They are Scary if you don’t do any research into it to find out that the amount of scare mongering in the world right now is unjust.
I’m pro nuclear not anti
So, are those small modular reactors in the room with us now?
I’m not certain what you mean by that but if you are asking how small they would be and where they would be placed the normal recommendation would be you would want a warehouse sized facility with an Olympic sized swimming pool to submerse a standard container sized reactor. You would probably house one to three reactors per facility. You would probably want an exclusion zone of 1 mi. Minimum. Depending on the model a single reactor would be able to power roughly 50,000 to 100,000 homes. The life we outcome would be that you would build one of these 20 miles from a city. Plug in the SMRs and after 15 to 20 years unplug them and replace with newer models ship them off to a long-term storage facility and eventually process them for fuel once a week have functional thorium salt reactors at scale.
They’re saying they don’t exist
I don’t even know how to argue with that viewpoint. Are they denying that we have small modular reactors what? It’s a technology that’s been employed since the '50s. I literally have a link at the top of the post.
I like you. You’re funny. I your original post you’re making fun of people because they can’t tell the difference between military small reactors and commercial SMRs. Now you’re saying (correctly) that they’re the same thing. Which is it now?
Right, but they don’t exist commercially and are 10 years away by best estimate (I think I haven’t looked lately). Also, Navy style reactors are not anything like SMR designs currently under development. They are much closer to current PWR reactors in use. I love the idea of more nuclear, hell that’s what I do for a living. I just feel like SMRs are more vapor ware that’s always “10 years away”. I hope not, I know some really smart people who are currently working at Terrapower trying to make it a reality.
Correct.
They literally do exist and have for 70 years
I’m gonna say it!
thorium
Forum reactors would be cool but I’m only basing this off the difference between modern small modular pressurized water reactors vs Soviet designs from wwii
Haha yeah, those who don’t agree with me must surely be stupid.
That will show them.I know for some reason it is never popular to argue against the pro nuclear propaganda that keeps getting posted both here and on the old site, but I just hate how it tries to make anyone seem stupid that is afraid of the myriad of problems with this technology that are still unsolved to this day.
Especially considering how nuclear energy gets dominated so hard by renewables.
I might be misunderstanding this image, but it seems anti-nuclear by suggesting even modern designs are basically as dangerous as Chernobyl’s reactor. I know nothing about nuclear reactors so I have no opinion on the matter.
It’s saying people are too reactionary to know there’s a difference.
Oh I see it now. Normally when this meme is used they have this character be correct, but this time she is being incorrect.
I didn’t call you stupid I stated that anti-nuclear activists have a tendency to compare 80-year-old technology to modern technology and claim it’s the same thing
the myriad of problems with this technology that are still unsolved to this day
Like what?
Long term storage and/or reprocessing of fuel. On site storage is not a viable long term solution. We need some way to safely store expended fuel or change the rules to allow reprocessing. Commercially, we need to figure out an economical way to build power plants that doesn’t die under the weight of its own regulations. Vogtle 3 & 4 went waaayy over budget, and almost bankrupted the partners (Westinghouse I believe). Solar and wind are seeing reduction in cost due to expanding market and the economy of scale that goes with it, along with generous subsidies. For nuclear to get those benefits it would have to be constructed at a rate not seen since Three Mile Island. We lost all of those benefits accrued during the 60s 70s and 80s. We would be starting at least 10 years behind wind and solar.
Cost. Simple as that.
Nuclear power is not economically viable, never has been, probably never will. The only reason it exists are massive subsidies.
You really really should look into how much subsidies get thrown at Coal oil and natural gas
As I said in my other comment: coal is not the alternative here. You’re not refuting any argument. Just look into the cost projections of your SMRs and then look at the current cost of solar and wind.
What you’re missing is solar and wind projections do not consider a grid scale storage solution… Factor into the grid scale storage solution with modern battery technology and suddenly the SMRs are a lot cheaper than battery super warehouses every few miles.
Again I am not saying we should not be building more renewables I’m just stating that we should also be developing more reactors with the renewables.
Shut up with your facts and logic this is clearly an emotional response only zone
Your post is clearly based on emotion only, so I don’t think you’re doing yourself many favors trying to be sarcastic here.
This post was based on the fact y’all don’t have basic reading comprehension skills. I only have like 60 comments total maybe read through some of them.
We could shut down every coal fired plant and replace the coal fired apparatus with a modern reactor and keep the current steam turbine facility in place. But tell me more about how keeping Cole burning and spewing radioactive nuclei into the atmosphere as preferable than hypothetical meltdown situations.
And that will take just, what, 200 years? Nuclear reactors aren’t diesel engines, they take a while to build.
Also, assuming the only option besides nuclear is coal, is stupid at best, but I’d assume, you’re misleading on purpose here.
If only we could use an assembly like process on a proven modular self contained reactor design to turn them out of a factory like clockwork. It’s almost like you don’t have to build an entire condensing tower if you already have one from a coal fired plant and it’s basically a direct engine swap. Does this gloss over a lot of complications Yes Yes it does is it a realistic solution Yes it is. You’re complaining that there isn’t an economy of scale will also stopping an economy of scale from existing…
And if my grandma had wheels, she would be a bike.
You’re massively oversimplifying pretty much everything involved here. Nuclear reactors are not just pressure cookers with concrete shielding, they’re very complicated machines. Even countries with a, let’s say rather speedy certification and construction process like China need years, if not decades to build a reactor. From a design that already exists.
You’re proposing an unproven reactor, with unproven economics, retrofitted in an unproven way into aging infrastructure, using factories that don’t exist yet. Why?
Seriously, give me one viable reason, why any sane person would do that? I’m deliberately ignoring all safety concerns, this is just about economics. We have proven, existing, scalable and cheap technologies (wind, solar). Yes, they do have downsides, like any technology, but those are known, quantifiable and solvable. So why would an investor give money to a nuclear company? There are currently two reasons: expectations of subsidies and an almost insane desire for anything nuclear out of principle (this is you).
I’m not against nuclear power per se, but currently, there’s simply no viable approach to that.
Do me a favor and read. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-certifies-first-us-small-modular-reactor-design#:~:text=The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,use in the United States.
If we can get economies of scale involved that solar and wind currently utilize then we will also see a similar massive drop in price
