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NPR:
Nuclear power plants are so big, complicated and expensive to build that more are shutting down than opening up. An Oregon company, NuScale Power, wants to change that trend by building nuclear plants that are the opposite of existing ones: smaller, simpler and cheaper.
The company says its plant design using small modular reactors also could work well with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, by providing backup electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.
...
NuScale's design doesn't depend on pumps or generators that could fail in an emergency because it uses passive cooling. The reactors would be in a containment vessel, underground and in a huge pool of water that can absorb heat.
Presumably the biggest risk of a NuScale reactor failing is radioactive gophers?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 09 2019, @12:29AM (11 children)
If you like thorium because it is cleaner, you'll love Clean Coal fired plants, which produce no nuclear byproducts and are inherently safe from meltdown issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:02AM
What about the Uranium and Thorium in fly ash?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:04AM
Citation needed.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:12AM (2 children)
And before you bitch at me for linking Wikipedia, note that the Wiki article itself cites sources for its claims.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday May 09 2019, @06:49AM
Let me emphasize something in that quote …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 09 2019, @10:07AM
A colleague in the nuclear industry noted that, should they spill a (large) tub of coffee into their outflow pipes, it would be reportable to the UK oversight body (NII). This is because coffee is radioactive.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:29AM (4 children)
I love coal fired plants, other than the CO2 emissions contributing to climate change, the environmental devastation that often results from the mining of it, the health hazards to the miners (black lung, etc.), and the fact that a single "clean coal" plant releases more radioactive substances into the environment [scientificamerican.com] annually than ALL the nuclear plants in the USA COMBINED, coal is great!
and for the sarcasm impaired: /sarcasm
(FYW: the fly ash form a coal contains Uranium and Thorium in non trivial amounts, and it goes right into the atmosphere)
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:53AM (2 children)
Uranium and thorium are actually negligibly radioactive - that's why they still exist after 4.5 billion years of decaying in the Earth's crust, preceded by who knows how long floating around in nebulas formed by the same exploding stars that created the heavy elements. The longer the half-life of a radioactive isotope, the less radioactive it is - and thorium has a half-life of 14 billion years. Such things only become appreciably radioactive when you cram enough of it into a confined space that you start creating sustainable chain reactions (and actually, I'm not sure that's possible with thorium, I think you you need something short-lived like enriched plutonium to sustain the reaction.)
The real radioactivity in a coal plant is from things like radon (half-life of 3.8 days), created as a decay product of radium(which has a half-life of 1600 years), which is itself created by the gradual decay of uranium, thorium, etc, with half-lives tens to thousands of times longer.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @03:40AM (1 child)
Thanks for commenting with that extra info. I was too lazy to look up the rest of the radioactive elements in the ash and just went with the ones I remembered off the top.
Something that most people don't realize is that the longer the half life the safer the elements is, and of course the shorter the half-life the more dangerous it is.
If there was a big spill of Thorium, or even Uranium, salts on the freeway I use to get to work I wouldn't bat an eye. Give it a good once over with pressure washers, maybe wait for a good rain, and its all good. After a month you would need a good Geiger counter to even know where the spill happened.
But if it was a small spill of something with a really short half life, like Iodine 131 (half life ~8 days, Gamma emitter), and I would find a new route to work for a few months.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 09 2019, @03:50PM
Heck, don't even bother washing the road, you could probably let your kid play in the salts sandbox-style. A banana is more radioactive. (Well maybe, if it's enriched uranium you're probably going to be getting some chain reaction effects even when heavily diluted with other elements)
At least in terms of radiation danger - you've still got some nasty heavy-metal poisoning to worry about.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:53AM
This is what I get for typing while also eating dinner.
should be
"FYI; the "fly ash" from a coal fired plant contains both Uranium and Thorium in non trivial amounts ..."
Thank you for your understanding.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:39AM
And just because I feel like typing some more ...
while this is true there is that little issue of what happens if a fire in a coal mine gets out of control [history.com]
Something you don't need to worry about with Uranium or Thorium.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."