2 ms·

This paper's findings have no basis in reality. Perhaps because it was written by three people with a political angle and no relevant training.

abeppu 3y ago
I'm not a nuclear engineer and have no relevant training, and from my layperson's position am not immediately able to see what's wrong here. Would you mind expanding on what's wrong with the paper from your perspective? I don't know how to weight your remark about the qualifications of the authors. I would expect that PNAS used reviewers with sufficient expertise in the field.
- beefman 3y ago
  Information about the authors is in the report, and on the web. It's not possible to debunk every bit of nonsense written about nuclear energy. And often better not to dignify it by trying. Here goes anyway: A reactor is a can filled with fuel. Per unit of energy liberated and modulo every other degree of freedom in the design, the size of the can has nothing to do with the amount of fuel or its disposition. The size of the can does have something to do with the size of the can, per unit of energy liberated. That's because volume scales as radius cubed while surface area scales as radius squared, and the energy depends only on the volume. So in that, the authors have a point. But the details they provide have little to do with it, and some are misleading or wrong. And why we should care, or how much we should care, about the amount of cans is not investigated. The result is that there's nothing in this report anyone could use to inform a decision. Edit: It has been disputed elsewhere... https://www.powermag.com/small-modular-reactors-arent-difficult-nuclear-waste-generators/ https://www.powermag.com/small-modular-reactors-arent-diffic... https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-releases-small-modular-reactor-waste-analysis-report https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-releases-small-modular-r... https://neutronbytes.com/2022/05/31/stanfords-questionable-study-on-spent-nuclear-fuel-for-smrs/ https://neutronbytes.com/2022/05/31/stanfords-questionable-s...
  - abeppu 3y ago
    I think you're being snide and not constructive. You've characterized their work as "nonsense" and having "no basis in reality", but even when asked for details, you haven't really pointed at specific issues. Between someone on the internet saying it's too much work to debunk their nonsense, and a PNAS article, I think absent very specific claims by the forum poster, any reasonable person has to give greater trust to the published article. Of the limited amount you've actually said, it doesn't appear that you've tried to read their claims. > the size of the can has nothing to do with the amount of fuel or its disposition. Part of the concern of increased neutron leakage is that _non-fuel_ material, including structural materials surrounding fuel assemblies, also must be considered. In the paper, see section 3. I _do_ think there's an inevitable set of questions to address when trying to analyze reactor designs when they aren't yet operational -- i.e. actual measurements of the waste streams are not available. I don't know what you think the credentials of authors contributing to this field _should_ be, but from what's quickly available, all of these people seem to have worked in related areas: - Krall has a geochemistry background, has researched "geologic repository development" and worked at "the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company" - MacFarlane was chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (!), and has done a lot of work related to nuclear policy and nuclear waste - Ewing's list of prior titles include "Adjunct Professor of Chemical & Nuclear Engineering", "Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences", "William Kerr Collegiate Professor of Nuclear Eng. & Radiological Sciences" I.e. together they have academic, government/regulatory and industrial experience, which sounds like a pretty good combination to me. https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/lindsay-krall https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/lindsay-krall https://sppga.ubc.ca/profile/allison-macfarlane/ https://sppga.ubc.ca/profile/allison-macfarlane/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Macfarlane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Macfarlane https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/rodney_c_ewing https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/rodney_c_ewing

abeppu 3y ago

I'm not a nuclear engineer and have no relevant training, and from my layperson's position am not immediately able to see what's wrong here. Would you mind expanding on what's wrong with the paper from your perspective? I don't know how to weight your remark about the qualifications of the authors. I would expect that PNAS used reviewers with sufficient expertise in the field.

beefman 3y ago
Information about the authors is in the report, and on the web. It's not possible to debunk every bit of nonsense written about nuclear energy. And often better not to dignify it by trying. Here goes anyway: A reactor is a can filled with fuel. Per unit of energy liberated and modulo every other degree of freedom in the design, the size of the can has nothing to do with the amount of fuel or its disposition. The size of the can does have something to do with the size of the can, per unit of energy liberated. That's because volume scales as radius cubed while surface area scales as radius squared, and the energy depends only on the volume. So in that, the authors have a point. But the details they provide have little to do with it, and some are misleading or wrong. And why we should care, or how much we should care, about the amount of cans is not investigated. The result is that there's nothing in this report anyone could use to inform a decision. Edit: It has been disputed elsewhere... https://www.powermag.com/small-modular-reactors-arent-difficult-nuclear-waste-generators/ https://www.powermag.com/small-modular-reactors-arent-diffic... https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-releases-small-modular-reactor-waste-analysis-report https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-releases-small-modular-r... https://neutronbytes.com/2022/05/31/stanfords-questionable-study-on-spent-nuclear-fuel-for-smrs/ https://neutronbytes.com/2022/05/31/stanfords-questionable-s...
- abeppu 3y ago
  I think you're being snide and not constructive. You've characterized their work as "nonsense" and having "no basis in reality", but even when asked for details, you haven't really pointed at specific issues. Between someone on the internet saying it's too much work to debunk their nonsense, and a PNAS article, I think absent very specific claims by the forum poster, any reasonable person has to give greater trust to the published article. Of the limited amount you've actually said, it doesn't appear that you've tried to read their claims. > the size of the can has nothing to do with the amount of fuel or its disposition. Part of the concern of increased neutron leakage is that _non-fuel_ material, including structural materials surrounding fuel assemblies, also must be considered. In the paper, see section 3. I _do_ think there's an inevitable set of questions to address when trying to analyze reactor designs when they aren't yet operational -- i.e. actual measurements of the waste streams are not available. I don't know what you think the credentials of authors contributing to this field _should_ be, but from what's quickly available, all of these people seem to have worked in related areas: - Krall has a geochemistry background, has researched "geologic repository development" and worked at "the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company" - MacFarlane was chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (!), and has done a lot of work related to nuclear policy and nuclear waste - Ewing's list of prior titles include "Adjunct Professor of Chemical & Nuclear Engineering", "Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences", "William Kerr Collegiate Professor of Nuclear Eng. & Radiological Sciences" I.e. together they have academic, government/regulatory and industrial experience, which sounds like a pretty good combination to me. https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/lindsay-krall https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/lindsay-krall https://sppga.ubc.ca/profile/allison-macfarlane/ https://sppga.ubc.ca/profile/allison-macfarlane/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Macfarlane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Macfarlane https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/rodney_c_ewing https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/rodney_c_ewing