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A $200-Million Floating Nuclear Plant?
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Oct 15, 2006 05:33 PM
from the nothing-can-go-wrong dept.
from the nothing-can-go-wrong dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'A Floating Chernobyl?,' Popular Science reports that two Russian companies plan to build the world's first floating nuclear power plant to deliver cheap electricity to northern territories. The construction should start next year for a deployment in 2010. The huge barge will be home for two 60-megawatt nuclear reactors which will work until 2050... if everything works fine. It looks like a frightening idea, don't you think? But read more for additional details and pictures of this floating nuclear power plant."
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Safety (Score:4, Informative)
Hell, if this goes pear shaped, you could drop the core miles beneath the sea never to be seen again.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Safety (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
powered Tacoma in 1929 for about a month.
here [historylink.org]
She had a turbo electric drive, so she could generate a lot of power.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misspelled "wessels". Hope this helps!
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Umm.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Umm.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Umm.... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Umm.... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Safety (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Small reactors (Score:5, Informative)
No, we're talking two relatively small reactors on a barge. Typical nuclear power reactors for feeding the electrical grid are in the 600 to 1000 megawatt range, not 60 MW, and most facilities have more than one (the Pickering and Darlington facilities near Toronto have 8 650 MW and 4 850 MW reactors respectively).
The reactors aboard an aircraft carrier do more than just run the lights, they can push the whole thing at speeds in excess of 40 knots (how much in excess isn't exactly talked about -- but even that is more than fast enough to water ski behind!). Ditto for nuclear subs -- plus they provide air and water for the crew (hydrolysis and reverse osmosis).
Modern nuclear submarines typically use reactors up to 200 MW, the French Rubis-class subs use a 48 MW reactor, Russia's Oskar-II class uses 2 190 MW reactors. Surface ships like aircraft carriers or the Kirov-class battle cruiser use two reactors each up to 300 MW each.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"The reactors aboard an aircraft carrier do more than just run the lights, they can push the whole thing at speeds in excess of 40 knots (how much in excess isn't exactly talked about -- but even that is more than fast enough to water ski behind!"
Please tell me you've skied behind a carrier!
Re:Safety A few numbers... (Score:3, Informative)
1,000 people in the crew? Try some 3,800 crew and 2,200-2,800 in the air wing, plus the Marines deta
Re:Safety (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, this is a change in scale, but in the other direction...Naval reactor plants are BIGGER than these two plants, power-wise. The S6G plant in the Los Angeles-class subs alone is more powerful than these two plants. While I've never worked on this particular plant, I don't doubt what wikipedia has to say about it.
S6G: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S6G_reactor [wikipedia.org]
I DO have extensive experience operating older S5W reactor plants, and while I'm not about to give specs on it, I will say that it cranked out more power than one of these proposed floating plants.
As far as an aircraft carrier goes, the typical crew complement is 5000...and it can move in excess fo 30 knots. The electrical load ALONE is 32 MW, not to mention the power needed to drive 95,000 tons through the water at 30+ knots.
In short...these barges are small compared to Naval reactor plants.
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Re:Safety (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, never to be seen again except for the massive Radioactive Steam explosion [ingentaconnect.com].
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder if they will find a use for all 3 eyes though?
Nuclear isn't necessarily scary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nuclear Is Quite Scary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nuclear isn't necessarily scary (Score:5, Insightful)
yes. they produce different sorts of waste products.
Nuclear power doesn't produce much waste, for the amount of energy you get out of it. But the little bit of waste it does produce is really really nasty. The waste is about 90% recyclable into more fissile material, but you need some sophisticated processing plants to do this. And transporting radioactive waste to an from a processing facility is extremely risky, which is why it is preferable to have an expensive power plant with all the processing facilities on site.
I prefer nuclear power over coal and oil. And the environmental impact of nuclear energy is smaller than that of a hydroelectric dam, discounting nuclear accidents, which you should never have. Hydrodams displace many animals and dramatically change the ecosystem for thousands of acres. Old nuclear reactors had pretty significant impact on the local environment too, such as warming of the river/lake/coast they sit on. this is bad, it can have all sorts of impacts on the reproductive cycles of many animals, as well as result in poisonous algae blooms. It is indeed possible to build reactors that are safe and have low environmental impact, they actually do exist.
There is no power source that you will make everyone happy. Crazy environmentalists don't like wind power (kills birds and rare bats), hydroelectric (disrupts the local ecology), coal and oil (nobody likes these), or nuclear (every power plant is a potential Chernobyl)
If oh-so-wonderful France can run 70% of its energy off nuclear power, then why can't the US? In the US we have a lot of lunatics who would rather have coal plants than nuclear plants. I'm assuming Russia, which has always been much more creative in nuclear technology than the US, that the only obstacle to nuclear power is coming up with the money to fund it.
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Re:Nuclear isn't necessarily scary (Score:4, Informative)
I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the really nasty waste tends to be really nasty for short periods of time -- years or decades. Radioactivity is energy, and materials that are highly radioactive are releasing a lot of energy at a rate it cannot sustain for a long period of time.
The low-level radiation tends to last for a lot longer, since it releases less energy.
A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
This is also why nuclear power plants have cooling pools for nuclear waste -- for the first few years, the waste produces enough heat (energy) and radioactivity to make moving and storing much more difficult.
*cues "the more you know" music*
Btw, many nuclear wastes tend to be heavy metals, and thus are prone to causing heavy metal poisoning. But this seems to be often (purposely?) overlooked, since opponents of nuclear power seem to focus on the much more "scary" radioactivy, and proponents don't want to mention more downsides of nuclear power.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've often wondered, given the massive amounts of research going into power distribution systems these days, why this energy can't be used in some way. Nuclear reactors, after all, work by heating water. If you could preheat the water using the recently-produced waste, you wouldn't need to drive the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And your evidence for this statement is?
Come on, you must have evidence of at least some risk to suggest it's "extremely" risky.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Do you want to know why we have difficulties getting things done in the USA?
Re:Nuclear isn't necessarily scary (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/0
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Re:Hanford was not a power plant (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, like it is better to have a government agency supervising private industry and keeping them in line than it is to have a government operation under 300 layers of secrecy that nobody is allowed to even look at.
The Hanford mess is a result of nobody bothering to care for decades about management of waste on the site. I heard a talk by somebody who had some involvement with the cleanup efforts. Apparently over the many years of operation all kinds of stuff was pumped into tanks, and records of what that stuff was were not kept accurately. When sludge from the tanks was sent out for analysis it was done in a careless manner - without even rudimentary precautions like sending the same samples to independant labs for duplicate testing.
Basically it was run like a government operation where nobody could get in trouble for making a mess, and unsurprisingly a huge mess resulted. Additionally during the cold war there was the genuine concern that if we had fewer bombs than the Russians it might result in an enemy first strike - so in some sense they might have been right to make safety priority #2 (but there is no excuse for not doing a lot better than they did). After all, an actual nuclear war would have made the leaking tanks at Hanford look like a VERY minor problem.
Bottom line - large-scale nuclear power generation facilities require heavy oversight - by folks who are more interested in exposing problems than covering them up. There is no reason to ban them entirely - any industry has the potential to create disaster (just look at Bhopal) - like anything you just need to make sure that it is cheaper to be safe than to be unsafe.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear power has problems - but they are all solvable within our technological reach. The problems of irreplacable fossil fuels combined with the bad consequences of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere are not in any way solvable with technologies we currently have - or even e
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's just plain wrong. You're confusing the oft-quoted factoid that a coal plant *releases* more radioactivity into the environment than a nuclear plant along with its long-term storage facilities. (As long as Murphy's law is held at bay for 10,000 years or so.) That do
It could be worse (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5391586.stm
It looks like a frightening idea, don't you think? (Score:5, Funny)
Both the US and Russian Navy have plenty of reactors online - and many of them power ships of some kind which float in water.
And here's the kicker - they're online - right now!
Oh nosies! Call Greenpeace!
Re:It looks like a frightening idea, don't you thi (Score:3, Insightful)
Naval reactors have a different design than civilian power reactors. They are smaller and require less frequent refueling events because they burn enriched Uranium and produce less average power. The safety record of US naval reactors is good primarily due to a high degree of training and discipline, and design uniformity over long periods. The Soviet navy experienced a number of serious failures.
A floating civilian reactor will probably not burn
Hardly the first floating Nuclear Power Plant (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No accidents?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
over 60% of those are non-nuclear... (Score:4, Interesting)
You might save yourself some trouble if you only looked up relevant info.
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No, I didn't appreciate the Chernobyl reference. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scary? (Score:5, Insightful)
With all the liberal imperialist environmental communists out there screaming because
1. Coal is a non-renewable energy source.
2. Oil is a non-renewable energy source.
3. Natural gas is a non-renewable energy souce.
4. Wave power is too ugly to be built (too lazy to Google for it but Kennedy / Kerry vetoed the idea because it was too close to THEIR vacataion home).
5. Water flow (river) is too unpredictable (and causes environmental damage when you flood blah blah blah).
6. Wind power is too noisy and it kills birdies.
What the hell else do we have?
Solar? Right. Who wants a backyard full of panels? Some people like to BAR-B-QUE in their back yards
I say
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Is that the sound of a knee jerking or have you actually bothered to check? Here is a reference [stanford.edu] that indicates that the uranium supply (economically recoverable) would last billions of years though it does not assume exponential growth or anything similar. It does assume breeder reactor technology. In other words we would have to worry more about the Sun burning out first.
American politicians are going to have a fit... (Score:5, Funny)
Article is misleading... (Score:3, Informative)
Although these articles don't specify, it's likely the floating NPP (Nuclear Power Plant) will be based on the VVER design (which is inheriantly a lot more stable) as opposed to the RBMK that Chernobyl used. The RBMK [wikipedia.org] design had a nasty design flaw, which the world became aware of in 1986 [wikipedia.org].
That being said, the RBMK design has been made much safer since the Soviet era, with many remaining reactors being decommissioned soon anyway. So yeah, apparently TFA's author didn't do their homework.
Why (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't the russians just build a 20.25 square foot solar site? It will still generate 200 Megawatts of power. That can power alot of households in Russia.
Google Solar Mission
Crash Testing (Score:5, Insightful)
No. As you can see in these crash test videos [blogspot.com], the containers used to transport nuclear waste can be broadsided by a 120-ton locomotive traveling at 80 miles per hour and come out of it with only cosmetic damage. Unfortumately, all the fud about accidents & terrorism on trucks or trains carrying nuclear waste tends to appeal more to peoples fearful hearts than the facts do to peoples rational minds. That makes me a sad pro-nuclear panda.
The first floating reactor - USS Sturgis (Score:5, Informative)
The real news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USS Enterprise, Nimitz, etc (Score:5, Informative)
The Enterprise actually has 8 reactors! The Enterprise was so expensive that the next class of carriers where not The Kitty Hawk class had four ships in it. Two of them are still in service.
What everyone is forgetting is the US did build a floating reactor into an old Liberty ship. In the late sixties it was used in Panama.
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Re:USS Enterprise, Nimitz, etc (Score:5, Informative)
To my knowledge, all US CVNs other than the Enterprise have just 2 reactors. IIRC, subs have just the one (but I wasn't a bubblehead, so don't quote me).
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Re:Land-based power supply troubles? (Score:5, Informative)
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCRAM [wikipedia.org]
"In modern nuclear power plants, the control rods are lifted by electric motors against both their own weight and a powerful spring. A SCRAM rapidly (less than four seconds, by test) releases the control rods from those motors and allows their weight and the spring to drive them into the reactor core, thus halting the nuclear reaction as rapidly as possible."
Also, most people are ill-informed as to why Chernobyl occured:
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient [wikipedia.org]
"A positive void coefficient means that the thermal power output increases as the void content inside the reactor increases due to increased boiling or loss of liquid moderator or coolant. If the void coefficient is large enough and control systems do not respond quickly enough, this can form a positive feedback loop which can quickly boil all the coolant in the reactor. This happened in the Chernobyl accident."
It's illegal to build positive void coefficient reactors in the US for this reason. Negative coefficient reactors won't have runaway reactions.
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Re:Environmental Scaremongering (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting viewpoint. What do you have other than national pride to make you think that an inactive US nuclear industry that spends more money on advertising than R&D is less worrying? Recent work from South Africa, India and China is most likely better than both.
However it is not "clean" - it is an industrial process involving mining, extremely toxic chemicals in processing and the end product produces waste that is both toxic and radioactive so cannot just be ignored. Also it takes years to build any sort of thermal plant, paticularly a brand new design, so it is not available now. Using an old design is pointless since capital costs are going to be very high and you want to be able to get the best results you can - plus things like accelerated thorium reactors could solve the fuel shortage problem (and be cheaper to build and run as a consequece) and produce a lot less waste. Pebble beds don't scale up so are expensive but solve a lot of safety issues - perhaps they can have longer lives so may end up cheap enough to use in the long run. Someone will bring up fast breeders so I'll point them to look at the Superphoenix project first - reprocessing sounds like a good idea but was very difficult to implement with highly radioactive material so even photovoltaics (which do not scale up - twice the scale and you get no more than twice the output) ended up cheaper per MW no matter how big you build your Superphoenix style fast breeder. In the end you need a new design instead of hoping for corporate welfare - President Carter (who has a masters degree in nuclear engineering) effectively killed the US nuclear industry by making it clear there wouldn't be more corporate welfare for new plants - the focus has been on trying to get the welfare back for more dinosaur plants instead of building things that can stand on their own merits (and blaming hippies, coal ash as radioactive waste too, everything but their own inaction).
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