Hey, if calling small Gen5 and Gen6 nuclear power plants a solution for global boiling, I’ll go with it, as long as they get built
U.S. Bets on Small Nuclear Reactors to Help Fix a Huge Climate Problem
Towering over the Savannah River in Georgia, the first nuclear reactors built from scratch in the United States in more than 30 years illustrate the enormous promise of nuclear power — and its most glaring weakness.
The two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant will join two older units to create enough electricity to power 2 million homes, 24 hours a day, without emitting any of the carbon dioxide that is dangerously heating the planet.
But those colossal reactors cost $35 billion, more than double the original estimates, and arrived seven years behind schedule. That’s why no one else is planning to build large reactors in the United States.
There were lots of reasons they took so long. The Wuhan Flu pandemic, lots and lots of lawsuits from nutters, too much rework, not enough workers with the necessary skill, since new reactors hadn’t been built in a long time.
We shouldn’t be building large ones: we should be building the latest generation ones, which are much smaller, and have been built in places like France
Instead, the great hope for the future of nuclear power is to go small.
Nearly a dozen companies are developing reactors that are a fraction of the size of those at Vogtle, betting that they will be quicker and cheaper to build. As the United States looks to transition away from fossil fuels that have underpinned its economy for 150 years, nuclear power is getting renewed interest, billions of dollars from the Biden administration and support from Republicans.
One reason is that nuclear plants can run at all hours, in any season. To those looking to replace coal and gas with wind and solar energy, nuclear power can provide a vital backstop when the air is calm or the sky is cloudy.
They would be much more efficient, less nuclear waste, and, from an air quality view, not a “carbon pollution” view, they would be much better than coal fired plants, especially as backups to wind and solar. Or, we could stop desecrating vast tracks of land with solar panels and wind turbines.
“The United States is now committed to trying to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy,” John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, said in September. “It’s what we believe we absolutely need in order to win this battle.”
But the push to expand nuclear power, which today supplies 18% of electricity, faces enormous hurdles.
One of those hurdles is a very slow, slow, slow bureaucracy. Biden may want them, Kerry might want them, even some leading Warmists like Michael “Robust Debate” Mann might want them, but, there are tons of unhinged bureaucrats who despise them, and will slow walk them. Not mentioned in the very long, and well worth the read, NY Times article is that they will face lawsuit after lawsuit from the extreme-enviros, along with pressure from states and lawmakers.
Sounds like good idea.
Wired. Com just wrote an article about NuScale pulling the plug on its multimillion dollar plan to build 9 small scale nukes in Idaho. Company went bankrupt. Like any new technology trying to compete against more established competitors, risks are high. The Idaho nukes were to be the first commercial small scale nukes in the USA. A lot more people have fears of nuclear power than believe like Trump that “windmills cause cancer” at this point the levelized cost of power from a nuclear plant is much much higher than any other cost.
Ss Teach has earned us many times before EVs are going to require a lot more generation capacity. New nukes are way into the future and current private financing for their extreme cost is not available wind and solar are also getting more expensive , but they are still able to get private equity financing .
Yes, develop nuclear power, in whatever scale works best for the application, but do it along with grid expansion and modernization to solve the actual problems staring us in the face, not a non-problem.
Current EV tech is terrible, wind is a joke, and the climate is not in crisis. Subsidize EV, PV and battery research only, until we have something that’s viable. The current, not ready for market, junk is an environmental and economic disaster. Abandon all large-scale wind, period. And for Christ’s sake, stop fretting about the 0.0000135% of the atmosphere that is mankind’s contribution to CO2. Meanwhile, grid infrastructure is under capacity and far too vulnerable.
These are the real energy problems that are in our laps, but it appears that .gov likes it that way.
Correct! We disagree about global warming, but that’s OK. The grid infrastructure needs a serious upgrade. We need better energy sources – wind and solar add, but are not the sole answer. The market will sort out the EV issues. A friend, an electrical engineer, has a early Tesla Model S and a Tesla Y for his wife, both functioning fine.
We CAN walk and chew gum at the same time.
Our environmentalist from east of Kansas City wrote:
Except, of course, if the left get their way, the market will not sort out the EV issues, because, as of 2035, all new vehicles sold in the United States must be zero emissions. The market sorting out the EV issues would have to include the market being allowed to have fossil-fueled automobiles as part of the market.
As a libertarian we fully understand Mr Dana’s deeply held beliefs that the US governments all overstep.
The market does allow fossil-fueled vehicles, but governments have the ability if not the obligation to influence markets with subsidies, penalties, taxes and policies.
President Biden has proposed that the government purchase only zero-emission new vehicles by 2035. By all means, SciDcists can keep their ICE cars running! California is only requiring that all NEW cars sold in 2035 and beyond be zero-emission vehicles which includes battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles. Even in communist CA you can keep driving your ICE car.
When the right re-elects Mr Drumpf, the House and Senate they can change the 2035 goals. Your vote counts!!
@ Dana,
Agreed. The government dictating the outcome is not the “market sorting it out”.
The Army was interested in this idea during the Obama administration. It was quickly killed by the windmills and solar panels crowd. The Army was looking into it as a way to provide cheap electric power for forward bases to not depend on local electric grids or massive convoys of fuel vehicles to power generators. Then, as now, politics trumps good ideas.
Here’s the way around the “no new ICE cars” ban. Sell them once in a state too smart to pass one of these bans. Then resell it as a used car.
I’m fine with the small nukes. Back when I was a kid, we had one here in Michigan that produced 67MW. Small by my thinking. It’s been decommissioned and removed. What’s worse is the Midland plant… It was planned to be a nuclear plant cogenerating process heat for Dow Chemical. But crazy types yelled and screamed so much that it was changed to a fossil fueled plant.
Is Toshiba still working on their small reactors?