NationStates

The New California Republic wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Well, I oppose it because of the risks. That's what I'm saying. My opinion.

Again I repeat what I said.

Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

The New California Republic wrote:Again I repeat what I said.

Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Ditto what I just said.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

The New California Republic wrote:Again I repeat what I said.

Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Grenartia wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Fukushima incident, too.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

The New California Republic wrote:Again I repeat what I said.

Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

You could have saved with an observation that a reactor is needed to make fission weapons.

(It's not the same kind of reactor, weakens the point)

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

You could have saved with an observation that a reactor is needed to make fission weapons.

(It's not the same kind of reactor, weakens the point)

Okay, fair enough, but what about Fukushima?

Grenartia wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Chernobyl's issue was the control rods had moderators on the tips allowing the reactor to work with less fully enriched fuel. Hit Scram with all the control rods out and before you see a drop in power you see an increase in power.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Fukushima incident, too.

Fukushima reactors couldn't be shut down quickly and need a supply of cold water to keep from melting down.
Nobody here is proposing to build more of those, or any similar dangerous design.

Grenartia wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Chernobyl is probably a better comparison.

Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Yup. The RBMK was a cheap and shitty reactor design that aimed to get the maximum power from the smallest outlay by cutting corners. The retrofitted RBMK reactors still in operation are mostly fine but still fall far below current norms. Hence why they are being phased out.

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Fukushima incident, too.

Fukushima reactors couldn't be shut down quickly and need a supply of cold water to keep from melting down.
Nobody here is proposing to build more of those, or any similar dangerous design.

Ah, okay. I misunderstood about the nuclear reactors, then. I apologize. However, wouldn't it be great, if we were allowed ton control nuclear fusion?

Imperial Joseon wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Fukushima incident, too.

Fukushima was a Gen 2 reactor.

The New California Republic wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Yup. The RBMK was a cheap and shitty reactor design that aimed to get the maximum power from the smallest outlay by cutting corners. The retrofitted RBMK reactors still in operation are mostly fine but still fall far below current norms. Hence why they are being phased out.

The Russians use the old design on their floating nuclear power plants in the arctic.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:
You could have saved with an observation that a reactor is needed to make fission weapons.

(It's not the same kind of reactor, weakens the point)

Okay, fair enough, but what about Fukushima?

Some of the same issues as the RBMK, shitty design, but also shitty placement in a tsunami risk area.

Greed and Death wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Ok, let me just take all of this head on.

First, no nuclear reactor has ever been able to be "Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0". Yes, that includes Chernobyl.

Second, Chernobyl was an outdated design without passive safety features that was being operated in a manner that was basically ASKING for a meltdown. Modern Gen 3 and 4 reactors are fail safe, and many Gen 4 designs are physically impossible to meltdown.

Chernobyl's issue was the control rods had moderators on the tips allowing the reactor to work with less fully enriched fuel. Hit Scram with all the control rods out and before you see a drop in power you see an increase in power.

This is correct. The moderated tips had to pass through the center most active region of the reactor before being withdrawn. The reactor was being operated in a very dangerous low power mode, for testing or some inadequate reason.

The New California Republic wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Okay, fair enough, but what about Fukushima?

Some of the same issues as the RBMK, shitty design, but also shitty placement in a tsunami risk area.

All right; I won't complain about the newly-made nuclear reactors anymore.

The New California Republic wrote:

Imperial Joseon wrote:
Okay, fair enough, but what about Fukushima?

Some of the same issues as the RBMK, shitty design, but also shitty placement in a tsunami risk area.

Well, to be entirely fair, the reactor survived the earthquake and tsunami perfectly fine. The backup generators for the coolant pumps were what got damaged by the tsunami.

Grenartia wrote:

The New California Republic wrote:Some of the same issues as the RBMK, shitty design, but also shitty placement in a tsunami risk area.

Well, to be entirely fair, the reactor survived the earthquake and tsunami perfectly fine. The backup generators for the coolant pumps were what got damaged by the tsunami.

The systems that were damaged were still vital to the functioning of the reactors, so it was still a catastrophic system failure caused by poor design and poor placement.

Nobel Hobos 2 wrote:

Greed and Death wrote:Chernobyl's issue was the control rods had moderators on the tips allowing the reactor to work with less fully enriched fuel. Hit Scram with all the control rods out and before you see a drop in power you see an increase in power.

This is correct. The moderated tips had to pass through the center most active region of the reactor before being withdrawn. The reactor was being operated in a very dangerous low power mode, for testing or some inadequate reason.

Which is basically what I said.

The New California Republic wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Well, to be entirely fair, the reactor survived the earthquake and tsunami perfectly fine. The backup generators for the coolant pumps were what got damaged by the tsunami.

The systems that were damaged were still vital to the functioning of the reactors, so it was still a catastrophic system failure caused by poor design and poor placement.

Right, but it puts the implied blame of the failure on the reactor itself. Had the generators been located in a less vulnerable position, nobody outside the industry (and the area surrounding the plant) would know the name Fukushima.

Grenartia wrote:
Right, but it puts the implied blame of the failure on the reactor itself. Had the generators been located in a less vulnerable position, nobody outside the industry (and the area surrounding the plant) would know the name Fukushima.

Yeah, the place is full of radioactive waste now. Too dangerous to go there.

Imperial Joseon wrote:

Grenartia wrote:
Right, but it puts the implied blame of the failure on the reactor itself. Had the generators been located in a less vulnerable position, nobody outside the industry (and the area surrounding the plant) would know the name Fukushima.

Yeah, the place is full of radioactive waste now. Too dangerous to go there.

Personally, I can't wait for Pebble Bed Reactors, so we can finally put all this silly anti-nuclear paranoia to bed for good.

The problem is that nuclear power is acting like a mature industry with limited innovation. They are building the old reactors and talking about the new reactors. Things like pebble bed reactors are sold as we can't fail which is a problem with the nuclear industry. Instead of we will plan for failure and know how to stop a melt down, have built in multiple redundancies to prevent meltdown, it is nothing ever breaks, we are perfectly safe, our new reactors will work exactly as planned. Nothing new works as planned. There will always be disasters of some kind or other. Because of this, no new reactors get built. The people living near the reactors don't like it.

UniversalCommons wrote:The problem is that nuclear power is acting like a mature industry with limited innovation. They are building the old reactors and talking about the new reactors.

Because there's not enough political support for the new reactors. Hell, there's not even much political support for the current reactors.

Things like pebble bed reactors are sold as we can't fail which is a problem with the nuclear industry. Instead of we will plan for failure and know how to stop a melt down, have built in multiple redundancies to prevent meltdown, it is nothing ever breaks, we are perfectly safe, our new reactors will work exactly as planned. Nothing new works as planned. There will always be disasters of some kind or other. Because of this, no new reactors get built. The people living near the reactors don't like it.

Nobody said PBRs "can't fail". However, it is physically impossible for them to meltdown. This isn't like saying the Titanic is unsinkable. This is like saying the Titanic cannot fly under its own power. It is a factual statement. A meltdown inherently requires reactor power to increase as reactor temperature goes up, in a positive feedback loop. That mode of operation is fundamentally impossible in a PBR, since reactor power goes down as reactor temperature goes up. It is self-limiting. Furthermore, it requires no coolant that can be irradiated, so if something *DOES* fail, there is no release of radioactive gases, and the reactor can cool itself through passive convection. This also allows the reactor to run hotter, which, by the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, means more efficient power generation. The simplified cooling system also reduces startup and maintenance costs, because you don't have to build and maintain a fuckton of pipes.

And the people living near the reactors "don't like it" because they've been fed propaganda saying nuclear is bad and inherently dangerous. I've said it before, and I'll say it until the day I die: I'd rather live 500ft from a nuclear power plant than 500 miles from a coal power plant.

Grenartia wrote:

UniversalCommons wrote:The problem is that nuclear power is acting like a mature industry with limited innovation. They are building the old reactors and talking about the new reactors.

Because there's not enough political support for the new reactors. Hell, there's not even much political support for the current reactors.

Things like pebble bed reactors are sold as we can't fail which is a problem with the nuclear industry. Instead of we will plan for failure and know how to stop a melt down, have built in multiple redundancies to prevent meltdown, it is nothing ever breaks, we are perfectly safe, our new reactors will work exactly as planned. Nothing new works as planned. There will always be disasters of some kind or other. Because of this, no new reactors get built. The people living near the reactors don't like it.

Nobody said PBRs "can't fail". However, it is physically impossible for them to meltdown. This isn't like saying the Titanic is unsinkable. This is like saying the Titanic cannot fly under its own power. It is a factual statement. A meltdown inherently requires reactor power to increase as reactor temperature goes up, in a positive feedback loop. That mode of operation is fundamentally impossible in a PBR, since reactor power goes down as reactor temperature goes up. It is self-limiting. Furthermore, it requires no coolant that can be irradiated, so if something *DOES* fail, there is no release of radioactive gases, and the reactor can cool itself through passive convection. This also allows the reactor to run hotter, which, by the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, means more efficient power generation. The simplified cooling system also reduces startup and maintenance costs, because you don't have to build and maintain a fuckton of pipes.

And the people living near the reactors "don't like it" because they've been fed propaganda saying nuclear is bad and inherently dangerous. I've said it before, and I'll say it until the day I die: I'd rather live 500ft from a nuclear power plant than 500 miles from a coal power plant.

I'm just going to add that PBRs HAVE been built and run successfully; China has an experimental 10Mw one at a university (the HTR-10, still in use) and have been building a 250 Mw one since 2015. There was also the German THTR-300 Throrium High Temperature reactor, which used pebble bed tech. It generated 300 Mw for the grid, but was shut down after only 16k operating hours due to an overly complex design that caused frequent issues and one very minor accident; all of these issues were actually predicted by physicists working on the design. Plans for similar reactors in the US do not have such issues with complexity, may I note.

Grenartia wrote:

UniversalCommons wrote:The problem is that nuclear power is acting like a mature industry with limited innovation. They are building the old reactors and talking about the new reactors.

Because there's not enough political support for the new reactors. Hell, there's not even much political support for the current reactors.

Things like pebble bed reactors are sold as we can't fail which is a problem with the nuclear industry. Instead of we will plan for failure and know how to stop a melt down, have built in multiple redundancies to prevent meltdown, it is nothing ever breaks, we are perfectly safe, our new reactors will work exactly as planned. Nothing new works as planned. There will always be disasters of some kind or other. Because of this, no new reactors get built. The people living near the reactors don't like it.

Nobody said PBRs "can't fail". However, it is physically impossible for them to meltdown. This isn't like saying the Titanic is unsinkable. This is like saying the Titanic cannot fly under its own power. It is a factual statement. A meltdown inherently requires reactor power to increase as reactor temperature goes up, in a positive feedback loop. That mode of operation is fundamentally impossible in a PBR, since reactor power goes down as reactor temperature goes up. It is self-limiting. Furthermore, it requires no coolant that can be irradiated, so if something *DOES* fail, there is no release of radioactive gases, and the reactor can cool itself through passive convection. This also allows the reactor to run hotter, which, by the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, means more efficient power generation. The simplified cooling system also reduces startup and maintenance costs, because you don't have to build and maintain a fuckton of pipes.

And the people living near the reactors "don't like it" because they've been fed propaganda saying nuclear is bad and inherently dangerous. I've said it before, and I'll say it until the day I die: I'd rather live 500ft from a nuclear power plant than 500 miles from a coal power plant.

The problem is public relations. The problem is the majority of the public has no understanding of nuclear power at all. Like how people are afraid to fly so drive instead, despite driving being far more dangerous.

What we really need is better education and awareness of the environmental and yes safety benefits of replacing fossil with nuclear.

Though one thing I always found interesting is Coronado and Point Loma in San Diego are extremely desirable areas, nobody cares about all the nuclear reactors there.

The issue is that the vast majority of opposition to nuclear power is completely irrational.

Imperial Joseon wrote:Surprised to find people mostly preferring nuclear power. Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2.0.

i believe we're discussing reactors for power generation not the use of bombs for strategic-level wartime attacks lol