[HN Gopher] Portable nuclear reactor program sparks controversy
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Portable nuclear reactor program sparks controversy
Author : howaboutnope
Score : 53 points
Date : 2021-06-29 11:20 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationaldefensemagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationaldefensemagazine.org)
| not2b wrote:
| I'd say that the following issue mentioned in the article is the
| biggest concern, if these things are deployed in combat zones:
|
| "Kuperman warns that if soldiers were forced to abandon a reactor
| under attack, an adversary could potentially come into possession
| of several hundred pounds of highly radioactive waste."
| ElViajero wrote:
| > "Proposed U.S. Army Mobile Nuclear Reactors: Costs and Risks
| Outweigh Benefits," authored by Alan Kuperman, coordinator of the
| Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the Lyndon B. Johnson
| School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
|
| It seems that more than "controversy" there are reports against
| it.
| dempsey wrote:
| >"The Army's mobile reactor program, which was never requested
| by the Pentagon but rather by nuclear industry cheerleaders in
| Congress, is precisely how disasters happen," he said in the
| report, which was released in April.
|
| It's interesting how nuclear gets an alliance between green
| groups and fossil fuel interests. It always makes me wonder how
| much criticism is in good faith. Nuclear can wipe out natural
| gas and coal and perhaps even oil with the rise of cheap
| storage. Fossil fuel interests have an economic interest in
| defeating nuclear with fear and regulatory red tape.
| canadianfella wrote:
| How is that more than a controversy? There are reports that
| nuclear power is beneficial as well.
| ajross wrote:
| ( _Edit: seems like everyone is reading this as an argument
| against nuclear power in the abstract, and skipping the second
| paragraph. Come on people. You can be OK with large defensible
| reactors and still think that dropping a 5MW reactor into a
| random ass residential neighborhood is dumb as shit. Dangerous
| stuff is dangerous. Be careful with it and use it judiciously._ )
|
| As it should. A reactor core is just trivially the most poisonous
| single object humanity has invented. And by definition it's a
| operated by controlling a chain reaction that can by its very
| nature lead to excursions.
|
| And the benefit here is a 1-5MW generator, the same market served
| by existing largely portable diesel generators.
|
| Seems like a cost/benefit analysis might have a lot to say here.
| Maybe spacecraft might be a better fit, but... a portable
| generator? I don't see the need, personally.
| gregmac wrote:
| > Nuclear power is "orders of magnitude more energy dense than
| any other known technology," Waksman told National Defense.
| "That allows the possibility to provide resilient power for
| years and years, without needing to refuel. ... Refueling can
| be a real burden in remote areas."
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Maybe spacecraft might be a better fit, but... a portable
| generator? I don 't see the need, personally_
|
| I'm not sure I understand how you're concerned about a portable
| nuclear generator failure or attack releasing nuclear
| materials, but you suggest that it would be somehow safer (?)
| to strap it on top of hundreds of tons of explosive rocket fuel
| and launch it into the sky?
| ajross wrote:
| Arrgh. This is misunderstanding the argument in the OTHER
| direction.
|
| Cost/benefit analysis isn't about deciding what's "safer" in
| an absolute sense. It's about how much you get for how much
| risk you're willing to accept. The risk of one meltdown is
| real, but not impossible to tolerate in all circumstances.
|
| Is it worth keep a bunch of these reactors around to
| deploying to urban Mogadishu or wherever to supply an
| invading military force with power? I argue not. The risk is
| high, and electricity is cheaply available already.
|
| Is it worth launching one reactor into space if it enables an
| entirely new capability in solar system exploration? Maybe
| yes. It's just one launch, you can do it in remote areas. The
| people directly involved can be made aware of the risks (and
| are taking significant risks already). I don't have a full
| whitepaper to hand you on this but my intuition says that
| this might be OK, yeah.
| piokoch wrote:
| There is a lot of much deadlier chemicals in the factory near
| your city, only there is no Greenpeace et. al. crowd chanting
| how all those chemicals with long, complicated names are
| dangerous, since they spent all their efforts fighting nuclear
| energy (for good 50 years).
|
| Thanks to that we are where we are.
| ajross wrote:
| > There is a lot of much deadlier chemicals in the factory
| near your city
|
| Examples at a concentration as dangerous as a reactor melting
| down?
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| Modern reactor designs do not melt down.
| ajross wrote:
| This is simply not true. A sustained nuclear chain
| reaction just needs to be physically reconfigured a bit
| to produce a reaction excursion. It's true that modern
| designs have made good progress in things like
| intervention-free failsafes that make such
| reconfigurations much less likely. It's simply not
| possible eliminate the possibility entirely.
|
| And in any case, this is a piece of military hardware
| which might plausibly be "reconfigured" be being struck
| by a rocket. It's not a civilian reactor inside a secure
| facility.
|
| Your statement is analogous to saying "charcoal grills do
| not start forest fires". Used correctly, they certainly
| shouldn't. But they sure as hell _can_ if you kick them
| over on a dry summer day. Same deal here.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| What the above poster is probably referring to are
| reactor designs that are passively safe. Like using
| lithium as a coolant and moderator. As the reactor heats
| up the lithium's density drops, which in turn reduces the
| rate of the nuclear reaction. It creates a stable
| equilibrium. The reaction would also stop if the lithium
| were drained - there would be no more moderator to
| sustain the nuclear reaction.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Hydrogen cyanide and phosgene both are extremely popular,
| mass produced industrial chemicals that have been used as
| chemical weapons.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
|
| Hell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
| killed more than the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown.
| [deleted]
| nickpp wrote:
| > diesel generators
|
| Poisoning us on the long term, and worse - starting a runaway
| greenhouse heating process which will make the planet
| uninhabitable in just a few hundred years.
| ajross wrote:
| Portable/temporary generators are vanishing fraction of
| global energy generation, and you know that. If we actually
| care about that last 0.001% or whatever, we can run them on
| biodiesel.
| belorn wrote:
| Large portable diesel generators that operate with that kind of
| power in 24/7 operation is very dirty, costly, nosily, and
| require continuously transporting of fuel. You do not want that
| near a hospital unless it is an emergency (short duration) or
| the life lost to the pollution is preferable compared to not
| having a hospital with power. The design parameters for those
| portable nuclear reactors is to not having to refuel, and being
| able to use it in places where pollution is not acceptable.
| ajross wrote:
| Uh... there are _many_ hospitals with deployed diesel backup
| generators already. It 's sort of the standard solution in
| the space, in fact.
|
| Again, no one seems to be understanding the context here and
| just wants to jump in with knee-jerk pro-nuclear arguments.
| The application under discussion is a portable generator to
| be deployed locally as backup power in presumably-chaotic
| emergency situations. That is simply not where you want a
| reactor, period.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| > And by definition it's a operated by controlling a chain
| reaction that can by its very nature lead to excursions.
|
| When nuclear reactors leak poison gas then something has gone
| wrong, and it makes international headlines.
|
| Diesel generators are _designed_ to leak poison gas; hundreds
| of millions of them do this every day.
| caddywompus wrote:
| I don't think you can really compare the poisonous emissions
| of diesel exhaust leaked materials from a reactor.
|
| I see your point, any nuclear excursion tends to get blown
| out of proportion, but it does have some unique dangers.
|
| In particular, diesel fumes eventually dissipate, whereas
| radioactive materials will settle and continue to be a
| problem for decades. Which may not be a problem if it's left
| alone, but anyone unlucky enough to interact with it could
| end up with it on their body/clothing unaware that they're
| absorbing an unsafe dose over a period of days or weeks.
|
| But yes, I agree, we do need to move away from fossil fuel
| sources one way or another.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _I don 't think you can really compare the poisonous
| emissions of diesel exhaust leaked materials from a
| reactor._
|
| Sure you can, you just need to agree on the comparison
| criteria, like, for example, the total number of
| illnesses/death from normal (and predicted abnormal)
| operation of the device. Burning fossil fuels still leads
| to deaths even if they are spread over a large area and/or
| time.
| powderpig wrote:
| I am afraid I don't have the numbers to back up my claim
| but when I was at university, my thermodynamics lecturer
| showed us a calculation that background dose from
| radioactive material at a coal powered fire station is
| higher than that of a nuclear power station. This is
| because of the shear amount of coal power stations burn
| through, and in that fuel, there is a trace amount of
| radioactive material that eventually gets out into the
| atmosphere.
|
| I've previously worked on a nuclear licenced site and we
| were not even allowed to throw smoke alarms in the general
| rubbish due to there being radioactive material inside.
| glogla wrote:
| Diesel fumes will dissipate locally, but they will cause
| Global Climate Change that threatens to destroy human
| civilization as we know it.
|
| Meanwhile, radioactive toxic stuff will remain toxic
| locally.
| Zababa wrote:
| Air pollution in France is responsible for more than 40
| thousands deaths every year. Nuclear power, well, Chernobyl in
| total is estimated at around 10 thousands deaths total. In
| France it's actually 0 since the radioactive cloud stopped at
| the border /s.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is a portable reactor for use by the army.
|
| So the question is what would you rather be hit by a missile?
| A nuclear reactor or a diesel engine?
|
| The emissions of a diesel engine are irrelevant here because
| that's a specific use-case that is going to be negligible
| compared to emissions by cars and industry in general (or
| even by the army).
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| If the portable reactors are thorium based - yey!
|
| If they are uranium based - nay!
|
| Thorium based reactors can't cause a meltdown and if something
| happens they simply shut off, the reaction is self moderated, and
| if power goes off or it gets too hot the reaction slows down,
| unlike unranium based where they need control rods to NOT
| explode.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| That's a massive over-simplification, if not actually
| completely false.
|
| A lot of the benefits of the Thorium reactors that are being
| envisaged are because they are a molten salt design, not
| because they use Thorium. Molten salt reactors can't cause a
| meltdown, simply because they are already molten. Traditional
| reactors have the potential to explode because they are cooled
| by superheated pressurised water, not because they use Uranium.
| You can run standard Uranium through a molten salt reactor and
| get the safety benefits, and you can burn Thorium in more
| traditional reactors. Likewise, you can make self-regulating
| reactors that aren't molten salt reactors - it's just that
| molten salt reactors have one particular really neat mechanism
| for self-shutdown.
|
| Thorium does have some inherent advantages, two of which are
| plentiful supply and proliferation resistance.
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| Of course it's oversimplified statement, it's 3 sentences in
| total, and that's for a reason : to get a point across not
| write 10 pages of details that nobody would read. A child
| commenter posted a bit more info with clarifications :)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Careful, we're on about our 5th generation of reactors that
| cannot meltdown. The last 4 melted down at various points.
| ansible wrote:
| Molten salt reactors in general can't cause a meltdown because
| they are designed to passively moderate in the event of a
| problem. That isn't something specific to thorium.
|
| And conversely, pressurized water reactors, especially older
| designs are not passively safe, and must go through a cool-down
| process which requires some of the control systems to be
| operating properly.
|
| In general I'd like to see more development work in the area of
| molten-salt reactors, especially those that can reprocess
| existing nuclear waste.
| ansible wrote:
| Replying to myself, now narcissistic...
|
| > _Molten salt reactors in general can 't cause a meltdown
| because they are designed to passively moderate in the event
| of a problem._
|
| At least one design I've seen has a plug in the main salt
| loop that is made of lead or something with a relatively low
| melting point. It is actively cooled to keep it solid. If
| there is a total power failure, and nothing is running, the
| cooling system shuts off, the plug melts, and the main loop
| drains out into a containment pool.
|
| The MSR is just running at atmospheric pressure, not super-
| high pressure like a pressurized water reactor (hence the
| name). You can crack a pipe, and that's bad, but then the
| loop will drain out to the containment pool below the
| reactor. [1]
|
| Unlike a PWR, where cracking a pipe may well lead to a steam
| explosion. Even if initially contained, this is super bad.
|
| It is unfortunate that many of the reactor designs out there
| in operation now are not 100% passively safe. Having one or
| two backup systems (like a Fukushima Daiichi) sometimes just
| isn't enough.
|
| [1] Now note that recovering from such an emergency reactor
| shutdown on a MSR is no fun process, and will take a while to
| do cleanup and get things back up and running. A normal
| shutdown will not drain into the pool, as I understand it. (
| _Edit:_ this is wrong, see reply.)
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The plug was just a bit of frozen fuel salt. The research
| group used to melt the plug to shut down the reactor when
| they wanted to go home after a day's work. Then in the
| morning they would heat up the containment pool to re-melt
| the fuel, and pump it back up into the reactor.
| ansible wrote:
| Even better. Thanks for the correction.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I'm sure they explode alright when hit by a missile.
|
| They can also be captured, which gives the enemy the
| ingredients for a dirty bomb and/or a nice bargaining chip.
|
| My understanding is also that " _thorium-based_ " means U-233
| as fuel [1], so that's what would be in the reactor.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| If they are to be deployed on battelfields I'm against it.
| But for domestic use, please, do it faster :)
| iNane9000 wrote:
| I don't think you can have one and not the other. I may be
| too pessimistic but I would guess other nations will steal
| this technology and not be so encumbered by their concerns
| for the environment.
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| The sooner everyone has source of clean energy, the
| sooner we can stop global warming. Yes, NK can steal the
| designs, but so what? Like something stopped them from
| making a nuke.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| LOL! That's actually a neat way to combat climate change.
| "Oh no, you've stolen my nuclear-powered, clean-energy
| reactor and you have to shut down your coal-fired plants
| because they're so inefficient now... anyways"
|
| Seriously though, from what I read, these can't be used
| to make weapons, so it's actually a win/win if they get
| used or stolen.
| iNane9000 wrote:
| " these can't be used to make weapons, so it's actually a
| win/win if they get used or stolen."
|
| I don't know anything about it, but I worry about who is
| making those safety assessments and what their conflicts
| and incentives are. It seems like a lot of things can be
| weaponized or used to nefarious purposes. I can imagine a
| portable energy source having a lot of potential uses,
| say powering small sea craft or whatever.
| simplyinfinity wrote:
| From my understanding, most?(if not all) types of
| reactors can produce _some_ materials to make a bomb to
| varying degrees of dirtiness/nukenes with varying degrees
| of difficulty of doing so. Those smaller reactors will
| definitely have to be guarded.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| This is a different type of reactor using a different
| type of fuel. FTFA:
|
| "The concept for the reactors began with the requirement
| that they would run off of tristructural isotropic
| particle fuel, or TRISO...Each TRISO particle is made up
| of a uranium, carbon and oxygen fuel kernel which is
| encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based
| materials that prevent the release of radioactive
| products"
|
| and then further down...
|
| "The fuel has two secondary benefits...the first being
| its resiliency to proliferation which can help deter the
| reactors from being targets for bombings or attacks."
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is something to be used on the battefield, in remote
| locations, or during disaster relief operations. Whether
| it is 'clean' energy is not that important because that's
| really a niche, punctual use-case.
|
| The key advantage seems to be that it can be deployed,
| turned on, then left to run without refuelling for
| literally years whereas diesel obviously requires
| constant refuelling.
|
| The key disadvantage is that IMHO it may be big risk,
| especially in hostile territory because... well nuclear.
| drran wrote:
| > If they are to be deployed on battelfields I'm against
| it.
|
| I assume, you will fart in their general direction.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Now put those in a car and I will be interested in an electronic
| vehicle. 23 million miles on a charge and at night you can use it
| to power your house.
| caddywompus wrote:
| I expect there will be a lot of comments defending nuclear power,
| and I agree, it has its place in moving humanity forward to a
| greener future.
|
| However! I believe that the main benefit of central nuclear
| plants, is there ability to keep poisonous materials in a single
| location, so that it doesn't get lost.
|
| For example, the radioactive sources used in radiotherapy units,
| have been known to go missing due to negligent owners, with truly
| awful effects to those that discover them without realizing that
| they are. This short video sums it up pretty well:
|
| - The Samut Prakan Radiation Accident
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxktLtVEH7U - The Goiania
| Incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhL0xQzPSy8
|
| Once the radioactive material is released from a safe container,
| the cleanup effort to discover and contain it is immense.
|
| And herein lies the problem, it only takes one or two events like
| this to cause an extreme amount of damage. And its not a problem
| with the technology, its a problem with human beings. We're
| forgetful, lazy, and make mistakes. So widespread deployment of
| many radioactive sources really increases the complexity and cost
| of keeping track of them.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > And its not a problem with the technology, its a problem with
| human beings. We're forgetful, lazy, and make mistakes.
|
| That is true. Another weakness humans have is our inability to
| intuit large numbers and probabilities.
|
| For example, it's hard for people to really grok that, even if
| you added up all the people who have died from nuclear and
| radiation accidents in all of history[1], including not just
| the sources you mentioned, but disasters like Chernobyl and
| Fukushima, it would be far less than the number of people who
| die from pollution caused by fossil fuels every month[2].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...
|
| [2] https://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-
| causes-200000-...
| mdorazio wrote:
| 1) Please stop using fatality comparisons when talking about
| radiation incidents - it's disingenuous. You need to look at
| total impact, including negative outcomes like cancers and
| reduced life expectancies rather than outright deaths.
|
| 2) If your argument is "it's better than the worst
| alternative" then your argument is not very good. You should
| be comparing to power sources that are not fossil fuel-based,
| which is the real alternative we want to move toward
| woodruffw wrote:
| > 1) Please stop using fatality comparisons when talking
| about radiation incidents - it's disingenuous. You need to
| look at total impact, including negative outcomes like
| cancers and reduced life expectancies rather than outright
| deaths.
|
| It's my understanding that nuclear power performs _very_
| favorably in these metrics as well. Living near a coal-
| fired plant isn 't very healthy, and probably exposes you
| to more radiation anyways[1].
|
| I don't really follow the alternative power source news,
| but I don't think anybody's argument actually stops at
| "it's better than the worst." Most people seem to think
| that nuclear power makes a good choice because it's a
| consistent source of power and has a proven track record
| (see: France).
|
| [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-
| is-more-...
| stickfigure wrote:
| 1) Fatality statistics are the best measurement we have.
| Sure, there's a long tail of lesser impacts for nuclear
| power; there's also a long tail of disabilities and reduced
| life expectancies for pollution too.
|
| 2) How about "it's better than other power sources that can
| consistently service base load"?
| onethought wrote:
| Love the base load argument... if only there was a way to
| store electricity, we'd stop hearing these ridiculous
| "base load" arguments
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > 1) Please stop using fatality comparisons when talking
| about radiation incidents - it's disingenuous. You need to
| look at total impact, including negative outcomes like
| cancers and reduced life expectancies rather than outright
| deaths.
|
| Granted, you would also need to do the same for whatever
| you're comparing it against. Fossil fuels have profound
| negative impact beyond fatalities, like pollution,
| supporting cruel regimes, environmental spills, and more.
| And also climate change.
|
| Dams exacerbate water evaporation and disrupt ecosystems.
| Solar panels require vast amounts of land to generate
| significant power.
|
| > 2) If your argument is "it's better than the worst
| alternative" then your argument is not very good. You
| should be comparing to power sources that are not fossil
| fuel-based, which is the real alternative we want to move
| toward
|
| And what are those alternatives? Renewables need to be
| backed by a dispatchable source to deal with intermittency.
| If your country already gets 30-50% of its power from
| hydroelectricity that's great. But for most places, this
| means fossil fuels. The reality is that the alternatives
| like wind and solar are really wind and solar _plus fossil
| fuels_.
| caddywompus wrote:
| Definitely, but those figures can't be compared directly,
| since deaths by air pollution are caused by industry scale
| deployment of both small and large power
| plants/generators/engines. I fail to see how [2] is related
| in any way to the conversation. As I said, I do believe that
| nuclear energy has a place in current and future energy
| production.
|
| The other things we humans are bad at, is implementing
| solutions that last decades. It is inevitable, that over a
| period of 30 or 50 years, there will be multiple lost small
| reactor installations. My case in point, is meant to be the
| aforementioned videos, where an extremely expensive
| radiotherapy machine can be neglected to the point of
| abandonment.
|
| What I want to highlight, is the insidious nature of a
| potential loss of a radioactive source. A small amount of
| material can contaminate a very large area relative to it's
| size, and its not something that can be seen or detected
| without equipment.
|
| And the type of damage isn't as immediate or jarring as say a
| runaway reaction/meltdown, it would be limited to people who
| unintentionally handle, or ingest particulate.
|
| For example, if you don't realize that you've been exposed to
| a material like this, you can carry it around on your
| clothes, or in to your home, and that's the real issue.
| You're body would be exposed to radiation over a long period
| of time, eventually resulting in a higher than safe dose. Any
| cancers/diseases as a result of this may not even be
| attributed to exposure, since a person may not have even
| realized they came into contact with it.
|
| > That is true. Another weakness humans have is our inability
| to intuit large numbers and probabilities.
|
| I'm not sure if this is meant to be a jab at my comment, it's
| not my intent to be a scare monger, but I would like to point
| out these past incidents to highlight the unique nature of
| the danger inherent to these materials.
| Retric wrote:
| Deaths from such accidents alone is a poor metric of
| comparison. Marie Curie for example isn't on that list.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Apart from war, what are some other sources of deaths by
| this type of radiation?
| Retric wrote:
| If you mean radiation then it gets complicated, people
| for example, used to use X-Rays for shoe fittings.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
|
| I have yet to see an estimate for related deaths from
| such ignorance.
| philwelch wrote:
| We've already mitigated that problem by not doing that
| anymore.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Doesn't change the end result. Hell, you can add every
| person who died in the atomic bombings to the nuclear tally
| (even though that makes no sense at all), and it still
| won't change the result.
| Retric wrote:
| No, you don't get 2.5 million deaths per year from fossil
| fuel usage. Though a few seriously flawed studies have
| gotten some very extreme numbers.
|
| For example respiratory diseases represent ~5% of all
| Chinese deaths or about 500,000 in 2020. Which is a
| horrific sign of air pollution except China also has 350
| million smokers. Looking at the non smoker population you
| see air pollution as a major factor, but again not all
| air pollution is from fossil fuels.
|
| Air pollution is also associated to strokes and heart
| attacks, but again other factors are involved.
| karaterobot wrote:
| True, it is likely much higher[1], but the 2.4 million I
| cited comes from an older estimate that used different
| data.
|
| [1] https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/deaths-
| fossil-fuel...
| Retric wrote:
| Yet here's one saying 1.05 million.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23853-y
|
| It's easy to find flawed studies with silly results, the
| underlying reality is rarely so extreme.
| reader_mode wrote:
| >Once the radioactive material is released from a safe
| container, the cleanup effort to discover and contain it is
| immense
|
| Larger than dealing with an oil tanker spil or gas line
| explosion ?
|
| The main problem with nuclear is potentially global
| consequences of an accident - small reactors don't have that
| and people are used to dealing with localised risks.
| philjohn wrote:
| There was also an incident with Soviet RTG's that were
| discarded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23kemyXcbXo
| lallysingh wrote:
| The fuel here is in tiny containers (about that of a poppy seed
| https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/triso-particles-most-
| robu...). You'd have to crack many of them, and that's not
| likely from an accident. How what's the ratio of bananas to
| cracked TRISO particle for equivalent radiation?
|
| The reactors can't melt down, so you'd have to physically crack
| many of these particles and then distribute the results into
| the air.
| caddywompus wrote:
| These are really interesting! It looks to me like the tiny
| containers and materials are meant to prevent unintended
| fission rather than shielding from radioactive decay.
|
| Still, I'd imagine identification and cleanup would be much
| easier with something like this.
| calyth2018 wrote:
| While it's a neat point that you bring up about human nature
| and misplaced radioactive sources, is a portable nuke reactor
| something that's comparaable to radiotherapy units?
|
| If what they mean is a Small Modular Reactor, they should still
| be about 40 m^3, and a bit less likely to be left behind.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| And because of those incidents, there are new regulations and
| safeguards in-place to help avoid such events in the future.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| But it'll be hard to limit these things to just a few that
| can be secured really well. There will be lots of potential
| for an energy source like this in remote or underdeveloped
| regions, and once you pepper the globe with reactors, good
| luck having everyone adhere to regulations, and not try too
| hard to circumvent those safeguards.
| caddywompus wrote:
| Ah that is true. In that case the danger would be in the
| tracking and storage of fuel elements. Assuming re-fueling is
| required infrequently enough that a regulator organization
| could keep tabs on them. Although in that case the danger
| would be the tracking and safe storage of the fuel elements.
| stochtastic wrote:
| > However! I believe that the main benefit of central nuclear
| plants, is there ability to keep poisonous materials in a
| single location, so that it doesn't get lost.
|
| Off topic, but: I often feel that problems related to hard-to-
| manage waste could be ameliorated by thinking of temporary
| solutions as "entropy-reducing storage". Especially with
| recycling -- which is currently not cost effective [0] but
| perhaps could be in the future -- we ought to keep the nicely
| sorted waste separated, and avoid mixing it in with other
| landfill trash. At a minimum, there's no point in actively
| increasing the entropy of trash and byproducts. That way,
| today's landfills could become tomorrow's mines with a lower
| bar for economic viability.
|
| [0]: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-
| misled-...
| panny wrote:
| >greener future
|
| CO2 causes the Earth to green. The future is only greener with
| more CO2. Of all the purported benefits of nuclear energy, this
| is not one of them.
| minikites wrote:
| >I believe that the main benefit of central nuclear plants, is
| there ability to keep poisonous materials in a single location,
| so that it doesn't get lost.
|
| This is a very interesting point. A grid of mostly renewables
| backed by a handful of centralized nuclear plants sounds robust
| to my layman's thinking. Both of these things already require a
| more robust distribution grid than we have now in the USA, but
| it would serve us well to do that regardless.
|
| I think it would be nice if we could agree as a society that
| spending money on projects like this is invaluable to our worth
| as a nation. Is letting a few people be billionaires really
| that valuable to us as a society that it's worth puttering
| along and hoping future generations will pick up the tab? They
| have taken a disproportionate amount of wealth away from
| society and their taxes should reflect that. It's only going to
| get more expensive to fix problems like these and younger
| generations don't have the money.
| LB232323 wrote:
| The problem here in this discussion is looking at yourselves and
| your corporations as solutions to the world's problems.
|
| Same goes with the recent ESG investment trend. A corporation
| exists to make a profit, period. Suggesting otherwise is just
| emotional manipulation, albeit very profitable manipulation.
|
| The corporation causes all these problems, and it does it for
| profit. The phrase "business ethics" makes zero sense, but it
| serves a PR purpose. Even the term "national defense" in this
| magazine is doublespeak for imperialism, looting and pillaging
| other nations for profit.
|
| I have no interest in the neoliberal fantasy world of
| corporations solving our problems, because I am a pragmatist. Yet
| people continue to send billions into ESG companies to ease their
| guilt, while these companies actually profit from and exacerbate
| the very issues they promise to solve.
| merpnderp wrote:
| You realize when you say the word "corporation", you mean
| "people". Like a group of people coordinating together for a
| common cause. As much as people might confuse a specific
| Supreme Court ruling, corporations are not actually sentient
| entities, but just a group of human beings like any others.
|
| And I have no interest in this neoreactionary fantasy that
| governments are less corrupt than corporations. The data is
| overwhelming that free markets are less corrupt, less
| polluting, and less harmful.
| fnordprefect wrote:
| > A corporation exists to make a profit, period. Suggesting
| otherwise is just emotional manipulation, albeit very
| profitable manipulation.
|
| This is wrong. A corporation is just an artificial person. Like
| a person, it can seek a profit or not - eg charitable not-for-
| profits. There is no legal obligation either way.
| grillvogel wrote:
| a weapon to surpass metal gear
| otikik wrote:
| > Another is what is referred to as the "strategic support
| area,'" which provides power for equipment that is mission
| essential, such as radar systems.
|
| Or drones.
| worik wrote:
| Nuclear power is kicking down the road, for literally thousands
| of generations, the consequences of our current consumption.
|
| How can anybody justify that?
| ttul wrote:
| That's a pretty simplistic cost analysis. All forms of energy
| production have externalities that affect future generations.
| For example, carbon based energy generation causes mass
| extinction of species. The reduction in species diversity will
| affect humans for thousands of generations.
| mothsonasloth wrote:
| On a tangent but here is a nice introductory piece for Soviet
| Union RTG (Radioisotope Thermolectric Generator)
|
| https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0931jtk/the-nuclear-lighthou...
|
| The Soviet union built these transportable units for unmanned
| lighthouses
| ableal wrote:
| _The Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office selected two teams
| in March to continue their work developing transportable nuclear
| microreactor prototypes as part of "Project Pele."_
|
| Probably the name is about
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele_(deity) - "the goddess of
| volcanoes and fire and the creator of the Hawaiian Islands"
| [deleted]
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Necessary context is the military's unique needs and the vastly
| changed nature of warfare, which by themselves account for the
| value of portable reactors to the military.
|
| ------------
|
| In military history, a cliche is that 'amateurs talk tactics,
| experts talk logistics'. Logistics - boring old logistics - is
| arguably the most critical factor for winning wars. Napoleon was
| a master of logistics. Think of 100,000 people in the field
| (which isn't a lot): Multiply that by around 2 lbs of food per
| day: 200,000 pounds of food must be distributed daily. Think of
| parts for repairs, ammunition, medicine. Think of how much
| battery power they need, for example, just for night vision,
| handheld computers, etc etc - how much fuel is required, daily?
| Think then of their equipment, which consume enormous resources -
| how much fuel does one 70 ton tank need? A combat helicopter?
| With modern technology, electricity demand has exploded.
|
| But delivering it isn't so easy. Unlike civilian uses, the
| location isn't chosen based on cost-effectiveness of supplies and
| access to infrastructure. And much more challenging, often there
| aren't centuries of infrastructure built, as with a city, and the
| infrastructure you use sometimes is destroyed.
|
| ------------
|
| Also, the nature of warfare has changed dramatically recently.
| We're accustomed to war against low-tech guerilla fighters, not
| peers, and to WWII-style warfare (tanks, fighters, bombers,
| etc.), which will be as useful in the next peer war as mid-19th
| century warfare was in WWII - it was 75 years ago. The next war
| will be against a peer who uses sensors and precision munitions
| (e.g. guided missiles/drones), as the US began doing in the Gulf
| War. The combination enables you to hit targets accurately at
| great distances: If you can see the target (e.g. by flying a
| drone or satellite over it) within range of the missile (up to
| thousands of miles), you can fly a missile there. It greatly
| reduces the protection of distance - being far away from the
| 'front' isn't much protection - and it makes large objects, such
| as tank formations and bases, into a convenient collection of
| targets.
|
| Among other tactics, the U.S. military is planning to have
| personnel operate in small, stealthy, highly mobile groups within
| range of the precision missiles; look up the new plans for the
| U.S. Marine Corps for example, which has already scrapped all its
| tanks. The huge generator and supply depots at the major base
| will be gone. Supplying a large base under precision munitions
| would be tough - how does the convoy or ship slip through?
| Supplying lots of dispersed, hidden, small, highly mobile units
| seems very difficult.
|
| ------------
|
| Reducing those supply needs is critical, and if energy - one of
| the biggest requirements for modern logistics - could be removed
| from them because the personnel brought a nuclear reactor, then
| it could greatly reduce costs, reduce death, and increase
| effectiveness (because they have enough energy to operate).
|
| I'm not saying it's worth the risks of having small nuclear
| reactors spread around a combat zone, but the benefits should be
| calculated in.
| not2b wrote:
| And what happens when you're fighting an ISIS-like group, and
| they overrun your remote base and capture your mini-reactor?
| You've just given them a dirty bomb. Doesn't matter if the
| reactor is perfectly safe under normal conditions. They can
| take it apart and use the spent fuel for whatever they want.
| fnord77 wrote:
| navy ship-board reactors are portable, too
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| In the exact same sense that ships are portable, not in the
| sense that your coffee maker is portable.
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