Modular Micro-Reactors – The Future of Nuclear Energy?
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a clear technical explanation of micro-reactor fuel, safety and economics, from a channel HN trusts on nuclear topics.
What it is
Professor Ruzic explains modular micro-reactors: self-contained nuclear units with passive safety whose fuel lasts about 20 years. He covers their use for process and district heat and where they can compete with diesel generation.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2020 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec vermontdevil · 2020-10 · on “The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid of it”
You should watch this video (and several others) of this professor, David Ruzic from Uni of Illinois This video he talks about the economics of nuclear plant. [LINK] This video, he talks about modular micro-nuclear reactor [this video] His videos are great. Worth your time.
Recommends eigenhombre · 2020-09 · on “Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval”
If you have 20 minutes, the video linked in the comments of the earlier HN post is quite informative, giving a much better technical explanation than the original article: [this video] It is fascinating, for example, how a slight change in the packaging of the fuel (as sand-sized pellets coated with carbon) affects the safety/stability of the design, and how resonances in the cross section for neutron absorption come into play (they broaden at higher temperatures, dampening rather than enhancing the overall reaction speed, as temperatures rise).
Recommends PopeDotNinja · 2020-09 · on “Ultra Safe Nuclear”
Think of smaller nuclear reactors as an option for places where renewables might not make sense, like in mining. Building power generation that costs 10x some renewable source will never make sense. However, building small scale nuclear as replacement for onsite diesel generators could make a whole lot of sense. Illinois Energy Prof has a good video on this => [this video]
Cites guerby · 2020-09 · on “NuScale’s small nuclear reactor is first to get US safety approval”
From the press release [LINK] "NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2 million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA application" Not cheap :) On scaling down reactors to micro size (nuscale is kind of larger) and costs: [this video] $0.25/kWh until large series (17mn30s).
Cites p1mrx · 2020-09 · on “Ultra Safe Nuclear”
Illinois EnergyProf recently did a video on USNC's design: [this video] (Though I think he used audio from the wrong microphone; the earlier videos sound much better.)
Cites FL33TW00D · 2021-07 · on “$100M xPrize for Carbon Removal”
All of these systems are going to require radical construction of hundreds and hundreds of nuclear reactors. This has economics of scale benefits, and I expect reactors such as the ones discussed in this video: [this video] to be produced on a factory line extremely quickly.