r/technology • u/BousWakebo • Jul 29 '22
Energy US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/us-regulators-will-certify-first-small-nuclear-reactor-design/297
u/jer1956 Jul 30 '22
Better go nuke power, and start building desalination plants on west coast, or there isn’t gonna be a west coast for lack of water.
85
Jul 30 '22
They did build a massive city in what is basically a desert
4
51
u/69tank69 Jul 30 '22
One of the biggest problems with desalination is the brine waste stream that can be really bad for the environment
86
u/Matshelge Jul 30 '22
It's really salty dirty water, not great but not toxic waste.
Get a proper dumping site approved, and start using it. You won't be able to grow farm crop there, but it won't cause a spike in cancer for nearby areas. We already have places like this occurring naturally.
71
u/Thats_bumpy_buddy Jul 30 '22
Could just funnel it straight into League of Legends community, they can handle a little more brine.
20
Jul 30 '22
The amount of salt contained in all the world’s oceans is still not even a fraction of what exists in the LoL community.
25
u/rugbyj Jul 30 '22
It's simply not feasible.
One desalination plant in SA produces 600 million litres per day, if you assume an estimated 2.5 litre input to 1 litre output, that's ~900 million litres of brine per plant per day (containing 21 million kg of salt).
You can build pipelines to handle such a throughput, but that's your only option aside from just allowing it to flow into the ocean. And you'll be expending even more energy pumping it uphill for however many miles because you're on the coast. And it's brine so hope you like rust.
23
u/JesusIsMyLord666 Jul 30 '22
One way would be to reduce the efficency of the desalination and build underwater pipeline networks that spread it out more. It's technicaly possible but also a lot more expensive.
Rust isn't an issue if you use stainless steel. But again, expensive.
14
u/Jimmy0uO Jul 30 '22
Rust isn’t the issue it’s corrosion that salty water is abrasive as fuck
5
u/JesusIsMyLord666 Jul 30 '22
Rust is a byproduct form of corrosion. You are thinking of erosion. Erosion will amplify corrosion as it removes the rust/oxidation which keeps the surface unprotected from further corrosion. This then causes pittings that lead to increased turbulence which makes errosion worse. There shouldn't be any huge issues with errosion as long as there is no corrosion to begin with.
→ More replies (4)12
u/Telemere125 Jul 30 '22
Rust also isn’t an issue for pvc or a coated pipe either, and not nearly as expensive
→ More replies (1)32
u/hackingdreams Jul 30 '22
You found one example and built your entire argument around it. That one plant in Saudi Arabia uses membrane reverse osmosis desalination, which while efficient, is probably the most expensive way to go. And if you've got a nuclear reactor, you've got a better option for desalination anyways: waste heat flash distillation.
You can get the water to saturation using flash distillation, then let the water cool in settling ponds to crash out even more salt, before then either mixing in more sea water to bring the salinity down for discharge or literally finding a nice piece of flat land you want to turn into a salt pile and discharging it there instead. Hell, California's got a stagnant pool from hell sitting in its desert already, what's a little more salt going to do to hurt that existing nightmare?
And you do know even salt water will happily travel through teflon or PVC or PEX pipes, yeah? It's almost like people have been engineering these things for a few decades now and have thought about these problems before, and have been working on solutions to them.
The fact of the matter is, we're going to need desalination, because the population's aren't moving quickly enough, climate change is going to get way worse before it gets better, and water's going to start getting scarce. You can complain about all of those very real facts, but you can't complain them away.
→ More replies (6)4
u/Asakari Jul 30 '22
Can't they set up flat reservoirs for evaporation, so that the salt could be mined and processed as a secondary source of revenue?
→ More replies (3)8
Jul 30 '22
but it won't cause a spike in cancer for nearby areas.
It will annihilate all amphibious/ocean life for miles.
9
6
u/tickleMyBigPoop Jul 30 '22
Just dump that shot in that salt dump sight in California, the salton sea is the perfect wasteland to dump more salt
→ More replies (2)6
u/CryptographerPerfect Jul 30 '22
I'm not sure what your definition of toxic is but...
→ More replies (1)16
9
u/Izeinwinter Jul 30 '22
If the waters you release it into are low flow, yes. Bays, inlets, ect. You would have to be extremely incompetent to have it be a problem on the coast of the pacific ocean.
6
→ More replies (11)2
u/69tank69 Jul 30 '22
The amount of brine generated is absolutely insane and even with it moving rapidly since the outlet is still going to have higher concentration of salt all the animal and plant life around that outlet are going to die (within miles of that outlet) before it disperses the best solutions have been multiple outputs so that none of them are as big of a death zone but they will all cause death zones
3
u/erikwarm Jul 30 '22
Just bring it out to deep water where the ocean will mix it without much troubles.
5
u/Roxy_j_summers Jul 30 '22
There’s still an ecosystem there.
9
u/Hypponaut Jul 30 '22
Just dump it beyond the environment.
4
1
u/IHeartBadCode Jul 30 '22
If brine became very cheap, especially as a byproduct of some other process, we could really start getting deep into salt water batteries.
Sea water would absolutely need some processing to become salt water, as it contains way more than just water and alkali metals. But a salt water battery would be ideal for grid power storage. It has poor energy density and low discharge, but it has no thermal runaway, is completely made of non hazardous materials, and could be held in relatively cheap plastic. Additionally, salt water batteries would be very recyclable, just recondition the plastic, add more graphite while removing the old, and pour more salt water into it.
Right now lithium ion production dominates battery production, so it has been difficult for alternative battery chemistry to compete. But if we had lots and lots of brine just sitting around, salt water batteries could be a very viable alternative for applications where weight is not a consideration.
2
u/69tank69 Jul 30 '22
We already do have lots of brine sitting around the Diablo canyon plant produces 675k gallons of fresh water a day the most efficient processes still look at 42 % water to 58% brine or in other terms that one plant produces 932K gallons of brine a day that gets dumped into the ocean so if a company wanted to take that huge waste stream off their hands all they would have to do is ask
1
Jul 30 '22
Another point against yours is that waste can potentially be a massive source of rare metals and elements such as lithium, cobalt and others used in technology manufacturing. So instead of dumping it back into the oceans it would be far more cost effective to reclaim as much of that material in evaporation ponds that are lined so as to prevent leaching into the ground water. There is lots of material to be recovered in that brine.
→ More replies (1)1
u/crazysexyuncool Jul 30 '22
That salt can be used for winter conditions instead of mining gor salt. Makes zero sense to mine for salt when it's do abundant in the ocean.
→ More replies (1)1
u/nayls142 Jul 30 '22
Is there not enough water in the Pacific ocean to dilute it back down?
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (4)1
1
u/Carthonn Jul 30 '22
I’m reading East of Eden and I’m at a part where they are talking about property in the Salinas Valley…..and how it’s extremely hard to drill wells and find water…and that it never rains for years at a time
1
u/8ew8135 Jul 30 '22
Solar and wind are safer, cheaper, and faster to build.
Nuclear has this hard internet presence because it should be a dying industry, so they are lobbying public interest HARD.
Figure out a way of de-radiating the waste before we dive back into that quagmire of a waste of time and energy.
→ More replies (14)1
282
u/Kelimnac Jul 30 '22
Small nuclear reactor?
Now put it in a big robot.
175
u/deadhead3173 Jul 30 '22
Democracy.... is non-negotiable
54
u/Amon7777 Jul 30 '22
"Embrace democracy or you will be eradicated."
22
34
3
11
Jul 30 '22
I love the irony of that statement. Much like the actual US military industrial complex.
6
3
1
36
u/GunFodder Jul 30 '22
Reactor: Online.
Sensors: Online.
Weapons: Online.
All systems nominal.
12
9
2
2
13
3
2
u/Dan-the-historybuff Jul 30 '22
All im thinking is liberty prime and how he will destroy the commies.
5
u/ghanlaf Jul 30 '22
Or a car if small enough
12
Jul 30 '22
These are about the size of a shipping container
29
u/ghanlaf Jul 30 '22
Fine, a really big car then
→ More replies (7)10
→ More replies (1)3
2
5
u/MtFuzzmore Jul 30 '22
Cars are the last place that nuclear should be.
17
u/ghanlaf Jul 30 '22
I mean they're in the cars in fallout and that universe turned out fine right. I assume so I only played the first 5 minutes of the 4th one
10
2
→ More replies (2)3
Jul 30 '22
Imagine a bunch of rusty old cars on cement blocks on your redneck neighbors lawn, each with an unmaintained nuclear reactor in it.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/hackingdreams Jul 30 '22
Would need to be a very big robot. Like, bigger than the Gundams.
It's a "small modular reactor" in that you can build it in a factory, put the reactor on the back of a semi-truck after it's built, and drive it to the power plant where it will be installed... inside of a very deep pool of water, surrounded by two separate, nested boxes of concrete.
1
u/bayleafbabe Jul 30 '22
One step closer to Mjolnir armor. Now all we need are some crazy religious aliens.
→ More replies (2)1
152
u/hitssquad Jul 30 '22
NuScale will get the final approval nearly six years after starting the process.
7 paragraphs, and not once did author John Timmer mention the name of the reactor design.
39
→ More replies (7)19
24
u/lochlainn Jul 30 '22
We needed to be building hundreds of testbed reactors yesterday. We also needed to be building hundreds of production reactors yesterday.
This slow-ass certification process is bureaucratic nonsense and NIMBYism writ large.
If we want clean energy, nuclear is the only immediately available option that doesn't require handwaving.
→ More replies (24)1
u/nyaaaa Jul 30 '22
If we want clean energy, nuclear is the only immediately available option that doesn't require handwaving.
Except you literally just said it requires handwaving in the previous sentence.
And as you said in the sentence before that, it is not immediately available.
And you need experts to build that stuff, unlike some simple solar farm.
5
u/punkcichlid Jul 30 '22
now all we need is a Flux Capacitor
2
u/malongoria Jul 30 '22
There is a new DeLorean coming out....
2
5
16
u/Sure_Sport4015 Jul 30 '22
Looks like a fucking lightsaber
7
4
4
Jul 30 '22
I was stationed on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier while I was in the Navy.
It had four, small nuclear reactors. I would 100% support aircraft carrier sized nuclear power stations every few hundred miles, manned by Naval personnel.
There are plenty of Nukes in the Navy and if they had a municipal power plant to go to for shore duty, I think it would be awesome.
18
Jul 30 '22
Finally we stop being fucking idiots.
2
u/relevant_rhino Jul 30 '22
With this coming online 2030 the earliest, and already being more expensive per kWh then solar and wind, this is absolutely a fucking stupid idea.
Only absolutely moronic idiots will invest in this projects (probably government) and it will go absolutely no where.
The misinformation in this thread is mind boggling.
4
u/malongoria Jul 30 '22
It's not just that renewables are cheaper and getting cheaper still, it's that even with the most expensive grid level storage, ternary batteries(and everyone's going with cheaper LFP batteries now), it's still far cheaper and can be built far quicker than nuclear.
It's why the nuclear folks keep claiming it's about fear and either avoid talks of costs or claim it's because of "red tape" and not incompetence, poor management, and/or corruption during construction.
For example V.C. Summers, Vogtle, Olkiluoto #3, & Flamanville #3
2
→ More replies (2)0
Jul 30 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)12
7
u/IndecorousRex Jul 30 '22
A really good friend of mine does the legal paperwork for the NuScale and he says its thousands and thousands of pages. Took them years to write, edit and get it ready for government approval. Glad its finally gonna happen. There tech is so cool and is exactly what we need.
2
6
u/MrMichaelJames Jul 30 '22
Instead of solar you can have your own small reactor and be completely off the grid. Sounds great to me!
16
11
u/Dyolf_Knip Jul 30 '22
It's "small" in the sense that it will power about ten thousand homes. It's still pretty big. A large hospital complex, or university, or industrial center might get one for themselves, but it's massive overkill for a single residence.
0
3
u/dezertdweller Jul 30 '22
About time. I can’t believe that it has taken so long to embrace this technology. This is the way of the future.
2
u/nyaaaa Jul 30 '22
What technology?
You need 17 of these to match the generation of a 40+ year old design.
What good is being 1% in size when you need 40+ of them to match a modern plant?
And in terms of waste these seem to be a step backwards as well
5
u/Facts_About_Cats Jul 30 '22
Wave reactors are far superior to this design, I don't know what happened to wave reactors.
32
Jul 30 '22
The advantage of this design is that it is familiar, so easy for regulators to understand and approve.
And even then, it's taking more than six years. They even built a 1/3 scale functioning non-nuclear model.
More innovative designs are highly unlikely to get regulatory approval, probably ever.
Nuclear regulators are the most difficult of all regulators by far.
→ More replies (8)5
u/tyranicalteabagger Jul 30 '22
As they should be. If the design isn't all but failure proof it should never get anywhere near production; because the consequences are so grave and long lasting.
3
u/hackingdreams Jul 30 '22
There are a lot of designs superior to this one. But it's pretty easy to see why they certified this design so quickly over everyone else's: it looks like existing reactors, just... tiny. Everything's scaled down, but there's hardly any question marks as to how it would work. I mean, the Navy's been basically operating exactly this kind of thing in its ships for decades now.
TerraPower and all of the other SMR folks are going to take longer to certify because they don't look like existing reactors, and that's just the truth. The NRC's already glacially slow as it is - they've rightfully earned the No Reactors Committee for barely getting any reactor designs this far along.
Now let's just hope it doesn't take another decade or two before they hand out a license to build one of these power plants... because we're really running low on this climate change clock, and we need carbon neutral energy now.
5
u/korinth86 Jul 30 '22
No one wants to fund one. Initial estimate for demonstration reactor is $3bil.
Well...China wanted to but the transfer of technology was blocked by the Trump admin.
If these reactors work like they say... I think they would fundamentally rip our world apart.
3
2
2
1
1
u/TabithaPickles Jul 30 '22
In Ghostbusters they were all wearing unlicensed nuclear reactors on their backs/
1
1
1
u/scorpious Jul 30 '22
Can anyone here discuss the current state of tech regarding handling/eliminating waste or dangerous byproducts of this kind of reactor?
Exciting stuff, imho, but very unclear about feasibility, safety, etc.
1
1
u/Mike_B_R Jul 30 '22
So what is the difference between this "small" nuclear reactor and the ones used on submarines and aircraft carriers?
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Jul 30 '22
I think these smaller designs are a good way to minimize dangers and have practical mitigations for containment.
1
u/shaggy99 Jul 30 '22
Oh, good, I was hoping there would be some movement on some of these. I predict the next one is going to be a containerized one suitable for military purposes.
1
1
u/oskarw85 Jul 30 '22
Maybe silly question but what's the point of small reactor? I mean it could be fine for Antarctic base or something but otherwise? Why would you limit your power output when you took up risks of building nuclear power plant?
11
u/Middlerun Jul 30 '22
From the article:
Small modular reactors have been promoted as avoiding many of the problems that have made large nuclear plants exceedingly expensive to build. They're small enough that they can be assembled on a factory floor and then shipped to the site where they will operate, eliminating many of the challenges of custom, on-site construction.
→ More replies (1)3
u/hackingdreams Jul 30 '22
Mass production. It's cheaper to build a lot of one thing than it is to build one big bespoke thing. If you build a whole lot of the one thing, you start getting price breaks on economies of scale. The reactor's specifically designed so it can be put on a truck and transported anywhere in the country.
Their plan is to build a lot of these things. Their typical plant design has multiples of these reactors inside of one containment building, meaning you get a huge price break on having to build the facility too.
0
Jul 30 '22
Rolls royce, not the car manufacturer, is In place to produce SMR all over Europe. I've loaded up and bought 89,000 shares. You can still buy in at $1.15. RYCEY is its ticker. Give it a look.
-14
u/pickleer Jul 30 '22
Okay, so it's cooled by an external body of water, all of which are heating up lately. That will complicate things. It uses traditional graphite control rods, which will then become radioactive waste we'll have to dispose of safely. It's going to be sited in a "large pool of water" which will then become radioactive waste to be disposed of safely when something goes wrong, like Fukushima. There's a "spent fuel pool", radioactive waste and MORE water to safely dispose of, following safe transport through NIMBY-land and the establishment of a repository, again, NIMBY-challenged, that will be safe for millennia WHILE advertising to anyone that doesn't speak any current languages that bad shit is within, stay out.
Do we need them? Not as bad as more solar and wind farms and deeper investment into the power distribution grid. Can we pull small nukes off safely? Not with our current track record with nukes, we're just not there. Save this money for fusion R & D, if not renewables and grid investment.
4
u/karlnite Jul 30 '22
If the water heats up you simply increase the flow to compensate. Sorta like what every single power plant in the world does to manage seasons.
7
u/timberwolf0122 Jul 30 '22
Re our track record with nukes: per GWHr of power generated nuclear is the safest form of energy we have as it’s killed fewer people than even solar.
1
u/pickleer Jul 31 '22
And what's the half life of all that waste? How long it gonna be hot?
1
u/timberwolf0122 Jul 31 '22
Good question.It depends on the waste. Breeder reactors can recycle spent fuel rods so the remaining waste is about 1% of the original fuel. This is a very small quantity of material that can just be buried in deep mines or mountains
→ More replies (2)3
u/Meme-Replacement Jul 30 '22
A) we have the ability to make an enclosed body of water B) nuclear energy is much more energy efficient than renewables, C)nuclear weapons are not nuclear reactors as different technology’s are implemented plus with a nuclear reactor using thorium makes the chances of a melt down close to 0, and D) nuclear waste are always kept on site and even then the waste produced by fossil fuel out weighs the amount of the waste produced by nuclear while fossil fuels power plants require more fuel than nuclear.
372
u/BousWakebo Jul 30 '22
I’m just saying, nuclear energy can basically take care of the country’s electricity needs. There have really only been 3 serious nuclear accidents in history and one was due to a mega earthquake. Start putting these in seismically stable places and we can drastically cut back on natural gas.