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.
Related Stories
An unnamed contributor wrote:
NuScale will get the final approval nearly six years after starting the process:
On Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design, making it just the seventh that has been approved for use in the US. But in some ways, it's a first: the design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that can be constructed at a central facility and then moved to the site where it will be operated.
[...] Once complete, the certification is published in the Federal Register, allowing the design to be used in the US. Friday's announcement says that the NRC is all set to take the publication step.
The NRC will still have to weigh in on the sites where any of these reactors are deployed. Currently, one such site is in the works: a project called the Carbon Free Power Project, which will be situated at Idaho National Lab. That's expected to be operational in 2030 but has been facing some financial uncertainty. Utilities that might use the power produced there have grown hesitant to commit money to the project.
Previous stories:
First Major Modular Nuclear Project Having Difficulty Retaining Backers
US Gives First-Ever OK for Small Commercial Nuclear Reactor
The US Government Just Invested Big in Small-Scale Nuclear Power
Safer Nuclear Reactors on the Horizon
The historic move is a step on the long path ahead for nuclear power:
The U.S. has just given the green light to its first-ever small modular nuclear design, a promising step forward for a power source that remains controversial among some climate advocates but is experiencing a popular renaissance.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the design, which was published Thursday in the Federal Register, from NuScale, an Oregon-based reactor company. The publication of the design in the Register allows utilities to select this type of reactor when applying for a license to build a new nuclear facility. The design would be able to produce a reactor about one-third the size of a usual reactor, with each module able to produce around 50 megawatts of power.
[...] Just because a design is on the books doesn't mean that it's smooth sailing for the industry or that all our grids are going to be powered by carbon-free nuclear electricity in a few years. NuScale is currently working on a six-module demonstration plant in Idaho that will be fully operational by 2030; the company said this month that its estimates for the price per megawatt hour of the demo plant had jumped by more than 50% since its last estimates, in an uncomfortable echo of ballooning costs associated with other traditional nuclear projects. Small modular reactors still produce nuclear waste, which some environmentalists say is a concern that can't be overlooked as the industry develops.
Previous stories:
US Regulators Certify First Small Nuclear Reactor Design
First Major Modular Nuclear Project Having Difficulty Retaining Backers
US Gives First-Ever OK for Small Commercial Nuclear Reactor
The US Government Just Invested Big in Small-Scale Nuclear Power
Safer Nuclear Reactors on the Horizon
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @02:11PM (5 children)
So, for it to explode you need oxygen, right? But, the oxygen from the water reacted with the zirconium, forming a zirconium oxide, right? So why are reactors not build anairobic? They don't need oxygen for the nuclear reactions. The hydrogen could be collected and used in other applications.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday July 05 2019, @02:48PM (2 children)
I think the issue is the reactors buildings and containment vessels are huge and people need to go into them for maintenance purposes. Maybe if we can have a fully robotically operated reactor, we could fill it with helium.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday July 05 2019, @04:12PM (1 child)
Not Helium. Nitrogen if that would work, otherwise Argon or Neon. Helium is much too expensive to use where you don't need it...and using it for party balloons is criminal waste. It's NOT a renewable resource.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Friday July 05 2019, @11:10PM
Fusion. It solves everything.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Friday July 05 2019, @04:01PM
> So why are reactors not build anairobic?
In fact, some (most?) are- they fill the buildings with nitrogen.
Trouble is, when water gets heated enough, and by neutron flux / fission, it splits apart, forming much more free O2 than can be joined with zirconium atoms. The O2 and H2 rejoin later on, which is why the Fukushima buildings blew apart (but the reactor vessels did not).
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:50AM
Another, even bigger problem, is that no new research into safer reactors is ever going to be deployed except in countries like China. The rest of the world is still running unsafe, 1950's-technology reactors because no-one wants to build new ones, but we also can't shut down the old unsafe ones because there's no easy replacement source of power, the Reactor Curse. On the one hand this is kinda neat, but OTOH we'll never see it used in reactors because of the Reactor Curse.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 05 2019, @03:05PM (7 children)
August 1990, I interviewed with the NRC in Atlanta for the position of plant inspector, when I asked about the future of nuclear power after TMI, he said: "there's a whole new generation of safer plant designs ready to go, they'll be starting construction any day now."
Just remember: the NRC plant inspectors charged with keeping you safe from the next Chernobyl type event (against the forces of relentless capitalist cost cutting), are the kids fresh out of school who either believed that line, or didn't care that they were starting a career in a dying industry.
Number of new (civilian) nuclear power generating plants opened since 1990: 0.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday July 05 2019, @03:57PM (5 children)
I'm hesitant to say too much, but I'm actually working in the nuclear world, specifically on the safety systems, that TMI did not have. I'd gladly tell you more if you're curious, but I don't know how to communicate offline. Maybe I'll ask the admins to send you my email address.
In my other post here I linked to a great video on the TMI accident. There are many ways to analyze the accident and things that were done which contributed to the accident, but it all comes down to: if they had had a tiny bit more of instrumentation, the accident would never have happened.
BTW, TMI and Chernobyl were very similar events in the mechanism of the problem, but TMI's design was much more conservative, and the meltdown was much slower and less exothermic. The Chernobyl video I linked says that the Chernobyl accident was a small-scale nuclear explosion reaction, and was only limited by the fact that the fissile materials vaporized, spread out, and quenched the reaction.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 05 2019, @04:16PM (4 children)
For me it's not an issue of plant design / safety so much as politics / economics. The big lure of being an inspector for the NRC was an eventual "six figure" salary, highest paid short of high management at the time. The big downside was: max 2 year term at a given plant, then you're off to live in another state at another plant for a max of 2 years - didn't sound like a life I wanted, at any salary.
Also: by that time I had taken to heart a piece of advice I got from a guy outside the Aiken, SC facility a couple of years earlier when I was taking a free trip on their dime to interview for a job there: background, his daddy did hot laundry, they took real good care of momma when he passed (guy was mid 20s) - advice, when you start a career you get locked into a field and it's even harder to jump fields than it is to get a start with no experience, himself he started in food, and he could jump from one food company to another easy enough, but nobody outside the food industry would even give him an interview. A not so subtle warning about starting a career in the nuclear field... In 1990, nobody else was giving interviews so I went to the NRC in Atlanta because I had nothing better to do, but they would have had to put on a much better story than they did to get me to sign up.
I'm pro nuclear almost as much as I am anti coal. In Florida you can see the yellow sulfur streaks leaving the coal fired plant stacks against the otherwise clear blue skies. Some days now they use scrubbers that get rid of some of the coal pollution, but they're expensive to run, and they tend to shut them off when it rains and "forget" to turn them on for hours after it stops. Sulfur based acid rain is bad enough, but the mercury and other heavy metals are even worse. Florida actually receives significant amounts of mercury fallout from the coal fired plants in the Yucatan, and at one point it was bad enough that it was killing the top level predators (alligators) in the everglades... that one was primarily from waste incineration, but power generation was also a significant contributor. I believe that new nuclear plants with new designs would be MUCH safer than bandaiding the existing plants, and FAR preferable to the use of any fossil fuels, but our politics won't let us build new so they just keep limping along the old ones, and fracking to get fuel for the nuclear electric power shortfall.
One of the few things I admire about France: how they make their electricity.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Friday July 05 2019, @05:23PM (3 children)
All good points- I hear you on the moving around thing. It might be interesting, but I have friends, family, interests/hobbies that don't move so easily, so it wouldn't work for me either. I also hear you on the "pigeon holing" in careers.
Sorry about all of the coal mess. I think you also get some cadmium, thorium, lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, etc. from coal soot.
My point is, and good info is in my bigger post here, that TMI and other designs are perfectly okay and safe, as long as they have the monitoring systems that TMI did NOT have at the time. If TMI had had the system (that I work on), the accident would never have happened, and nobody would have ever heard of TMI.
The safety monitoring systems are now, and have been in place ever since, but people don't consider that- they just fear nuclear.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 05 2019, @06:15PM (1 child)
Nothing is PERFECTLY okay and safe, people screw up, software (written by people) screws up, mechanical things crack, break and seize, electrical things are worthless without electrical power. Some of the designs that the NRC guy was showing me back in 1990 go a long way toward improving the status quo, like: large cooling water reserve tanks ABOVE the reactor so you don't need powered pumps to get the coolant where it needs to go in a crisis.
To me, the proof is in the operating history: and we're doing damage to human health and the global environment day-by-day with fossil fuels, especially coal. Meanwhile, Fukushima and Chernobyl are frightening like a jumbo-jet crash while the world ignores the higher daily death total from automobile crashes. The US nuclear power generation track record for safety is absolutely stellar, and I believe that we can do even better in the future.
And, to the jackasses who prattle on about nuclear waste: take a look at the output of the Savannah River facility at Aiken, SC and similar, and tell me why you don't care about the much larger sources of nuclear waste from the military? It's a problem that needs a better solution, yes, but whether or not we produce ALL of our domestic electricity from nuclear power makes little difference - the military purposes nuclear waste is just as dangerous and far more plentiful.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 06 2019, @03:46AM
Communication is a messy thing, especially when I'm trying to be concise. Also, I speak and write in context. Considering the insanity of an up to 4 GW fission reaction happening somewhere nestled among civilization, today's running nuclear reactors are safe enough that we don't need to worry. I'm sure there's still a chance that a horrible chain of failures could occur and result in a meltdown, but it's acceptably and extremely slim.
I strongly advocate for emergency cooling water storage above the reactor, but I'm not sure if it's practical to store enough for today's 1-4 GW reactors. It would certainly help, and I wish I understood why it's not part of _every_ reactor installation. But that's partly why I advocate for many but smaller reactors- much less cooling water needed, and much less of a disaster if a disaster happens.
Speaking of Savannah River, I've never been there but I hear (and see in pictures) that Savannah is an awesome place. I was part of a team that designed and installed the control system, and I wrote much of the documentation and manuals. I don't remember much. I remember thinking a thing like that needs to be out in a desert somewhere far from towns.
The safety monitoring systems I'm working with were designed in the late 70's. Needless to say it's a very low-volume market. I've repaired / refurbished a few units, and we occasionally get orders for new ones, and yes a few parts are out of production, and no I can't substitute much at all (very minor stuff maybe), but yes I'm finding NOS parts and buying enough for at least 10 years. The units are designed and spec-ed to last 40 years, and generally do.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Friday July 05 2019, @09:00PM
they just fear nuclear.
A lot of that is due to ongoing propaganda from its competitors, you know, those people rebranding themselves to be all environmental and stuff [youtube.com].
There just doesn't seem to be a lot of profit in safe nuclear. And solar, I mean, California is totally weird, well, not "weird", just money driven [latimes.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 05 2019, @08:39PM
Or maybe the plant inspectors were up against too many poorly-trained operators [youtu.be].
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Friday July 05 2019, @03:44PM
The "problems" all mentioned, including ones not mentioned, were solved 40 years ago in USA. Yet the general consensus remains that nuclear power is unsafe.
The Three Mile Island (TMI) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station [wikipedia.org] accident was caused by the operators not definitely knowing reactor water levels, water flows, steam safety valve position, steam flow, etc.
These problems were solved with new instrumentation which all reactors have now. No more guessing about reactor cooling, steam venting, etc. The instrumentation was available at the time of the TMI accident, but was optional (sounds a bit like the 737 MAX "disagree" indicator.)
A phenomenal video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xQeXOz0Ncs [youtube.com] This video's main purpose is to convey problems with design processes, and the concepts apply to every design flaw ever.
The biggest problem with nuclear power is cost. Excelon wants to close TMI 15 years ahead of its scheduled lifecycle. I highly advocate for many, but (much) smaller nuclear power stations.
One of the big problems is that _any_ tiny change to anything in design or construction of a nuclear power station requires years of very expensive testing and certifications with piles and piles of accompanying paperwork.
Chernobyl was a significantly different design than those used in USA and most of the rest of the world. They chose a lower cost design and either did not think things through, or proudly thought the problem could never happen.
A phenomenal video on Chernobyl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3d3rzFTrLg [youtube.com]
Fukushima is another example of arrogant design: critical safety cooling system generators were placed too low in the reactor building and when the tsunami was bigger than the tsunami wall, the generators got swamped, cooling stopped, and bad things happened. Perhaps they could learn some things from the people who build and run the swamp buggies? In any event, small-scale reactors are much more easily cooled, including passively with water stored in large tanks in a worst-case scenario.
(Score: 2) by aim on Friday July 05 2019, @03:59PM (1 child)
If memory serves, the french Superphénix [wikipedia.org] used liquid sodium. This caused much trouble (leaks leading to fires), and was one of the reasons the plant was closed down.
By the way, the French are not closing down their nuclear plants any time soon.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday July 05 2019, @04:37PM
The USS Seawolf (SSN-575) [wikipedia.org] started out with a liquid sodium reactor. The US Navy didn't keep that for long, either.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday July 05 2019, @04:22PM (1 child)
On my horizon (as in, a little over 5 miles away) is an aging nuclear plant, and I'm not sure which concerns me more:
1. They get a bailout they're asking for from the state government to keep it running. It's already about 15 years past its engineered lifespan, so there's real concerns about things not working properly.
2. They don't get a bailout, shut it down, almost definitely half-ass the shutdown process because it's cheaper to do that and nobody with the power to stop them cares, and a few years later nobody will be minding the store and something will likely bust.
Either way, it's bad. And in case your wondering, the power it's generating isn't economically viable right now due to competition from natural gas and renewables.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:36PM
nuclear is the most economical IF you consider only the generation you're living in and children are just toys for bored grown-ups with no meaning in life.
once our nuclear-using generation is gone, the "toys" can deal with costs that don't concern us anymore. the benefit will be that we have left them with
a totally guaranteed economy and job for life to care and manage it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday July 05 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)
The problem with this "safer" fuel is that it a solid that you have to worry about it melting into a mass of still fissioning slag and the coolant used is still under pressure to keep it from boiling off into steam.
Lose coolant flow or get a leak in the coolant system and you have a big problem.
Molten Salt Reactors [wikipedia.org] don't have those problems and are much safer, smaller, and a loss of cooling or a leak are much less an issue. Perfect for areas and applications where non-nuclear energy generation is not economically or environmentally practical.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:57AM
"Molten salt, thorium? NIMBY!" - America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#United_States [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#United_States [wikipedia.org]
It's practically fusion. Maybe we'll see it in 20 years.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday July 05 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)
There are two significant factors here:
First, if electricity were not metered, then there would be no natural caution taken in using more of it — and there is no question that more could be used. Imagine a bitcoin operation in every basement, and incandescent bulbs in every home... to hand-wave a bit. And etc. Personally, I think electricity use should be metered on a sliding scale in the opposite direction as compared to now. Right now, heavy users, such as industries, at worst, get discounts, even with demand metering. Or in some places, they pay the same rates as a light user. I think light users should be free or near-free, and heavy users charged more on a sliding scale. This would provide an impetus to reduce industrial use that is stronger than it is now.
Second, "too cheap to meter" is a pipe dream. It's not so much "off the table" as it is "oh yeah, I saw that on a comedy show." What we're looking at here is "the cheaper it gets to produce, the more profit we make." Which is why, again, that whole "we need to regulate corporations" thing is critically important.
--
I feel like I'm in season 5 of my life and the writers are
making ridiculous stuff happen to keep it interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @09:01PM
I couldn't agree more. No wonder nobody conserves when the incentives are to only spend more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @07:07PM
We need residential hydrogen generators. Solar power->electrolysis->hydrogen fuel cell. With enough progress made in efficiency and cost we could all be energy independent. Screw centralized energy producers and the grid!
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday July 05 2019, @10:26PM
Who will shut them down when we strategically bomb all major cities from the safety of our SpaceX rockets while waiting in orbit? Same reason we don't want new infrastructure being built. Why waste resources on roads when you can build more killer robots and rockets instead?
There. All done.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:24PM
i wish i had a boiler for my steam engine that would increase the volume from water to steam to more then ... oh wait lemme look that one up (https://www.reference.com/science/ratio-water-steam-e8765e4e16144993) 1:1700.
i assume that having some extra hydrogen in the steam actually increases the efficiency of the piston/turbine?
simply put, if boiling water in a kettle would also make hydrogen then volume increase and subsequent pressure increase would be MORE.
also there was talk about the "hydrogen economy" a while back, where especially transportation would be fueled by hydrogen; the linchpin would be that the
hydrogen would be produced directly inside nuclear reactors, not secondary from the electricity from the generator, driven by turbine fed with steam from the nuclear-water-boiling-pot.
i have no proof but i am suspicious that making hydrogen inside a regular nuclear reactor is part of everyday operation and is desired: the zirconium "burnup" or oxidation is not a problem because the fuel as pellets of uranium AND the zircon shell is removed and replaced regularly?
note to self: ~18% regular air is oxygen ... so basically free.