around. It's only when you have to transport electricity over 300+ miles where more exotic things like HVDC lines become necessary.
    - jillesvangurp 4y ago
      You are forgetting about security. One of these things and some explosives could do a lot of damage. Think dirty bombs. Each and every one will need 24x7 security for the duration of it's life. They simply can't be left unattended. Not impossible to do but it adds a lot of cost One of these things falling into the hands of extremists would be very bad. The sensible way to deploy these would be in groups close to existing infrastructure in places that can be easily secured. For example de-commissioned coal plants or nuclear plants. Security also raises the cost of operation of course. Just because it is small physically does not mean the risk is smaller. So, same level of security as with a big nuclear plant. Same level of cost. But less energy. Co-locating allows you to reduce that cost.
ip26 4y ago
They are so big and complex they have paradoxically lost advantages of scale. Allegedly, if you build two of the same nuke, it’s actually more expensive to build the second one because you have to do a whole bunch of change orders to adapt the existing design to a completely different site.
credit_guy 4y ago
> try to get some of that efficiency back with factory production, but at best it just evens out. It's not just factory production. There's a lot of savings from just scaling down the design. Currently the pressure vessels for a typical large reactor (the AP1000) are build using forges that weigh (take a moment to appreciate the number) 15 thousand tons [1]. No such forges exist in the US. Truth is, NuScale plans to source their pressure vessels from one of the existing vessel manufacturers, the South Korean Doosan [2]. However, it is very likely that their vessel can be produced with much smaller forges, and in time more manufacturers will have the capability to build it. [1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... [2] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/doosan-to-make-pressure-vessels-for-nuscales-small-modular-reactors/ https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/doosan-to-make-pres...
- panick21_ 4y ago
  That's a good point but again, you will just need more of those pressure vessels as a trade off.

reaperducer 4y ago

Is disposal of nuclear reactor waste products a solved problem yet? Last I heard, the big "solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada and New Mexico and let future generations worry about it. If that's all we can do, people in 100, 200, 300 years may not be thinking what you're thinking they will think.

RealityVoid 4y ago
Why would they not be thinking that? It's inaccessible and geologically stable. Besides, if we don't tackle the global warming problem, there might not _be_ generations 300 years down the line to judge our actions.
- troyvit 4y ago
  Yeah there will. We're like rats: easy to kill as individuals but pretty hard to stamp out en masse.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Many, many fewer rats, if it comes to that.
gcanyon 4y ago
One thing to remember is that while the half-life of a very small portion of the waste from nuclear reactors is measured in thousands of years, so it's important not to release it into the environment, the half-life of the mercury that is absolutely released by coal mining is...infinite.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> “ solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada Is your objection due to the sanctity of the mountain or another reason?
antupis 4y ago
Here Finland Onkalo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re... is going opetational 23 and it will basically solve it for us.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  To be honest, I think this is mostly a bad idea. Like to be 1 billion $, for that price you could have developed a brand new advanced reactor and the required reprocessing facilities to create a circular fuel stream that could have changed the world. Yet instead of advanced technology to the next stage, we spent that money to dig a bit hole. And even worse, every country spends billions digging holes. Even a fraction of that money could have been used advanced humanity into the next nuclear age, rather then dumping the output of the last one into a hole.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Last I heard, the big "solution" was to stick it in sacred Native American mountains in Nevada and New Mexico and let future generations worry about it. Sorry, but given that the climate catastrophe is the most pressing concern for humanity, I think that gives more weight that religious superstition over the "sanctity" of a mountain in the middle of the desert miles from any humans. Securing nuclear waste to decay at the bottom of a mountain is a pretty good solution, the only thing against it really is political nimbyism.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  the only thing against it really is political nimbyism Actually, from what I've read in the local newspapers in the areas affected, the politicians are all for it, so you're making assumptions there. The people who are against it are the people who actually have to live with the stuff for the next thousand years. If it's so safe, so stable, so easily rendered harmless, why not bury it in the bedrock beneath Manhattan, or Boston, or Virginia? All places that are far more geologically stable than, for example, Yucca Mountain.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    Abundance of caution, defense in depth. If nobody lives there, nobody has to live with it.
  - c1ccccc1 4y ago
    I haven't checked the geological suitability, but assuming you're right about that, putting the waste in those places seems perfectly fine to me.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Because in major cities, it's more likely that you'll need to dig that area up again for something else.
- troyvit 4y ago
  Political nimbyism is what put the waste where it is. It ended up in the back yard of the least powerful political force in America. Curating nuclear waste for longer than any human can actually comprehend isn't something to just brush off. You'd be trading one climate catastrophe for another. And that doesn't even account for securely transporting the waste across the country. Imagine scaling nuclear to the size of coal. What does waste transport look like then? Maybe this waste belongs precisely in the back yards of those of us who create it. Then we'd be truly careful.
omginternets 4y ago
Is the disposal of coal, gas and oil emissions a solved problem yet? At least nuclear waste is contained.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Coal, gas, and oil are being phased out in favor of renewables, just as fast as capital is allowed to be applied. They just cost too much to operate. (This is why the feds massively subsidize them.) Nukes are not in competition with them. Nukes are in competition with renewables, where they lose badly.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    No nuclear power competes with base load power like coal, natural gas, and eventually battery storage.
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Renewables literally require us to redesign the grid, and require supplementary sources of power for when they are unable to produce. I truly wonder what your assertion is based on.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      I doubt you do. Renewables + storage + more transmission lines will require construction projects of magnitude much smaller than would be required for enough nukes.
p1mrx 4y ago
https://www.deepisolation.com/ https://www.deepisolation.com/ looks like a reasonable solution, assuming we don't use the waste as fuel. Why would future generations have to worry about something buried deep underground? Just don't drill there.
AareyBaba 4y ago
Dispelling the Myths of Nuclear Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ
otikik 4y ago
All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would cover a whole football field to a height of approximately 10 yards Solar and Wind require a backup for when there's no wind or it's cloudy. Their current default backup is burning fossil fuels. Of those, coal plans are particularly salient because they do generate radioactive waste. Continuously. And pour it over the atmosphere. They contribute far more radiation to the environment than nuclear power stations. > let future generations worry about it. I think they will appreciate having to worry about that in exchange of not having to deal with not existing because of climate change.
lttlrck 4y ago
Whereas the emissions from fossil fuels are spread uncontained for everyone to enjoy?
ch4s3 4y ago
It’s pretty solved. There is very little of the dangerous stuff, and it is far less dangerous after a few decades. It can safely sit in casks for more than a thousand years. At which point there’s a negligible amount of anything really nasty left. At any point we can basically just stick it all in a salt mine and call it a day. Future people will be fine. Shit we discovered uranium because some guys wandered into a cave and it burned their skin. Locals avoided it afterwards and eventually it was studied by people who knew what radiation was. Any actual storage though would be deep underground, in casks, and behind concrete with lots of warning signs.
josephcsible 4y ago
Nuclear reprocessing and breeder reactors would entirely solve the nuclear waste problem. The only reason we're not using them yet is that people think we'd use the output to make nuclear weapons with (even though we can already do that without them).

MrDresden 4y ago

Knowing nothing about the intricacies of building nuclear power plants, but agreeing whole heartedly with you that humanity dropped the ball when it came to advancing the tech and construction of large scale plants, I am hoping this will have a positive effect. Large scale plant construction is hard, takes a long time and the knowhow is disappearing (see recent issues in France with their latest project). With a miniaturized plant the time to market is quicker, which hopefully will start having a positive effect on peoples opinions sooner when it comes to nuclear power. It may not be optimal, but it has the potential of changing things for the better.

zdragnar 4y ago
The bigger the plant, the more customization it needs, to the point of every individual plant needing independent design certification. Smaller plants can be produced faster with lower overhead, because the consistent design reduces risks.
pas 4y ago
Large scale is not inherently hard, the problem is lack of industrialization (lack of economies of scale). The "West" after the Cold War went all in on short-term-ism (both fueled by market liberalization, financialization of everything, globalization, plus as a consequence of all this the political gridlock that ensued).
panick21_ 4y ago
I in general am in favor of scale to make the grid CO2 free. However, doing it with PWRs is just very sub-optimal. A 1.5GW plant is basically a gigantic civil engineering project and those are always late. However, if you move to a molten salt reactor (cooled or fueled) you can significantly reduce the scale while still doing a 0.5-1.5GW plant. And you can use CCGT as well. This totally transforms the economics and while it would still a large plant it would be much more comparable to a gas plant in terms of capx. And in terms of opex the fuel should be significantly cheaper, while the labor required should be less in a modern plant. The PWR real cost are the gigantic heat pumps and the huge required containment system. A molten salt reactor can be air cooled even in the desert of Arizona. Hopefully in the future we can replace the CCGT with even smaller turbines like Super-critical CO2 turbines. So I prefer large plants 500MW+ but they need to be molten salt cooled at least. My favorite design (for what is achievable in a reasonable time) is by Moltex Energy, the Static Molten Salt Reactor. Its basically the idea of filling the fuel assemblies with molten salt fuel rather then pellets and to cool you use another molten salt. And with some small amount of repossessing you can use current 'waste' as fuel. I think that design is of a scale and complexity that if some real capital got behind and government were willing to invest in their 'waste' rather then to drop it into a cave it could solve both the 'waste' problem and the grid problem.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

belorn 4y ago

I can see two large use cases for small PWR at this point in time even if the price per watt is similar/higher than large reactors. One is the exact same argument for why small PWR was installed in submarines, that is replacing diesel generators that operate 24/7. Those still exist in some locations and situations, and diesel generators that operate 24/7 are very dirty and require a lot of fuel to be transported. They could in theory also displace backup generators if multiple locations require uninterruptible power and each has an expensive diesel generators that require testing every week/month or so. Not sure if there exist studies done on emissions from backup generators at hospitals, but I am pretty sure I read about the problem somewhere. The second big use case would be Europe right now. If small PWR can be produced fast, like say within a year, those could be economical viable. The energy price for next winter is predicted (depending on which gloom and doom you read) to reach around 2x to 20x compared to the record prices of last year. Such prices can make a lot of technology economical viable, and a big factor will then be product availability.

galangalalgol 4y ago
Could Europe even use electricity to heat? I assumed the gas was mostly being used directly in gas furnaces. Heat pumps are only just getting to where they can work in extreme cold right?
- mmaurizi 4y ago
  Being able to shut down existing gas power plants should free up a lot of gas for home heating.
  - 29083011397778 4y ago
    Heat pumps are between 2 (worst case scenario) and 5 times more efficient for heating than burning the natural gas directly - and that includes transmission and generation losses. Unless natural gas, due to the reduced demand, falls to between 20 and 50% of the price of electricity, heat pumps are still cheaper long-term - and provide AC in the summer!
- 4y ago

sitkack 4y ago

How is it "not the solution". Having 50MW of base load being able to be deployed anywhere could allow for everything else covered by renewables. If I were a poor remote county and I wanted to make sure that 1) my residents emergency needs were covered hospital, sanitation, water, emergency heating, etc 2) also had access to cheap power Having one of these provide the base load for critical infra allows one to shop around for cheap renewable power wherever it may come from.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Nuclear reactor output scales with volume but cost scales with surface area. So a larger plant is more efficient. If the smaller reactors can take advantage of easier fabrication and logistics they might be cheaper, but that is an unknown.
- sitkack 4y ago
  Efficiency is only one dimension, these reactors can be distributed to the point of use. Efficiency should be measured in its local universe.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Electricity is pretty easy to transport over 50-100 miles. One big plant servicing a whole metro is as efficient as smaller reactors distributed around. It's only when you have to transport electricity over 300+ miles where more exotic things like HVDC lines become necessary.
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    You are forgetting about security. One of these things and some explosives could do a lot of damage. Think dirty bombs. Each and every one will need 24x7 security for the duration of it's life. They simply can't be left unattended. Not impossible to do but it adds a lot of cost One of these things falling into the hands of extremists would be very bad. The sensible way to deploy these would be in groups close to existing infrastructure in places that can be easily secured. For example de-commissioned coal plants or nuclear plants. Security also raises the cost of operation of course. Just because it is small physically does not mean the risk is smaller. So, same level of security as with a big nuclear plant. Same level of cost. But less energy. Co-locating allows you to reduce that cost.

ip26 4y ago

They are so big and complex they have paradoxically lost advantages of scale. Allegedly, if you build two of the same nuke, it’s actually more expensive to build the second one because you have to do a whole bunch of change orders to adapt the existing design to a completely different site.

credit_guy 4y ago

> try to get some of that efficiency back with factory production, but at best it just evens out. It's not just factory production. There's a lot of savings from just scaling down the design. Currently the pressure vessels for a typical large reactor (the AP1000) are build using forges that weigh (take a moment to appreciate the number) 15 thousand tons [1]. No such forges exist in the US. Truth is, NuScale plans to source their pressure vessels from one of the existing vessel manufacturers, the South Korean Doosan [2]. However, it is very likely that their vessel can be produced with much smaller forges, and in time more manufacturers will have the capability to build it. [1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... [2] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/doosan-to-make-pressure-vessels-for-nuscales-small-modular-reactors/ https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/doosan-to-make-pres...

panick21_ 4y ago
That's a good point but again, you will just need more of those pressure vessels as a trade off.