US Small-Scale Nuclear Reactor Industry Gains Traction In Missouri 200
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the grabbing-market-share-from-mr-fusion dept.
from the grabbing-market-share-from-mr-fusion dept.
trichard writes with this quote from an AP report:
"Ameren Missouri is vying to be the first utility in the country to seek a construction and operating license for a small-scale nuclear reactor, a technology that's appealing to utilities because of the smaller upfront costs and shorter development lead times. The small reactors, about a fourth or less the capacity of full-size nuclear units, are appealing to the nuclear industry because they could be manufactured at a central plant and shipped around the world. By contrast, building nuclear reactors today is a more cumbersome process that must be done largely on site and takes years."
Re:How does the MTBF scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do lots of smaller reactors fail at a rate statistically below or at least equal to a single larger reactor that generates the same amount of power?
From TFS:
Guessing this means it's probably far to early to tell...
These can be boons for small towns... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a small town, a small (~220 MW) plant will come very handy. It helps ensure they will be up if the grid goes down, that businesses would have a utility power guarantee, and it also gives clean power without having to deal with a coal or other fossil fuel plant.
I keep seeing these pieces of a puzzle popping up on /. that would solve the core problems our culture faces. A wind turbine to pull water from the air here, small reactors there, isobutane from CO2, better batteries from IBM, and self driving cars. Putting these technologies together, and we have done a lot for the transportation infrastructure. The reactors would give reliable power, which can be used to charge batteries on electric vehicles or make usable fuel for IC engines. Road congestion and even the need for a vehicle (as opposed to just renting one for a trip) would be eased by self driving cars.
I just wish some of these cool potential ideas came into practical use. Self driving cars would allow for a lot of flexibility especially.
As energy availability improves, so do economies.
Re:NIMBY (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How does the MTBF scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
California is the 8th largest economy in the world, or so. It is in no way Communist, perhaps it has some social programs but that is not communism. Communism is a real thing, not just some slur you use against people wealthier than you.
Re:How does the MTBF scale? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Most [small reactors] are also designed for a high level of passive or inherent safety in the event of malfunction. A 2010 report by a special committee convened by the American Nuclear Society showed that many safety provisions necessary, or at least prudent, in large reactors are not necessary in the small designs forthcoming."
From http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html [world-nuclear.org].
Re:NIMBY (Score:3, Insightful)
Because a gas furnace that blows up might leave the house uninhabitable for a few days. A nuclear reactor that melts down might leave a few square miles uninhabitable for a century. I love nuclear power, but unless we can produce some sort of pebble-bed like system where the probability of radioactive contamination is nearly zero, putting them under the control of the average citizen is a terrible idea.
Plus, nuclear proliferation is still a very real problem.
The Real Travestry (Score:5, Insightful)
"Ameren said the application process could cost $80 million to $100 million and take four years."
Re:Small Scale Nuclear Power Plants... (Score:5, Insightful)
have been in use by the U.S. Navy for decades. They've plenty of safety and failure rate data on them, they've got a high safety rating, and they're pretty small.
They also require weapons-grade uranium for fuel, which kinda rules out their use in civilian applications.
Re:How does the MTBF scale? (Score:3, Insightful)
A 2010 report by a special committee convened by the American Nuclear Society showed that many safety provisions necessary, or at least prudent, in large reactors are not necessary in the small designs forthcoming.
Wow, seriously, you are happy to take the word of the pro-nuclear lobby in this matter? You know that most of the accidents we have had were due to overconfidence, mismanagement, operators lying to regulators...
Re:The way this could be made to work (Score:4, Insightful)
None of those methods can contaminate massive areas of land all at once. You can clean up a broken windfarm with ordinary equipment, not specialized robotics, and it's a lot cheaper.
Burning natural gas, while it does have a negative long term consequence for the entire planet, is far cheaper than nuclear, and can provide base-load generation just fine. Natural gas is ideal to use in conjunction with renewable energy because you can easily start up and shut down gas turbines as the wind/solar etc fluctuate.