this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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Off the Siberian coast, not far from Alaska, a Russian ship has been docked at port for four years. The Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, sends energy to around 200,000 people on land using next-wave nuclear technology: small modular reactors.

This technology is also being used below sea level. Dozens of US submarines lurking in the depths of the world’s oceans are propelled by SMRs, as the compact reactors are known.

SMRs — which are smaller and less costly to build than traditional, large-scale reactors — are fast becoming the next great hope for a nuclear renaissance as the world scrambles to cut fossil fuels. And the US, Russia and China are battling for dominance to build and sell them.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

SMRs are interesting.

Frankly i just think we need to take SMR tech and scale it up to stationary plant size. I realize thats a big ask, but it's already a big enough ask to make SMRs a thing that exist and work. Plus a whole plant is more inline with existing regulations.

Also worst case scenario, it's just normal nuclear plants. Instead of a bunch of small ones. We have a bunch of big ones, but with standardized designs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Big Bespoke Reactors? Isn’t that what we do now?

I thought the entire advantage was to be small and use multiple.

  • Construction is cheaper because you can gear up a factory to make many of the same thing
  • Assembly is cheaper and more reliable because you have more complete modules shipped in for less site assembly
  • Sizing is cheaper because instead of designing for the specific site and specific needs, design for how many standard modules you want
  • Enhancing is cheaper because a smaller unit is easier to fit into whatever situation you have than to redesign the whole thing
  • Maintenance is cheaper because taking one offline is less of a hit in total power generation
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I think you'll notice i never said bespoke. Realistically there will be minor differences from plant to plant, but you just design it in such a way that it's modular and not super set in stone, which will help alleviate that problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

"SMRs — which are smaller and less costly to build than traditional, large-scale reactors"

They somehow forgot to mention a few key things:

They don't actually exist yet.

They may be cheaper but they generate way less power. If you added up the cost of enough SMRs to equal one conventional nuclear plant they would be even more expensive than an already prohibitively expensive method of generating power.

What a dumb article.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (12 children)

One significant benefit of these would be the lack of transmission losses that plague massive plants which have to send electricity sometimes hundreds of miles. Having smaller units maintained by municipalities would be cheaper for cities far from major electrical plants.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They exist, what do you mean? We’ve been powering a fleet of submarines with them since the 1950s.

Yeah, it’s going to cost a lot upfront to get them commercially viable, but for the few places where renewables need assistance, I don’t see why this can’t make sense.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

Hey if you spiritual but not religious types could not fuck this up like the boomers did we would all appreciate it. I get it, you got pyramid power and The Secret. I don't care. That is your concern. Once you start shilling for OPEC it becomes our concern.

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