The comparison with aircraft gas turbines is inaccurate. Only two or three countries are capable of making modern jet turbines, but eleven have designed and built reactors that are powering grids today. (Germany shut all its own excellent Konvoi plants, but German-engineered reactors still operate in Netherlands, Switzerland, Brazil and Argentina.) Light water reactor turbines run nearly a thousand degrees cooler than jet ones, steam is a much more forgiving medium than hot combustion gases, weight is largely irrelevant. Putting five foot thick concrete round a reactor is child's play, compared to making an engine that can swallow a goose at full power without spitting debris through the plane's cabin. Fuel cost matters, but much less than for airlines or gas turbine generators. The one major handicap for nuclear is regulation. Hopefully, that will change. If commercial aircraft industry rules were as onerous as those for the nuclear industry, nobody would be flying - the two 737 MAX crashes alone killed six times as many people as Chornobyl 4, arguably the only reactor to have killed members of the public.
Unfortunately this nuclear push is very reminiscent of the EV push with Tesla. It will make the initial investor astoundingly wealthy, will probably develop something that is commercialized but ultimately not last as the subsidies are themselves not sustainable and competition will erode their advantage. We may see this with SpaceX. Once you have $50,000,000+ and you turn 45-50, your interest in working super hard diminishes.
Reconsideration of LNT comes out today. Devanney thinks they won’t have the cojones to truly reconsider the fundamental regulatory treatment of radiation to use dose-rate profile. (I agree — regardless of what DNA repair science says, and regardless of how unfair it is, it’s waaaaayyyy beyond the pale for the public to allow radiation releases like chemical plants or other large industrial facilities do on a regular basis.)
To the extent the Trump Administration has a real strategy and it’s not just pumping the stock value of tech-aligned Gen-IV startups, my read is that they want to reduce the NRC and regulatory burden to the point where the Gen-IV techs can just be built quickly, let failure happen fast in remote areas (Aalo writes about this a lot), and leapfrog China and Russia’s dominance on Gen-III/III+ LWRs.
I don’t know how this is possible without the public being accepting of regular nuclear accidents and radiation releases. Therefore I don’t see the strategy succeeding, and/or (more cynically) it isn’t intended to succeed as long as shareholder value is created in the short run for the Gen-IV startups.
Does anyone have any good links to substacks of this or other blogs in the nuclear space that debate this specific topic? I’d love to be proven wrong.
Sheesh guys, really? It kinda looks like nanny nanny pants on fire. “Why, hurumph, this is of no consequence good fellow, trust me.” This is the most significant activity and the most activity I have seen in the nuclear power industry in the USA. But you want to pour ice water on it. I am happy for the several reactors that will be turned on. I am hopeful that LNT will be reigned in. It’s fun to see the progress. We can’t build AP1000’s or we would have orders on the books right now. The financial risk is too great and the size doesn’t meet the needs for today. These small reactors can be made for a reasonable cost investment, and can be bundled into a right sized generation package. Yes we need data for the regulator, but the statement that we are far from commercial does not match the pace I see them working at. Are you calling to eliminate the NRC? Exactly what do you want?
The comparison with aircraft gas turbines is inaccurate. Only two or three countries are capable of making modern jet turbines, but eleven have designed and built reactors that are powering grids today. (Germany shut all its own excellent Konvoi plants, but German-engineered reactors still operate in Netherlands, Switzerland, Brazil and Argentina.) Light water reactor turbines run nearly a thousand degrees cooler than jet ones, steam is a much more forgiving medium than hot combustion gases, weight is largely irrelevant. Putting five foot thick concrete round a reactor is child's play, compared to making an engine that can swallow a goose at full power without spitting debris through the plane's cabin. Fuel cost matters, but much less than for airlines or gas turbine generators. The one major handicap for nuclear is regulation. Hopefully, that will change. If commercial aircraft industry rules were as onerous as those for the nuclear industry, nobody would be flying - the two 737 MAX crashes alone killed six times as many people as Chornobyl 4, arguably the only reactor to have killed members of the public.
Unfortunately this nuclear push is very reminiscent of the EV push with Tesla. It will make the initial investor astoundingly wealthy, will probably develop something that is commercialized but ultimately not last as the subsidies are themselves not sustainable and competition will erode their advantage. We may see this with SpaceX. Once you have $50,000,000+ and you turn 45-50, your interest in working super hard diminishes.
Reconsideration of LNT comes out today. Devanney thinks they won’t have the cojones to truly reconsider the fundamental regulatory treatment of radiation to use dose-rate profile. (I agree — regardless of what DNA repair science says, and regardless of how unfair it is, it’s waaaaayyyy beyond the pale for the public to allow radiation releases like chemical plants or other large industrial facilities do on a regular basis.)
To the extent the Trump Administration has a real strategy and it’s not just pumping the stock value of tech-aligned Gen-IV startups, my read is that they want to reduce the NRC and regulatory burden to the point where the Gen-IV techs can just be built quickly, let failure happen fast in remote areas (Aalo writes about this a lot), and leapfrog China and Russia’s dominance on Gen-III/III+ LWRs.
I don’t know how this is possible without the public being accepting of regular nuclear accidents and radiation releases. Therefore I don’t see the strategy succeeding, and/or (more cynically) it isn’t intended to succeed as long as shareholder value is created in the short run for the Gen-IV startups.
Does anyone have any good links to substacks of this or other blogs in the nuclear space that debate this specific topic? I’d love to be proven wrong.
Sheesh guys, really? It kinda looks like nanny nanny pants on fire. “Why, hurumph, this is of no consequence good fellow, trust me.” This is the most significant activity and the most activity I have seen in the nuclear power industry in the USA. But you want to pour ice water on it. I am happy for the several reactors that will be turned on. I am hopeful that LNT will be reigned in. It’s fun to see the progress. We can’t build AP1000’s or we would have orders on the books right now. The financial risk is too great and the size doesn’t meet the needs for today. These small reactors can be made for a reasonable cost investment, and can be bundled into a right sized generation package. Yes we need data for the regulator, but the statement that we are far from commercial does not match the pace I see them working at. Are you calling to eliminate the NRC? Exactly what do you want?
FORWARD. All difficulties will be worked through-