The Energy Future Belongs to Nuclear
It remains the only proven technology capable of serving the energy needs of de-carbonized modern society.
Regis Nicoll
Regis Nicoll
4 Nov 2022 · 6 min read

In 2021, concerns about greenhouse gases and climate change prompted the Biden administration to call for a carbon-emission-free power sector by 2035. However, achieving that objective by transitioning from fossil-fuel energy to “green energy” is not only technically impractical and unrealistic, it is also not quite as “green” as enthusiasts would have us believe.
Technical considerations
The energy demands of an industrialized society require an abundant source of uninterrupted power. However, the “green power” (primarily wind and solar) intended to replace fossil fuels is, by its nature, intermittent and subject to fluctuations in the weather. While that limitation could be eased somewhat with the augmentation of back-up batteries, the land-consumption requirements for a wholesale shift to renewables would be prohibitive.
Unlike fossil-fuel energy and nuclear power, the energy from solar and wind is widely dispersed, requiring large tracts of land to “collect and harness” it for power generation. Fossil fuels can produce 500 to 10,000 watts per square meter and nuclear can produce 500 to 1,000 watts per square meter. Solar power, on the other hand, can only produce five to 20 watts per square meter. Wind can produce just one or two.
The current installed power from all energy sources in the US is 1.2 terawatts (one million megawatts). Converting all that energy to wind and solar (assuming an average land use requirement of 10 watts per square meter), would require a tract of land larger than the size of Texas and California combined, making the comprehensive transition to green infeasible. So, if fossil fuels are removed from the commercial power mix, then nuclear is the only viable source of power available to meet the energy needs of an industrialized nation.
Environmental considerations
“Green energy” is often described as “clean energy” because it comes from natural sources (wind, sun, and water) that produce no environmental pollutants or greenhouse gases. But that is only true if analysis of the process is limited to green energy production—that is, the actual conversion of wind, solar, and hydro energy into electricity.
However, when the total life cycle of mining, manufacturing, production, and disposal is considered, green energy is revealed to be anything but “clean.” As an AP investigation recently revealed:
The birds no longer sing, and the herbs no longer grow. The fish no longer swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown … cows are sometimes found dead. … Water is no longer drinkable, and endangered species such as tigers, pangolins and red pandas have fled the area.
That’s not a description of the Flint River region in Michigan, the Fukushima environs in Japan, the Love Canal community in upstate New York, nor of the dystopian wasteland in an apocalyptic novel. It’s the condition of northern Myanmar on China’s south-west border—the result of the unrestrained mining of rare earth minerals. These materials are essential to the manufacture of green energy products like electric vehicles and wind turbines.
Years of unregulated mining have turned whole regions in Myanmar and other parts of the undeveloped world into “sacrifice zones”—areas where the health and welfare of local residents are sacrificed for the “greater good,” which, in this instance, is global de-carbonization. As the push for green energy continues, the demand for these minerals will keep pace, along with environmental hazards not limited to mining.
Irrespective of the energy source, the machinery (e.g., batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, dams) needed to convert it into useable power are manufactured from materials that must be not only mined, but also processed and ultimately disposed of. According to a 2020 paper produced by the Manhattan Institute, “compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.” For example:
A single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car ‘consumes’ five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.
Eventually, all that material becomes waste requiring disposal:
By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.
Of course, a 10-fold increase in green energy materials will require a commensurate increase in the fossil fuels (primarily, diesel) needed for their extraction, processing, and disposal by excavators, trucks, and other heavy equipment. In other words, green energy is anything but “carbon-neutral.”
The energy present
Added to the technical and environmental problems of green energy, is the awkward fact that the green energy market is leveraged by China. China not only manufactures “more than two-thirds (2/3rds) of the world’s solar panels and one-half of wind turbines,” but it also “controls 90% of the battery industry’s cobalt supply-chain.” Thus, any expansion of the green energy grid increases US dependence on a country that is not particularly interested in its wellbeing.
Furthermore, China’s green energy products are produced primarily from fossil fuels. Nearly all the benefits of an industrialized society: modern medicine, scientific progress, technological advances, and the manufacturing of consumer goods—including those needed for green energy—depend on the delivery of reliable, large-scale, baseline power that is beyond the capability of green energy technology.
The only demonstrated technology capable of accomplishing that task, free of greenhouse emissions, is nuclear—the most essential form of energy in the cosmos. Nuclear energy powers the sun which generates solar radiation that drives photosynthesis, energizes solar cells, and creates pressure differentials that produce winds harnessed by wind turbines. Contrary to popular belief, nuclear is the most natural of all natural energy sources.
Today, nuclear energy is used to run submarines and spacecraft, and to diagnose and treat medical conditions. On a larger scale, it is an integral part of the commercial power industry, delivering energy for residential, municipal, and industrial purposes. Since the first reactors were built in the 1950s, commercial nuclear power has amassed more than 18,000 reactor-years of operational experience, producing electricity in over 30 countries.
The energy future
Commercial reactor fuel comes from uranium ore mined from the earth. Under current projections, the amount of uranium extractable by mining is sufficient to last hundreds of years. However, if extraction from seawater is made economically feasible, the supply is estimated to last tens of thousands of years, qualifying nuclear power as sustainable.
Nuclear fuel can also be reprocessed to recover unused uranium, increasing fuel efficiency and reducing nuclear waste. For example, recovered uranium could be used in a fast breeder reactor to produce as much, or more, fuel than it consumes by transmuting fertile uranium into fissionable radioisotopes that can be reprocessed and recycled for power generation, making nuclear power renewable, as well. So far, only Russia is doing this on a large scale, with China and India not far behind.
The dismissal of nuclear power as a plausible means of achieving de-carbonization has not resulted from patient consideration of the scientific and technical merits of the case for nuclear, but in spite of those merits. Regrettably, I have watched ideology and emotivism trump science on numerous occasions throughout my 30-year career.
One such occasion occurred during a public hearing in Washington, DC convened to debate the proposed construction of a nuclear waste repository. The waste was to be treated, encapsulated, and placed in deep rock strata known to be geologically stable since their formation. Even under a hypothetical catastrophic event, the radiation exposure to the public would have been well below what everyone receives, annually, from naturally occurring radiation sources.
Nevertheless, an environmentalist took the floor and argued that because radiation is a known carcinogen (which is true), there is no safe level of exposure (which is false), and therefore any radioactive release into the biosphere is an undue cancer risk (also false). For emotional impact, he cited instances of childhood leukemia that were heart-wrenching but irrelevant since they were unrelated to radiation exposure. It didn’t matter; as I surveyed the hearing room, it became clear to me that public opinion there was not being shaped by scientific fact.
Over the last 40 years, that kind of thinking—or, more precisely, unthinking—has led to the atrophy of commercial nuclear power as plant closures have far-outpaced plant openings. (In the US, 23 reactor units are in the process of decommissioning and closure; only two new units are under construction.) This is a great shame. For had science prevailed, political will and technical wherewithal might have been brought to bear on enhanced uranium extraction techniques, advanced reactor designs, and nuclear fuel reprocessing and recycling to make concerns over greenhouse gases and climate change non-issues with a commercial-scale source of energy that is carbon-neutral, sustainable, and renewable.
In short, nuclear power remains the only proven technology capable of serving the energy needs of modern society with carbon-emission-free generation. Any future where that is the goal belongs to nuclear.

https://quillette.com/2022/11/...-belongs-to-nuclear/

I doesn't matter how necessary it might be (and I agree about it's necessity),it isn't going to happen. The economics of building nuclear plants are terrible, and the utilities don't want to pay for it. If it were up to them, they build cheap easy natgas plants. And the public is afraid of them, so they have a lot of political headwinds. The public has been brainwashed that everything should be done with renewables, even if that really can't get the job done.

Small Nuclear Power Reactors

(Updated May 2022)

There is strong interest in small and simpler units for generating electricity from nuclear power, and for process heat.
This interest in small and medium nuclear power reactors is driven both by a desire to reduce the impact of capital costs and to provide power away from large grid systems.
The technologies involved are numerous and very diverse.

As nuclear power generation has become established since the 1950s, the size of reactor units has grown from 60 MWe to more than 1600 MWe, with corresponding economies of scale in operation. At the same time there have been many hundreds of smaller power reactors built for naval use (up to 190 MW thermal) and as neutron sourcesa, yielding enormous expertise in the engineering of small power units and accumulating over 12,000 reactor years of experience.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defines 'small' as under 300 MWe, and up to about 700 MWe as 'medium' – including many operational units from the 20th century. Together they have been referred to by the IAEA as small and medium reactors (SMRs). However, 'SMR' is used more commonly as an acronym for 'small modular reactor', designed for serial construction and collectively to comprise a large nuclear power plant. (In this information page the use of diverse pre-fabricated modules to expedite the construction of a single large reactor is not relevant.) A subcategory of very small reactors – vSMRs – is proposed for units under about 15 MWe, especially for remote communities.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are defined as nuclear reactors generally 300 MWe equivalent or less, designed with modular technology using module factory fabrication, pursuing economies of series production and short construction times. This definition, from the World Nuclear Association, is closely based on those from the IAEA and the US Nuclear Energy Institute. Some of the already-operating small reactors mentioned or tabulated below do not fit this definition, but most of those described do fit it. PWR types may have integral steam generators, in which case the reactor pressure vessel needs to be larger, limiting portability from factory to site. Hence many larger PWRs such as the Rolls-Royce UK SMR have external steam generators.

This information page focuses on advanced designs in the small category, i.e. those now being built for the first time or still on the drawing board, and some larger ones which are outside the mainstream categories dealt with in the Advanced Nuclear Power Reactors page. Some of the designs described here are not yet actually taking shape, others are operating or under construction. Four main options are being pursued: light water reactors, fast neutron reactors, graphite-moderated high temperature reactors and various kinds of molten salt reactors (MSRs). The first has the lowest technological risk, but the second (FNR) can be smaller, simpler and with longer operation before refuelling. Some MSRs are fast-spectrum.

Today, due partly to the high capital cost of large power reactors generating electricity via the steam cycle and partly to the need to service small electricity grids under about 4 GWe,b there is a move to develop smaller units. These may be built independently or as modules in a larger complex, with capacity added incrementally as required (see section below on Modular construction using small reactor units). Economies of scale are envisaged due to the numbers produced. There are also moves to develop independent small units for remote sites. Small units are seen as a much more manageable investment than big ones whose cost often rivals the capitalization of the utilities concerned.

An additional reason for interest in SMRs is that they can more readily slot into brownfield sites in place of decommissioned coal-fired plants, the units of which are seldom very large – more than 90% are under 500 MWe, and some are under 50 MWe. In the USA coal-fired units retired over 2010-12 averaged 97 MWe, and those expected to retire over 2015-25 average 145 MWe.

SMR development is proceeding in Western countries with a lot of private investment, including small companies. The involvement of these new investors indicates a profound shift taking place from government-led and -funded nuclear R&D to that led by the private sector and people with strong entrepreneurial goals, often linked to a social purpose. That purpose is often deployment of affordable clean energy, without carbon dioxide emissions.

A 2011 report for the US Department of Energy by the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute18 said that small reactors could significantly mitigate the financial risk associated with full‐scale plants, potentially allowing small reactors to compete effectively with other energy sources.

Generally, modern small reactors for power generation, and especially SMRs, are expected to have greater simplicity of design, economy of series production largely in factories, short construction times, and reduced siting costs. Most are also designed for a high level of passive or inherent safety in the event of malfunctionc. Also many are designed to be emplaced below ground level, giving a high resistance to terrorist threats. A 2010 report by a special committee convened by the American Nuclear Society showed that many safety provisions necessary, or at least prudent, in large reactors are not necessary in the small designs forthcoming. This is largely due to their higher surface area to volume (and core heat) ratio compared with large units. It means that a lot of the engineering for safety including heat removal in large reactors is not needed in the small reactorsd. Since small reactors are envisaged as replacing fossil fuel plants in many situations, the emergency planning zone required is designed to be no more than about 300 m radius. The combined tables from this report are appended, along with notes of some early small water-, gas-, and liquid metal-cooled reactors.

Licensing is potentially a challenge for SMRs, as design certification, construction and operation licence costs are not necessarily less than for large reactors. Several developers have engaged with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's (CNSC's) pre-licensing vendor design review process, which identifies fundamental barriers to licensing a new design in Canada and assures that a resolution path exists. The pre-licensing review is essentially a technical discussion, phase 1 of which involves about 5000 hours of staff time, considering the conceptual design and charged to the developer. Phase 2 is twice that, addressing system-level design.

A World Nuclear Association 2015 report on SMR standardization of licensing and harmonization of regulatory requirements17 said that the enormous potential of SMRs rests on a number of factors:

Because of their small size and modularity, SMRs could almost be completely built in a controlled factory setting and installed module by module, improving the level of construction quality and efficiency.
Their small size and passive safety features lend them to countries with smaller grids and less experience of nuclear power.
Size, construction efficiency and passive safety systems (requiring less redundancy) can lead to easier financing compared to that for larger plants.
Moreover, achieving ‘economies of series production’ for a specific SMR design will reduce costs further.

The World Nuclear Association lists the features of an SMR, including:

Small power and compact architecture and usually (at least for nuclear steam supply system and associated safety systems) employment of passive concepts. Therefore there is less reliance on active safety systems and additional pumps, as well as AC power for accident mitigation.
The compact architecture enables modularity of fabrication (in-factory), which can also facilitate implementation of higher quality standards.
Lower power leading to reduction of the source term as well as smaller radioactive inventory in a reactor (smaller reactors).
Potential for sub-grade (underground or underwater) location of the reactor unit providing more protection from natural (e.g. seismic or tsunami according to the location) or man-made (e.g. aircraft impact) hazards.
The modular design and small size lends itself to having multiple units on the same site.
Lower requirement for access to cooling water – therefore suitable for remote regions and for specific applications such as mining or desalination.
Ability to remove reactor module or in-situ decommissioning at the end of the lifetime.

In 2020 the IAEA published an update of its SMR book, Advances in Small Modular Reactor Technology Developments, with contributions from developers covering over 70 designs.

The IAEA has a programme assessing a conceptual multi-application small light water reactor (MASLWR) design with integral steam generators, focused on natural circulation of coolant, and in 2003 the US DOE published a report on this MASLWR conceptual design. Several of the integral PWR designs below have some similarities.

There are a number of small modular reactors coming forward requiring fuel enriched at the top end of what is defined as low-enriched uranium (LEU) – 20% U-235. The US Nuclear Infrastructure Council (NIC) has called for some of the downblending of military HEU to be only to about 19.75% U-235, so as to provide a small stockpile of fuel which would otherwise be very difficult to obtain (since civil enrichment plants normally cannot go above 5%). A reserve of 20 tonnes of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) has been suggested. The NIC said that the only supply of fuel for many advanced reactors under development would otherwise be foreign-enriched uranium. “Without a readily available domestic supply of higher enriched LEU in the USA, it will be extremely difficult to conduct research on advanced reactors, potentially driving American innovators overseas.” In 2019 the DOE contracted with Centrus Energy to deploy a cascade of large centrifuges to produce HALEU fuel for advanced reactors. Urenco USA has announced its readiness to supply HALEU from a dedicated production line at its New Mexico plant.

Continued:

https://www.world-nuclear.org/...-power-reactors.aspx

I'm looking forward to the day I can shuffle down to Home Depot and pick up a nice little home SMR to get me off the power grid. Generac eat your heart out!

I was watching a video the other day on the Japanese, and how they were using a nuclear reactor to generate electricity on one side, red hydrogen on the other, all being part of the same process.

They claim this is why several of the Japanese car manufacturers have not jumped on board the electric vehicle bandwagon, as they may be onto the ability to viably produce hydrogen powered engines.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
I doesn't matter how necessary it might be (and I agree about it's necessity),it isn't going to happen. The economics of building nuclear plants are terrible, and the utilities don't want to pay for it.

I agree that nukes aren't competitive because there hasn't been much push to make them competitive from a regulatory point of view.

As the article mentioned the increase demand for EV/batteries, those cost will skyrocket. If fossil fuels are sidelined (which I hope they're not), nuclear will be able to compete against renewables.

In CA, a few good blackout/brownouts will help voters come to the senses, particularly when the Starbucks are closed.

I think that one of the problems with nuclear power is that while every site location is different, so was each plant

each was a one-of from the ground up design and as a result, no real efficiency in design and specs - each was essentially a pilot project

even from an operator standpoint, operators were certified for a single plant at a specific location - they couldn't move

one thing that would go a long way to jump starting the nuclear movement is to go with smaller, standardized reactors that are identical in construction and operation except for the real estate its sitting on

as you can probably guess I am proponent of nuclear if done right - we don't need breeder reactors, a system such as Can-Du's would work just fine

Though the text makes reference to what 'could' be done with spent nuclear fuel, I believe that each reactor site is storing all of it's spent fuel rods. Proposals have been made to ship the still radioactive spent fuel rods to a location in the desert southwest, but the 'not in or shipped through my backyard' feelings result in the spent fuel remaining on location at reactor sites...

quote:

Originally posted by Mark in Michigan:
Though the text makes reference to what 'could' be done with spent nuclear fuel, I believe that each reactor site is storing all of it's spent fuel rods. Proposals have been made to ship the still radioactive spent fuel rods to a location in the desert southwest, but the 'not in or shipped through my backyard' feelings result in the spent fuel remaining on location at reactor sites...

Get Space X to fire it into space.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
I doesn't matter how necessary it might be (and I agree about it's necessity),it isn't going to happen. The economics of building nuclear plants are terrible, and the utilities don't want to pay for it. If it were up to them, they build cheap easy natgas plants. And the public is afraid of them, so they have a lot of political headwinds. The public has been brainwashed that everything should be done with renewables, even if that really can't get the job done.

The economics are good for the 53 being built right now worldwide. The writing is on the wall, nuclear will take over and some countries realize that. I posted on here before to invest in uranium, hopefully some did and are making money off of it.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
I was watching a video the other day on the Japanese, and how they were using a nuclear reactor to generate electricity on one side, red hydrogen on the other, all being part of the same process.

They claim this is why several of the Japanese car manufacturers have not jumped on board the electric vehicle bandwagon, as they may be onto the ability to viably produce hydrogen powered engines.

Going to have to look into that. That sounds interesting.

Disposal of reactor waste is a real issue to overcome. Some years ago i worked on a project for the NRC that was intended to facilitate licensing of Yucca Mt., the DoE's sole waste disposal target. It was very clear to me then that licensing of this facility had zero chance of ever being approved, or even initiated due to opposition by "green" fanatics (not to mention NIMBYs in NV). I sincerely doubt that things have gotten any easier in that regard in the last 20 years.

quote:

Get Space X to fire it into space.

That's always been my thought, but someone....maybe from here stated that there is far too much to launch into space. Still, why not start?

How 'bout a little Nuclear music despite the eminent doom and gloom exhibited.



Sorry but I digress ... Always loved Greg Lake with ELP and solo ...

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:

quote:

Get Space X to fire it into space.

That's always been my thought, but someone....maybe from here stated that there is far too much to launch into space. Still, why not start?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: flesheatingvirus,