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cc's avatar

"For a multiple GW unit plant, the minimum distance from any reactor to a residence should be at least two kilometers, and the units should be at least 200 m apart."

Maybe very large plants should be avoided for purposes of decentralizing power generation,

but I still think your guidelines are overly restrictive, and should take into account the reactor technology, inventory, and potential (pressure or chemical) to mobilize any significant quantity of harmful isotopes. In an MSR, the danger is essentially nil; some of the offgas that hasn't yet been bottled. A thermal breeder has minimal fissile inventory, and with ongoing FP removal, the waste inventory can also be made almost arbitrarily small. Actually, most of the isotopes won't even be waste, they'll be products in great demand.

I don't want our most critical infrastructure to be out in the middle of nowhere, connected to load centers by long and vulnerable power lines, where they also can't be used to heat cities. I think we should welcome (suitable) nuclear plants in the center of town in a city park or other green space, and bury the trunk lines. Also, does that 200m apply to 250MWe reactor modules of a GW scale plant? Maybe not initially, but I believe these are a good goals that should not be prohibited on account of older technologies, and we shouldn't make rules that will unnecessarily explode the size of a modular plant. (not talking about so-called SMRs here, which are necessarily huge anyway, at least relative to their power output)

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David MacQuigg's avatar

I like that you emphasize that inhaled particles are not in the model. Shame on the NRC and everyone else for not distributing masks in response to the Fukushima release.

Another big difference between Fukushima and Taipei is a a one-time exposure for a few days, vs exposure every day for a long time. I believe the Kramatorsk exposure (20 - 30 mSv/day for years) shows that there is a "saturation" effect overwhelming our DNA repair mechanisms. A single exposure of 20 mSv shows no measurable harm (bomb survivors). The same repeated every day could be fatal.

The Kramatorsk exposures were much higher than Taipei or Fukushima and well beyond anything we might expect from an NPP release. The bomb survivor data is what I would trust in predicting the harm from an NPP release.

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