Submitted by Vegeta9001 t3_yh09ci in worldnews
ok46reddit t1_iubf3xp wrote
So many problems with this.
>U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the project would create or sustain more than 100,000 jobs for American workers.
This seems to be the 'I just pulled this out of my ass' number of jobs for any big project.
And I thought we were getting away from building these mega reactors anyway and going to SMRs. Since it took them decades to make a decision you might think they would have had time to do some more research on the advancements in the technology and economics of nuclear generation.
EGO_Prime t1_iubnpbz wrote
> And I thought we were getting away from building these mega reactors anyway and going to SMRs.
SMRs are likely to be more expensive in the end then larger reactor systems. By design they use more materials were Watt of generated power. Some of that cost might be recuperated if built at scale, but probably not all of it.
They're also likely to have less thermal efficiency as well. Plus side, less local environmental impact and damage from waste heat, since the thermal output (overall) is less. It's still going to be more per Watt.
ok46reddit t1_iuboxod wrote
Not likely. Mass production tends to result in efficiencies that can't be achieved with bespoke engineering at any scale.
Not to mention, SMRs can be dropped in just about anywhere at the substation level, repurposing more of the existing infrastructure, while making it more resilient. Rather than having to build out extensive infrastructure just to accommodate the construction phase of this mega plant.
EGO_Prime t1_iubptiq wrote
>Not likely. Mass production tends to result in efficiencies that can't be achieved with bespoke engineering at any scale.
I mean they use more materials, you can't get away from that fact. Efficient use of materials can never reduce costs bellow material costs.
>Not to mention, SMRs can be dropped in just about anywhere at the substation level, repurposing more of the existing infrastructure, while making it more resilient. Rather than having to build out extensive infrastructure just to accommodate the construction phase of this mega plant.
There are some advantages, but in practical sense, most are not realizable. Like your drop and install anyway point. People don't want to live around nukes, even small ones. Zoning and planing are decided at a high level with input from local citizenry. If they don't want it, it wont be installed. Centralized plants have a much easier time navigating and absorbing these costs.
ok46reddit t1_iubq81j wrote
>I mean they use more materials
Again, not hardly. You have to build a whole goddamned city to support an old cold-war scale nuclear plant. Cost overruns are one of the big reasons they are scarcely built anymore. They are resource intensive in many dimensions.
SMRs are not nearly as resource intensive because they can be used in tandem with existing infrastructure.
The only reason to dust off the cold-war model is for a jobs program... Kinda like NASA did with the SLS.
EGO_Prime t1_iubu4bf wrote
Per Watt generated they use more resources. Again, per Watt generated, not overall. Most large scale plants generate GWs of power with each core being close to a full GW or more, where SMBs are in the low hundreds of MWs. Larger plants are able to leverage their scale to reduce resources for the secondary and support items, like the power distribution or large scale cooling systems, the later get significantly cheaper and less resource intensive with larger size. So it does costs more for the whole (large) site, but when you break the cost down per Watt of generated power, larger sites will tend to be cheaper to both build and operate.
SMRs do potentially have additional safety features though, so it's possible operational costs might be less. But material costs won't be smaller, you still need containment system, turbines, transformers sub-stations, etc. They'll be smaller because there's less load, but when you scale that up to the same output of a large plant, you'll need more resources for the same power output.
I'm not trying to knock SMRs. A single plant is cheaper to build, but it also generates significantly less power then a larger unit, with many of the same design and zoning constraints.
ok46reddit t1_iubwfvl wrote
Again. SMRs do not use more resources.
The resources consumed do not only include materials used in the reactor, but also in the surrounding infrastructure.
Cynical_Cabinet t1_iubsb4o wrote
The real problem with the mass production strategy for decreasing costs is that the "mass" is going to have to be extremely large for it to overcome the loss in efficiency by using smaller reactors. Likely they would need to be produced in the thousands to really drive the cost down by a significant amount, and I can't see the market being that large. It's going to be pretty much impossible to scale up that production.
ok46reddit t1_iubwhmv wrote
> Likely they would need to be produced in the thousands to really drive the cost down by a significant amount,
This is exactly what will occur.
basscycles t1_iubxxgl wrote
Russia's uranium becomes valuable and strategic in the process.
ok46reddit t1_iubyc0z wrote
So does Australia's uranium for that matter.
Kazakhstan, Canada, Namibia...
basscycles t1_iuefuhh wrote
Pretty happy for Australia, Canada, Nambia and Kazakhstan to have economies, Russia not so much.
ok46reddit t1_iufu4j5 wrote
Perhaps you should pen a sternly worded letter to Putin then.
basscycles t1_iufumft wrote
Prefer to just helping digging the grave for nukes.
[deleted] t1_iufuww7 wrote
[removed]
PlayingTheWrongGame t1_iudqtpa wrote
> Not likely. Mass production tends to result in efficiencies that can't be achieved with bespoke engineering at any scale.
SMRs would never be produced at a scale that would be considered genuinely mass production. You’d be talking a couple of dozen units a year, maybe.
It’s “mass production” compared with the current state of the industry, but we’re not talking cell phones here.
> SMRs can be dropped in just about anywhere at the substation level
Given than none of them currently have approval to be used that way, no, they can’t.
They could, in theory, be used that way in the future. But there is not currently a commercially available product that could be used that way outside of a tech demonstrator project that gets some sort of waiver.
It’s also unclear that SMRs could be deployed outside of a concrete containment vessel anyway.
ok46reddit t1_iudtly6 wrote
Current SMR designs are absolutely available at substation scales. The reason they can be used this way is that they are high temperature systems that can be placed anywhere.
The whole reason that cold-war era nuke plants had to be so big is that they were lower temperature designs with very particular requirements for cooling that restricts where they can be sited. So they have to be able to serve large regions.
"Mass production" of SMRs need not be the scale of consumer electronics to be cost effective. Unlike a cold-war scale design. which must be engineered on a bespoke basis, an approved SMR design can be replicated over and over. Which is absolutely a more cost-effective production model. Versus the comically and unpredictably expensive cold-war model..
PlayingTheWrongGame t1_iuejg6w wrote
Designs, yes.
Approved commercial reactors a company can buy, no.
> "Mass production" of SMRs need not be the scale of consumer electronics to be cost effective.
If you want to make the argument that mass production will substantially reduce costs they would need to be.
ok46reddit t1_iuftkz3 wrote
>Approved commercial reactors a company can buy,
There are several under construction in China and Russia. One operational in Russia for now. KAERI has one licensed in SK, and there are five more designs being evaluated for licensing in the US and Russia. And I am pretty sure we will see these designs in operation before this one in Poland can be brought online.
There are dozens of additional designs in the pipeline.
PlayingTheWrongGame t1_iufzq7f wrote
> There are several under construction in China and Russia.
Tech demonstrators are not the same as cost-competitive commercial products.
ok46reddit t1_iui29nd wrote
By that standard every single cold-war style nuke generation complex is a 'tech demonstrator' since they are all pretty much subsidized one-offs.
PlayingTheWrongGame t1_iujd3al wrote
It’s almost like this method of generating electricity inherently scales poorly.
ok46reddit t1_iujuxtu wrote
I don't know where you are getting that idea. Particularly with distributed generation becoming more common.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments