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posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 08 2019, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-could-go-wrong? dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:38AM (1 child)

    by Sulla (5173) on Thursday May 09 2019, @01:38AM (#841127) Journal

    Thorium is a meme. I'm not against it but arguing for it is wasting energy.

    What we need
    >Molton lead reactors. Lead keeps the system cool and when you are transporting the reactors you get to let it harden and it gives it a nice shield
    >CO2 heat exchange, 1/3 the size of what we have currently for same efficiency

    You also can't compare chernobyl, Fukushima, and TMI. TMI was caused by a faulty switch put in place during the plant's construction phase, it was thought to be correct and the sensor saying it was broken was thought to be incorrect. A plant out west had the same problem but replaced the switch and had no issues. Problem at TMI was the switch failed and left them with too little pressure to handle the situation safely. Even so TMI did less radiation to the area than a medical scan.
    Fukushima was a perfect storm. Survived a massive earthquake, the plant survived the tsunami, but the backup generators and pumps all failed.
    Chernobyl was drunk Russians ordering their techs to ignore safety for maximum power and went kaboom.

    Everything that went wrong at those plants has been fixed through engineering and protocol. Meeting and association requirements on sharing of information eliminated the possibility of another TMI happening because plants are required to share bad things that happen. American nuclear plants have their own fire departments and on-site backup tech to prevent Fukushima, as well as networks for getting replacement. The US also requires trained and educated techs on plants where the Japanese had more lax standards. Chernobyl would not be able to happen given us protocol and our lack of drunk ruskies.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:24AM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:24AM (#841155)

    Thorium is a meme. I'm not against it but arguing for it is wasting energy.

    Its an emerging technology. 70 years ago you could have said the exact same thing about the LWTR currently deployed today. Yes, MSRs still need work and its going to be several years before a commercial unit gets going but the tech has a much better chance of hitting main stream in the near future than most other alternatives.

    What we need
    >Molton lead reactors. Lead keeps the system cool and when you are transporting the reactors you get to let it harden and it gives it a nice shield

    I was not familiar with this design, thanks for calling it out. But the tech does have some issues and there is still a danger of a meltdown if the control rods fail. The technology is in the same boat as MSRs, its a new tech and needs to be researched and developed for possible future deployment if the design is judged to be practical and safe.

    >CO2 heat exchange, 1/3 the size of what we have currently for same efficiency

    100% agreement, the CO2 system is superior to current systems AND has the advantage that it would work with almost any thermal power generating method

    You also can't compare chernobyl, Fukushima, and TMI. TMI was caused by a faulty switch put in place during the plant's construction phase, it was thought to be correct and the sensor saying it was broken was thought to be incorrect. A plant out west had the same problem but replaced the switch and had no issues. Problem at TMI was the switch failed and left them with too little pressure to handle the situation safely. Even so TMI did less radiation to the area than a medical scan. Fukushima was a perfect storm. Survived a massive earthquake, the plant survived the tsunami, but the backup generators and pumps all failed.
    Chernobyl was drunk Russians ordering their techs to ignore safety for maximum power and went kaboom.

    Yes I can. I was not comparing the cause of the meltdown, only its result. While the cause was different in each case the effect was the same, the core was not covered in coolant, over heated and melted into a nasty pile of slag. This is a failing of all solid fuel reactors, even Thorium based. Hence my advocacy of molten salt reactors, they can be designed with passive safety features that would shut the reactor down if the core gets too hot and overwhelms the cooling capacity of the plant (Cherynobyl) or the cooling system loses power (Fukushima) or the cooling pumps can't force the coolant into the core due to the back pressure from the vaporized super heated coolant in the core (TMI).

    (btw: 100% agree Fukushima was a "perfect storm" that caused the failure. I heard there actually was a back up generator above the water that could have powered the cooling pumps BUT the breakers to route the power to said pumps ended up under water. Still does not change the fact that the core over heated because it couldn't shut itself down without intervention.)

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