https://whatisnuclear.com/reactor_history.html
My take on the more modern economics is here
https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html
And waste here https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
Nuclear was undergoing a series of massive technical improvement as humanity discovered an exciting new technology. Then people got scared and strangled all innovation out of the nuclear industry some time in the 70s.
Heavy regulation makes it really, really expensive to experiment with new approaches. If we'd kept pushing on with nuclear, the existing nuclear technologies would probably have been obsoleted by now and we'd be using something different, cheaper and better with much more attractive cost structures. There is no point trying to improve a technology that governments are trying to regulate out of existence.
Assuming we do build 1000+ gigawatts soon, then we will need to look into nuclear fuel recycling with breeder reactors. The most popular Gen-IV concepts in this area are sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) and thorium molten salt breeder reactors (T-MSRs). We have 450 reactor-years of experience with SFRs and like 5 with MSRs. Many of the SFR years were not great, and the MSR tech performance has never been seen at industrial scale (though China is about to turn on a T-MSR really soon!)
So yeah I'm kind of a "decarbonize now with what we know 100% works" person. Focus on Gen-IV is fine for some people, but I think the industry and fans of the industry are way too overhyped on Gen-IV and not nearly hyped enough about Gen-III+. Japan can build gigawatt-class ABWRs in 36 months.
We had a ABWR licensed and ready to build at South Texas Project but we just let it sit there. What a sad sad thing. That's a billion carbon-free watts we are not using.
[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
The most advanced one is Russia's BN-800 (now burning 60% MOX). Its planned big brother was cancelled "In 2015, after several minor delays, problems at the recently completed BN-800 indicated a redesign was needed. Construction of the BN-1200 was put on "indefinite hold", and Rosenergoatom has stated that no decision to continue will be made before 2019." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
This is not due to a lack of interest or funding because Russia launched a new project towards another architecture and builds a small reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor)
There's NO WAY a new LWR will ever beat LCOE of solar + wind + battery. And that is current day prices that doesn't count forthcoming sodium ion storage, LFP, and solar/wind cost improvements.
And it won't come online for a decade at best, with inevitable massive cost overruns.
LWR/PWR is all the crap with waste, fuel rod reprocessing, only using select isotopes of uranium, and while I'm not an expert at nuclear plant economics and accounting, have tons of unpriced externalities.
I wouldn't support any LWR/PWR unless it had LFTR or other reactors built with it that could "online process" the waste. And if we had those, why bother with the huge shield domes?
I'll read your blog posts though carefully, maybe I'll change my mind. But a cursory look seems like it is caged too much in the baggage of the last century of nuclear, which IMO are just dead ends that won't practically advance nuclear for the next century.
As in, we need a couple decades of wind/solar to wipe clean the current slate of nuclear, from politics to actual installations.
Edit: The old designs are interesting, but they are huge and expensive.
What I look forward to in next gen nuclear is basically all of these:
- breeds (so you can use thorium and reprocess old spent waste to usable stuff)
- meltdown proof (LFTR has the melt plug and cooling tank that will decriticalize the liquid)
- scalable to a bunch of shipping containers or smaller (LFTR allegedly fit in a closet for the demo)
- 99% fuel use (per the docs, no idea if this is true or not)
LFTR promises those, if it can deliver due to containment degradation issues, who knows.
When I look at the gee-whiz LFTR presentations, what sticks out to me is the closed fuel cycle/complete usage, promise of breeding old waste to non-waste or new fuel, and so many other things that fix the errors of nuclear history.
The other thing that is missing is computer simulation. We should be able to develop far more usable designs with modern simulation software. We know the military has a lot of fission simulation software. Materials degradation and so many other things can be calculated far better than was available in the 1960s.
The final thing holding back nuclear is that despite a lot of their idiocy, the fact of the matter is that the "greenies" were correct about nuclear energy. It was poorly designed from a long term perspective, played fast and loose with waste, and many other considerations which probably derived from its military inception. The military only cares about the end result, and giving a 100,000 people cancer from spillage/meltdowns, dealing with the full cycle of waste, or actually maintaining safe operation.
Tepco, a japanese company with all the supposed strict adherence to process, was operating the reactor incompetently. Fukushima wasn't an outlier, it was an indictment of the large reactor design over the long haul.
LFTR design addresses SO MUCH of that. Far better meltdown protection, and full fuel use so there's practically no waste (not by the old solid fuel rod standards).
So if the nuclear industry doesn't reformulate around things that LFTR can do, then it will just fail in the long run again.
Industry and even the modest of living standards depends on energy density & reliability. So there's really no way to get completely off of fossil fuels without nuclear or literally starving people. That's your choice.
If Fukushima wasn't an outlier, then I wouldn't want to live anywhere close to a traditional reactor. Yet accident statistics & population trends don't really support that conclusion.
Bookmarked to read on my next vacation!
https://info.westinghousenuclear.com/news/four-westinghouse-...
I really wish we could get a few more orders in the USA so that we could leverage the learning and supply chain being so painfully built in Georgia for the AP1000s there.
The fact that this hasn’t happened is a testament and an indictment of dysfunction in our society.
I’ll turn into a single issue voter if any candidate for the President is pro-nuclear in a big way.
If uranium was used much more, there are economic amounts that are filterable from seawater even.
very good point though on end cycle efficiencies!
Most Uranium mines (15000 worked claims in the Midwest in particular) no one even bothers with. Cool or not, if one of the 5 major mines decides to cut prices, you’d better be awfully efficient right now.
https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-...
Realistically the quickest way to get to the stage where you don't need to think about your electricity usage is put a solar installation on your roof + battery. Now you have to invest up front (and it might not even be a good investment), but it shows that nothing comes for free.
We have at least 6 magic wands: 1) if the VVER 1200 truly cost 1.4 billion to construct in 4 years, nuclear economics are saved. 2) building a lot of marine nuclear plants https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html#economies-of-scale-... They require far less concrete (no need to protect against seisms) and much less redundancy because the cooler (water) will always be there (the ocean won't disappear) hence preventing radiations escalation in a passive way. 3) using disruptively simpler/cheaper models https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazi... 4) using more complex but significantly more efficient models (I'm mainly talking about the underresearched supracritical reactors) 5) if SMRs are not a scam and can really have a fordism era 6) rationalizing et reconciloating regulations with cost effectiveness.