MIT study sees nuclear power as integral to a low-carbon future

[cancel2 2022]

Mostly common sense but a commodity sadly lacking in today's febrile atmosphere surrounding climate and energy. New Small Modular reactors (SMR) are going to profoundly change the economics of nuclear reactors.

According to a new MIT study, achieving a low-carbon-emission future at a reasonable cost and minimal social impact requires a mix of power sources, with nuclear power as a major component. "The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World" by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) says that trying to produce a radically low-carbon economy without nuclear reactors would cost two to four times as much as one with.

In the quest to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change, the tendency in the past 20 years has been to concentrate on so-called alternative energy sources with special emphasis on wind and solar power. And while such sources do have many advantages, they also suffer from a number of disadvantages, such as lack of reliability, a large geographical footprint, negative environmental impact, and high operating costs, as well as a reliance on conventional fossil fuel plants to maintain reliable electrical power services.

Much of this is a matter of intense debate, but one big problem is that if the world is to invest in a policy of deep decarbonatization by the year 2050, there is a real chance it can only be done at either massive expense or the price of much less electricity being available at higher costs, lower standards of living in both the developed and developing world, and even a shrinking global economy.

To prevent this from happening, the MIT study says that nuclear power with its zero-carbon emissions must play a much larger role in electricity generation on a global scale. Today, the total share of global nuclear power as a primary energy source is a mere five percent, with very little growth in the West and some countries actually abandoning the technology.

Based on a study of existing Light-Water Reactor (LWR) projects around the world, the MIT report says that the primary obstacle to a large-scale reactor building program is cost – not only the short-term undercutting of nuclear by the natural gas boom, but also through government regulation, safety concerns, political prejudice, and industry inefficiencies.

To overcome this, the researchers suggest that the nuclear industry move away from its one-off reactor projects, with each new plant being an exercise in reinventing the plutonium wheel and focusing more on standardized designs and components being constructed by a skilled workforce under experienced contractors in a factory, mass-production setting, such as has been suggested for modular nuclear reactors.

In addition, the study recommends that new, advanced reactor designs use passive safety systems and inherently stable chemical, physical, and thermal systems that don't require outside power to operate. Ideally, these systems would be automatic and should be subject to internationally agreed upon regulations to reduce application costs and improve investor confidence.


On the policy side, the researchers say that the nuclear sector needs a level playing field with other low-carbon producers and that nuclear energy should not be dismissed out of hand. Instead, governments should provide nuclear energy producers with financial incentives similar to those given to wind and solar projects to produce a competitive environment.

In the same vein, the study also outlines the need for governments to allow for the building of more prototype reactors and the sharing of regulatory and research and development costs to encourage more technical innovation.

The interdisciplinary study released by the MIT Energy Initiative is available here (PDF).

https://newatlas.com/mit-nuclear-pow...on-free/56223/

http://news.mit.edu/2018/mitei-relea...ar-energy-0904

[Bigdog]

Nuclear is too expensive and too dangerous. I'd rather have CO2 "pollution" than ... radioactive waste and more terror targets.

[cancel2 2022]

Nuclear is too expensive and too dangerous. I'd rather have CO2 "pollution" than ... radioactive waste and more terror targets.

Is that sarcasm, it's hard to tell.

[Bigdog]

Is that sarcasm, it's hard to tell.

You know I'm against building new nuke plants. Why is it hard to tell?

[cancel2 2022]

You know I'm against building new nuke plants. Why is it hard to tell?

I didn't know that, but I do now. Generation IV nuclear reactors address all your concerns about safety, having fully passive shutdown mechanisms, can use nuclear waste aka spent fuel and will be cheaper with SMR technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco...modular-nukes/

[Bigdog]

I didn't know that, but I do now. Generation IV nuclear reactors address all your concerns about safety, having fully passive shutdown mechanisms, can use nuclear waste aka spent fuel and will be cheaper with SMR technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco...modular-nukes/

We have argued about pebble reactors, etc.. The technology is not there yet. Even Germany's world class engineers have decided to abandon nuclear.

[cancel2 2022]

We have argued about pebble reactors, etc.. The technology is not there yet. Even Germany's world class engineers have decided to abandon nuclear.

Ok I remember now. Germany's aversion to nuclear is totally political in nature. There are many countries now involved in new nuclear including China, Canada, India, the UK and Korea. Have you not heard of ThorCon?


ThorCon is Walkaway Safe. If the reactor overheats for any reason, it will automatically shut itself down, drain the fuel from the primary loop, and passively remove the decay heat. There is no need for any operator intervention; the operators cannot prevent the draining and cooling. ThorCon has three gas tight barriers between the fuel salt and the environment. In a primary loop rupture, there is no coolant phase change and no dispersal energy. Spilled fuel merely flows to the drain tank where it is passively cooled. The most troublesome fission products, including I-131, Sr-90, and Cs-137 are chemically bound to the salt. They will end up in the drain tank as well.

ThorCon is Ready to Go. The ThorCon design needs no new technology. ThorCon is a scale-up of the successful Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE). A full-scale dual 250 MWe ThorConIsle prototype can be operating under test within four years. This prototype will be subject to the failures and problems that the designers claim the plant can handle. As soon as the prototype passes these tests, commercial production can begin.

ThorCon is Rapidly Deployable. The entire ThorConIsle plant is designed to be manufactured in blocks on a shipyard-like assembly line. These 150 to 500 ton, fully outfitted, pre-tested blocks are then assembled into a hull containing the complete power plant, to be towed to a customer site and firmly settled in 5-10 m of water. A 500 MWe power station will require fewer than 100 blocks. Compared to traditional on-site nuclear power plant construction, this improves productivity, quality control, and build time. A single large reactor yard can turn out 30 500 MWe ThorConIsles per year. Alternatively the blocks can be barged to the site and assembled in an excavation, creating an underground fission island linked to a standard above-grade turbine hall. ThorCon is much more than a power plant; it is a system for building power plants.

ThorCon is Fixable. No complex repairs will be attempted on site. Hatches and cranes permit everything in the fission island to be replaced with little interruption in power output. The primary loop is totally contained within a Can. Every four years the Can is changed out, returned to a centralized recycling facility, decontaminated, disassembled, inspected, and refurbished. The instrumentation design and monitoring system is designed to identify incipient problems before they can lead to failures. A fission power plant following such a change-out strategy can in principle operate indefinitely. Decommissioning should be little more than removing the Cans without replacing them, then towing the hull away.

ThorCon is Cheaper than Coal. ThorCon requires far fewer resources than a coal plant. Assuming efficient, evidence-based regulation, ThorCon will produce clean, reliable, carbon-free electricity at less than the cost of coal.

http://euanmearns.com/thorcon-molten...n-power-plant/

[Bigdog]

Ok I remember now. Germany's aversion to nuclear is totally political in nature. There are many countries now involved in new nuclear including China, Canada, India, the UK and Korea. Have you not heard of ThorCon?


ThorCon is Walkaway Safe. If the reactor overheats for any reason, it will automatically shut itself down, drain the fuel from the primary loop, and passively remove the decay heat. There is no need for any operator intervention; the operators cannot prevent the draining and cooling. ThorCon has three gas tight barriers between the fuel salt and the environment. In a primary loop rupture, there is no coolant phase

http://euanmearns.com/thorcon-molten...n-power-plant/

And the pebble reactor was marketed as a utopian solution too.

60 years of broken promises of safe cheap nuke energy ... as the corps continue to collect their taxpayer subsidies and stockpile radioactive waste.

[cancel2 2022]

And the pebble reactor was marketed as a utopian solution too.

60 years of broken promises of safe cheap nuke energy ... as the corps continue to collect their taxpayer subsidies and stockpile radioactive waste.

Curious argument, just because one design is lacking then all must be.