Illinois EnergyProf
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2020–2021
20:38 · 169K views · Aug 26, 2020
Professor Ruzic explains modular micro-reactors: self-contained nuclear units with passive safety whose fuel lasts about 20 years. He covers their use for process and district heat and where they can compete with diesel generation.
Recommended as a clear technical explanation of micro-reactor fuel, safety and economics, from a channel HN trusts on nuclear topics.
6 comments from Hacker News
You should watch this video (and several others) of this professor, David Ruzic from Uni of Illinois This video he talks about the economics of nuclear plant. [LINK] This video, he talks about modular micro-nuclear reactor this video His videos are great. Worth your time.
If you have 20 minutes, the video linked in the comments of the earlier HN post is quite informative, giving a much better technical explanation than the original article: this video It is fascinating, for example, how a slight change in the packaging of the fuel (as sand-sized pellets coated with carbon) affects the safety/stability of the design, and how resonances in the cross section for neutron absorption come into play (they broaden at higher temperatures, dampening rather than enhancing the overall reaction speed, as temperatures rise).
Think of smaller nuclear reactors as an option for places where renewables might not make sense, like in mining. Building power generation that costs 10x some renewable source will never make sense. However, building small scale nuclear as replacement for onsite diesel generators could make a whole lot of sense. Illinois Energy Prof has a good video on this => this video
From the press release [LINK] "NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2 million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA application" Not cheap :) On scaling down reactors to micro size (nuscale is kind of larger) and costs: this video $0.25/kWh until large series (17mn30s).
All of these systems are going to require radical construction of hundreds and hundreds of nuclear reactors. This has economics of scale benefits, and I expect reactors such as the ones discussed in this video: this video to be produced on a factory line extremely quickly.