Alternative energy

[MontereyVol]

Looks like we may have a winner! I need TennTradition to comment on this.

Portable Nuclear Power Shows Promise - NuScale Power for Nuclear Energy - Popular Mechanics

or there is always plans like this one

Solar Bra And Bionic Bra: What's With Breastpower These Days?

[allvol123]

Originally Posted by MontereyVol

Looks like we may have a winner! I need TennTradition to comment on this.

Portable Nuclear Power Shows Promise - NuScale Power for Nuclear Energy - Popular Mechanics

or there is always plans like this one

Solar Bra And Bionic Bra: What's With Breastpower These Days?

Says they would not go online until 2015, Obama reasoning would not be for it.

[MontereyVol]

Wouldnt this be more in McCains camp?

[allvol123]

Oh yea, I'd see McCain being for this. Was just making fun of the Obamas and their reasoning on not drilling more, you know, it will not help us tomorrow.

[MontereyVol]

Someone in the remarks suggested using one of these for power on the oil shale we have. I kinda thought that defeated the purpose. However, we could have these things out faster than 2015 if the NRC prioritizes it?

[allvol123]

I think most timelines can be beat if prioritized. I bet the timeline would have been much longer for developing the first deliverable atom bombs had we not been in a war and no one else was interested in them.

[oklavol]

Interesting idea.

Playing devil's advocate here, but if we are having trouble building more nuclear facilities because of environmentalists.......

Radiation leaking?

[MontereyVol]

Enviromentalist would be a problem.

Radiation leakage is always a concern but this is a small unit and the reactor is actually underground. Most of it is self contained so if problems or refueling occur the unit gets removed and shipped to a processing facility. This is on the scale of what Navy ships use, or have been using for years.

[TennTradition]

Mini-nuclear sounds pretty cool. Like you said, Monterey, this is not that much different from what the Navy has been doing as far as scale is concerned. Advantages of this system are the ability to manufacture at one site (increased efficiency, decreased costs) and its passive safety features. I know Felix Killar ... and have a lot of respect for him. With that said, he works for the NEI which is a lobbying organization for a consortium of energy companies with vested interest in nuclear (Duke, Entergy, etc.). So, I would expect him to be on-board .

I'm not sure what the total advantage of a smaller system is over the larger variety. Granted, you can now use one of these systems in areas that don't need a large nuclear plant. But, if you are going to have to ship the reactor over rail for refueling, you will suddenly have a lot of spent fuel on the railways - which has been the largest stumbling block for a central nuclear waste repository (like Yucca mountain). Also, I don't know where they plan on building this plant for the manufacture of the reactors - but it sounds like they may have to store the received waste on site (like they do at existing large reactors) since they might not be doing on-the-reactor-site refueling (and instead shipping it to the people who will refuel them)...which means the neighbors won't like to have that site near them, for sure.

I think that this adds to the flexibility of integrating nuclear power further into our energy infrastructure, which will certainly help encourage future investment in nuclear. I see us increasing our reliance on nuclear in the near-term...but probably not exceeding 30% of our energy infrastructure...it could climb higher, but I doubt it. I don't see this as an answer to our renewable energy problems, but it could help out our problems by making it a bit easier/cheaper to expand nuclear power.

I think that the 2015 timeline would be pretty hard set, though. I'm not sure this could happen much more quickly than that...maybe 2013 if we really got behind it.

[MontereyVol]

Supposedly this is for remote/rural areas, I was trying to see if anyone could come up with other applications for it? What I thought was noteable is the amount of time it takes to set one up and running.

[TennTradition]

Originally Posted by MontereyVol

Supposedly this is for remote/rural areas, I was trying to see if anyone could come up with other applications for it? What I thought was noteable is the amount of time it takes to set one up and running.

The mobility is impressive. I got the impression, as you did, that they think this is a good application for remote/rural areas. But, it will likely have to be service by train...

In some ways I don't completely get the remote/rural thing. If the area if fed with power ... couldn't the power just be piped in from a large plant that is farther away? I know distribution isn't easy...but neither is train-carrying in fresh reactors and reactors with spent fuel....

Regardless, increased flexibility is generally a good thing....

[MontereyVol]

An idea we floated around sometime back was to utilize US Navy ships as emergency power stations for coastal cities. Maybe we could utilize NuScale for something in that neighborhood.

Also, eliminating the need to send power over large distances to supply remote areas would save power consumption on the larger grids. I have no idea what the percentage of lost power is, but it has to be a big drain on the grid.

[rwemyss]

Similar sized reactors have even already gained approval by the NRC. See the Westinghouse AP600.

Westinghouse Electric Company | Background

The Toshiba reactor discussed is the 4S.

Nuclear Power for Galena, Alaska

Also see the Westinghouse IRIS series.
The point in all of this is that nuclear power has LONG been the solution to the energy crisis, but has been held back by fear and environmentalists for too long. Even if projects were approved TODAY, it can take around 10 years to build a facility.

All the talk about electric, compressed air, or hydrogen cars as alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel vehicles cracks me up... you still need an energy source of SOME TYPE to be stored as electricity, compressed air, or hydrogen! That source as of right now is some 80% coal or some fuel gas! So these things would NOT solve ANYTHING. Nuclear power is, and has always been, the solution.

[rwemyss]

Originally Posted by TennTradition

I know distribution isn't easy...but neither is train-carrying in fresh reactors and reactors with spent fuel....

Regardless, increased flexibility is generally a good thing....

The service life of these reactors is around 30 years... not too bad.

[TennTradition]

Originally Posted by rwemyss

The service life of these reactors is around 30 years... not too bad.

That's not bad...but if they don't re-fuel in place they'll be carting one off every year or so, no?