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machinin Jun 1, 2024

Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report

Small modular nuclear reactors get a reality check in new report - Lemmy.World

>[T]he report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings. >“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”

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pyrflie Jun 1, 2024

So looking at the article it seems to be against small scale traditional (fission/boiler) systems. Which are fair game. They were pretty much outdated over 50 years ago. I would be more interested in studies on dispersed Thorium Reactors which held far more potential as little as a decade ago.

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vzq Jun 1, 2024

Nuclear technologies missed their window. The use cases where they are the best technical solution now are extremely limited, and that means you can get the investment going to improve them.

It’s a curiosity now.

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JasonDJ Jun 1, 2024

I disagree, a bit.

Base load is still hard to get with renewables, unless you can get a somewhat consistent level of power from them. That’s basically just hydro/tidal and geothermal at this point, and all of those have very limited areas where they can be used.

Nuclear, on the other hand, can be built anywhere except my backyard.

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sugar_in_your_tea Jun 1, 2024

Exactly. I live in Utah, which is perfect for nuclear:

desert close by with a mountain between the desert and dense population
lots of coal power, and unique air quality concerns due to inversion
perfectly set up for mass transit - about half (more than half?) of the population lives in a narrow corridor, so cars could be replaced with electric trains and buses
no access to the ocean, geothermal is probably expensive due to hard rock, no tides, hydro couldn’t be done at scale, cold winters make battery storage hard, etc

So why don’t we do it? FUD. We should have a nuclear base with solar and wind helping out, but instead we have a coal base and are transitioning to natural gas. That’s dumb. And it’s hilarious because we sell electricity to California when their backbone isn’t sufficient.

It’s probably not the best option everywhere, but it’s a really good option in many areas.

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intensely_human Jun 2, 2024

Who’s working to change the perception there?

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sugar_in_your_tea

Perception seems fine, every poll I’ve seen going back 10 years has been positive for nuclear power. Everyone seems to want it, they just don’t want it in their backyard.

The Blue Castle project was (is?) a proposal for a nuclear plant in eastern central Utah, which is pretty far from any urban center and buffered by a mountain range. They won a lawsuit regarding water rights more than 5 years ago, but there have been no updates on it for 5-ish years.

There’s a SMR project in S. Idaho that was active recently, Unfortunately, it seems to have missed subscription targets, so it’s unlikely to move forward. I don’t know where those subscriptions are supposed to come from (I’m interested), but I’m guessing it’s cities buying in and many dropped out due to financing not being certain.

A lot of the pushback is from politicians, not residents. The popular support is there, but our legislatures and local governments are pretty conservative and unwilling to take risks.

Utah just lost an important future energy source. Here’s why

Once touted as a way to deliver carbon free base load power to some Utah cities and other customers, a planned advanced nuclear power facility in Idaho has been shelved.

Deseret News