US gives first-ever OK for small commercial nuclear reactor

originally posted by: projectvxn

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: projectvxn
What happens to these plants if we have an EMP?

Why is this relevant to the discussion?

Why would we have an EMP?

I hate to say it DUH?

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Im thinking a "Fallout" scenario is not far off.

When do we get our "Pip-Boy 3000A"?

Suppose we can always tape our smartphones to the wrist.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

Are you anticipating a nuclear war? If so, why does it make any difference if we use or don't use nuclear reactors? No one is likely to survive that anyway.

a reply to: projectvxn

Depends on what you mean by survive.

I don't think a full-on nuclear exchange would wipe out our race, just set it back about 10,000 years.

I agree that the use of smaller nuclear reactors for commercial and industrial purposes should become a thing all the same.

After all, it had to happen at some point.

Got to wonder how safe they will be all the same or susceptible to attack by wackos.

a reply to: andy06shake

We will have to see what their physical and cyber security security systems look like.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

I think that this is not a “stop gap” model for electricity but the future: smaller, distributed power plants with flow battery backup.

That is exactly what Lockheed Martin is saying in their Compact Fusion Reactor. If you read the patent it mostly control and computer software controlled power systems.

Small modular reactors fit the distributed electric grid perfectly.

Toss in some room (or even ‘near room’) temperature superconducting power transmission lines and there is your Star Trek future!

Which is why I am a fusionboy. You can see it coming if try to think about how it can be made to work.

Pretty certain that Lockheed has had fusion for a while (s#! Nearly 30 years now! I wonder what kind of tech we really have. And are left wallowing in crap instead of traveling to the stars??!). Lockheed also has a flow battery program...

It is kind of obvious if you bother to stop and think about “how do we solve (this) problem” (with ‘this’ being power generation but could be food, waste, plastic, farming, pesticides, heavy metals like Metallica leaching into the ground water!! LOL)

Another reason to watch the fat bastards keep us dumb and ignorant!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Fusion does indeed seem to be the way forward where the power generated to meet our future requirements is concerned.

Thing is the material science and generation of the powerful magnetic confinement fields required where fusion is concerned remain somewhat beyond our reach.

There is always cold fusion, maybe that could be a thing one day in the future?

Nuts 3 mile island - Chernobyl - LOVE canal 1000s of barrels of Radioactive wast Dumped into teh gulf of mexico YOUR all NUTs .
Clean hu ? well shut down a coal plant in 2 years teh airs clean the water is clean .
Shut down a NUK power plant you will be IN FOR A longgg wate 50,000 year wate .


Yea so clean your kids will be glowing over it .
UNTIL we have a way To make the radiation ( dissipate ) ??? be no longer radioactive Nuk power is NO clean option Just a very very longer term cheep power option .

The cost of which is Your children - childerns - childrens getting cancers of so many types I cant list them all .
clean No Hydro electric is 100 % clean solar is as well .
Of corse making a dam or making a solar cell OR NUK power plant is far far from clean .

No such thing as clean power .

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: projectvxn

how is it clean?

The amount of HLW produced (including used fuel when this is considered as waste) during nuclear production is small; a typical large reactor (1 GWe) produces about 25-30 tonnes of used fuel per year.

Is it possible you are just anti-energy to be anti-energy?

People want safe, clean energy, and yet they always oppose it. Can't do wind because they don't want it near them and you know, birds. People don't want solar farms anywhere near them and it's not viable in much of the world. Nuclear is the best, safest option is it not?

EMP? Not a problem with an updated infrastructure, and only a reality in a war. Are you expecting a war?

Update the infrastructure and nuclear is the correct answer. We can't sit around waiting for technology that does not exist yet. Not to mention nuclear is cheaper. People who are opposed to it are literally partially responsible for the elderly who die each winter because they can't afford the heat. Irrational people have been blocking it for forty years.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: SeaWorthy

Are you anticipating a nuclear war? If so, why does it make any difference if we use or don't use nuclear reactors? No one is likely to survive that anyway.

It is not IF it is WHEN!

Trump issued an executive order to prepare for an EMP attack. What is it, and should you worry?
Nah. But the U.S. should get ready for a very similar threat — from the sun.

While solar GMDs occur rarely, they can indeed interrupt power for an entire city — as happened in Quebec for nearly nine hours in 1989. That has the same kind of disruptive potential as a nuclear EMP.

www.washingtonpost.com...

a reply to: midnightstar

Wow, you seem to have zero knowledge on the topic of current technology as it applies to nuclear power.

As far as hydro, no environmental lobby or group of nuts would ever allow new hydro. No wind because of the birds and the eyesore. Solar is way too expensive and only useful in limited locations.

Why do you think we still have coal? That could have been done away with long ago were it not for radicals who never seem to know what they are talking about.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

COVID 19 has put half the world on its arse both economically and physically.

Any idea what a full-on nuclear exchange would do?

Goodbye modern technology, hello steam-age/stone-age for the next few 100 to 10,000 years.

There won't be a nuclear exchange, because there simply are no spoils of war to be had.

The bankers and corporations would never sanction such a debacle, and that's pretty much it.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

I understand there are risks.

That's true of everything humans do.

That does not mean we stop pursuing viable technologies to meet the energy demands of the future. In fact, we must. Unless what you're looking for is a future where most of humanity is destitute and war is guaranteed? Because that's what will happen if we ignore nuclear technology in favor of alternatives that are not ready for prime time.

Future resource wars can be avoided. Taking nuclear power off the table because something bad COULD happen sets the stage for something really bad that WILL happen.