There had been an immense amount of hype, and considerable nonsense written about Small Modular Reactors. When you are trying to solve a problem as big as the Gordian knot, the closely coupled issues of electricity poverty and planet heating, small is not beautiful. There are strong economies of scale in nuclear power generation. Any solution that does not recognize this will be hopelessly wasteful. But it is also true that we must take advantage of the order of magnitude improvement in productivity and quality associated with assembly line manufacture, as compared to conventional on site construction.
But it’s about JOBS. You know the uncompetitive overpriced work guaranteed by the Jones act must be maintained for all time otherwise America might have to compete...
The culture of paperwork is a whole other problem. Unfortunately the Pharma industry is the same and it makes medicines harder to manufacture and more expensive.
Agree with this about the NRC and plant construction/licensing. "The current US nuclear regulatory system is just the opposite. There are no rules." The NRC is internally at war with itself due to fossil fuel unregistered agents.
The idea of SMRs is to have an approved small module reactor around the size of the current natural gas turbines. Once approved, the type is licensed if it meets specs. They can then be dropped in, as needed, to add capacity. This way, nuclear capacity can ramp up and down to meet needs.
SMRs are also mostly designed for truck and rail transport. (Radiant's is sized to fit in a SpaceX Starship.)
They will be built in South Korea, and if the US won't install them, fine. The US represents maybe 10% of new genation capacity over the next 50 years. It's all Africa & Asia.
Not clear that you want the "largest reactor you can fit on an assembly line". When I was a kid we had mainframe computers. No more. You want a manufacturable safe cheap thing. Not clear it won't be tiny like a CPU when innovation is allowed. With today's tech there are 1000 ways to release nuclear binding energy. Self-sustaining fission and fusion were good choices in the 1950s. But I don't even burn gasoline with a self sustaining reaction-- sounds dangerous. The field of Solid State Fusion / LENR probably has proof-of-concept of 10 of those 1000 ways. See #iccf24 . Generally they are smaller-than-a-breadbox. But there are also hot fusion devices that size for sale as spacecraft ion drives. There are "nuclear batteries" with direct conversion to electricity... probably another 50 good known designs. The NIF lasers are old school. There's a lot of smarter things you can do with lasers. And Fusion/Fission hybrids...there are at least 100 good ways to do that. Not all of these have to be large. Main obstacle is that nuclear power is very dangerous... to the fossil fuel industry, which has a 28 BILLION dollar per year budget for advertising nad influence peddling.. assuming they put 5% of revenue in to defensive PR as well run institutions must.
How about installing these in Canada and Mexico and connect them to the USA grid via HVDC or UHVDC and eventually MgB2 LH2 Superconductor? Eventually a super grid will probably get built.
But it’s about JOBS. You know the uncompetitive overpriced work guaranteed by the Jones act must be maintained for all time otherwise America might have to compete...
The culture of paperwork is a whole other problem. Unfortunately the Pharma industry is the same and it makes medicines harder to manufacture and more expensive.
Agree with this about the NRC and plant construction/licensing. "The current US nuclear regulatory system is just the opposite. There are no rules." The NRC is internally at war with itself due to fossil fuel unregistered agents.
The idea of SMRs is to have an approved small module reactor around the size of the current natural gas turbines. Once approved, the type is licensed if it meets specs. They can then be dropped in, as needed, to add capacity. This way, nuclear capacity can ramp up and down to meet needs.
SMRs are also mostly designed for truck and rail transport. (Radiant's is sized to fit in a SpaceX Starship.)
They will be built in South Korea, and if the US won't install them, fine. The US represents maybe 10% of new genation capacity over the next 50 years. It's all Africa & Asia.
You may want to add some of the features of Tesla production system
1) agile supply chain
2) autonomous testing
3) digital twin of every reactor
4) production cells
5) flat organization
6) empowering employees
No thanks. The korean yard system is already finely tuned.
You do not want to mess with it.
I suspect Elon would agree,
Having said this. The yards are under strong competitive pressure.
They are always making incremental improvements.
Over time they add up.
In 2000, the dimensional control was such that the largest blocks
were about 500 tons. Now 3000 ton blocks are common-place.
Not clear that you want the "largest reactor you can fit on an assembly line". When I was a kid we had mainframe computers. No more. You want a manufacturable safe cheap thing. Not clear it won't be tiny like a CPU when innovation is allowed. With today's tech there are 1000 ways to release nuclear binding energy. Self-sustaining fission and fusion were good choices in the 1950s. But I don't even burn gasoline with a self sustaining reaction-- sounds dangerous. The field of Solid State Fusion / LENR probably has proof-of-concept of 10 of those 1000 ways. See #iccf24 . Generally they are smaller-than-a-breadbox. But there are also hot fusion devices that size for sale as spacecraft ion drives. There are "nuclear batteries" with direct conversion to electricity... probably another 50 good known designs. The NIF lasers are old school. There's a lot of smarter things you can do with lasers. And Fusion/Fission hybrids...there are at least 100 good ways to do that. Not all of these have to be large. Main obstacle is that nuclear power is very dangerous... to the fossil fuel industry, which has a 28 BILLION dollar per year budget for advertising nad influence peddling.. assuming they put 5% of revenue in to defensive PR as well run institutions must.
How about installing these in Canada and Mexico and connect them to the USA grid via HVDC or UHVDC and eventually MgB2 LH2 Superconductor? Eventually a super grid will probably get built.