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Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
(blog.ucsusa.org)
this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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The economic advantage of SMRs is that when you make reactors in a location, the 1st is always more expensive than any following reactors. Just a reality of construction, permits, designs, etc. So if you have 4 reactors in one place, that's pretty nice. They also have the advantage of being able to turn one off for maintenance and then having 2, 3, 4 other reactors in the same vicinity that can pick up the slack for the duration.
As for waste, yeah it's the same problem. But it's important to note that the volume of material is not that big. The entire volume produced by all us nuke energy ever takes up a football field stacked 10 yards high. All told, that's a smaller problem than I ever thought.
I'm not a big nuclear advocate, I'm pretty mid on it. This is where I got all of the above information, an interview with the head of the US DOE loan program https://www.volts.wtf/p/nuclear-perhaps?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for sharing this link. It was very interesting listening to someone from within the US that is head of an office now and started from Shell Solar.
There is a reasoning that I didn't get. Maybe I misunderstood something or I lack some information/knowledge. Anyways, here it is:
At 1:02 they talks about nuclear waste saying that all the nuclear waste produced in the US by the nuclear power plants is like a football field that is 10 yards tall and then he talks about why this waste is not concerning.
Later at 1:07 He mentions that the US is not reprocesing the uranium fuel rods, in which 95% of the energy is still there, and that the US should do reprocessing like other countries do.
Doesn't that mean that these unprocessed rods in the US that are in the "football field of nuclear waste" are therefore a concern?
So energy remaining and radioactivity are separate. The isotope that it becomes has a decently long half life, but it might only be a few protons or neutrons away from something really radioactive.
I do believe that the fuel rods count towards that pile of waste. I think the US has laws or rules that make it hard or impossible to recycle these back into the good stuff, but it's very doable. France does it to a high degree.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I think I kinda understand what you say but I have more reading to do. Currently I'm on some relevant wiki pages trying to get a better understanding [Spent nuclear fuel, Radioactive waste, Long-lived fission product].
In case you (or anyone) have any other links to suggest, please do not hesitate.
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