Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors | Hacker News Reader

Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors

arstechnica.com

18 pointsatilimcetin22 comments

This sounds great as long as they’re going to build more than, like, four reactors for $80 billion.

They won't build any. It will have the same outcome as the last one where they were supposed to build 2 reactors and basically filled some holes in the ground with concrete to the tune of $25+ Billion dollars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal

Coincidentally I was listening to a podcast today discussing nuclear power and their opinions were that there will never be a big reactor built in the US again. There might be these new style micro reactors though.

Well, we need to solve that problem. Because nuclear power is a watermark for how well a civilization can handle complexity. It's good practice for the next pandemic, or solar flare, or civil unrest. If we can't handle nuclear, we should just throw in the towel and go back to warring tribes.

> we need to solve that problem. Because nuclear power is a watermark for how well a civilization can handle complexity.

We have got to make that measure a target?

Or just build renewables and storage.

And once the world is covered in non-operational solar panels and wind turbines, you think we'll be able to fix it? You think a massive worldwide recycling campaign is going to be easier than nuclear?

Why would they be less operational than any other asset we use in our grids which we continuously repair, replace and upgrade?

It's all about watts per pound of stuff that will need replaced

We’re pretty good at making lots of simple stuff like solar panels. We’re less good at building small numbers of complex things like reactors.

I agree, but my point was this aversion to complexity is our version of the fermi paradox. We're accumulating scars from our addiction to fossil fuels, and beyond that solar, and it's a matter of time before we go extinct as a result.

In what way does solar leave scars?

10.

"Westinghouse announced in July it plans to open 10 new plants in the U.S., with construction starting in 2030." -- https://www.ans.org/news/article-7499/westinghouse-signs-80b...

That actually sounds pretty reasonable to me. I’d love to see the cost curve come down some more on the next 10 plants after that, but if this comes anywhere close to panning out, seems like a net benefit.

Theres two NIMBYs that must be resolved that arent.

First is easier: where to build it.

The second is where the waste goes.

Historically, the second issue is not resolved.

The waste can stay close to the reactor for literally the few 100 years in most cases, its not actually a problem. The zone where you can't live anyway around a reactor has enough space for local waste storage.

And if in the next 100 years or so there is some natural change that makes that location a problem, you move it to another already existing nuclear reactor and leave it there.

If society collapses to such an extent that you do not have the capability to move around some nuclear 'waste' every couple 100 years then your society has much, much bigger problems anyway.

The idea that we can't or shouldn't build nuclear reactor because we don't have a location where we can put things in one place that is safe for 100000 years is just so fucking absurd if you actually think about it. But its not really about thinking, its all just political theater for uniformed people.

If you think nuclear waste storage is solved, you might mot be an engineer responsible for human health and thw environment.

It's the other way around.

It is technically and economically solved.

The "problem" is pure politics. And politicians can play those games without consequence because intermediate storage is also not problematic at all.

Tell me how many people and how much has the environemnt been hurt in 70 years of civilian nuclear waste managment? And can you tell my any reason we couldn't cotinue to do this for another 300 years?

Well, from storage, if you don't test for it you can't see it, so theres that.

But nuclear plants are releasing into the environment nuclear materials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monticello_Nuclear_Generating_... https://apnews.com/article/xcel-energy-nuclear-leak-tritium-...

So acting like there's zero danger is stupid. Not caring about the future generations is also how we got here, so theres that.

But you know, if you were a rational person who cared, you'd google this stuff yourself: https://www.yoursourceone.com/columbia_basin/third-hanford-n...

The leak you mention have killed no people and didn't involve civilan nuclear waste. I didn't even hurt anybody, and the envoirments isn't harmed by it basically at all.

And that would be an argument about reactor safty not civilian nuclear waste managment anyway.

> So acting like there's zero danger is stupid.

Danger is not zero but its incredibly small. As has been confiremd by every single topic on the subject. Saying 'its not zero' is literally always possible for anything humanity ever does.

> Not caring about the future generations is also how we got here, so theres that.

Usuing rational science based methods for evaluating safty and how figuring out what is actually the best is what I am advocating for going forward.

Instead of how we got here, witch was actually using feelings to pick something that is actually more unsafe and generally worse both for people and for the envoirment. That is what you are doing.

> But you know, if you were a rational person who cared, you'd google this stuff yourself

And if you were actually interested in real discussion or evaluating my actual argment you would more then just google for random nuclear incidents as if they proved your point. But clearly you don't care about that.

I was actually qutite specific in what I said, and you of course ignored, I said civilan nuclear waste. And Hanford does not apply, as it a completely different situation.

So nothing you posted actually address either of the questions I have posed to you. I suppose that is because you don't have an actual answer and instead you just try to distract people with links to random things you could google.

It’s a “Trump deal” with absolutely zero information. It’s probably not going to amount to anything. Solar + battery is eating everybody’s lunch, and nuclear was way too expensive even before that.

At the timescale of large nuclear reactors batteries might be a third or even less of today’s cost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com