Energy Discussion

[taxi1]

I might be reading challenged...

Where in that advertisement to laypeople does it say we can design cores without the requirement to remove shutdown decay heat?

Systems still have to get rid of the heat, they are just working towards natural heat-driven circulation rather than driven by pumps.

Small modular reactors: Assessing the passive safety advantage

Discover how the passive design philosophy used in small modular reactors can create a safer, more economical future for nuclear power.

www.innovationnewsnetwork.com

Natural Circulation Loops, driven by heat and gravity, offer their own interesting physics that need careful attention.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0029549325001943

If you search on "instability" in this doc, Natural circulation in watercooled nuclear power plants: Phenomena, models, and methodology for system reliability assessments it appears over 500 times.

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/TE_1474_web.pdf

 

[Brett327]

Where in that advertisement to laypeople does it say we can design cores without the requirement to remove shutdown decay heat?

It doesn't. It's removed passively, without the need for power. Any other mysteries of nuclear engineering I can simplify for you?

 

[Spekkio]

Natural circulation has also been around since the dawn of nuclear power ... it's a stop gap. You cannot get enough flow rate to sustain safety indefinitely.

If you can't restore active decay heat removal for cores capable of supporting commercial power supply needs, you get a meltdown.

 

[Brett327]

Natural circulation has also been around since the dawn of nuclear power ... it's a stop gap. You cannot get enough flow rate to sustain safety indefinitely.

If you can't restore active decay heat removal for cores capable of supporting commercial power supply needs, you get a meltdown.

Consider the possibility that the soda straw that your Navy training has provided may not permit you to see or understand aspects of nuclear power that are well beyond your experience.

 

[sevenhelmet]

I get that we are going to need fission power, especially as climate change moves from "it's coming" to "it's here" and our AI overlords start consuming mind-boggling vast reams of wattage.

Both of those things (Climate change and AI mass power consumption) are here, and are not theoretical future problems- though they will worsen in the future, and we will have to adapt.

I presented fission power as one of several necessary solutions to limit the damage. I recognize there are challenges and dangers, like any power source. However, I remain steadfast in my argument- if the US Navy can train a bunch of teens to run nuclear reactors with such apparently good success, and if even half the technological advancements I read about are valid, then nukes are not the boogeyman they are being made out to be by some in this thread, and elsewhere.

Put another way, humans cause errors, but can also trap them. We fly airplanes, and I hear those things are dangerous, too.

The power density and energy security implications of modern fission power are too great to ignore. I also love the idea of fusion, but I am not deluding myself that we will develop it anytime soon, particularly under the most rabidly anti-intellectual government in my lifetime.