Posted on 03/14/2010 5:57:23 AM PDT by RS_Rider
The nuclear power industry that reawakened only a couple years ago is getting a booster shot these days from much-smaller reactors that would be far more affordable.
Once again, Westinghouse Electric Co. is at the core of the trend. It's designing a small nuclear reactor the size of a bus that can be built in a factory and shipped to a power plant. It would generate up to one-quarter the power of current nuclear reactors, but cost about one-tenth as much.
Small modular reactors, as they're called, are being designed by several companies that could be installed as early as 2018, say experts. Being modular, they could gradually replace fossil-fuel power plants whose owners must cut emissions.
The simpler and smaller reactors — from 10 megawatts to 300 vs. today's 1,000 megawatts or more — would be ideal for markets here and abroad with limited power demand, power grids and money. One megawatt can power 800 homes.
"There may be hundreds, if not thousands, of these by the end of the century," said Paul Genoa, director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It should be cookie-cutter, once it gets going,"
Nuclear power only recently re-emerged from the cloud of the Three Mile Island radiation leak along the Susquehanna River in 1979. The big break occurred when Westinghouse won a $5.3 billion contract with China in 2007 to build four AP1000 reactors. The first two, which generate 1,100 megawatts apiece, are expected to go on line in 2013.
Westinghouse, which built the nation's first nuclear power plant in 1957 in Shippingport, landed contracts in 2008 and 2009 to build six AP1000 reactors at plants in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Problem is, it’s to the point now where the reactor isn’t the most cost-prohibitive item, it’s the containment building and safety-related systems which cost many times more than their non-safety related counterparts.
Not to mention an administration that will hamstring the permitting process on any new plant or expansion until the day they leave the White House.
The greenies need to be investigated for funding from the middle east, which has a vested interest in seeing us stay dependent on their oil.
I think the real problems is that we are going to litigate, regulate and “green” ourselves back into the dark ages.
Westinghouse was always the leader in Nuclear Technology.
The technology in use on naval ships and submaines is finally coming to civilian use. I believe the big problem is nuclear waste that no state will accept. Research into refining nuclear waste back to a usable state is the next step.
This has been around for a longtime typically called the Toshiba 4S reactor. The USNRC has blocked the deployment of this technology in Galena Alaska for the last couple of years.
Hopefully it will be approved this year but with the tactics of this administration I highly doubt it. Some corrupt czar will outlaw them just like they are doing with domestic oil, natural gas production, offshore drilling and clean coal applications.
Hyperion also builds a compact unit. All the new generation in ten years will be these plug and play units. They use small amounts of fuel and will have simple and effective protections. Looks like we are finally moving ahead. These plants will also reduce the need for ridiculously expensive grids to transport power thousands of miles.
Brought to you by the Pursuit Of PROFIT!!
See Gwyneth Cravens; “Power to Save the World”. We can thank our “Nookier Engineer” President Carter for making the reprocessing of nucler fuel illegal in America. It was going to prevent nuclear weapon proliferation, and my didn’t that work well.
Cravens likens this prohibition to a wood burning technology where we go deep in the forest to get a huge log, then burn the bark off the tree and bury the rest. If “spent” fuel is hot enough to be dangerous, it is, by definition a better source of new fuel rods than any natural ore!
Hate to give points to the French, but they beat us all hollow on nuclear energy. They get 70% of electricity from nuclear, using standardized plants. America insists on reinventing the wheel with every plant, and burying forever extremely valuable spent fuel.
Can’t be too soon.
At last count, I think that there are four companies hard at work to make these reactors, and all are on prepaid back orders amounting to several hundred units each.
Some of the units are factory sealed and self contained, and designed with the idea of being buried in concrete, with a minimal access area exposed.
I’m looking forward to my suitcase sized personal nuclear power supply. Buy one, no power bills for 30+ years. If each structure has it’s local power supply, no transmission waste, not need for power lines / right of way ect...
I’ve said for years that nuke plants should be small and each major city, if not every city, should have their own, constructed near the city. The major units could supply the government and any small towns not covered by the cities nukes. The idea would need to be refined of course.IMO, this is a far better solution than what we have today. To bad we have let the communist greenies brain wash the public into accepting the EPA as a “needed” entity. They are not needed and have done more to kill business and manufacturing in the US than any other single agency.
These guys are a huge customer of mine - we manufacture a special component used in their modular reactors. Westinghouse has been doing business with this idea overseas for the past several years. Finally, we are catching on here. The modular idea is kind of the “Henry Ford” way of doing things with nuclear reactors - and a great idea in my opinion. One of the largest cost components of nuclear power in the past has always been that each facility is a “one-off.” Westinghouse is telling their customers now: “Here is our design. It is built for all contingencies and standards. Buy it as-is, no specials. We will helicopter it onto your site and it is finished.”
American ingenuity at its best!
The EPA...Nixons revenge
Reprocessing of nuclear waste is routine in countries around the world. We know how to do it. Only in the US is it prohibited, another gift from Jimmuh Carter btw, since 1977. To be sure, no president since, including GWBush, has bothered to rescind the prohibition and get the repro industry off the dime.
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