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Nuclear reactors are seen emotionally as risky due to a few major accidents, but new technologies are coming which will potentially reduce the risks associated with it dramatically.
Commercial reactors have used the same fuel for decades: small pellets of uranium dioxide stacked inside long cylindrical rods made of a zirconium alloy. Zirconium allows the neutrons generated from fission in the pellets to readily pass among the many rods submerged in water inside a reactor core, supporting a self-sustaining, heat-producing nuclear reaction.
Trouble is, if the zirconium overheats, it can react with water and produce hydrogen, which can explode.
To reduce this risk,
[m]anufacturers such as Westinghouse Electric Company and Framatome are hastening development of so-called accident-tolerant fuels that are less likely to overheat—and if they do, will produce very little or no hydrogen. In some of the variations, the zirconium cladding is coated to minimize reactions. In others, zirconium and even the uranium dioxide are replaced with different materials. The new configurations could be slipped into existing reactors with little modification, so they could be phased in during the 2020s.
Core testing of some of these options is already underway and would have to be successful and regulatory hurdles overcome. Additionally, some of the options actually improve efficiency (and consequently cost-effectiveness) of plants. Sadly, 'Too cheap to meter' remains well off the table.
Modern plants, such as are being deployed by Russia both at home and abroad, now include
“passive” safety systems that can squelch overheating even if electrical power at the plant is lost and coolant cannot be actively circulated. Westinghouse and other companies have incorporated passive safety features into their updated designs as well.
Alternative cooling approaches not subject to hydrogen generation, such as Molten Salt (e.g. liquid sodium) and Helium are being tested and deployed. And very small modular reactors are being developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (the Russian state-run company Rosatom is making small reactors as well.)
a group of Western states has entered a tentative deal with NuScale Power in Oregon for a dozen of its modular reactors.
Mortality rates for various power generation methods in the U.S. shows nuclear power with a 50x lower mortality rate per unit power generated than the next safest option (hydroelectric) and 100,000 times lower rate than Coal, which provides much of the U.S. base power generation in its stead.
Still, nuclear power remains stalled in the U.S. and is being phased out in other countries such as Germany, leaving primarily Russia and China, both of which are deploying nuclear power aggressively, as the primary markets and beneficiaries of these new technologies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @01:52PM (7 children)
Running a Nuclear Reactor was never really a problem.
Its is the Nuclear Waste you retard that is the not solvable problem.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by epitaxial on Friday July 05 2019, @02:24PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday July 05 2019, @06:12PM
Wikipedia can be a great source of information, but there are problems with crowd sourced data. There is a banner at the head of this article in Wikipedia that states "This article has multiple issues."
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @03:05PM (2 children)
While the OP didn't use the nicest possible language, his comment is spot on. It's not some sudden surprising event that is the problem with nuclear but the everyday operation, including nuclear waste produced and the sourcing of uranium. Whether nuclear waste is unsolvable or not it and uranium sourcing certainly are unsolved problems.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Friday July 05 2019, @06:18PM
Most of the problems are of the 'own goal' variety. With reprocessing, the volume of waste goes down substantially. The time it needs to be stored also goes down by orders of magnitude.
Coal ash isn't exactly harmless, and it doesn't actually decay, so long after the nuclear waste has become inert, the coal ash will still be there. Yet somehow, nobody seems to be worried about keeping it sequestered and under guard.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday July 05 2019, @08:30PM
Nuclear, fossil fuel, plastic/packaging, human, industrial -- seems like multiple areas have waste management problems [youtu.be]. This seems like more of a global perspective issue than anything sector-specific.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday July 05 2019, @04:09PM
Running a nuclear reactor is an unsolved problem...but the problem is economic rather than technical. People in charge keep cutting corners.
The nuclear waste problem is currently unsolved, but molten salt reactors look to be a solution. They just need to be proven out. They reportedly can take the waste from standard nuclear plants and use it as fuel...I don't know whether they need to enrich it. There are other proposed solutions, but most of them manufacture, or easily can manufacture, plutonium.
If the plant is safe enough, then management cutting corners may just cause the company to experience an "unplanned economic criticality". E.g., it's my understanding that if the molten salt reactors experience a problem they just cool down, and the molten salt solidifies in place. This means to get the plant working again you need to heat the internals up to molten salt temperatures. (FWIW, I am under the impression that the salt referred to is not sodium chloride...but I've never investigated.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday July 05 2019, @10:10PM
It's solvable, with many solutions. There is just a group of people against the plants that will constantly deny all solutions, trying to make the situation worse, in order to claim they aren't feasible.