[RoadTowed]

Originally Posted by Win1894

We really missed the boat on nuclear power generation. We need a national effort in the US that would be on a scale similar to the NASA program the 60s to land man on the moon. Sadly, we focus developmental efforts on inefficient, stop-gap sources of power like solar and wind, which are intermittent, low energy density, short lived, and litter the landscape. We have enough naturally occurring Uranium and Thorium to meet the total energy needs of our country for a thousand years. Fourth and even fifth generation nuclear power is safe, totally green (non polluting), and easily fits into the existing electrical power distribution infrastructure. All it would take is a national commitment between government and industry (like NASA) and, most importantly, the will of the people. The technology to make this happen already exists and is being further developed in the case of fifth generation reactors. Shamefully, we haven't had effective energy leadership in this country for 40 years.

We were there in the 80s.
Forwarded by President Regan.
Three mile island incident panic killed the initiative.
Then the coal crowd came on strong and unfortunately we're still stuck there.

[biker1]

Still stuck with coal? Not really. Coal accounts for less than 20% of electricity generation in the US.

Originally Posted by RoadTowed

We were there in the 80s.
Forwarded by President Regan.
Three mile island incident panic killed the initiative.
Then the coal crowd came on strong and unfortunately we're still stuck there.

[Justputt]

Originally Posted by Elixir34

NOT two years to refuel a commercial reactor. Average three weeks. I worked at a plant that was refueled in 17 days. Then it ran at 100% power for 710 consecutive days before the next refueling.

I've also worked at a number of nuclear plants and seldom are they done anywhere near that fast. In my experience, refueling outages have ALWAYS been maintenance outages too and that stretches them into months 2-3 often.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by HJBeck

Overruns was mainly due to not having a standard design. Each plant became a more or less unique to itself except for the shell we see from the outside. The NRC didn’t help much because they would continuously update/change design requirements so that companies would have to reconstruct much of what they had already built. Always made me wonder if there wasn’t undue influence from the coal, oil, gas lobby to make nuclear economically unattractive.

Good possibility.

[MorTech]

Originally Posted by Bill14564

EDIT: 5MWe (not 50) changes things significantly. These are the new calculations but Ieft the others below for comparison.

$80M for 5MWe continuous for 10 years produces about 1/2 of the electricity it would take to pay itself off at $0.11/kwh.

Or another way:
If you could sell all 5MWe it produces for every hour of every dat for 10 years at $0.11/kwh then you would take in only $48M

Or one more:
If you could utilize 50% on average of its total capacity then you would need to sell electricity at $0.37/kwh to make $80M in 10 years.




Calculations below based on incorrect MWe

Very rough back of the envelope calculation:
$80M for 50MWe continuous for 10 years produces 6 times enough electricity to pay itself off at $0.11/kwh.

Or another way:
If you could sell all 50MWe it produces for every hour of every day for 10 years at $0.11/kwh then you would take in $480M.

Or one more:
If you could utilize 50% on average of its total capacity then you could sell electricity at $0.04/kwh to make $80M in 10 years

Reality:
- It may or may not cost $80M by the time it's actually ready for sale
- There will be a cost to add it to the electrical grid
- It is very unlikely that you could utilize its entire capacity 24 hours/day

It can scale to 50MWe. This technology can throttle on demand.

[MorTech]

Originally Posted by PlentyOfFish

Nuclear is our future.
AI and crypto use SO much electricity that we will HAVE to build more nuclear reactors..
China is building 30 unclear reactors right now...the US? Zero
The problem is our government.
China who is WAY ahead of the US in energy productivity.
China uses government to speed things up and the US uses government to slow things down..

This is why a certain congresswoman bought a water treatment stock. ( weird i thought ) NOW I KNOW WHY.
You need water to cool nuclear energy AND NDB's ( batteries that use nuclear waste) are the future

China is building 500 nuclear reactors. They have their own designs. China is also building a bunch of coal-fired plants.

The newest designs don't need water. They throttle back naturally if overheated.

[MorTech]

Originally Posted by Elixir34

NOT two years to refuel a commercial reactor. Average three weeks. I worked at a plant that was refueled in 17 days. Then it ran at 100% power for 710 consecutive days before the next refueling.

The plan is to just swap them out.

[MorTech]

Originally Posted by biker1

Still stuck with coal? Not really. Coal accounts for less than 20% of electricity generation in the US.

The USA is rapidly moving to NatGas-fired plants. I think Florida is close to 80% NatGas and 20% nuclear. There are permits to build a few more nuke plants in Florida.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by MorTech

It can scale to 50MWe. This technology can throttle on demand.

There is a difference between scaling and throttling. If the device was scaled for 50MWe but typically throttled to 5MWe I would think the data sheet would indicate that. If the price scales along with the output then the calculations are the same.

In any case, my guess is the price is a WAG at this point. It will be interesting to see the actual cost of bringing one of these online in a commercial setting.

[biker1]

The approximate breakdown for the US:

40% natural gas
20% coal
20% nuclear
20% renewable

The percentage of electricity from coal has cropped by more than 2x in the last 25 years.

Originally Posted by MorTech

The USA is rapidly moving to NatGas-fired plants. I think Florida is close to 80% NatGas and 20% nuclear. There are permits to build a few more nuke plants in Florida.

[MorTech]

The Chinese are working on commercially viable Thorium reactors. It won't be long since the Chinese are wicked smart and industrious.

An application for this 5MWe nuke would be a row of EV charging stations at a Buc-ees. CATL claims their latest batteries can charge at 12C so 1Mw on a 80Kw battery pack is doable now.

The way Hollywood and the idiot box media screech about everything nuclear is borderline criminal. It is safe and clean and physically impossible to go critical in a power reactor. What is a "terrorist" going to do with 20% U235? If you want to make a dirty bomb then use Cobalt.

[Win1894]

Originally Posted by MorTech

The Chinese are working on commercially viable Thorium reactors. It won't be long since the Chinese are wicked smart and industrious.

An application for this 5MWe nuke would be a row of EV charging stations at a Buc-ees. CATL claims their latest batteries can charge at 12C so 1Mw on a 80Kw battery pack is doable now.

The way Hollywood and the idiot box media screech about everything nuclear is borderline criminal. It is safe and clean and physically impossible to go critical in a power reactor. What is a "terrorist" going to do with 20% U235? If you want to make a dirty bomb then use Cobalt.

Yes, to your first comment. With their authoritarian form of government the Chinese will make that happen. India is working towards a similar goal as they have a huge supply of Thorium containing ore. This type of effort is harder to pull off in the US. This is why I stated earlier in this thread that we need a program similar to our "put a man on the moon before the end of the decade" effort - a beautiful industry-government cooperative. A very expensive program for sure but well worth the effort. JFK's speech in 1962 at Rice University was one of the great ones - leadership at its best!!