The notion that small modular nuke reactors are actually being considered is a big step for mankind. Glad to hear the Tar Babies are working on it. Way, way back in the 60/70’s, in my nuke years, I was a bit of an advocate for using the basic S3,4,5W style of submarine nuke plants as shoreside plants. That basic 35,000 buttkicking horsepower could power a lot of smaller size communities.
But the same watercooler, top floor geniuses, building the commercial plants refused to think about anything smaller than 500 megawatts. Bigger was better, they claimed, even tho the US Navy had already proved the smaller system. So that remained the “standard” for the next half century. And that also explains , in part, why Nukes fell out of favor: huge money and long lead times just weren’t attractive. Glad to see the shift in thinking. The guys I taught are mostly dead now so I’m wondering who the new guys are and where they learned the new tricks?
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I like the small nuclear generator concept - they chose the large ones for years, well, mostly because that’s that Westinghouse made. TVA has 9 nuclear generators at 3 plants. All are 1100 MW or more. When one trips, there’s an 1100 MW hole to be refilled by fast-start CTs, spinning reserves, hydro, whatever is available (and something is always supposed to be available). TVA has some short-term interruptible contracts whereby TVA can strike (call on them) several large loads and they will be cut for a prescribed period of time, allowing time for additional purchases or resources if needed. Also, there are a lot of customers that pay a preferred rate for the status of being an interruptible load, meaning they’ll cut those processes before anybody’s lights go out.
Anyway, I’m veering off track here. Another problem with the large nuclear plants is that they HATE to be moved up or down in MW. They want to run full throttle until it’s time to come down for refueling. Consequently, as the demand varies (as it does constantly), other generators have to be relied on to follow load up and down. Coal and gas units excel at this, some hydro plants can follow load within a small range. The nukes though - well, they are technically capable of moving, but it causes issues in some cases with the plant, and also changes the fuel usage rate and thus can throw off the refueling outage schedule.
This may not seem important, but when they take a unit off to refuel, they generally take care of a lot of maintenance, and have scheduled several hundred - or more - contractor workers (pipefitters, welders, electricians, etc.) to take care of all of it while the unit is off. Miss that schedule, and those workers may have moved on to another outage at another plant in another town.
Anyway, yes, smaller nuclear units would be beneficial in a lot of ways for those very reasons. The price of construction is the biggest obstacle. I just wish someone else would foot the bill, or at least help share the cost of development. AEP, Entergy, FirstEnergy - all large companies and all would benefit from the technology.
Incidentally, Georgia Power (part of Southern Company) recently completed construction on 2 new 1000+ MW generators, Vogtle units 3 and 4. Enormous construction bill, but if they run 40-60 years, that’ll be money well spent. As far as I know, those are the newest 2 nuclear generators built in the US.
Saw this posted today, pretty interesting and I liked it because it appears to work, be realistically “green” and relatively low cost. Did you look at it? IIRC, meyer might have linked it earlier...
https://www.turbulent.be/technology
Bill Gates is invested in something like that... been a while since I read about it.