Netherlands Approves Building of New Nuclear Reactor For Medical Isotopes (pallasreactor.com) 39
A long-time Slashdot reader brings news from the EU:
This week the Dutch Government approved the construction license for the PALLAS reactor, a new nuclear reactor to create medical isotopes. The PALLAS reactor will replace the 60 year old reactor in Petten which produces about one third of all the medical isotopes used globally. Receiving the building permit is a major milestone as highlighted here.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Nuclear saves lives in more ways than just providing clean air and cheap electricity.
That's good, since it literally doesn't do either of those things.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
If you consider that, on average, nuclear power displaced coal, then yes, it provided "clean air", in that the tons of contaminants released by coal power wasn't released. Even if it displaces natural gas, that's still less CO2 in the air, less global warming, and all that.
Then, again, if you look at long running plants, they have some of the cheapest power rates going for electricity, so again, cheap electricity.
atomicalgebra is generally, technically, correct. (The best kind of correct!)
Now, if we could solve the problems that the developed world so often has with large projects these days, if we could clean up our nuclear power construction ability, soak up that that first 1-3 plants will be really expensive because it's a development project more than just an infrastructure project(we have to learn how to construct and inspect new power plants again), if we accept a lot of the new stuff for Gen3/4 reactors that make them safer, cheaper, and more efficient*
*A standard nuclear plant is like 30% efficient, thermal->electricity. This is primarily due to the Carnot cycle temperature gradient forced by needing to keep liquid water in the system. Go to an alternate (such as liquid metal, molten salt, helium, etc...) that allows you to kick the temperature up significantly while still lowering the reactor pressure and you can increase the efficiency substantially - so that rather than needing a 3GWt reactor to make 1GWe, you only need 2GWt to make 1GWe, which means that your cooling system can be half the size, the reactor 30% smaller, you need less nuclear fuel for a given amount of power, etc...
Yes, the first reactors will be more expensive - just like the first solar panels were expensive. Once we get the process and experience down, given that I believe the USA alone should have ~200 reactors (around double current), and I want to shut down the old ones, that means that we should really be starting/completing ~4/year.
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*A standard nuclear plant is like 30% efficient, thermal->electricity. This is primarily due to the Carnot cycle temperature gradient forced by needing to keep liquid water in the system. Go to an alternate (such as liquid metal, molten salt, helium, etc...) that allows you to kick the temperature up significantly while still lowering the reactor pressure and you can increase the efficiency substantially
The standard in the UK are CO2 gas cooled reactors running intentionally at the same steam conditions
CO2 gas cooled (Score:3)
Interesting. The Magnox design [wikipedia.org], apparently.
Hmm... It's listed as limited to 360C, and the technical information lists 25, 33, and 34% efficiency.
Which is about the same as PWR and BWRs, so my point basically stands.
Well, oops, those are shut down, was on wrong part of wiki. You have a number of AGRs - which kicks the temperature up to 648C. At 41% efficiency, it's getting to where I'd like things to be, which is around 50%.
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Yes, the first reactors will be more expensive - just like the first solar panels were expensive.
Right there with you on the CO2 emissions and clean air, but no sorry it's completely irrelevant that "the first reactors will be more expensive" since even at volume the existing technology is proving to be the single most expensive way to produce energy.
drinkypoo is right on the money. Nuclear reactors do not remotely produce "cheap electricity". And at this point even if you do get past the NIMBYs you still have to find a funding source or a government very willing to open the purse strings or guarantee
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Drinkypoo is never right about nuclear. He is emotionally opposed to it. Antinuclear is a religion for some people.
The average cost of electricity in December 2022 in LA was $0.26 per kWh. New nuclear is less than that. Existing nuclear is a fraction of that. There are a lot of renewables in California, but they are not reducing costs. Diablo Canyon produces electricity for $.0278 perk kWh and sells it for around $.06 per kWh. If only we built 20 more reactors here. Indian Point which just shutdown produced electricity for $0.0245 per kWh. It was replaced almost entirely(~ 99%) with fossil fuels and costs have skyrocketed.
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Drinkypoo is never right about nuclear. He is emotionally opposed to it.
Ad hominem fallacy.
New nuclear is less than that
Reality disagrees with you. New nuclear is a full order of magnitude more expensive than existing.
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Reality agrees with me. New nuclear might more expensive than existing, but it is less than what people are currently paying. The average cost of electricity in December 2022 in LA was $0.26 per kWh. New nuclear is significantly less than that. Existing nuclear is a fraction of that. 2/3 of the cost of Vogtle is interest on loans. 20 billion goes to the bankers while only 10 went to the actual construction. Even then Vogtle will actually lower costs because it displaces expensive fossil fuels. That
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The existing installs are actually proving to be the cheapest source to produce electricity.
New installs are more expensive, yes, but they're the single off boondoggles that don't get economy of scale(IE building more than 1-3 of them), and still suffer from the messed up contracting problem we have with big projects including things like underground rail.
The only way renewables are cheaper is if you don't include the storage and overbuild necessary to make them as reliable as nuclear.
That said, remember th
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The existing installs are actually proving to be the cheapest source to produce electricity.
Yeah but they aren't going to save the world are they. Existing installs are irrelevant when we're talking about constructing a future energy mix.
but they're the single off boondoggles that don't get economy of scale
Sorry but that's a load of crap. There's no such thing as economies of scale when building large scaled licensed plants. The economies of scale comes in the general construction of materials, pouring cement, running steel through foundries, and best of all they share a lot, and I mean A LOT of common equipment with the very very large process industry.
Nuclear powe
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You haven't read about SMRs, have you? We have proposals to have them running off a production line.
As for economies of scale, France had it back in the day, building standardized plants.
This allows savings in nuclear power specific parts like reactor vessels, engineering costs, certification costs, etc...
Basically, let's say that you have two people making a house. One is an experienced contractor, the other is not. You're arguing that they'll both build the same building at the same cost. I'm arguing
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if you look at long running plants, they have some of the cheapest power rates going for electricity, so again, cheap electricity.
Long running plants' fuel dates from a time when fuel production was even more polluting than it is now, and it still is. You're giving them a pass on their externalities. It also doesn't count the decommissioning cost, which is generally multiples of what it's supposed to be, and The People wind up eating the costs. Renewables + Battery backup are now cheaper than coal, let alone nuclear. Or for the same price as coal, you can build three times the maximum production, and not only have production during re
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Nuclear saves lives through nuclear medicine. Nuclear saves lives by displacing fossil fuels. Nuclear saves lives by providing cheap clean reliable electricity.
8.7 million people die annually from fossil fuels and biofuels. That's a holocaust a year. One that could have been prevent if it weren't for you antinuclear scumbags.
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Nuclear saves lives by providing cheap clean reliable electricity.
No it doesn't. Nuclear saves lives by providing the most expensive source of electricity. I don't know where you get the idea from that nuclear is in any way cheap. The industry is a laughing stock due to the cost of construction of reactors.
The only thing that beats it out as being expensive is plants that are still struggling with their own pilot concepts, i.e. concentrated thermal salt power plants, and coal plants with >90% carbon capture, two technologies which are really struggling to demonstrate a
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope. Nuclear energy is cheap for the consumer. You really bought into this LCOE lie.
Look at Point Beach nuclear power plant. They built it for $831.48 million (2022 adjusted) in 3 years. If we just repeated what they did we can completely decarbonize the entire world inside of a decade. And the cost of the energy would be miniscule. Like below a penny per kWh. And those reactors are still open and running.
It was a major mistake to not build massive amounts of new nuclear. It is still a mistake.
New construction can be made cheaper too. 2/3 of the cost of Vogtle is interest on loans. 10 billion for the construction of the two plants while 20 billion goes to the bank. That is a problem we can fix. We should tie public pension funds into new nuclear.
The NRC was created to kill nuclear energy. Nuclear energy was growing exponentially and the coal industry freaked. They lobbied for and created the NRC in order to kill nuclear. In its 48 year history zero plants have completed the regulatory cycle from start to turning on the grid. Vogtle will be the first. Killing the NRC would also fix the problem.
Other countries build nuclear on time and budget,. The regulatory requirements and the finacing requirements were designed by evil people to kill new nuclear here.
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It's only cheap because it was built at a time when nuclear safety was lax, and by luck happened to be in a reasonable spot and be of a reasonable design.
You can't build 1960s reactors today for very good reasons. Wikipedia is light on detail but I'm guessing that the plant has had some major upgrades to the 60s tech since then.
Decommissioning will probably be fun. Also you still have nowhere to put the waste.
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It's only cheap because it was built at a time when nuclear safety was lax, and by luck happened to be in a reasonable spot and be of a reasonable design.
Yes, the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station is the most expensive part of the electricity I pay for. "Nuclear energy is cheap for the consumer." is BS.
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It's only cheap because it was built at a time when nuclear safety was lax, and by luck happened to be in a reasonable spot and be of a reasonable design.
Sounds like an argument to repeat it.
You can't build 1960s reactors today for very good reasons.
The coal industry stopped us?
some major upgrades
Yeah they uprated it.
Also you still have nowhere to put the waste.
Yes we do. My backyard
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That's good, since it literally doesn't do either of those things.
What especially doesn't provide clean air or cheap electricity is going back to coal, as you people are doing.
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What especially doesn't provide clean air or cheap electricity is going back to coal, as you people are doing.
What "you people" do you imagine I'm a part of? I'm a 'murican, and we are only shutting down coal plants a bit slower than expected [powermag.com] while we continue to build mostly renewables.
They even started building (Score:2)
But it probably is a sign that after a lengthy shutdown of the old reactor for to maintenance many politicians have finally started to realise the importance of nuclear medicine
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Consider that many politicians tend to be older and looking at needing the medical treatments themselves. So yeah, keeping the medical isotopes available can be "important".
Re:They even started building (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't over think this. Those older people happily smoke away their lungs at a rate far higher than younger people. Now what is relevant to politicians is the economics of being the single largest exporter of medical isotopes in the world and the realisation that all of this depends on a reactor way beyond end of life.
Re: They even started building (Score:2)
Not that I have a problem with nuclear, per se ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The present reactor's base is 5 meters (16 ft) above mean sea level but that sounds so negative.
Maybe look at it this way, that's more than 30 ft above where I live!
On the seaside it is protected by natural dunes that are more than 30 ft above sea level.
The commercial nuclear power station at Borsele stands at 4 m. above sea level and is protected by a 10 m. (33 ft) dike.
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It is already underwater!
Until a storm surge comes up and then the water its under is full of the fish you were planning on eating for dinner.
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Netherlands has one commercial nuclear power plant left. It's actually build right next to the sea, in a polder, in the town of Borsele. Apparently it can withstand sea levels of +9 meter (about 37 feet) above sea level. And even in case of a flood, the reactor is supposed to be safe. The risk of a tsunami in this region of the world is considered nihil, though storms might wreck havoc. Yet, a disaster like in Japan is highly unlikely.
Personally, i'd rather live next door a power plant (they decommissioned
wow (Score:1)
Tho dupes in a row!
How to make a billion disappear (Score:2)
Petten was hardly profitable to begin with, Pallas will never make its money back. It's not going to be a power plant doing isotopes on the side by the way, it's an open pool research reactor which generates zero power.
Yeah the international market can have supply problems, but that's something to be solved at the EU level, not by a tiny a hole in the ground. We're too small to throw this kind of money at isotope autarky. Once the schedule of Petten closure becomes known, the global market will move to fill
Re:How to make a billion disappear (Score:4, Informative)
The Netherlands is a major developed economy with a very good tech industry, based on GDP alone it is 17th in the world.
without Petten no isotopes for medical treatments! (Score:1)
We seem to forget nuclear resources are used for treatments or certain scans. And Petten is an important reactor for this in Europe.
So even when it's not running break-even - it's still worth having such a reactor in Europe.