Mastodawn

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

'In practice, a “small” reactor brings all the big problems of a conventional reactor: dangerous radioactive fuel, complex safety systems, and the risk of catastrophic failure or sabotage. The only thing that’s truly small about SMRs is their inability to benefit from the economies of scale that, in theory, were supposed to make large reactors affordable — but never actually did.' - https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/the-nuclear-mirage-why-small-modular-reactors-wont-save-nuclear-power/

The nuclear mirage: why small modular reactors won’t save nuclear power

Don’t believe the hype, says a 50-year industry veteran

Climate and Capital Media

Kevin P. Fleming Dec 29

@bert_hubert And now people are all hyped up about residential sized miniature reactors, as if they will solve any of those problems.

Those same people believe that wind turbines are 'killing all the birds' so their critical thinking abilities may be somewhat suspect.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@bert_hubert Most suggestions for SMR do combine them with modern architectures that do not have those problems though.

The "economies of scale" argument also seems to be the wrong way around. Large one-off reactor builds were never able to benefit from such, while factory-line produced SMRs easily will.

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Dec 29

@troed A true believer! I just updated https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/nuclear-no-yes-maybe-but-not-like-this/ but it is aging well.

Nuclear power: no, yes, maybe, but not like this - Bert Hubert's writings

This is a story in three acts, where we go from “trying to procure more nuclear power plants in 2024 is nuts”, to “I could see why you’d want some nuclear”, to “but if so, not like this”. This post has been quite a trip to write, where I rediscovered that writing something down is an ACE way to find out you didn’t know what you were talking about. It was also a good exercise in changing my mind a few times.

Bert Hubert's writings

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@bert_hubert No beliefs anywhere, I just have this irritating need to point out falsehoods when I see them spread online ;) Your article looks sound, but the link you shared contained the errors I pointed out.

I think molten salt thorium based SMRs would be a good addition to our energy producing infrastructure, but yes, we'll mostly have wind and solar powered (battery smoothened) since those will be cheaper.

We haven't even begun to plan for the energy we'll need to desalinate seawater just to pump inwards to re-fill all the aquafiers we've been overusing for hundreds of years :D We need lots and lots of energy, all over.

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Dec 29

@troed thing is, if you follow the history of (small) nuclear power, the promise is always that THIS design will be safe, simple, affordable AND run on fuel that we actually have. And it always turns out you can't get all of these at the same time. Molten salt has proven to be VERY tricky for example. By now, you need to be a believer to assume that this time it will work.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@bert_hubert It does seem to work, yes.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/chinese-msr-achieves-conversion-of-thorium-uranium-fuel

Chinese molten salt reactor achieves conversion of thorium-uranium fuel

The experimental TMSR-LF1 thorium-powered molten salt reactor in Wuwei, Gansu Province, has achieved the first successful conversion of thorium-uranium nuclear fuel, the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced. ;

World Nuclear News

Esther #antifa Dec 29

@troed
Do you always believe what the Chinese government says?

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

If you have information pointing to the claims by all the scientists involved in that research to be wrong then please post it.

Esther #antifa Dec 29

@troed
You are avoiding to answer my question.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

No. You're however trying to claim that you can refute a point with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Here's what you need to claim doesn't exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMSR-LF1

TMSR-LF1 - Wikipedia

Herbert Blankesteijn Dec 29

@bert_hubert @troed Similarly, every decade or so the nuclear waste problem appears to have been solved. But every decade the solution is different, indicating that every former solution wasn´t so good after all.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

It was solved many decades ago, we just don't allow the solution. High school physics: Something which is highly radioactive is so only for a short amount of time. Something which is radioactive for a very long time isn't dangerous.

(This is a plain physics statement, not something that can be debated)

... with that knowledge in mind, now ask yourself what that "nuclear waste" is.

@troed @hmblank @bert_hubert interesting, also considering simple physics: our planet is 4 billions old and so our natural radiation is older (formed by a previous star). But in Switzerland we have problem of natural radioactivity on basements. So your reasoning missed some important parts. Physicist here.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

Oh I'm Swedish, we have radon gasses in some of our basements too from back when we didn't know what we used when building. There are also cities with higher backround radiation due to the rock compositions they're built on.

None of that invalidates my statement though, so why don't you discuss that instead of something that wasn't relevant?

@hmblank @bert_hubert

@troed @hmblank @bert_hubert it invalidates your reasoning: a dangerous radioactive material (uranium) that is started billions of years ago (radon is a byproduct). So it is wrong that short lived radioactivity is much more dangerous and after some years things will be ok. Half lifetime and energy are not correlated, and quantity matters. You are invalidating all studies on long term storage.

Troed Sångberg Dec 30

I'm not. Our problem is that we take all the low radioactive stuff and clumps it together with the highly radioactive to the call it all "waste". If we separate it into different things then the requirements on the storage becomes very different.

Take radon as an example - it's not dangerous at all unless you have it being produced in enclosed areas.

The discourse regarding "nuclear waste" makes it out as something that's highly dangerous/radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years which simply isn't true.

Now, just to clear something up. You said you're a physicist, yet your reply begins with "a dangerous radioactive material (uranium)". This isn't correct, unless you're talking about a specific highly enriched isotope. The uranium we mine out of the ground is perfectly safe to play with.

@hmblank @bert_hubert

Clemens Zauner Dec 29

@troed I call bullshit here. If your path would be viable in an economic sense, someone (on this planet) would have taken it.

Until you can present a solution which ticks the following boxes (all of them):

[ ] Safe
[ ] Available
[ ] Fiscally viable

please spare us with excuses and vague promises, or pointing to faceless entities which forbid you doing X.

Thank you.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@czauner I really don't care about what you call "bullshit" - this is not exactly secret. What we call "nuclear waste" is in reality still fuel, just not fuel that can be used in the fuel cycle we've built our general power producing reactors for.

After either reprocessing that "waste", or using it directly in breeder reactor cycles, what's left is very little (mass) and is only radioactive for a few hundred years and can thus simply be stored in containers on the sites themselves.

Now, if you're interested in this subject - why didn't you already know this?

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel

Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel - World Nuclear Association

Used nuclear fuel has long been reprocessed to extract fissile materials for recycling and to reduce the volume of high-level wastes. New reprocessing technologies are being developed to be deployed in conjunction with fast neutron reactors which will burn all long-lived actinides.

Clemens Zauner Dec 30

@troed
You obviously failed to read my post. And operate on false assumptions on my knowledge. You seem to carry your sparse understanding about decay-chains and fissile products proudly as a banner — without realising that the arguments of others are not based in their lack of know-how, but in their awareness of realities.

Just in case you even missed the 2nd line of my above post: There are currently no economically viable paths for fissile energy-production, Exactly 0 of this 'great ideas' survive even the first attack of a spreadsheet.

There are in fact a lot of good reasons to invest into fissile technology, and to keep and expand knowledge. Large-scale energy production is none of them. And not only because it's way too expensive. But just the cost-factor alone makes nuclear power-plant already the least favourable choice.

Troed Sångberg Dec 30

@czauner Feel free to link any supporting information to support your arguments.

Clemens Zauner Dec 30

You need another person to look up the Costs per kWh for varying modes of production?

Srsly? Yeah, I would be able to provide you links, but that is such an easy task that even you should be able to master it.

For a starter you might look at 'Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy', their only interest is - as a financial firm - the 'money' side. Therefore beeing 'neutral' regarding all other factors, they would suggest anything beeping able to turn a profit.

Or, just dig up the projects of the last 20 years, and look at the bottom line (projected vs. real costs).

It' easy. You can do it.

Troed Sångberg Dec 30

@czauner You replied to a post about nuclear waste, not power production.

Clemens Zauner Dec 30

Your lack of reading and comprehension is showing again, we are in this thread:

https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/115803704798747017, if you don't believe me - just scroll upward.

If you want to discuss exclusively nuclear waste, then make your own thread. This one has economic reasons in it, just reread the original toot from Bert Hubert.

Troed Sångberg Dec 30

@czauner You replied to me, to a reply I had made to Herbert, which specifically was about nuclear waste.

Go be annoying someplace else.

Clemens Zauner Dec 30

@troed
Please learn how mastodon and the concept of threads work. You seem to lack knowledge about basics.

It would generally also help to be taken seriously if you don't show the absolute lack about the Medium you are writing in.

If you want to talk exclusively nuclear waste:

Make a new thread.

You do this by making a new toot, not by replying to an existing one. Maybe the admin of your instance can explain this in detail to you.

Thank you.

PS: Shifting goalposts is generally frowned upon. I do know, that this 'tactic' is quite wide-spread in lesser platforms (e.g. X, formerly known as twitter). But let's not engage in such dishonest methods as long as possible, agreed?

Troed Sångberg Dec 30

@czauner I accept your apology. Feel free to discuss power generation in one of the other subthreads.

/instance admin

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Dec 29

@troed Good link on the challenges of molten salt: https://thebulletin.org/2022/06/molten-salt-reactors-were-trouble-in-the-1960s-and-they-remain-trouble-today/

Molten salt reactors were trouble in the 1960s—and they remain trouble today

Molten salt nuclear reactors—based on a 1960s Oak Ridge National Lab experiment—are all the rage among some nuclear power enthusiasts. But is that experiment worthy of emulation? Perhaps not.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@bert_hubert I know what the challenges are, but it does seem as if we have them sorted out.

I would hope Copenhagen Atomics or similar gets the funding though rather than just relying on China for the progress though. Europe needs to control European energy security.

Ype Kingma Dec 29

@bert_hubert @troed

Some confusion here, CSP also uses molten salt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

Otoh, the sun also provides nuclear power :)

Concentrated solar power - Wikipedia

"Wish the sun to stand still.." 🌞Dec 29

@bert_hubert I think one of the most interesting unexplored topics is how the first great build-out of energy storage was done to complement nuclear fission and its relative inability to do load-matching.

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Dec 29

@tasket at a guess they probably had enough coal in the mix to modulate that (instead of modulating nuclear, which only now is a thing). Also, back in the day, loads were far more predictable than today, and less variable.

Martin Vermeer FCD Dec 29

@troed @bert_hubert Yes, the article is muddled on the economies-of-scale issue, and yes, for manufacturing, serial production of many identical, small units should produce economies of scale - as wind turbines, solar arrays and batteries are showing as we speak.

But, that's manufacture. Operating is a different story. Nuclear, a bit like offshore and space but worse, is dominated by safety considerations. Unlike renewables, nuclear is not inherently safe but is engineered to be safe - and that is hard. And the decentralization of many identical units in different places multiplies the attack surface, both for accidents and bad actors. A single humongous reactor is easier to keep safe. The article actually talks about that.

Related:

https://fediscience.org/@martinvermeer/113964399874652197

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

@martinvermeer Molten salt reactors are inherently safe though.

Martin Vermeer FCD Dec 29

@troed @bert_hubert Also from terrorist attacks? And the fuel stream from proliferation-related theft? As the article points out, the fuel for SMRs is highly enriched, closer to weapons-grade. It doesn't have to be actually weapons-grade to be useable in a primitive explosive device.

BTW one way in which SMRs may be safer is if they are installed completely underground - which is hard to do with big reactors. Also SMRs for low-temperature heating are stable: they generate only as much as the coolant circuit takes out, because of the negative temperature coefficient. Like (but look at the time line!)

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/third-finnish-city-considers-smrs-for-district-heating

Third Finnish city considers SMRs for district heating

Finnish small modular reactor developer Steady Energy has signed an agreement with municipal energy company Keravan Energia to develop nuclear-powered district heating. ;

World Nuclear News

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

What would a terrorist attack do? Nuclear reactors don't go "boom". I think the risk for proliferation is vastly overblown, we don't see similar thefts of enriched materials even though there's been decades where that could've been tried now.

And sure, they could go underground. Looking at the situation in Ukraine I could well see some countries opting for that.

Martin Vermeer FCD Dec 29

@troed @bert_hubert Theft of radioactive materials for a dirty bomb? Haven't we learned yet that evil imagination tends to beat ours?

And BTW Israel stole yellowcake for their first bombs. Pakistan stole ultracentrifuge IP from the Netherlands. Proliferation is a thing - and I fear it will get worse. And the difficulty of countermeasures is proportional to the number of sites to consider.

Troed Sångberg Dec 29

Sorry, but just throwing out random words aren't arguments. What would theft of the molten salts look like from such a reactor, and what type of "dirty bomb" would that make?

See "5.1. Liquid-Fueled with Integrated Salt Processing" here:

https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/sti/sti/Sort_66174.pdf

Martin Vermeer FCD Dec 29

@troed @bert_hubert As I said 'engineered to be safe' 😁

Interesting reading, thanks

Keith Williams Dec 29

@bert_hubert The key supposed advantage of "small" reactors was the modularity of construction thus lowering marginal deployment costs. It has nothing to do with safety. Nuclear has a future _only_ as a stop-gap for peaker replacement until modular energy storage tech levelizes renewables. The author never addresses this nor the very different architectures of molten salt and other modern designs.

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Dec 29

@bonsai because the article is not about renewables perhaps? Bit odd to complain that this is a different article than you assumed.

Keith Williams Dec 29

@bert_hubert That doesn't take away from author's myopic thesis failing to address the fundamentals of the technology wrt its goals, evolution, and alternatives. It's akin to saying the future of all apples is red when a few green ones exist now and hybrids are also being developed.

trademark Dec 29

@bert_hubert Best argument against is that multiple navies have made small modular reactors, none of them are cheap. The US navy for instance, went hard for an all nuclear fleet, but gave up and now only do their carriers and subs. And this even though they don't need to budget anything for security, they already have armed soldiers anyway. And they can get the fuel for free as surplus weapons stock.

Walter van Holst Dec 29

@trademark @bert_hubert Also, the enrichment levels of their fuel puts those designs out of reach for civilian use, because of proliferation risks. A compact reactor for low-levels of enrichment levels is much harder because of that.

trademark Dec 29

@whvholst @bert_hubert especially if they heed the warning of Richard Garwin and reduce allowed enrichment down to 10% https://rlg.fas.org/haleu-science.pdf (Garwin designed the first H-bomb so when he signs his name it's good enough for me)

Possumantha Dec 30

@whvholst @trademark @bert_hubert Thorium then?

Walter van Holst Dec 30

@kastope @trademark @bert_hubert If anything, thoriusm is less fissible than uranium and comes with other technical risks. But look at Copenhagen Atomics, they are betting on a thorium SMR. Am wishing them luck.

trademark Dec 30

@whvholst @kastope @bert_hubert Thorium can't be used by itself, you need at neutron source to breed it to U233 first. Then it becomes a high proliferation risk, since it is a simple chemical reaction to extract the uranium. E.g. Carlo Rubbia's design solves this by using an accelerator and pre-mixing the Thorium with U238 so you need isotopic separation. Which will certainly work, but I don't think it will be economical.

trademark Dec 30

@whvholst @kastope @bert_hubert Mixing with U238 is purely added cost and makes the system less efficient, so there's a strong incentive to cheat and just drop that step.

Walter van Holst Dec 30

@trademark @kastope @bert_hubert There are alternative neutron sources, like fusors. But it does not look like anyone is going down that route.