A point you might well have included is the topic (and perhaps, questions over authorship) of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin's PhD thesis: "Mineral and Raw Materials Resources And the Development Strategy for the Russian Economy".
Yes, the article notes that, "The United States used a barge-based reactor to generate electricity for the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 until 1976, and Westinghouse, the American reactor builder, planned — but never built — two floating plants off the New Jersey coast at around that time"
1968! The interesting story is why the NYT's is running this and running with it now [not trying to be tin-hat, maybe it was just a slow news day, but you can find links posted on HN going back almost 5 years about this project]
I dream of a time when there is a slow news day so they publish less content. Also dream of a day when you turn on a new station and breaking news is in fact breaking news.
It's a good idea. Afaik, naval nuclear power has a pretty good track record.
Who knows if that will continue for commercial power generation?
But at least it solves the stupid "perpetual one-off design" space nuclear power seems to have been stuck in. (Although I believe I read that at least France standardized all their reactor buildings?)
Its cheaper to build a ship than a sub. Besides, the reactor would have to be close enough to the shore to run a power line etc. Unlikely to be affected by bad weather.
Because there is zero market for it especially after Fukushima. It was tried by the recently privatised French military shipyards as a way to diversify (that's the Flexblue project mentioned in the article) and just couldn't be sold.
During a power crisis caused by a high tension cable breakdown Auckland depended on ship borne power. I'm pretty sure it was GE gas turbines. There is a well understood model for mobile power, I don't see why this model can't work and guy lots of use cases. Nuclear why not?
The loss of competence in nuclear engineering worldwide worries me. Do we need to start sending engineering grads to Brazil? Britain outsourced it's coming plants to China didn't it?
It's 2 x 70 MWe or about 300 MWt. A4W reactors on Nimitz class aircraft carriers produce about 2 x 550 MWt which translates to about 100 MWe and 2 x 104 MW shaft power for propulsion.
Its worth mentioning that new turbines for generating electricity are in development with higher output compared to the steam powered turbines. This will basically increase the electrical output of the nuclear plant with the same amount of fuel which will make NPPs even more viable in the future
The nuclear power plant of the future can be found in a science museum. All dangers of a catastrophic accident aside, nuclear energy has become economically infeasible. Just recently, half-build powerplants have been abandoned in the US for pure financial reasons, and the other projects under constructions face severe cost problems too. And this is not counting for the still unsolved problem of disposing the nuclear waste. Meanwhile, solar and wind have become much cheaper than nuclear, and counting in the construction costs for new clean plants, even coal.
The idea of putting a nuclear power plant on a float is faszinating. It solves cooling, allows relocation of the power plant and in the case of disaster, it can be dumped into the ocean, which is somewhat better than contaminating occupied land, but still isn't acceptable.
Unless there is some significant breakthrough in operating costs and safety as well as a solution for the nuclear waste, nuclear isn't the future.
I'm not sure what you mean by unsolved disposal. Nuclear waste from power plants is stored in secure facilities. It takes up a manageable amount of space, is low maintanance and isn't dangerous. Furthermore, future reactors will be able to reuse it; the current reactors only use up a small fraction of the fuel. So actually, you wouldn't even want to throw it away.
Also, nuclear fuel is advantageous logistically. A typical plant needs 1 train-load of fuel a year. That's a relatively small freight, you can ship that from anywhere around the world. On the other hand, for carbon-fuel powerplants, you need a train load of fuel per day.
I'd love to see the planet off non-renewable-fuels, but a big hurdle is that, unless we figure out storage, the renewable energy sources have to be supplemented with something for when it's night and there's no wind. I don't see a better option for that something than nuclear. Of course, an alternative would be for society to switch to an energy usage scheme that doesn't presume that power is uninterruptable. However, that would require profound changes to our everyday lives, and I don't think we're quite mature enough as a species to go through with something like that at scale.
The spent fuel building on most all sites have a corrugated metal roll up door. It is, without a doubt, the most vulnerable area in the plant. Spent over 20 years as an Operations Plant Supervisor, licensed at CE PWR plants.
What do you mean by "secure facilities"? Yes, currently the nuclear waste is in intermediate storage facilities. Which are buildings, with an useful life time of 50 years. Unless a nuclear technology for reusing or processing the waste appears, we are talking about safe storage for thousands of years.
>in the case of disaster, it can be dumped into the ocean, which is somewhat better than contaminating occupied land, but still isn't acceptable.
dumping the stuff into ocean results in spreading the stuff around the world. It is much more preferable to keep it contained - like in case of Chernobyl's 30km exclusion zone at least we have a chance 100years from now when technology allows to clean up the zone - no such luck if it happens in the open ocean. Fukushima is still fighting to contain the stuff on site and don't let it get out to avoid making the disaster into a global one.
Most of the contaminated material in Fukushima, which isn't the molten core, has already escaped into the Pacific ocean. Which is not good for sure. Luckily, the Pacific ocean contains a lot of water. So the dilution is massive. Still, nothing I would consider acceptable.
Readit News
A point you might well have included is the topic (and perhaps, questions over authorship) of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin's PhD thesis: "Mineral and Raw Materials Resources And the Development Strategy for the Russian Economy".
https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putin...
The country is unveiling a floating nuclear power plant.
Um, "unveiling" ??
We've have floating nuclear power in submarines, aircraft carriers, maybe other vessels for half a century.
1968! The interesting story is why the NYT's is running this and running with it now [not trying to be tin-hat, maybe it was just a slow news day, but you can find links posted on HN going back almost 5 years about this project]
Companies 'unveil' new cars every year, just because the basis has been done before does mean that you can't unveil it in a different format.
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Who knows if that will continue for commercial power generation?
But at least it solves the stupid "perpetual one-off design" space nuclear power seems to have been stuck in. (Although I believe I read that at least France standardized all their reactor buildings?)
> A French company has designed a reactor called Flexblue that would not float but rather be submerged on the ocean floor.
The loss of competence in nuclear engineering worldwide worries me. Do we need to start sending engineering grads to Brazil? Britain outsourced it's coming plants to China didn't it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor
The idea of putting a nuclear power plant on a float is faszinating. It solves cooling, allows relocation of the power plant and in the case of disaster, it can be dumped into the ocean, which is somewhat better than contaminating occupied land, but still isn't acceptable.
Unless there is some significant breakthrough in operating costs and safety as well as a solution for the nuclear waste, nuclear isn't the future.
I'm not sure what you mean by unsolved disposal. Nuclear waste from power plants is stored in secure facilities. It takes up a manageable amount of space, is low maintanance and isn't dangerous. Furthermore, future reactors will be able to reuse it; the current reactors only use up a small fraction of the fuel. So actually, you wouldn't even want to throw it away.
Also, nuclear fuel is advantageous logistically. A typical plant needs 1 train-load of fuel a year. That's a relatively small freight, you can ship that from anywhere around the world. On the other hand, for carbon-fuel powerplants, you need a train load of fuel per day.
I'd love to see the planet off non-renewable-fuels, but a big hurdle is that, unless we figure out storage, the renewable energy sources have to be supplemented with something for when it's night and there's no wind. I don't see a better option for that something than nuclear. Of course, an alternative would be for society to switch to an energy usage scheme that doesn't presume that power is uninterruptable. However, that would require profound changes to our everyday lives, and I don't think we're quite mature enough as a species to go through with something like that at scale.
dumping the stuff into ocean results in spreading the stuff around the world. It is much more preferable to keep it contained - like in case of Chernobyl's 30km exclusion zone at least we have a chance 100years from now when technology allows to clean up the zone - no such luck if it happens in the open ocean. Fukushima is still fighting to contain the stuff on site and don't let it get out to avoid making the disaster into a global one.