Assuming we did, to get away from mechanical turbines and generators as the heat->motion->electricity step would require a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_generator -- which have had more success but still face serious material issues.
As for "why does it take so long?" -- the first of anything takes longer. And the US has terrible problems in building anything new or big.
What are the reasons for this do you think?
A bridge has failure consequences that are predictable: bridge breaks, people on the bridge die, local economy suffers. All of those are understandable by an elementary school student playing with toys and imagining the town around it.
The failure consequences of fission plants were not known to include things that had to be discovered years after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Not to mention -- who knew that exhausting hot non-radioactive water into a river could be bad for it?
The failure consequences of Thalidomide were not known for years. The failure consequences of dioxin usage were not known for years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant
Let's also include the US propensity to fall victim to charlatanry: enough of us want to believe so much, we will give lots of money to Juicero, uBeam, and Nigerian Princes. (Hyperloop, cough.)
So if you want to do something big, it needs to be well-understood. If you want to do something new, it needs to be proven and well-examined.
The NuScale VOYAGR, in particular, is a really big SMR in terms of [plant size]/[megawatt]. The economies of SMR come when you can reduce that footprint by making smaller safety systems or eliminating active safety features (because the plant is small enough not to need them) AND factory-build them with on-site assembly. Other SMR designs seem to have more promising ideas for doing both, but NuScale's is just too big. (There are also micro-reactors that optimize for replacing diesel engines and gas turbines with a very small footprint at the tradeoff of cost.)
>I was expecting SMRs, once approved could be built much more quickly. I was thinking in terms of 3 years with perfect project planning. But right now even the earliest ( and likely optimistic ) first SMRs site is 2030. Why does it take so long?
There's a lot going between "approved today" and "SMR online": particularly that factory infrastructure needs to come on line and site licensing need to happen, and then the plant needs to get commissioned after it is built (which takes longer for the first). It's very conceivable to me that the Nth SMR could be a ~3ish year project, but longer for the FOAK unit is almost inevitable.
>particularly that factory infrastructure needs to come on line and site licensing need to happen, and then the plant needs to get commissioned after it is built (which takes longer for the first).
Oh Ok. So it is only the "design" that has been approved. ( Again I should have read it carefully ). No wonder why it is taking so long.
Thank you for the reply.
Those would be 'micro-reactors' and as noted tend to be optimised for off-grid applications.
The inefficiency and massive capital costs of of steam turbines is a major reason why natural gas is so much cheaper than coal or fission -- natgas uses a combined cycle turbine rather than a steam turbine.
https://www.powermag.com/efficiency-improvements-mark-advanc...
That claims 64% for a gas turbine.
LFTR presentations said they could use the brayton cycle I think due to high temps, I'd imagine a fusion would also have the temps to enable brayton cycle and several other tricks to achieve good efficiency.
Remember, what matters at scale is cost cost cost. Turbines might not be sexy, but if they are cheap, then that is what you use.
Exactly. Turbines (along with the accompanying water treatment, condensers, generators, power transformation) aren't cheap. A 600MW coal plant costs $2B.
This is also the case of helion energy fusion solution. Aneutronic fusion with direct energy conversion. No heat in the cycle.
The issue with these thermal power solutions is the waste heat. It means you need water nearby to cool down your reactor. Side effect: thermal pollution, raising the temp of rivers and/or coastals water is detrimental to ecosystems. Plus: how do you deal with droughts?
This makes fission quite attractive in colder climates.
https://www.powermag.com/district-heating-supply-from-nuclea...
Imagine writing a piece of software that needs to parse XML. It is probably better just to use an existing library for that, instead of reinventing the wheel.
> We could have Nuclear Fusion but we are still using turbine to generate electricity. :P
This is actually one of the main points of why the whole talk about "economies of scale" for nuclear just doesn't make much sense. More than 50% of a nuclear plant is essentially the same as any other thermoelectric plant. Despite the many power plants being build we haven't seen a this elusive cost reduction. Construction projects (in contrast to things build in factories) don't lend themselves to economies of scale (in terms of building many).
There was an HN submission that analysed the cost of a nuclear plant and showed that there is really not much room for any economies of scale reductions.
> >these smaller reactors are actually likely to produce more radioactive waste than conventional plants.
> >nuclear power expert M.V. Ramana also points out that the cost of renewable energy like wind and solar is already lower than that of nuclear, and continuing to fall rapidly.
> Why are we repeating these same questions when we already have an answer?
> >SMRs could cost more than bigger nuclear plants, he adds, because they don’t have the same economy of scale.
Yes that's always the weird part of the discussion. There are reasons why nuclear plants are build large, it's cheaper.
> I thought the whole point of SMRs were economy of scale?
> >Tellingly, some utilities have already backed out of NuScale’s first project over cost concerns.
> Anyone could chime in here? Was it because NuScale is too expensive?
> I was expecting SMRs, once approved could be built much more quickly. I was thinking in terms of 3 years with perfect project planning. But right now even the earliest ( and likely optimistic ) first SMRs site is 2030. Why does it take so long?
See fusion this way: it's like a coal power plant with infinite free coal (because the rest of it is the same - turbines, water treatment, condensers, generators, power transformation and transmission - and thermonuclear reactor will for sure never be cheaper than a coal-fired steam boiler). Which means, electricity cost will be same as of a coal plant minus the price of coal. Which will already be above cost of most renewable sources and, once electrolyzers for green hydrogen will start coming online, remembering that barely 15% of renewable electricity will need to be passed through them (rest can simply be balanced by different renewables), will still be sort of competitive.
And we don't have fusion yet, while renewables will keep getting cheaper.
The other aspects of fusion get swept under the rug: high speed neutrons from sustained fusion energy production will degrade the equipment, so you build this HUGE EXPENSIVE facility and it will have a shelf life, and be somewhat radioactive, in ... well, I don't know the timeline, but I'll assume decades.
Even without that, fusion costs even with "free" fuel (I mean, it will probably be deuterium and separation will cost some money) will probably be quite high for operation, maintenance, to say nothing of the massive installation cost.
I think it is still worth the current investment in research though, it's not like I want the book closed on fusion power. But I wouldn't count on it getting us out of the global warming hole we are in.
The answer is not solar and wind. For solar and wind to replace fossil fuels for electricity generation will require ramping up mining activity by a factor of a few tens from current levels. Not to mention the fact that we still don't know how to produce solar panels and wind turbines without using fossil fuels - for mining, metallurgy and transport. The numbers are just not there.
The only possible answer is a significant reduction of energy consumption, but it seems very few people are ready to accept it.
What are the questions? Are renewables the answer?
Only hydro can store energy cheaply. And solar and wind are not available constantly.
That was the question partly laid out in the article. Suggesting we dont need Nuclear because we already have solar and wind.
We could have Nuclear Fusion but we will still using turbine to generate electricity. :P
>these smaller reactors are actually likely to produce more radioactive waste than conventional plants.
>nuclear power expert M.V. Ramana also points out that the cost of renewable energy like wind and solar is already lower than that of nuclear, and continuing to fall rapidly.
Why are we repeating these same questions when we already have an answer? Edit: Solar and Wind aren't constant, and nuclear waste is a solved problem.
>SMRs could cost more than bigger nuclear plants, he adds, because they don’t have the same economy of scale.
I thought the whole point of SMRs were economy of scale?
>Tellingly, some utilities have already backed out of NuScale’s first project over cost concerns.
Anyone could chime in here? Was it because NuScale is too expensive?
I was expecting SMRs, once approved could be built much more quickly. I was thinking in terms of 3 years with perfect project planning. But right now even the earliest ( and likely optimistic ) first SMRs site is 2030. Why does it take so long?