The Green New Deal

[Ziggurat]

To be clear when I said smaller I was referring to power output only.

You can make nuclear reactors with pretty low power. There's a research reactor at Reed College with a mere 250 kW. It's not a power reactor (runs at low temp, not pressurized), but that's by design. You don't need to be very high power to have a chain reaction. I think one of the big reasons power reactors aren't made small is efficiency: you probably get a lot more recoverable power if you build it to at least some minimum size. If the efficiency is low, not only do you get less power output for your fuel input, you need a lot more cooling per unit of power output, which is quite undesirable.

I'm aware they achieve their compact design and other aspects by using HEU but didn't have the compactness in mind. The cost of HEU fuel could be prohibitive though. Cost seems an appropriate topic for this thread. Other aspects of HEU may need a separate thread, separate forum even.

Proliferation risks, not cost, are probably the main reason not to go with HEU for civilian reactors. High costs don't help, though.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Good a time as any to point out that Kodak, yes the camera company, had a reactor running on 3.5 pounds of weapons grade uranium, in a basement in a building in the middle or Rochester, New York that pretty much nobody knew about.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

You can make nuclear reactors with pretty low power. There's a research reactor at Reed College with a mere 250 kW. It's not a power reactor (runs at low temp, not pressurized), but that's by design.

Good a time as any to point out that Kodak, yes the camera company, had a reactor running on 3.5 pounds of weapons grade uranium, in a basement in a building in the middle or Rochester, New York that pretty much nobody knew about.

Those aren't uncommon. I lived near a NIST reactor once. And by near I mean less than a mile from the reactor. Some are run at universities.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm a squid. There hasn't been a point in my adult life where I've routinely been further then a "few miles" from a lot of reactors and no small amount of nuclear weapons.

 

[Ranb]

Those aren't uncommon. I lived near a NIST reactor once. And by near I mean less than a mile from the reactor. Some are run at universities.

Thousands of people live and sleep next to nuclear reactors; on naval vessels.

I'm a squid. ....

What flavor? I was a MM1/SS. 3355, 3356, 3366 then a 0000. Now on the permanent disabled list and drawing retirement pay.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Thousands of people live and sleep next to nuclear reactors; on naval vessels.

Wouldn't a single aircraft be thousands?

 

[smartcooky]

There's no particular answer because it depends on storage and distribution, and we could go to 100% with enough storage and/or distribution. A solar station with a bunch of batteries/supercapacitors can maintain constant output by charging the storage system in mid-day and letting energy out from it at night. A network of interconnected power plants can distribute power to where the windmills are standing still from where they're spinning and adjust that flow an hour later when both air masses move on. Postulate different levels of storage & distribution abilities, and you get different answers for your question, but there's nothing in particular to stop it from going all the way.

One of the problems with this is transmission line losses; the further you have to transmit power, the greater the line losses. In order to transmit power any distance beyond "local" the voltage has to be raised significantly, because power loss is a function of current and resistance (I²xR), NOT voltage and resistance (E²/R). This why long distance transmission line voltages can be up to 400,000 volts, because at that voltage, the power is transmitted at a low current, keeping losses down.

IMO, power stations of the future will need to be as local to the areas they serve as practicable, and long distance power transmissions lines would be at a minimum of use until they are needed.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What flavor? I was a MM1/SS. 3355, 3356, 3366 then a 0000. Now on the permanent disabled list and drawing retirement pay.

IT1(SW/AW/IW). 2780, 2781, 2791. Hit my 20 in 2016. Retired and in the civilian sector.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Wouldn't a single aircraft be thousands?

2,500-6,000 depending on how much of the Air Wing and Admiral's staff is onboard.

 

[Ranb]

Wouldn't a single aircraft be thousands?

No! The airedales don't count.

IT1(SW/AW/IW). 2780, 2781, 2791. Hit my 20 in 2016. Retired and in the civilian sector.

Present company excepted.

 

[acbytesla]

I'm interested in traveling wave and molten salt liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Both of which are extremely promising.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Present company excepted.

I did a couple of tours on the flattops, but I ended up as a tin can sailor, with some side trips to various shore commands and stint in Afghanistan.

 

[Belz...]

You already have CFPP with generation units of 600MW or 1000MW.

I'm sorry, what?

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm interested in traveling wave and molten salt liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Both of which are extremely promising.

I hope someone revisits the modular pebble bed design again at some point.

I'm also curious if non-reaction based nuclear power like RTGs ever stop being niche products.

 

[Belz...]

We are both saying that, but you are willing to kill off 90% of the human population and can't even be expected to have any numbers and yet you want to be taken seriously?

What in the blue hell are you talking about? What does my off-hand comment about human populations have to do with coming up with exact numbers of carbon reduction? I have a nagging impression that your request for these exact numbers is a distraction; an impossible standard designed to dismiss anything I have to say. I'll bet that you have no idea what those numbers would be, yourself.

As for being taken seriously, what do you base your contention that we can kind of easily sequester carbon on?

You just said earlier without nuclear we are screwed, what do you base that on?

Read my posts. I explained exactly what I meant.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

You already have CFPP with generation units of 600MW or 1000MW.

Worth mentioning CFPP is Carbon Free Power Project.

 

[acbytesla]

I hope someone revisits the modular pebble bed design again at some point.

There is science being done on this at MIT. But it's further away than traveling wave reactors, but that might be because Gates has invested more than a billion dollars into traveling wave reactor development.

I'm also curious if non-reaction based nuclear power like RTGs ever stop being niche products.

I doubt it. At least not in the near term. Although Matt Damon found one useful on Mars.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I doubt it. At least not in the near term. Although Matt Damon found one useful on Mars.

While they've had their greatest success in the space program, it's not hard to imagine them being used for other remote unmanned purposes. I believe the Soviets had some degree of success with using them for unmanned remote light houses and navigation beacons.

And on another topic Nuclear desalination might become a thing down the road. I know that combining nuclear power with large scale desalination has been considered a few times as the systems do complement each other to some degree.

 

[thaiboxerken]

*Laughs* I don't know if the world can survive another Rickover.

I don't see nuclear power being acceptable to the general public without one.

But seriously I agree with you. If the Navy can get 18 year olds to run reactors on an E-4's pay with a safety record like they have on a time frame like they've had in an environment like they run it in, we shouldn't have to keep pandering to the lamb bleating "But is it safe?" crowd.

By every possible metric nuclear power is our best bet.

Yes, but it's the robust safety protocols and procedures that make such a thing possible for an inherently dangerous method of producing electricity. I can't see any for-profit business wanting or willing to do this, in fact, most (if not all) of the accidents are because of shortcuts in order to make more $$$.

Full disclosure, I was EO and SRO in the Navy but I'm still skeptical of nuclear power for electrical production until the inherent corruption of capitalism is shielded against.

 

[acbytesla]

And on another topic Nuclear desalination might become a thing down the road. I know that combining nuclear power with large scale desalination has been considered a few times as the systems do complement each other to some degree.

Sure, any large energy power plant and desalination offers a symbiotic opportunity.

Right now, China is building more nuclear power reactors than anyone. I know that TerraPower is working with them on building their first commercial traveling wave reactors.

The problem with Nuclear power is that in a lot of people's minds all nuclear technology is the same. And sadly people like AOC didn't help lumping all of them into the same boat. This is one of my pet peeves about the environmental community. There is a huge difference in High Pressure Water reactors built in the 70s like Fukishima and what we would build today.

Also the lack of R&D in the US that came to a halt in 1981. For all the the things I hated about Ronald Reagan, this is very high on my list. And it wasn't until Obama that we really started to invest again in it. Although, it's still way too little in my book.

I love to imagine taking half the military budget and invest it in solving power generation. Pie in the Sky you probably think.