A nuclear power advocate who writes about reactors, regulation and the history of the anti-nuclear movement.
HN commenters cite it in debates on nuclear regulation, plant delays and Germany's phase-out, and some push back on its claims about Jimmy Carter.
A lot of it seems to come down to very, very agreesive regulation. Eg, plant designs got approved, work started, then the regulators came back and said "actually, you need to make some major changes to the design", so everything paused and some completed work was torn up, new designs were made, approved (slowly), and then work restarted from scratch. Then it happened again. And again.
The changes weren't bad per se; in one case the regulators decided that the plant needed to be resistant to aircraft impacts; in another that it needed to be more resistant to tornados. But when you have a fantastically complex and expensive engineering project, going back and requiring retroactive changes after approval and after bg has already started is going to blow the budget to hell. And it did.
From the Federal Register notice for the aircraft impact change:
> In making these additions, the NRC is making it clear that the requirements are not meant to apply to current or future operating license applications for which construction permits were issued before the effective date of this final rule. This is because existing construction permits are likely to involve designs which are essentially complete and may involve sites where construction has already taken place. Applying the final rule to operating license applications for which there are existing construction permits could result in an unwarranted financial burden to change a design for a plant that is partially constructed. Such…
(Background: I am an engineer that has spent most of their career in energy - fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables - the whole shebang. I care deeply about climate change, and recognise the non-negotiable need of humanity for ever-increasing amounts of energy.)
Take it from me - I would absolutely love renewables to displace all other forms of energy. However, from an engineering point of view, I know this is simply not feasible without some strong developments in energy storage and distribution. With today's technology, nuclear is the only real threat to the hegemony of fossil fuels, and the only practical hope of reaching climate goals (let alone long-term energy security goals). I think the fossil fuel industry knows this, and so frame their anti-nuclear rhetoric as a renewables-vs-nuclear debate, backing renewables.
If I wore a tinfoil hat, I would say that a lot of the support for renewables (and hostility towards nuclear) was encouraged/stoked/funded by the fossil fuel lobby.
There's an interesting blog that catalogues cases where the fossil fuel industry has scratched on nuclear. If you're interested, I'll link it below.
https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun/
As for SMRs specifically, I think they have a lot of legs. Reactors that can be assembled (and serviced) in factories would go a long way to lowering the overall cost of the reactors (even accounting for the reduced energy-cost density of the individual reactors).
Questions welcome. I created an account…
I stand corrected.
I had trouble finding articles detailing how the nuclear plant was brought down, but then I found this:
> On Monday, Feb. 15, 2021, at 0537, an automatic reactor trip occurred at South Texas Project in Unit 1. The trip resulted from a loss of feedwater attributed to a cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps, causing a false signal, which in turn, caused the feedwater pump to trip. This event occurred in the secondary side of the plant (non-nuclear part of the unit). The reactor trip was a result of the feedwater pump trips. The primary side of the plant (nuclear side) is safe and secured. […] We evaluated Unit 2 and have confirmed that we do not have the same issues that caused the feedwater pump trips in Unit 1.
and subsequently, an answer to my question of 'how':
> Some people have wondered how “pressure sensing lines” for a feed water pump could have been affected by cold outside air temperatures. There are no turbine halls at STP, both of steam turbines are out in the open air. I’m sure there is a design reason for this choice, but it isn’t apparent.
(from https://atomicinsights.com/south-texas-project-unit-1-tripped-at-0537-on-feb-15-2021/)
> How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain?
The more dangerous stuff burns itself out quickly (short half-life), and the longer-lasting stuff is not very dangerous given the type of radiation it is and can be blocked quite easily
So, probably bury it deep enough with little external sign that it's actually there, and if it is actually discovered it won't be that big of a deal:
> The main concern associated with spent nuclear fuel – radioactivity – diminishes with time.
> About 40 years after it's done making power, the heat and radioactivity of the fuel bundle will have fallen by over 99%.
* https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148416881180674
> About three containers are needed to store the quantity of fuel that is removed each 12-24 months; the space taken up by even a 60 year plant life is less than is needed for a Wal-Mart even without any efforts to efficiently stack the containers.
* https://atomicinsights.com/time-for-plan-b-yucca-mountain-project-should-close-shop/
>all of human development has been about spending more energy per capita at less cost
What? No. That makes no sense. Human development includes a lot of things that have nothing to do with that ridiculous and narrow definition.
>Those who take climate change seriously should have gone all in on nuclear, but somehow there was enough of an overlap between that group and anti-nuclear activists that it never happened. That's what's truly baffling.
Follow the money: https://atomicinsights.com/how-important-has-oil-money-been-to-antinuclear-movement/
>Barring [nuclear energy], abundant, cheap, stable, and regrettably unclean energy from fossil fuels is the second best option.
What about increasing renewable energy options? What about increasing carbon efficiency by introducing it as a concept into markets via a carbon tax significant enough to drive innovation and behavior change? What about increasing city density and improving subways and trains? What about reducing meat consumption?
Plutonium can be hazardous, but we've been able to work with it very safely. There is little reason to worry about storing it safely.
"During the Manhattan Project in 1944 and 1945, 26 men accidentally ingested plutonium in quantities that far exceeded what is now considered to be a lethal dose. Since there has been a consistent interest in the health effects of this brand new substance (first discovered by Glenn Seaborg’s team at the University of California in 1940), these men were closely tracked for medical studies.
Forty Years Later
As of 1987, more than four decades later, only four of the workers had died and only one death was caused by cancer. The expected number of deaths in a random sample of men the age of those in the group is 10. The expected number of deaths from cancer in a similar group is between two and three."
https://atomicinsights.com/how-deadly-plutonium/
Of course that doesn't count the demon core.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core