Sabine Hossenfelder 
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Small modular nuclear reactors are supposed to fix the problem of conventional nuclear reactors being too expensive and time-consuming to build. But we’ve been hearing about how promising they are for 15 years now. So where are they? A report that just appeared sheds light on what happened.
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About The Author
Illinois EnergyProf
Economics of Nuclear Reactor
Youtube video.
14 May 2019
For economic insight on nuclear electricity generation plants VS natural gas generation construction.
He should do one one national grid construction economics.
The military operate small reactors and they are mobile.
Why don't we have AI design small nuclear reactors?
Meanwhile 57 green hydrogen storage facilities are operational worldwide, with US surpassing Germany and its immediate neighbors in 2022 with 33 pilot projects in operation. Worldwide, 1,400 are being built! — All this according to the IEA Hydrogen Project Database. And pumped hydro is still being built, too, because it goes well with aqueduct projects that can protect agriculture against droughts.
NVIDEA HAS REDUCED AI POWER REQUIREMENT !
WHY HAVE YOU MISSED COPENHAGEN ATOMICS … MODULAR PLANTS IN PRODUCTION INTERESTING BUSINESS MODEL THEY OWN AND MAINTAIN NUKES AND SELL HEAT … NO CORRUPT GOV IN CONTROL OF IT ??? ALREADY IN PRODUCTION AND IN USE IN INDONESIA PRODUCING AMMONIA BY NAZI SPARK METHOD FOR FERTILISER AND PHARMA FOR AMPHETMINES ETC FOR ARMY !
By metric of neutron economy, every small reactor design is a dead end.
Every subsystem needed by a larger design will be needed in smaller design, the cost reduction clamied by some experts is quite dubious.
As long as it's billionaires and their companies/corporations funding research/development into these projects instead of tax payers, then I say let them! I'm no fan of Elon Musk anymore, but he pushed space travel and electric vehicle technology forward. Technology doesn't always get cheaper over time as everything doesn't scale well or new methods aren't created to decrease costs of production, but the first step is always to try… hopefully not on a taxpayers dime! 🤷♂
You know who has small nuclear reactors? The United States Navy. They have been powering ships and submarines with them for decades.
So in essence, the issue is, the nuclear industry has lied to us. Once again. and again. and again. And then they whine the public dont trust them…
Unsubscribed. Too many negative thumbnails.
👍
something tells me that lying right wing politicians will continue to quote the lower estimates and ignore the fact any comparison with externalised costs not included is false.
I hope you don't take any of what that idiot Dave The Professor said to heart. That guy is an inquisitor right out of the middle age church system
Elon may work on Nuclear reactors if he get to do destructive testing
Is it just because they are the first. And after building a 1000 the cost will develop would be spread out because you don't have to repeat all that safety paper work
errgh the reactors on Virginia and Ohio class subs are effectively smaller modular reactors. Last i looked they work, are safe? Why not use that tech?
This looks to me like a nice project for 3D printing and iterative design.
The advances in rocketry should be an inspiration.
Usually advancement is made not in a continuous manner. When there is need, creative solutions are devised, the you gave 1st generation technology, 2nd etc.. Since now there is real demand, real need,, creative solutions will appear, and costs will reduce. It has always been like that with technology
They got a vibrator company making nuclear reactors now 😂 this economy 🤣
1:45 Please tell me that document is satire?😧
Наверное вы просто не умеете читать по русски, РИТМ 200 – тот самый реактор, уже производится серийно
If we can put a reactor in a ship or submarine, why not a shipping container?
I'm confused. 🤷♂
We've had nuclear reactors running in submarines for donkey's years.
I know there was something wrong with you. Bye Sabine. You'r channel is waste of time 🙁
The whole point behind SMR modules is that once you have constructed a factory to make the first one, the second and successive modules drop rapidly in cost—unless, of course, the factory costs more to run than the SMRs are worth.
you just step on big american bisnes foot, and they don't like it
We already have modular nuclear reactors powering aircraft carriers. Ford class carriers have two 700 MWt A1B reactors. Why can't we mass produce those ?
I just dont get the whole concept. Havent there been small reactors for nearly half a century built into submarines, aircraft carriers etc? Whats new? That i can stack them now? Having to check the components of a large reactor for security seems to be hard enough. Having to check all these components now for tens of smaller reactors seems like a nightmare. No one ever said lets build lots of small ships for transportation of goods instead of one large one. Or build lots of small windmills instead of a large one. This seems to never work. Why for fission reactors? I get the streamlining production part, but still… Nuclear fission is hardly cost efficient in comparison to wind, solar etc. Wont making reactors smaller make this only worse?
“Plans to formulate a plan” sounds very European 😂
"formulate a strategic action plan" is where dreams die.
Nuclear power is too expensive? Wow, who would have thought (irony)
One of the main problems with nuclear power: Safety. If you run a nuclear reaction without properly trained personnel and don't stick to the rules, it might melt down.
Solution: Offer smaller nuclear reactors that more people can buy who can't afford or need a big one and promise them it won't need any maintenance and just be a black box of miraculously producing energy.
There’s clearly a demand for SMRs. The demand is pulling the supply out. I predict that SMRs will be produced at scale simply because they need to be produced. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Countries like Germany, with a dearth of sunlight, no real wind, and no great energy options, are prime candidates for SMRs, once the population gets past the era of Russian anti nuclear propaganda designed to prop up its energy companies. Companies in Germany can’t afford or find adequate energy sources. If they ever pull their heads out of their asses and stop believing their own green propaganda, they’ll be the first to modularize nuclear reactors.
All this money that is going to reactors (small modular and otherwise) would be better spent building renewable energy generation and energy storage and upgrading the power grid to work with this.
So, you're concerned about the costs and schedule for SNRs? Compared to what? Green energy solutions? Come on now, we have all been paying huge amounts for wind and solar by indirect means and it's difficult to make comparisons because these numbers are hidden. What you don't mention is reliability, yes, that's right proven reliability of SNRs compared to whether the wind blows or the sun shines. My gut feeling is that the new green energies are costing way more than SNRs and they're not nearly as reliable.
We need SNRs now, urgently, and they need subsidising to the same extent as so called green energy solutions.
'We need look at the facts even when we don't like them.' No, we don't. Startup phase of such big project is not a good time for killing hope and spread pesymism. What we need is to keep going at all cost as there is simple no alternative for nuclear. Colective mindset fueled by social media (like this analisys) is what influences politicians and in the end influencing where money flow. This is modern democracy. If we need atom, then we need some level of hype about it. Hopefully statistics become better after each iteration of such nuclear project.
Hope!!! :))) Very Renewable but not so green!!!
We cannot trust our governments to dispose of household waste ethically, why would we trust them to handle nuclear waste without corruption or just plan incompetence?
You mean IKEA's modular sofa isn't radioactive?!?
Oh, well. Back to the ole drawing board then …
What is with the flaw of having transportable nuclear power plants in countries where 30% of the population shits on the street and where permanent war is an issue? Where every little street gang can organise their own nuclear plant and when they can't get new "fuel" their there the shit anywhere?
That flaw nobody talks about
The more advanced a tech solution the harder it is to counter justifications for arbitrary price rises in the project. After all u would need a bunch of experts in that tech to audit the claims and those r usually few and far between. And if they r really that good y would they work for the govt when they can work for pvt companies where they earn much more for their expertise ?!
The problem I see with small reactors is security. There are some people that would love to have some radioactive material for a dirty bomb. And it is way easier to secure big powerplant than a network of small reactors.
Not relevant in any way but IFE in Norway runs a tiny reactor for research purposes, and when I asked my neighbour at the time who worked there if they actually use it for anything practical aside from research, he said "eh you know, we heat the locker room showers and make coffee?"
Grid uprades and storage are not 'just to slow', they are in big parts completely unrealistic and would cost such astronomic amounts of money to work that the new superaccelorators Sabine criticizeses all the time would look like cheap toys compared to them.(Electricity grids with multi gigawatt capacity from Scandinavian to the Equator, Enough storage capacity to bridge a hole month of north european winter,…
As someone working in the industry I despair. Those leading these initiatives seem in many cases to be charlatans. If we are serious about new nuclear there should be zero government funding for SMRs as ultimately it’s corrupting. For me Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are about the right size. IE big enough to be useful, a proven design, small enough to build a fleet at predictable cost.
This is about a fact.
**In an electrical grid, the power must be produced in real time, as it is being used; if supply to the grid is less than demand at any time, there will be a blackout. For the grid to function, supply and demand must be balanced at all times.**
Solar is intermittent obviously because we have nighttime. Wind is intermittent obviously because sometimes the wind doesn't blow (or blow strong enough).
However, if the public can be made to understand that loading the grid with intermittent power sources without backup means regular blackouts, and that backing up the United States grid with batteries would cost at least the equivalent of the US’s whole annual national income, and that backing up the intermittent sources without batteries (in the absence, at least, technologies that are hardly conceived of yet) means ramping up diesel, natural gas and coal generators and producing enough CO2 to render the whole exercise pointless, it will put the burden on those who think that it’s a good idea (Democrats) to go through with it in the next few years to justify themselves. So if the Democrats, who evidently do not understand the FACT of how electric grids function continue pushing the current energy policies, get ready for frequent blackouts / grid failures just like third world countries have.
You get what you vote for. (Tell a liberal the fact, they may not have ever been told it.)