Re:BYU profs create new nuclear reactor to produce nuclear e...
by AtlasBarfed on Friday October 07, 2022 @12:53PM
(#33123898)
There are two things I would dissent on the statistics. Actually, three.
#1: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Those numbers will be reliant on industry data, and regulatory agencies that have always wanted to keep the reactors in operation. And can we REALLY get a proper accounting of Chernobyl?
#2: Solid fuel rod waste: it needs to be transported, stored, and all the safety on that is reliant on massive amounts of human faith and they can't forecast all the things that could cause solid fuel waste to be spilled, stolen, lost. Transport requires shutting down infrastructure (like the tunnels on the interstate in colorado).
#3: Humans are necessary to monitor and maintain the safety systems. If a solid fuel rod starts runaway fissions, and the heat skyrockets, recovering from that is hard. Unlike MSRs which have a plug and a cooling pool that automatically compensates for an out of control reaction, no active systems, no human intervention, solid fuel rods require constant active monitoring.
Even if you have the safety systems for real reliable statistics (and how could you know without as good a safety system as the MSR/LFTR plug), solid fuel rod processing, reprocessing transport, safety, lack of scalability will simple never be price competitive with solar/wind/battery. It can't compete with the current prices, and solar/wind/battery is still improving on 5-15% annual improvements.
Obviously that won't continue indefinitely, but the point is that there is NO WAY to predict a stable price to even target for a 10-years-out nuclear project for a gigantic dome solid fuel rod reactor (and you HAVE to go big with solid fuel rod, both by design and for any chance of economics).
But an MSR is much much much more scalable. This BYU one is closet sized, the original ORNL reactor that got politically axed was closet sized. I guess liquid is more "spillable" than solid rods, so it does have that going against it, but still. Very glad to see MSR research.
Now, I'm pretty sure a "scalable" MSR will require as many or more of the headaches of solid rod nuclear waste transport, because I think that you can't compress all the equipment/processes for fission product extraction in a reactor, it would probably require transport to a central processing plant. But it might simply reduce to a "dangerous chemical" problem rather than "dangerous nuclear waste" problem, a distinction that is a political one.
It may be that all fission and fusion research these days is a moot point in the shadow of solar/wind/battery economics, but I think it is valuable and I think there's a place for nuclear in the economy.
#1: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Those numbers will be reliant on industry data, and regulatory agencies that have always wanted to keep the reactors in operation. And can we REALLY get a proper accounting of Chernobyl?
#2: Solid fuel rod waste: it needs to be transported, stored, and all the safety on that is reliant on massive amounts of human faith and they can't forecast all the things that could cause solid fuel waste to be spilled, stolen, lost. Transport requires shutting down infrastructure (like the tunnels on the interstate in colorado).
#3: Humans are necessary to monitor and maintain the safety systems. If a solid fuel rod starts runaway fissions, and the heat skyrockets, recovering from that is hard. Unlike MSRs which have a plug and a cooling pool that automatically compensates for an out of control reaction, no active systems, no human intervention, solid fuel rods require constant active monitoring.
Even if you have the safety systems for real reliable statistics (and how could you know without as good a safety system as the MSR/LFTR plug), solid fuel rod processing, reprocessing transport, safety, lack of scalability will simple never be price competitive with solar/wind/battery. It can't compete with the current prices, and solar/wind/battery is still improving on 5-15% annual improvements.
Obviously that won't continue indefinitely, but the point is that there is NO WAY to predict a stable price to even target for a 10-years-out nuclear project for a gigantic dome solid fuel rod reactor (and you HAVE to go big with solid fuel rod, both by design and for any chance of economics).
But an MSR is much much much more scalable. This BYU one is closet sized, the original ORNL reactor that got politically axed was closet sized. I guess liquid is more "spillable" than solid rods, so it does have that going against it, but still. Very glad to see MSR research.
Now, I'm pretty sure a "scalable" MSR will require as many or more of the headaches of solid rod nuclear waste transport, because I think that you can't compress all the equipment/processes for fission product extraction in a reactor, it would probably require transport to a central processing plant. But it might simply reduce to a "dangerous chemical" problem rather than "dangerous nuclear waste" problem, a distinction that is a political one.
It may be that all fission and fusion research these days is a moot point in the shadow of solar/wind/battery economics, but I think it is valuable and I think there's a place for nuclear in the economy.