Or just use reactor designs that have a negative void coefficient and won't end up in a positive feedback loop.
There are many to choose from now.
The high cost of nuclear fission plants comes from deliberate government, petro-corporation and environmentalist attempts to kill it off (usually funded by petrostate interests like Russia, Qatar or oil corporations directly).
Positive feedback loop isn't the only risk of nuclear power. Fukushima had a negative void coefficient too, right? Rather than pretending there's negligible risk, I'd rather say it's there but the alternatives are worse.
Right. We have to bite the bullet on nuclear power sometime, and it may as well be now.
I've nothing against green renewable energy and welcome it but we not only need reliable base load energy but lots more of it than we have now—and that base load will continue to increase at an exponential rate into the future (especially so with conversion to EVs).
Making a move to nuclear has almost become a necessity whether we like it or not. We've now three-quarters of a century of nuclear engineering experience behind us and it's pretty much sorted. It's not without risk but it's now about as safe as any of our other major engineering infrastructure.
> we not only need reliable base load energy but lots more of it than we have now
The simulation studies I've read show that the US can get to 90%+ clean energy with existing renewables and storage solutions quite "easily", and likely at a far cheaper price tag and much faster than if new nuclear was part of that mix at all. So what are you basing your views on that new nuclear has to or should be part of the mix?
We should deregulate and clear the way for fission startups, but I don't expect them to be able to compete with renewables+storage on either a cost or time basis.
"So what are you basing your views on that new nuclear has to or should be part of the mix?"
My position is that nuclear energy should be part of the mix.
That said, I've struggled for years before arriving at that position. I say that as someone who once worked on the surveillance side of nuclear energy, my job was (as part of a team) to ensure that nuclear power plants/industry were safe and that nuclear materials were safely secured and not diverted for nefarious purposes.
It is just not possible for me to fully justify my position here as it would require a full-length blog to do so. I will say however that my above comment was based on a number of factors, the first is that despite some recent progress in fusion it won't be a viable option for decades. Second, the demand for power is increasing exponentially, as I've mentioned elsewhere (_ph_), we've been perpetually on the edge of just having enough power with precious little in reserve for many decades when in fact we really need much more energy than we have now (unfortunately, again, I cannot do full justice to that point here).
Third, this story—at least at face value—shows how nuclear reactors could be installed safety and quickly and at a significantly lower cost than traditional above-ground ones.
I'd suggest you watch Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube post on the problems and high costs of constructing of nuclear power plants in the present political climate. Essentially, I agree with her position but I'd point out that her video was made before this 'underground' proposal (personally, I've held the view for years that deeply-buried nuclear plants—if constructed property and with safety in mind—would be a pretty good solution in respect of all three key factors: cost, safety and speed of construction: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsBiC9HjyQ.
> but we not only need reliable base load energy but lots more of it than we have now—and that base load will continue to increase
The term "base load" is not that useful; it's just the amount of load which can be supplied by generators which cannot vary their output quickly, like coal power plants. An increase on "base load" only means you can use more of these slow power plants (coal, nuclear), instead of requiring more flexible power plants (gas peakers, hydroelectric, solar, wind, batteries); but you don't have to.
No. As nuclear power cannot compete price-wise with renewables and is also a bad companion to renewables, it is already internationally on a retreat. As mentioned by the sibling comment, "base load" isn't the relative term. "residual load" is what counts in the day of plentiful renewables - and nuclear is exceptionally bad there. One needs gas or fast storage like hydro and more and more batteries here.
Residual or base load - leave the semantics out of it. The fact is the world has been stuggling to just keep ahead of its energy requirements for the last century or so—and it's still in that situation. One would have to be blindfolded not to have noticed the Texas Power Crisis, and it's not alone by any stretch.
We need much, much more energy than we have now for advanced industrial processes—many hundreds of percent more energy per capita and its growth will be exponential. That's what will happen, like it or not—or it will in some places.
Society has a choice, tread water and keep its head just above to stop drowning as it's been doing for years or swim with the flow. On indications it seems the swimmers won't be the US or the West. I'm putting my money on newly developing countries who've no cultural baggage about such matters.
Well, the difference between residual and base load determines what kind of power plants you need. The wrong one doesn't help you.
Yes, we will need more electricity, and renewables are the only way to facilitate that. They can be built up quickly and they are way cheaper. So if you want more power, you need renewables.
> Or just use reactor designs that have a negative void coefficient and won't end up in a positive feedback loop.
Positive feedback loop isn't needed for a nuclear accident to happen. Sure it's what happened in Chornobyl, but not in TMI or Fukushima. And from an engineering perspective Chornobyl isn't that interesting as an accident example because it's mostly a product of brainwashed egotic manager who had all the power over the engineers.
Also it's not always entirely straightforward to keep the void coefficient negative at every point of the operating cycle, especially if things go wrong: PWR have a negative void coefficient most of the time but not 100% of the time: when the reactor is cold you put tons of boric acid into the water to counteract the reactivity and avoid divergence, but at this particular time the void coefficient is positive because of the high level of Boron. Of course in regular events it doesn't matter because the reactor is off, but that's something that can also happen during an emergency situation where you inject a massive amount of boron in the water (there are scenarios where you do that).
But again, the reactor's power getting out of control isn't the biggest risk anyway, the biggest problem comes from the fact that residual power is still annoyingly high even when you've shut down your reactor and you need to deal with it. The fact that you can't just shut it down and everything's OK when something is wrong is the real pain of working with a nuclear reactor.
Source: I have a nuclear engineer specialized in immediate response to incidents and accidents at home.
And the high cost mostly comes out of the fact that we don't build nuclear reactors as series + the fact that we finance it at insane rates. Antinuclear activists have their responsibilities in that, but even without them I suspect most states wouldn't be doing the right thing either: nuclear isn't a good fit for neoliberal thinking anyway.
> And from an engineering perspective Chornobyl isn't that interesting as an accident example because it's mostly a product of brainwashed egotic manager who had all the power over the engineers.
Pretty sure it's actually extremely interesting.
The test was considered such a non-risk that it required next to no oversight [1] [2]. If something that doesn't require oversight results in a nuclear disaster then something is wildly wrong with your regulations and design.
If it's not interesting from an engineering perspective then why did the nuclear community write a post-accident report [1] and then update it 7 years later [2]?
Perhaps _now_ it's less interesting as the faulty design has been studied at least twice with computer simulations (and a lot more skepticism on the initial Russian presentation which blamed the operators).
TMI also wasn't mainly an engineering problem: it was the way the incident reaction guidelines where written and how crisis group was set up that was the largest cause, and as such there has been little engineering changes following TMI but a lot of organizational changes.
> the void coefficient is positive because of the high level of Boron
With more heat the boron atoms (and water) get further apart. Fun times.
> the high cost mostly comes out of the fact that we don't build nuclear reactors as series + the fact that we finance it at insane rates
The UK has had a hard time getting this. Sizewell C is still pending a final investment decision (while we risk the loss of experience from Hinkley Point C), although the Regulated Asset Base model may help reduce the finance rates.
China appear to get it, mind you. 11 new reactors forecast to cost 33B USD, using experienced teams. But they have energy security issues.
That's exactly my point about it not being an engineering problem: you can't solve it with reactor design.
But it has been addressed with governance rules, in my country's power plant the guy responsible for safety is hierarchically independent from the guy responsible for running the plant so the later cannot command the former and let his hubris destroy the plant.
While this is mostly true. There is also a lot of truth in the argument that nuclear reactors are somewhat dangerous. I often find that the danger is exaggerated, but it does still exist. For instance, how much less stressful would the Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia have been if the reactor vessel was a mile underneath the area instead of on the surface. How much less of an issue would Fukushima have had if the spent fuel pool had been a mile under sea level?
If running reactors under the surface isn't significantly more expensive than surface containment then I think it's a wonderful idea.
That cat has been out of the bag for half a century. There are currently over 11 thousand warheads in existence. Enough to turn every major city in the world into a smoke plume that will blanket the earth for years to come. In addition, countries don't really use commercial reactors for breeding weapons grade materials anymore. Usually they will provision reactors specifically for that job. Like the Los Alamos Savana River facility.
Also, there are a lot more ways to produce weapons grade nuclear materials now than there were in the 1970s when most of these weapons were created. The invention of lasers, high temperature superconducting magnets, higher quality centrifuge materials, and better particle accelerators have made the creation of weapons grade material way easier.
In other words, when it comes to weapons proliferation, we are so utterly screwed. Only political change will ever reduce the number of weapons in existence. Commercial power production isn't even a factor.
There aren't very many nuclear-weaponized countries in the world right now. Otherwise, the whole Iran Nuclear Deal issue would've been moot. Even Russia won't hand over nukes to Iran.
We aren't building these reactors in Iran. In fact, Iran maintains the capability to produce weapons using it's own reactors and centrifuges. It has it's own stockpiles of Uranium.
This was a response to the comment about nuclear weapons proliferation being a cat out of the bag. It's not out of the bag yet. Iran has been "nearly there" for several years already, and that's only wrt the enriched uranium, not the actual weapons.
Another important example because they're at war, Ukraine. And in the vaguely possible event of an Asian Pacific war, Japan and Australia have no nukes, but that's more by choice.
This is irrelevant for the US and Western Europe, Russia, China, and Japan. It's likely irrelevant for India, Pakistan and Israel, but afaik they're still lower scale when it comes to proliferation.
Sure, the terrorists will dive right down the mile deep shaft to get non-weapons-grade material. /s
Nation-states don’t have any problem getting uranium…and weapons proliferation isn’t a concern with any nuclear power. In other words, these could be installed widely in suitable US, British, French, Israeli, Russian and Chinese locations with no concern at all.
There are many to choose from now.
The high cost of nuclear fission plants comes from deliberate government, petro-corporation and environmentalist attempts to kill it off (usually funded by petrostate interests like Russia, Qatar or oil corporations directly).