The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved by US Regulators

Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by tsimionescu on Saturday August 06, 2022 @01:48PM (#32370122)

No one is saying that the grid should be fully nuclear. What we are saying is that wind and solar require another technology to pick up the slack when they have low generation. Currently, that is gas or coal in most places. In the future, it may be large scale long term storage, but that doesn't generally exist.

The only green technology we know about that could replace coal and gas as slack for wind and solar today is nuclear.

Does nuclear cost more than wind and solar? Irrelevant, since wind and solar can't power the whole grid. Does it cost more than coal and gas? Irrelevant, since those need to be stopped or the effects of global warming will destroy our industrial life in 50 years.

Does nuclear cost more than large-scale long-term storage? This is an interesting question, and we don't yet have a good answer, as no one has really tried creating storage for hundreds of megawatts for something like half a year. There is one such storage location in Switzerland, and in fa t it took 14 years to build compared to South Korea's newest nuclear reactor taking 10 years (while also producing 1350MW compared to Switzerland storing 950MW). Is that representative of such costs? Probably not, but who knows.

Well, I should mention hydro as well, though that is very geographically dependent, so it's often not an option at all.

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Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by bryanlarsen on Saturday August 06, 2022 @03:33PM (#32370877)

Why the heck would you create half year storage? No place ever goes sun and wind free for 6 months.

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Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by tsimionescu on Saturday August 06, 2022 @04:47PM (#32371468)

Maybe 6 months is too much, but for example in Europe, you do need more than a month to ensure that your grid actually works even if you have low wind and low sun for that long - at least until you can over-generate so much that you have enough production on a ~14h of sunlight on a cloudy day in winter with low wind you can ensure enough power for the whole day. The farther north you go, the bigger this problem gets - places like Norway or Finland have far less than 14h of sunlight in winter per day, for example, for months.

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Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by bryanlarsen on Saturday August 06, 2022 @08:38PM (#32372838)

Why the heck would you rely on solar power in Northern Europe? The North Sea has some of the most reliable winds in the world, and Northern Europe is full of mountains. Use excess winds to pump water up the mountain and use the head to turn a generator on the rare windless days.

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Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by mrep on Saturday August 06, 2022 @03:10PM (#32370725)

IDK what your definition of green is but I'm fine with using gas (methane) to pick up the slack for wind/solar/nuclear if it is made with electrical surpluses from wind/solar/nuclear in a carbon neutral way.

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Re:The First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Was Just Approved... by tsimionescu on Saturday August 06, 2022 @04:49PM (#32371480)

That still requires you to store that gas on bright windy days so you can use it weeks or months later on overcast still nights, so I am lumping it with "storage technologies".

Today, "coal and gas" means using fossil fuels, not renewable coal and gas produced out of CO2 in air, and I expect this to remain true for quite a while longer - the temptation will be too large, given the price difference.

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