News and Discussions > Nuke News
Naval Reactors Should Be Empowered to Show the Way Again
thenuttyneutron:
--- Quote from: Broadzilla on Dec 06, 2013, 12:43 ---
Small MOdular Reactor. Non Economical. Thorium. No viable design exists.
Fact: The only reason Rickover built the first Commercial reactor was he would not give up control of the Uranium. Other better designs existed. As with many things Rickover it was a retrograde step.
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http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/prism.html
http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/brc/20120621235818/http://brc.gov/sites/default/files/comments/attachments/acrs_14_without_backups_copy_c_boardman.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PRISM
We did have a viable design. Some of the biggest challenges/problems with nuclear technology are political problems. The IFR was killed just a few years before the project's completion.
HydroDave63:
--- Quote from: Marlin on Dec 06, 2013, 11:17 --- Rickover was at the top of Maslow's hierarchy he did things for ego he wanted to be the father of nuclear power not just the father of Navy nuclear, he stood in front of congress many times testifying on the safety of commercial and Navy reactors. As for economy you may be right for traditional thinking but that is what the authors point is, remove the entanglements of the current commercial industry and hand development to an outside entity. SMRs would put nuclear in the realm of an individual facility such as Paducah for Silex or Oak Ridge for ORNL and Y-12 as the paper below outlines. As for thorium that is the point of the recommendation as well, to design and put a new technology on the table.
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/Economic%20Aspects%20of%20SMRs.pdf
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What entanglements? If anything, the industry probably needs MORE endoscopy from the NRC, when we consider the recent events of non-excellence ala Davis-Besse vessel head, Millstone's safety concerns/retaliation problem of 90's, non-conservative design assumptions in S/G replacements etc. Handing off oversight to an outside organization would require years of learning curve to understand what they were looking at, plus the hiccups of change to regulatory environment.
Handle the waste issue AND end the $22/MWh tax credit for wind, and you would have had at least one or two more nuclear plants east of the Mississippi staying open today.
Marlin:
--- Quote from: HydroDave63 on Dec 06, 2013, 11:00 ---What entanglements? If anything, the industry probably needs MORE endoscopy from the NRC, when we consider the recent events of non-excellence ala Davis-Besse vessel head, Millstone's safety concerns/retaliation problem of 90's, non-conservative design assumptions in S/G replacements etc. Handing off oversight to an outside organization would require years of learning curve to understand what they were looking at, plus the hiccups of change to regulatory environment.
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Hmmm... I don't think I was talking about the regulatory environment, the commercial nuclear industry in general resists change. Remember the seven worst words in business, "We have always done it that way". Light water reactors or some variant have been the innovations of the of the commercial nuclear juggernauts and they still seem resistant to change. Liquid metal and breeder reactors have shown promise in the past but they do not fit in a PWR/BWR construction/service industry. Reprocessing and waste are an issue but that is the advantage of newer technologies including the traveling wave reactor that would essentially burn high level waste. The champion of the traveling wave reactor is not from the nuclear industry.
“Nuclear innovation stopped in the 1970s.” Bill Gates
Nuclear discussion starts about 2:55 discussion on limitations of solar and wind before that.
http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2013/03/11/bill-gates-excellent-case-for-new-types-of-nuclear-power/
Fermi2:
Nothing smaller than 1000 MW will ever be economical. That isn't political. that is financial fact. Having individual reactors at Paducah et al would increase their operating costs. They already had one of the lowest rates in the nation. Setting up their own infrastructure increases cost.
A Liquid Metal Reactor is STILL in the same boat if it can't put out 1000 MW.
GLW:
--- Quote from: Broadzilla on Dec 07, 2013, 01:06 ---Nothing smaller than 1000 MW will ever be economical.....
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A lucid point although I would have thought it was an obvious one considering today's necessity for economy of scale to offset indigenous cost obligations for security, training, insurance, long term liability and emergency planning fiducials,....
maybe not,....(obvious that is),.... :-\
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