4 ms·

There is probably a literal ton (if you printed it out on 20# paper stock ;-)) of stuff written about how small modular reactors are a much better answer to dep

There is probably a literal ton (if you printed it out on 20# paper stock ;-)) of stuff written about how small modular reactors are a much better answer to deploying nuclear power than big LWRs. In the desal pitch the ability to scale them as needs scaled "quickly" as well as the ability to decomission them when they were done by picking the entire reactor complex up and transporting it off site were the primary selling points. If you're still interested you can start at the DOE site and follow those links, NuScale (https://www.nuscalepower.com/en https://www.nuscalepower.com/en) has a bunch of stuff to, they will send you white papers). Anyway, I doubt they are going to go anywhere before the first round of the climate apocalypse gives people the "You can either put in a nuclear power plant or you can all die, which do you want to do?" choice.

jojobas 3y ago
The downside of more waster per GWH and/or greater enrichment requirement far outweighs that. A power plant is only ever "done" when it finds itself on a far more valuable land than when it was built or when your politicians decide to go back to fossil fuels, something that should pretty much never happen. That said, if it does need to happen, traditional 500MW PWR sites have been restored to green field condition. SMRs are expected to by 1.5-2x as expensive as traditional nukes, it's borderline fraud at this point.
ianai 3y ago
Is there somewhere I could read to become very knowledgeable on all things desalinization? I know I’m already at that point. Just experiencing the southwest heat and lack of water for my life has been enough. It strikes me that the US could absolutely resolve so many of its problems with known tech today, but refuses. And definitely it takes some shattering moment to wake people up. We recently had the hugest wildfires known and I don’t quite see much difference locally. But these things take time.
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  Have you ever done a masters degree? If not, this is how it works (and this works for ANY subject, not just desalination) 1) Get a library card for university (this will more reliably get you papers than sci-hub). Sometimes you can just pay them for one, sometimes you have to register for a course (1 unit courses in the US can be inexpensive and even if they are in basket weaving as a "student" you get to get a library card :-) 2) With the assistance of the reference librarian find the journals that cover the topic you're trying to master and go through the papers. There will be some "highly cited" papers that everyone refers to, some "medium levels of citations" and then typically you'll see papers that take the research in one of a few directions. You can choose to either stay in "survey" mode at this point or dive down one of those directions. 3) Read the papers and learn from the results, you may find subjects that you didn't learn as much as you needed to in order to read the paper (math, chemistry, physics, etc) for each of those, you find text books or things like the Chaum's notes for the subject to bring you up to the level you need in order to understand the paper. If you keep at this for a while you will start finding that when you read a paper you both understand what they are doing and may instantly develop an opinion on whether or not you think it is "good" and will be able to explain why it is or isn't good. At that point you are now the "master" of that topic. You don't have the degree but you didn't have to write a thesis either so there is that :-). If the university you chose in step 1 has professors doing stuff in the area you could probably co-write papers with them.
  - ianai 3y ago
    Yep have done! Was hoping it was a little more accessible though. Luckily I do have some library access.
    - ChuckMcM 3y ago
      Sorry to disappoint, if it was easier we would perhaps have a wider base of expertise on which to rely upon. On the plus side, the more areas you develop the faster the new ones are to develop as the base subject (math, physics, chemistry, biology, Etc.) overlap a bunch of different disciplines. I've been working through some tomes on Organic Chemistry for a plastic waste processing idea/project and that is a pretty slow slog. Beyond its use in semiconductors I've not been a huge chemistry fan.

jojobas 3y ago

The downside of more waster per GWH and/or greater enrichment requirement far outweighs that. A power plant is only ever "done" when it finds itself on a far more valuable land than when it was built or when your politicians decide to go back to fossil fuels, something that should pretty much never happen. That said, if it does need to happen, traditional 500MW PWR sites have been restored to green field condition. SMRs are expected to by 1.5-2x as expensive as traditional nukes, it's borderline fraud at this point.

ianai 3y ago

Is there somewhere I could read to become very knowledgeable on all things desalinization? I know I’m already at that point. Just experiencing the southwest heat and lack of water for my life has been enough. It strikes me that the US could absolutely resolve so many of its problems with known tech today, but refuses. And definitely it takes some shattering moment to wake people up. We recently had the hugest wildfires known and I don’t quite see much difference locally. But these things take time.

ChuckMcM 3y ago
Have you ever done a masters degree? If not, this is how it works (and this works for ANY subject, not just desalination) 1) Get a library card for university (this will more reliably get you papers than sci-hub). Sometimes you can just pay them for one, sometimes you have to register for a course (1 unit courses in the US can be inexpensive and even if they are in basket weaving as a "student" you get to get a library card :-) 2) With the assistance of the reference librarian find the journals that cover the topic you're trying to master and go through the papers. There will be some "highly cited" papers that everyone refers to, some "medium levels of citations" and then typically you'll see papers that take the research in one of a few directions. You can choose to either stay in "survey" mode at this point or dive down one of those directions. 3) Read the papers and learn from the results, you may find subjects that you didn't learn as much as you needed to in order to read the paper (math, chemistry, physics, etc) for each of those, you find text books or things like the Chaum's notes for the subject to bring you up to the level you need in order to understand the paper. If you keep at this for a while you will start finding that when you read a paper you both understand what they are doing and may instantly develop an opinion on whether or not you think it is "good" and will be able to explain why it is or isn't good. At that point you are now the "master" of that topic. You don't have the degree but you didn't have to write a thesis either so there is that :-). If the university you chose in step 1 has professors doing stuff in the area you could probably co-write papers with them.
- ianai 3y ago
  Yep have done! Was hoping it was a little more accessible though. Luckily I do have some library access.
  - ChuckMcM 3y ago
    Sorry to disappoint, if it was easier we would perhaps have a wider base of expertise on which to rely upon. On the plus side, the more areas you develop the faster the new ones are to develop as the base subject (math, physics, chemistry, biology, Etc.) overlap a bunch of different disciplines. I've been working through some tomes on Organic Chemistry for a plastic waste processing idea/project and that is a pretty slow slog. Beyond its use in semiconductors I've not been a huge chemistry fan.