Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Partnership Announced between America and Ukraine (kyivindependent.com) 35
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Kyiv Independent:
The United States will partner with Ukraine to transition Ukraine's coal-fired plants to small modular nuclear reactors, and to use them to help decarbonize its steel industry, the countries announced on November 16 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan...
The partnership will build a roadmap and provide technical support to "rebuild, modernize, and decarbonize Ukraine's steel industry with small modular reactors," according to a statement from the U.S. State Department... It will also "facilitate the transition of Ukraine's coal-fired power plants to secure and safe SMR nuclear power plants utilizing existing infrastructure and retraining the workforce," the statement read.
Another project announced at the conference, known as COP29, will build a pilot plant in Ukraine to demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia using simulated small modular reactor technology.
That clean hydrogen/ammonia project involves a multinational public-private consortium which also includes Japan and South Korea, according to the U.S. State Department. Their announcement says the three projects "will help position Ukraine to take a leadership role on secure and safe nuclear energy" (as well as industrial decarbonization).
Three years ago the U.S. State Department launched a program to help countries develop nuclear energy programs "to support clean energy goals under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation." That program will send $30 million for these three projects...
The partnership will build a roadmap and provide technical support to "rebuild, modernize, and decarbonize Ukraine's steel industry with small modular reactors," according to a statement from the U.S. State Department... It will also "facilitate the transition of Ukraine's coal-fired power plants to secure and safe SMR nuclear power plants utilizing existing infrastructure and retraining the workforce," the statement read.
Another project announced at the conference, known as COP29, will build a pilot plant in Ukraine to demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia using simulated small modular reactor technology.
That clean hydrogen/ammonia project involves a multinational public-private consortium which also includes Japan and South Korea, according to the U.S. State Department. Their announcement says the three projects "will help position Ukraine to take a leadership role on secure and safe nuclear energy" (as well as industrial decarbonization).
Three years ago the U.S. State Department launched a program to help countries develop nuclear energy programs "to support clean energy goals under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation." That program will send $30 million for these three projects...
What could possibly go wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
With nuclear power in a war zone.
we can have an other chernobyl (Score:2)
we can have an other chernobyl
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Well, in this particular case, adding a bunch of (hypothetically) meltdown-safe SMR's won't appreciably change that. There's a conspicuously old-school style "bomb fuel factory" nuclear plant [slashdot.org] right in the middle of this war zone already.
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You're missing the point. Ukraine is very much Not In My BackYard.
What better place to test potentially dangerous new technology than on far away foreign soil?
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You're missing the point. Ukraine is very much Not In My BackYard.
What better place to test potentially dangerous new technology than on far away foreign soil?
Then why not near Sudzha, Ukraine? It's far enough away from any large populations that if anything goes wrong there are fewer people who might be affected.
Re:What could possibly go wrong (Score:5, Informative)
With nuclear power in a war zone.
You mean the largest nuclear power plant in all of Europe which is currently occupied by Russian troops [bbc.com]? The one where Russia has been threatening the Ukrainian workers? The one where Russia has military equipment parked inside the plant [cnn.com] and on the grounds? The one which is operating only by the thinnest of threads due to the Russians not allowing basic maintenance [energy.gov]? Or did you mean all the other nuclear plants [npr.org] Ukraine is operating inside the war zone?
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With nuclear power in a war zone.
Don't worry, there won't be any war in Ukraine come January 21 -- or a Ukraine.
Don't know what Russia will be calling it, Putin is still work-shopping names.
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So if something goes wrong in their beta test they can blame it on saboteurs, obviously. Seriously, I'm sure they're thinking this will help the domestic markets in the long run. I just wanna know which companies are involved...
What are the investment opportunities in SMRs? (Score:1)
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My question exactly. There's this [slashdot.org] hot tip from a while back but I think it's gone cold; I thought I heard later they were scrapping the plans despite receiving approval. There's also this one [slashdot.org] from more recently. I'm not sure about either though. Can anyone else weigh in here?
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1. Reading all the news about SMRs, they are in development stage.
They are. There are currently zero prototypes. There are no proven designs. All there is are economically very much non-viable approaches, which consist of military reactors (very expensive to run) and nuclear ice-breakers (still a _lot_ more expensive than oil-powered, but endurance is a huge advantage for an ice-breaker). None of these designs make any economic sense as stationary installations.
Hence, SMRs are basically completely new designs. It is not even clear whether the idea works economically and t
Ukraine will likely... (Score:1, Troll)
...disappear once Putin's boyfriend takes over the US
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Given how variable/changeable Trump can be, there is a possibility you're right. But given some of his cabinet selections (especially Rubio), I suspect the more likely outcome is Trump offers Putin the 20% of Ukraine he already has annexed in exchange for a cease fire (which still sucks).
If there's a DMZ, the question will be - will it be carved out of the space Russia already occupies, or will Trump tell Zelinsky to give up even more territory for that?
Anyway... if that's what Trump does, hopefully it is p
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Essentially what you're saying is the draft dodger would want Ukraine to surrender. Seems about right. He couldn't be bothered to defend his own country so why bother helping a fledgling democracy when he can ingratiate himself with a dictator.
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I suspect you'll wish Trump could get that deal. I don't think Putin will settle for that. His initially announced SMO objectives were the four oblasts + denazification + disarmament + neutrality. The price will be higher now.
While we've been busy with making pronouncements and sending dribs and drabs of funds and arms there, the Russians have built the sinews of a war economy. Ukraine is very near collapse now and will probably hit that point shortly. The current strategy of sending all the good force
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I suspect you'll wish Trump could get that deal. I don't think Putin will settle for that. His initially announced SMO objectives were the four oblasts + denazification + disarmament + neutrality.
I think that is about right, and the real question may be what does Trump do if Putin says, "No"? Or if, as is likely, both Ukraine and Russia say, "No.". I am not sure Trump will take "No" for an answer. With Ukraine he can shut off the weapons but then what does he do about Putin. And if he escalates, how will Putin respond. Our propaganda describes this as an imperialistic Russian war of choice, but Russian propaganda describes it as an existential war forced on it by NATO aggressive expansion. And both
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I suspect you'll wish Trump could get that deal. I don't think Putin will settle for that. His initially announced SMO objectives were the four oblasts + denazification + disarmament + neutrality. The price will be higher now.
Personally I would like to know what deal Putler intendeds to get out of the US after airing naked pics of Trumps wife on state television.
While we've been busy with making pronouncements and sending dribs and drabs of funds and arms there, the Russians have built the sinews of a war economy.
Ah so that's why they are shutting down perfectly functional refineries (ones not yet bombed by Ukraine), merging hydrocarbon producers after Gazprom et el posted epic losses, cutting payments to wounded soldiers and reducing government staff by 10% while the heads of their military industry cries about untenable interest rates.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
The Russia
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Essentially what you're saying is the draft dodger would want Ukraine to surrender. Seems about right. He couldn't be bothered to defend his own country so why bother helping a fledgling democracy when he can ingratiate himself with a dictator.
It runs in the family; his grandfather Frederick Trump (originally Friedrich Drumpf) left Germany for the U.S. avoiding the draft there. He later tried to return, but a royal decree was issued ordering him to leave the kingdom of Bavaria within eight weeks as punishment for having failed to do mandatory military service and failing to give authorities notice of his departure to the US when he first emigrated in 1885.
- Historian finds German decree banishing Trump's grandfather [theguardian.com]
- Trump's Grandfather Was [snopes.com]
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So you are saying we shouldn't bother. Gotcha.
Nuclear proliferation... yay! (Score:2)
Luckily this won't really happen. Trump will quash this.
I would be fine with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Only issue I have is the hypocrisy that these are the same people who avoid building them here.
Build them here now! The only people who oppose nuclear plants in the US are crazy people, people who hate the environment, and those heavily invested in crappy Chinese solutions like solar or wind. Or usually a combination of all those.
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The only people who oppose nuclear plants in the US are crazy people, people who hate the environment, and those heavily invested in crappy Chinese solutions like solar or wind. Or usually a combination of all those.
Or have a problem with the government subsidies that will be needed to make a buck with these things. Understand, I fully realize that fossil fuels are in effect subsidized by their being allowed to pollute, not to mention to the degree they drive our foreign and military policies. But when they see government dollars going into private pockets to make this happen people will have conniptions.
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Add the people that actually understand the economic and technological realities. Nuclear power sucks in all its aspects and SMRs will not fix that.
But you are just pushing lies, obviously.
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Or just ... (Score:2)
... drop down a shit load of renewables.
So thanks to Trump winning (Score:3)
Whether they do or not will depend on whether or not America has elections in 2 years. I'm not 100% convinced we are going to. But assuming we do and assuming people come to their senses and give the Democrats Congress then we are going to arm the ever-loving shit out of Ukraine to a degree that cannot be imagined.
And we damn well should be doing that right now because Ukraine is a bread basket and climate change is real and we are going to want all that grain and food to be going to ourselves and our allies in order to keep our food prices down.
But that is way way way too complicated a thought for a lot of Americans so here we are taking an extremely valuable economic partner and handing them over the Russia for God knows what reason. And we're not even going to get the 99 cent eggs we sold them out for anyway since egg prices are largely a function of bird flu.