Bill Gates Visits Planned Site of 'Most Advanced Nuclear Facility in the World' (gatesnotes.com) 204
Friday Bill Gates visited Kemmerer, Wyoming (population: 2,656) — where a coal plant was shutting down after 50 years. But Gates was there "to celebrate the latest step in a project that's been more than 15 years in the making: designing and building a next-generation nuclear power plant..."
The new plant will employ "between 200 and 250 people," Gates writes in a blog post, "and those with experience in the coal plant will be able to do many of the jobs — such as operating a turbine and maintaining connections to the power grid — without much retraining." It's called the Natrium plant, and it was designed by TerraPower, a company I started in 2008. When it opens (potentially in 2030), it will be the most advanced nuclear facility in the world, and it will be much safer and produce far less waste than conventional reactors.
All of this matters because the world needs to make a big bet on nuclear. As I wrote in my book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , we need nuclear power if we're going to meet the world's growing need for energy while also eliminating carbon emissions. None of the other clean sources are as reliable, and none of the other reliable sources are as clean...
Another thing that sets TerraPower apart is its digital design process. Using supercomputers, they've digitally tested the Natrium design countless times, simulating every imaginable disaster, and it keeps holding up. TerraPower's sophisticated work has drawn interest from around the globe, including an agreement to collaborate on nuclear power technology in Japan and investments from the South Korean conglomerate SK and the multinational steel company ArcelorMittal...
I'm excited about this project because of what it means for the future. It's the kind of effort that will help America maintain its energy independence. And it will help our country remain a leader in energy innovation worldwide. The people of Kemmerer are at the forefront of the equitable transition to a clean, safe energy future, and it's great to be partnering with them.
Gates writes that for safety the plant uses liquid sodium (instead of water) to absorb excess heat, and it even has an energy storage system "to control how much electricity it produces at any given time..."
"I'm convinced that the facility will be a win for the local economy, America's energy independence, and the fight against climate change.
The new plant will employ "between 200 and 250 people," Gates writes in a blog post, "and those with experience in the coal plant will be able to do many of the jobs — such as operating a turbine and maintaining connections to the power grid — without much retraining." It's called the Natrium plant, and it was designed by TerraPower, a company I started in 2008. When it opens (potentially in 2030), it will be the most advanced nuclear facility in the world, and it will be much safer and produce far less waste than conventional reactors.
All of this matters because the world needs to make a big bet on nuclear. As I wrote in my book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , we need nuclear power if we're going to meet the world's growing need for energy while also eliminating carbon emissions. None of the other clean sources are as reliable, and none of the other reliable sources are as clean...
Another thing that sets TerraPower apart is its digital design process. Using supercomputers, they've digitally tested the Natrium design countless times, simulating every imaginable disaster, and it keeps holding up. TerraPower's sophisticated work has drawn interest from around the globe, including an agreement to collaborate on nuclear power technology in Japan and investments from the South Korean conglomerate SK and the multinational steel company ArcelorMittal...
I'm excited about this project because of what it means for the future. It's the kind of effort that will help America maintain its energy independence. And it will help our country remain a leader in energy innovation worldwide. The people of Kemmerer are at the forefront of the equitable transition to a clean, safe energy future, and it's great to be partnering with them.
Gates writes that for safety the plant uses liquid sodium (instead of water) to absorb excess heat, and it even has an energy storage system "to control how much electricity it produces at any given time..."
"I'm convinced that the facility will be a win for the local economy, America's energy independence, and the fight against climate change.
When does it start producing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That reactor (along with 2 fusion reactor) is currently in development less than 5 miles from my home. I keep hoping to bring my kids and/or are local school kids into the building and have them see the future.
I know that it impacted me and others from the 60s to see the nuclear reactors being built/running in Northern Illinois.
The on
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That's what the thermal storage is for.
Unlike the normal use of nukes in the US, this one should be able to throttle output conveniently to match need.
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By switching coal plants to nat gas with the thermal storage AND have a hook-up area into that for the future reactors, it allows this part of the plant to be fully tested by the time that reactors are created and starting to be added.
In addition, by having a nat gas boiler there, capable of doing this, it means that the power plant will have some of the best up time of any going.
Re:When does it start producing? (Score:4, Informative)
Sadly, it will probably be after 2030 since the goon squad continues to fight against the west building new nuclear power plants.
Hardly. The "goon squad" are not normally the primary causes of nuclear power overruns. The biggest issue for constructing nuclear since the 90s has been competence, quality, capability, and logistics. You can see that quite clearly in China. They don't have a "goon squad" since they can be magically disappeared by the government, yet still suffer major overruns and cost blowouts, (and a bonus point if your plant is operational for 1 year and then gets shut down for 2 years to fix shoddy construction that even regulators missed).
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:2)
Re:When does it start producing? (Score:5, Informative)
If this mythical "goon squad" existed we would have stopped using fossil fuels long ago. The landscape would be covered in wind turbines. We'd probably have free medical treatment for everyone too.
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the tech cannot perform as advertised
The whole fleet of the US Navy stands to differ.
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SMR is not a "tech" anymore than your phone being smaller than a tablet is a "tech". They are a class of reactors each with different designs and different processes which you can colloquially describe as "tech". Comparing reactors in shipping with SMRs trying to be built for nuclear power generation is astonishingly ignorant.
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No they don't stand to differ.
Troll! Troll! Troll!.....
Re:When does it start producing? (Score:4, Informative)
The only class of vessel in the US naval fleet which is all nuclear is carriers.
This statement alone shows you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. It is not like the US navy doesn't have a whole fleet of submarines that are completely nuclear. Time for you to stop talking and pick up a book.
But then again you are only posting to Troll. Where is your keeper?
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:2)
Re:When does it start producing? (Score:4, Informative)
Fact is, that Nuclear power has many issues, but you uneducated greenies do a lot of damage by delaying things.
Do not get me wrong. The current 3.5 gen reactors are total BS. BUT, SMRs will work since we have been doing the same in the navy for the last 60 years.
But hey, the nice thing about first amendment is that liars/assholes like you continues to push your BS everywhere.
Re: (Score:3)
You assholes need to stop pushing lies and stop being part of the problem. To much to ask for? I thought so. No matter. Nuclear is happening and there is not one god damn thing you can do about it.
We win.
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:2)
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Probably after it fires up.
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:2)
Re:When does it start producing? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you dig through the links until you get to the details, it's not all that exciting. It's just a sodium fast reactor with an attached molten salt storage system that makes it suck less for demand following. When demand is low for its energy, it instead heats up the molten salt so that it doesn't have to reduce its output so quickly.
We shall see in a decade or two if it's commercially viable. It's an interesting idea, using storage to make it more competitive with cheaper renewables, but of course if storage proves to be profitable/necessary the renewables will get it too.
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Re:When does it start producing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Making storage cheaper is good, but the issue for a nuclear plant is that it's expensive. If the technology proves good and in demand, people will just build it and power it from much cheaper renewables. In fact they might not even have to build the renewables, they might just be able to soak up excess energy from the grid when it is cheap.
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A bunch of anti nuclear bullshit not read because its, bullshit.
Bullshit.
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There is nothing wrong in researching new plant technology regarding fission.
Wrong is the military / industrial / corrupt politicians complex, pushing them into markets where they don't fit, on top of populations who do not want them - for what ever reason.
In the long run we might need/want them. Especially in space.
As long as researchers get funding in a _legal_ way, companies set them up _in a legal way_ and the will of the population is honoured. There is nothing wrong.
Kind of wrong is the ill fated pol
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Yep. These days, the nuke fanatics are lying all the time. The simple reason is that they have no actual arguments left, so they make them up now. Probably the next thing some nil wit will claim that Germany needs to import electricity from France, when during peak-hours (and only those count for grid stability) it is the other way round and France has bought so much electricity in the last 12 months to drive up electricity prices all over Europe.
Re: When does it start producing? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Indeed. But these people are not "fans" anymore. They are fanatics. No amount of evidence, no amount of failure will ever make them reconsider. And they routinely do not even understand the basics of nuclear tech. They are like some people that fall repeatedly for the same obvious scam.
Wut? gatesnotes.com? (Score:2)
Bill Gates is submitting his blog entries to Slashdot now?
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Despite his name, mdsolar was a pro nuke activist. Most likely a paid troll.
Re: Wut? gatesnotes.com? (Score:2)
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Yeah they guy posting antinuclear bs constantly was a paid pronuke activist troll. That's the type of logic I have come to expect from you angel.
I'm not saying it's what happened here, but it's a perfectly reasonable strategy to pay someone to pose as an idiot (or to just demonstrate what an idiot they actually are) in order to give the impression that people against your idea are idiots. Then you point and say "look at the poor quality of the arguments used against us" while ignoring all the valid arguments.
Re: Wut? gatesnotes.com? (Score:4, Interesting)
"We need nuclear power" (Score:3)
What does your book say about the Tesla Virtual Power Plant which saved California from rolling blackouts last year? Does your book mention V2G? V2H? V2L?
I think renewable technology has advanced enough since 2021 that it's time for a 2nd edition of your book.
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Are you a troll? Why does the battery care if the 1500 cycles were spent powering the grid or powering the wheels?
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I'm not sure how Elon's business model works but...
Presumably the company would offer free replacements for the lifetime of the vehicle, once the battery falls below a certain percentage - to be subsidized by power returned to the grid.
e.g. in addition to an feed-in tariff the customer might receive, for every megawatt hour supplied to the grid by a vehicle, the operator negotiates with Tesla a carbon credit which reduces the amount of tax they pay - on the condition that they put that credit towards recycl
Re: "We need nuclear power" (Score:2)
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Wind and solar are diffuse. Diffuse means "Spread out over a large area; not concentrated"
Something a bit beyond your pictures.
Our world in data, https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-per-energy-source
Solar energy 19m squared per MW/h of energy per annum
Wind energy 99m squared per MW/h of energy per annum
Nuclear 0.3 m squared per MW/h of energy per annum.
So rather than doing the whole picture book thing, do some maths and read some journals and understand the world that you live in.
arseclown....
Kemmerer last big export (Score:3)
Hope it lasts. The last Kemmerer export, J.C Penny's, is not doing well.
Re: Kemmerer last big export (Score:2)
Most Advanced FISSION Facility in the World (Score:2)
Time to stop calling the defunct fission plants as nuclear when fusion nuclear is the up and coming star.
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You will know that fusion power generation is about to be commercialized, when "environmental" groups start suing to stop them, because they only really exist to prevent competitors to fossil fuels from succeeding
The scale of the problem requires nuclear (Score:3)
We should all be glad when we see people like Bill Gates investing in technologies which can have a positive impact on the world. He is a clever guy and has crunched the numbers and is very aware of the constraints. My opinion of Bill has improved since he left Microsoft as in that role he was absolutely ruthless.
Developing reactors which can dovetail with the intermittent nature of solar and wind, burn spent fuel and nuclear waste and actually make more fuel than is consumed are sorely needed, and this reactor is one of the designs which actually can do this. Hopefully the costs associated with nuclear, where we see "nuclear" parts costing 10x the equivalent coal or wind generation equipment will also be solved. Given this cost differential there should be more opportunities to lower the costs of nuclear to become cheaper than other forms of generation.
The bottom line is we need to find something which works. The scale of the issues associated with decarbonising the world economy are immense and frankly renewables can't do it and maintain the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed. Their energy return on investment is simply too low especially when combined with storage technologies. I don't want my children to live in energy poverty which is an approach advocated by many.
Anyone who believe that renewables can sustain the world economy should actually do a little reading on the subject. They're an icing on the cake product, good for topping up the grid with cheap power which can be consumed by devices which have loads that can be done anytime like chlorinating a pool or heating a slab. They're not good for running an electrolyzer, powering aluminium refining or supplying power to a hospital.
You can look at research by clever people such as
https://www.gtk.fi/en/research/time-to-wake-up/
https://www.withouthotair.com/
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Naa, actual facts do not enter the minds of the nuclear fanatics. They do not even understand the basics of the tech they are mindlessly cheering for.
Re:The scale of the problem requires nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Please before writing rubbish please learn how to use Google. It's a bit embarrassing.
Here's an article on the International Atomic Energy Agencies web site where they talk about "Burning of actinides". Apparently the term is in common usage in the atomic energy community.
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull34-3/34302693234.pdf
Currently spent fuel is considered waste under the "open fuel cycle" policy. You can recycle this to extract the orders of magnitudes more energy however this is called closing the fuel cycle.
Here's an article stating that spent fuel is waste by the NRC.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html
Did you think that I meant throwing the waste onto a bonfire or forge to chemically "burn" it into another substance. That's just a bit silly. A bit like your argument.
"Simulating every imaginable disaster" (Score:2)
It's the disasters you didn't imagine that get you. Those, and the "but nobody would EVER do THAT" situations.
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Indeed. There is a class of wannabe "engineer" that relies entirely on simulation and then believes they know everything about what they designed. These people have causes some spectacular disasters.
Sodium cooling? Good luck! (Score:2, Insightful)
That stuff is so unreliable and dangerous it is staggering. And none of the massive problems so far would have shown up in simulation, because they were all due to unknown and hence unexpected material behaviors.
Well, just like Bill Gates, the guy that delayed the information revolution by pushing bad quality software and missing the Internet completely for a long time, to push more bad tech on the world.
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A Sodium cooled fast reactor has been successful on a small scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The point you missed is all your complaints were solved long ago. If you want to complain about how the design may not scale up to commercial levels that would be valid.
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That stuff is so unreliable and dangerous it is staggering.
Yeah I want a source on that. Cause I'm calling bullshit. The experimental breeder reactor II proved sodium cooling was reliable and super-safe.
Stop talking out of your ass!
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You are citing a single experimental small-scale installation as proof for "super safe"? Are you on drugs?
Bu that account, the Chernobyl reactor design is "super safe", because the prototype did not blow up. Same for the prototypes used for Fuckushima, TMI, and Windscale. Come to think of it, Windscale may not have had a prototype. They were so keen on demonstrating that they could compete with the US on nuclear weapons, that they just built that thing to make the plutonium and then justified it with lies o
Re:Sodium cooling? Good luck! (Score:4, Insightful)
Your examples of sodium reactors failing were several non-sodium reactors. So maybe you need to get your head examined.
By the way IFR's cannot meltdown. The physics prevent it from happening.
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Nope. My examples were not about sodium reactors at all, obviously. They were about cases where the prototype appeared "super safe" and the production system was not. All that in the same industry.
But I guess you are not smart enough to even understand such an advanced idea. Well, what can you expect. The only people for nuclear power at this time are idiots and no-moral people that stand to profit. Everybody else has moved on from this old, failed tech.
Re:Sodium cooling? Good luck! (Score:4, Insightful)
They were about cases where the prototype appeared "super safe" and the production system was not.
No they weren't. Chernobyl was known not to be safe. TMI couldn't have hurt you if you were in the building. Fukushima resulted in 0 fatalities.
The topic was sodium. So please provide examples of sodium reactors failing.
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The official death toll from Fukushima is over 2,300.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/arti... [asahi.com]
1 is attributed directly to radiation exposure at the plant, the rest are attributed to longer term health impacts.
Arseholes claiming that nobody died are both lying and helping TEPCO and the government avoid paying compensation to the victims. The legal battles to cover losses, to both life, livelihoods, and property have been long and extremely difficult.
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It's been tried before, e.g. Monju. The problem is that the sodium is corrosive, and it ignites if it comes into contact with oxygen, i.e. air. You get a fire and a hydrogen explosion.
It also becomes radioactive. Half life is 15 hours, but obviously it's an issue if you have a leak. You can't use water to suppress the fire, that will just crease sodium hydroxide and make it worse. You can't have people anywhere near it. The only solution is a hydrogen explosion proof containment building.
Hydrogen explosions
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You are citing a single experimental small-scale installation as proof for "super safe"? Are you on drugs? /. had an ignore button.
He is just an idiot.
He knows not a single iota about nuclear energy. I wished
Every possible disaster (Score:2)
That's fine, but have they simulated multiple disasters happening at once? That's what messed up the Fukushima plant - earthquake, tsunami, flood, power outage, all at once.
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They will not, because that is impossible. They will have looked at some combinations they expect could happen (all nuclear disasters so far were unexpected things happening) and that is it. And then they just lie and omit that little detail.
Japanese shut down such plant decades ago (Score:2)
because the computer simulations hadn't taken everything into account.
Liquid sodium started to leak from inside the containment vessel and ignition when it came into contact with air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
But Bill seems to think he can get it right this times as if it were are simple as bumping up a version number of Windows.
Friday Bill Gates (Score:2)
Or bad writing.
Sodium cooled reactors are difficult (Score:3)
Sodium fast reactors are difficult for a number of reasons
The fuel density is higher so they are prone to faster reactivity excursions
Fuel rods tend to be hotter an are prone to melting and deformation
The coolant is flammable so leaks mean fires, vaporisation of the sodium can cause explosions if released.
Liquid metal erodes can erode pipes and pumps.
They tend to have positive void coefficients which means they require active excess reactivity dampening.
However they do have a number of promising features.
They can run at high temperatures,
They can burn nuclear waste so it only needs to be stored for 300 years.
They can generate fuel
Sodium is a fantastic heat transfer medium meaning that you can remove heat quickly from the core.
Sodium doesn't easily absorb neutrons and when it does it become sodium 24 which decays to Magnesium 24 a stable isotope.
Personally I'd prefer to see the Terrapower's molten chloride fast salt reactor in operation as it has most of the positives of the sodium cooled reactor without some of the negatives.
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Only 300 years.
It's worth pointing out just how much of an issue being sodium cooled is. In the event of an accident that sodium loop is critical. It's a huge problem if it leaks, because first you get a fire and likely hydrogen explosion, and then you have lost your primary coolant loop to stop the reactor melting down.
One solution is a secondary backup water cooling loop. Of course that in itself is a problem, because when water and sodium meet you get hydrogen, and your reactor is probably already on fir
The USA's Pope (Score:2)
Excellent (Score:3)
Corporate Shell Game (Score:2)
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If photovoltaics continue plummeting in price like their 80% drop in the past ten years, he could have massively overbuilt a comparable solar farm
On the contrary: renewables are too little, too late. We are just starting to see a rise in solar/wind deployment, and those are not making a dent into our CO2 emissions... There are limitations to the rate at which you can deploy solar for instance, and not just the price. Which is why China can't physically deploy them faster than what they are doing today (they deployed more wind/solar in 2022 than the rest of the world combined already). Even though they are the ones capable today of manufacturing those
Re:Too big, too late (Score:5, Informative)
Who told you all that nonsense? There's been a huge rise in deployment of wind and solar over the past few years, and an even larger projection for the next few. It is making a dent in emissions. Solar panels are made in multiple countries including the US and Canada.
Meanwhile this one nuke plant might be producing a measly 345 megawatts in 2030.
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A few of the elite higher end solar panels are made in Canada and the US.
The vast majority of panels range from bottom end to not-quite-as-good-as-Canadian and are from China.
Scale matters.
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China's panels narrowly escaped crippling sanctions recently, which would have been imposed because they are re-routed through cutouts. Next time it may be different.
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Nobody said the majority aren't made in China. What was your point?
Re:Too big, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Who told you all that nonsense? There's been a huge rise in deployment of wind and solar over the past few years, and an even larger projection for the next few. It is making a dent in emissions.
well, in all fairness a 10% of total since forever is indeed a dent. as is a 2% annual increase. they're just too small, you can't realistically ignore nuclear power. and ...
Meanwhile this one nuke plant might be producing a measly 345 megawatts in 2030.
... this 'one nuke' is an experimental prototype that might yield an improved process, both more efficient and with less waste. i'm not qualified to evaluate its merits, but unless it is total bullshit it is actually good news that someone is bothering, be it bill gates or whoever. even if it doesn't work, knowledge is a good thing, and we will learn something in a field in which we have to learn as much as we can because we will need it going forward. so this is good news and we can keep planting windmills and plastering the roofs with panels meanwhile.
Solar panels are made in multiple countries including the US and Canada.
uh, well, about that ...
https://www.iea.org/data-and-s... [iea.org]
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So "Even though they are the ones capable today of manufacturing those solar panels you are talking about" was clearly incorrect?
You are scoffing at wind and solar (actually 12% of global electricity generation last year, not 10) but an experimental nuke plant in 2030 is a big deal? Hey, good luck to Bill and his experiment but there is little chance that it will be competitive in the 15-20 years it will take to refine it and build some out.
What's that make nuclear? (Score:2, Informative)
Wind and solar have their problems but the potential property damage risk to nuclear is so extreme that it makes it a non-starter. Especially in count
Fact Check (Score:4, Interesting)
Incorrect
Because every plant in the last 15 years has been over budget to an extreme degree.
Some plants have been overbudget however the UAE built the Barakah nuclear power plant with a ground breaking ceremony in 2011 which went online in April 2021 ontime and on budget. It consists of 4 APR-1400 reactors and is cooled with seawater.
So if you want a nuclear reactor built in a decade and on budget go to the Koreans.
But please do a little research before spouting untruths.
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According to some sources cost increased from 20 billion USD to 24 billion USD and original start data was 2018. But yes, this would still be pretty good for nuclear.
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So only 10 years and they used slave labour. By the way, of the 4 reactors, only 1 is currently producing power for the grid.
The APR-1400 is a traditional design. These guys are trying to build something novel, for which every previous attempt has ended in some kind of debacle.
You'll forgive me if I don't trust the UAE. (Score:3)
It wasn't the Koreans being brought in and kept that under budget it was abused people from Africa. I mean I'm American I guess we could do that too but we kind of stopped doing it in the 1800s. There was a war over it and everything
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I'm not sure if you understand the meaning of "every level"
For example nuclear power provides
CO2 free energy - this appears to be a good thing
Reliable baseload - this appears to be a good thing
Minimal land footprint - this appears to be a good thing
The possibility of powering the planet for a period longer than the Sun will shine.
So on some levels at least nuclear is a good thing,
The way that a rational debate is conducted is by actually articulating what you find objectionable and allowing others to respon
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And China deploying more than the rest of the world combined doesn't impress me.
It is not about impressing you. In fact, I am quite sure nobody, especially the chinese, gives a sh*t about trying to impress rsilvergun. It is about understanding why a nation that would have the most to gain from deploying renewables, seeing as they are "so so cheap", is not/cannot deploy them fast enough so that it wouldn't have to also deploy nuclear and coal plants alongside it.
You can read about it in their definition of their Fourteenth Plan (they have a planned economy), it is not a "will" problem,
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Bullshit. You are not living in the real world.
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On the contrary: renewables are too little, too late.
wat
We are just starting to see a rise in solar/wind deployment, and those are not making a dent into our CO2 emissions...
They're not making a dent because we keep finding new ways to use more power, when we need to be finding new ways to use less, and because China has built a shitload of coal plants for this specific reason.
There are limitations to the rate at which you can deploy solar for instance
And yet we can still build more of it than we can nuclear.
Which is why China can't physically deploy them faster than what they are doing today
They could do, but they're busy selling them to others.
You don't know how anything at all works, do you?
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"There are limitations to the rate at which you can deploy solar for instance, and not just the price."
Such as ...
- limitations regarding minerals availability (rare earths, but also even simple stuff like copper, aluminium... deposits are getting less and less dense in minerals, which makes it so that it requires more and more energy per ton extracted)
- limitations regarding manufacturing capabilities
- limitations regarding logistics to actually deploy the solar panels/wind turbines on the fields
Seeing the rate at which they (China) have been deploying solar/wind in 2022, they are already nearing those physical limita
Small is good (Score:2)
The typical 1000+ megawatt size is awkwardly large for utilities but they're forced into it by the economics of current designs.
Speaking of safety, does anyone know whether you can make pumps without moving parts for the liquid sodium? It's conductive, could it be pushed along electromagnetically?
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It's conductive, could it be pushed along electromagnetically?
Yes, but not efficiently.
And it would not help if the electricity is gone.
If one thinks about safety, perhaps pumps that can be kept running by providing mechanical energy from the outside would make more sense. On the other hand: liquid sodium reactors are considered safe as the sodium can released into small puddles individually to small to sustain a reaction, and then the reactions tops. Ofc: you then have to throw away the reactor.
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We need to get to zero or negative CO2 production. Wind and solar require backing sources of power like gas or nuclear.
PV are not computer chips so the reduction in price has a real floor and their efficiency hasn't improved to you still need the same actual PV area to generate power.
This means that it is unlikely that we're going to see a continued drop in the price of PV.
Also input costs are rising, making metallurgical silicon requires coking coal and lots of power. You then need to make Polycrystalline
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Nuclear is unsuitable to back up wind or solar. Too slow to react, too expensive when not running, too unreliable. Not even the French use nuclear as regulation or backup energy, because that does not work.
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Actually the french have implemented load following in nuclear in their plants and have been doing so for year. However the key argument is that if you've implemented nuclear throttling the plant doesn't actually save much.
Liquid Salt reactors are naturally load following and have demonstrated the ability to load follow. Simply pull heat from the salt and the nuclear reactions naturally increase. Stop and the reactions naturally slow.
Wind and solar should only be used for loads which can be dynamically sche
Re: Too big, too late (Score:2)
nuclear power does not equal nuclear bombs (Score:5, Informative)
While you're stuck in your little bubble you might want to do a little research.
German is having to restart coal power plants because they need gas to back up wind and solar. Germany's electrical power is almost twice the cost of France's nuclear electric power, and yet France power grid generates a tiny fraction of the CO2 emissions of Germany's power grid.
Nuclear power just works 24/7 year after year after year and the entire fuel waste stream of France would fit into a football field less than a meter high.
Wind and solar are intermittent by their nature, require immense areas of the environment to be devoted to their use, require huge amounts of resources in their manufacture and generate huge waste streams.
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The fucking reason why electricity is so expensive currently in Germany is because France needed to buy huge amounts of it during the last 12 months and has driven prices massively up because their nukes do not cut it. And to keep the population quiet, France is just paying for all of this out of tax money, hence the electricity bill for the population stays low. The reason for that coal is because a) France is buying peak-load and b) somebody blew up a gas pipeline.
Your lies are despicable and repulsive. N
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The fucking reason why electricity is so expensive currently in Germany is because France needed to buy huge amounts of it during the last 12 months and has driven prices massively up because their nukes do not cut it.
Actually completely false. The reason electricity is currently so expensive in Germany is that the cost of wholesale power in Europe is pegged to the cost of a single power source: gas. That's why countries with masses of wind power saw massive power cost increases. That's why France saw massive power cost increases.
The regional differences in cost of electricity then boil down to one thing: government. Different taxes, different levels of state aid, different costs for transmission and connection, and in G
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Seriously? You are going to contradict _all_ actual experts?
Re:nuclear power does not equal nuclear bombs (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like your viewpoint is based upon religious views to me rather than a cool rational view of the energy landscape. Terms like hell, lies and damnation sound like they should be coming from the pulpit rather than a rational debate.
Electricity it so expensive and CO2 emissions are high in Germany because poor decisions have been made. Electricity in France is cheaper and they emit significantly less CO2 because better technological choices have been made.
Shutting down nuclear plants while reopening coal power stations is environment vandalism at its worst. It is a shame, the world expect better from the German people, most Germans expect better.
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German is having to restart coal power plants because they need gas to back up wind and solar.
And? Germany produces zero uranium of their own. They'd need to restart coal power plants as well if their primary source of enriched uranium were suddenly cut off.
I'm so sick of this argument people make about Germany. Because it's really really dumb and not at all related to the benefits or downside of different power generation technologies.
There is an exception to the rule. Solar and Wind availability isn't subject to the whims of a 3rd nation or supply chain issues. So if you're saying Germany has a sp
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The French built over 50 nuclear plants in 15 years and decarbonised their transport and electrical grid.
The costs of the power plants became cheaper with each one that they built of the same type. The more plants you build the cheaper their unit price becomes as you get a better understanding of the building process.
Current a wind turbine generator cost 1/10th the cost of a nuclear generator per MW and they're made from the same materials, it's simply economies of scale. If you scale nuclear you will see r
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The French built over 50 nuclear plants in 15 years and decarbonised their transport and electrical grid.
Why don't you go and get us some concrete numbers on how much France has spent on its nuclear plants? If you're not able to, just tell us why that information is not available.
Incidentally, my father stepped on one of you in New Caledonia once. Almost drowned but some French soldiers pulled him from the water and took him to a clinic where they put his foot in boiling alcohol. Nothing to do with nuclear power, just your username.
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Let me google that for you.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
The plant price remained constant between 1000-2000kW after initial reduction, this experience was also seen int Canada.
It also incorporates analysis showing the impact of nuclear accidents on plant costs due to delays and additional regulation.
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A bit one-sided summary. The paper also confirms (moderately) increasing costs for the French nuclear expansion. Compare this with the dramatic reduction in cost for renewables which we have seen.
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If you scale nuclear you will see rapid reductions in plant costs.
Because building more plants uses less workers than building a few plants? Or "less workers" per plant?
Because building more plants uses less resources than building a few plants? Or "less resources" per plant?
Because building more plants uses less transportation infrastructure, fuel, drivers etc. than building a few plants? Or "less of that above" per plant?
Sorry, economics of scale does not work that way. It works because you can build a fa